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TOP STORIES
Less than a year ago, he was
running a thriving computer accessories business, driving a new car
and renting a comfortable two-bedroom apartment in the center of Tehran.
But last month, Kaveh Taymouri found himself riding a rusty
motorcycle on his hourlong commute to his family's new lodgings, a
485-square-foot apartment in one of the city's worst neighborhoods,
next to its sprawling cemetery. When he arrived home one recent night
at 10:30 from his new job at an arcade, there was no food on the
stove
The Israeli military on Wednesday destroyed another
cross-border tunnel it says was built by Lebanon's Hezbollah militant
group, sending a loud explosion throughout the volatile area. Israel
this month announced the discovery of the tunnels, which it says were
part of a Hezbollah plot to sneak across the border and carry out
attacks in Israel.
Turkey expects the U.S. to
extend its sanctions waiver on importing Iranian oil, Trade Minister
Ruhsar Pekcan said. "We expect an extension of Turkey's
exemption" from sanctions, Pekcan said in an interview with NTV
in Ankara. She was referring to the temporary waiver that allowed
Turkey to continue buying Iranian oil for six months.
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC
NEWS
Iran said on Wednesday private
exporters have had "no problems" selling Iranian oil, and 3
million barrels of crude could be sold soon to non-government
traders, state media reported, despite U.S. sanctions targeting
Tehran's oil sales. Iran began selling crude oil to private
companies for export in late October, just ahead of U.S. sanctions on
sectors including oil which came into effect in November.
As Iran's oil exports have
halved due to U.S. sanctions, the government has set 1,425 trillion
rials income from oil, petroleum products and natural gas exports in
the next year budget bill, which indicates a 32% growth year-on-year.
Iran's fiscal year starts on March 21. The projected increase of oil
revenues is odd since Iran's exports have decreased in recent months
due to U.S. sanctions.
PROTESTS & HUMAN RIGHTS
Abbas Edalat, a British-Iranian
professor who was arrested and detained in Iran for eight months, has
returned to the UK, according to British authorities. "We can
confirm that a British-Iranian dual national who was detained in
Tehran has returned to the UK," a UK Foreign Office
representative told CNN on Wednesday. "We continue to take
action on all our consular cases in Iran in line with what we believe
will produce the best outcomes in their cases."
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe could
lose her chance of having a second child unless she is released from
an Iranian jail, her husband has warned. Richard Ratcliffe said the
charity worker who spent her 40th birthday in prison on Boxing Day
dreads missing out on the possibility of having another child.
Explaining how the landmark birthday had loomed large, he told the
HuffPost UK: "Partly for the landmark of not wanting to turn 40
alone in a prison cell, still denied watching her baby grow up, but
increasingly wondering whether they will keep her so long that she is
also denied having a second child".
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS & NEGOTIATIONS
Militias affiliated with Iran in
Iraq threatened to respond to American President Donald
Trump's visit to Iraq on Wednesday. Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq and
Harakat al-Nujaba said Trump's visit to Al Asad Air Base in Anbar
"will not go unpunished." Harakat al-Nujaba said it will
not allow turning Iraq into an American base that threatens
neighboring countries and called on the Iraqi government to expel
American troops from the country as their presence harms the
country's sovereignty.
MILITARY/INTELLIGENCE MATTERS & PROXY WARS
A report by the Arabic-language
Al Jazeera news network said Iran's military was increasingly turning
to unmanned aerial drones to defend the country's airspace and attack
its enemies. "For Iran, [drones] comprise a new type of aerial
fleet that avoids the technological complications of modern [manned]
aviation," the report last week by journalist Nur Ad-Din
Al-Daghir said, according to a translation Wednesday by the Middle
East Media Research Institute, MEMRI, which tracks Middle Eastern
television broadcasts.
IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani presented a budget bill
meant to dodge the impacts of "tyrannical US
sanctions" to the country's parliament Dec. 25. The
proposed $112 billion budget will cover the upcoming Iranian year
running from March 21, 2019, to March 20, 2020. The president's
speech in defense of the bill was marred, however, by a group of
lawmakers representing the oil-rich but underdeveloped southwestern
Khuzestan province.
An Iranian deputy said 1,800
religious scholars held oil ministry posts without having a specific
job title or making the nature of their role known. The head of the
Iranian Parliament Commission on Energy confirmed that the
appointment of 1,800 religious scholars in the oil ministry comes
under the guidance of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in what
he described as "adding cultural background to government
projects."
RUSSIA, SYRIA, ISRAEL, HEZBOLLAH, LEBANON & IRAN
Turkey is threatening to invade
Syria to eradicate Kurdish fighters. Syrian forces are rolling toward
territory the Americans will soon abandon. Israel is bombing
Iran-backed militias deep inside Syria. And Russia could soon move to
crush the last vestige of the Syrian anti-government insurgency. The
Syria that the United States military is vacating on President
Trump's orders is a Balkanized version of the country that plunged
into a calamitous civil war nearly eight years ago.
An Israeli security official has
confirmed Wednesday evening that Israel carried out an overnight
airstrike in Syria, saying a series of Iranian targets were hit. The
official says the airstrike hit Iranian storage and logistic targets
being used to transfer weapons to the Hezbollah militant group.
The official said Israel also took out a Syrian anti-aircraft
battery near Damascus that fired at the Israeli warplanes.
Iran's deputy defense minister
says the Islamic Republic is prepared for "deepening and
expanding defensive and military" cooperation with Russia in all
domains. Brigadier General Ghassem Taghizadeh also lauded the
"strategic cooperation" between Tehran and Moscow in what
he described as "the war on terrorism" and a successful
model of settling regional conflicts. Taghizadeh was speaking to
reporters after meeting Deputy Chief of the Russian Army General
Staff Vice-Admiral Igor Osipov in Tehran on Wednesday, December 26.
Two suspicious Iranian planes
left Damascus on Tuesday night just prior to reports of
airstrikes. Details from flight monitoring sites show that a Fars Air
Qeshm 747 cargo plane left Damascus International Airport at 9:28
p.m. on Tuesday, just half an hour before reports emerged
of air strikes in Syria. According to the site Flightradar24.com, the
Boeing 747-281F left Damascus and flew due east towards Tehran,
climbing to 10,000 meters and crossing into Iraq after 10 p.m.
IRAQ & IRAN
President Trump's unannounced visit Wednesday to U.S.
forces in Iraq brought a veiled threat from the leader of an
Iranian-backed Shi'ite militia - remove the troops or face the type
of bloodshed they confronted before their previous withdrawal, in
2011. Complaining that Trump's visit to the Al Asad Airbase in Anbar
province violated diplomatic norms, Asaib Ahl al-Haq (AAH) leader
Qais al-Khazali said on Twitter the Iraqi parliament would respond by
voting to expel the American troops stationed there.
Iranian Ambassador to Baghdad
Iraj Masjedi revealed that his country's "advisors" have
departed Iraq. He said during a meeting with Iraqi reporters:
"Iran has no military presence or bases or advisors in
Iraq." "All the advisors who were in this country had
arrived here through coordinating with the Iraqi government to
provide support during its war on ISIS," he explained.
"They have quit Iraq after the declaration of victory against
this terrorist group," Masjedi stressed.
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