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TOP STORIES
The Chairman of Iran-China Joint
Chamber of Commerce Asadollah Asgaroladi, who is one of the country's
top businessmen has stopped exporting from Iran in the past two
months due to payment problems. "After 64 years of export
activities, for first time I had to suspend exports," Tasnim
quoted Asgaroladi as saying during a meeting with Tehran Chamber of
Commerce members on January 15.
Iran is harming Europe's efforts
to preserve the 2015 Iran nuclear accord with actions such as the
case of suspected espionage involving a member of the German
military, veteran German diplomat Wolfgang Ischinger said on
Thursday. But Ischinger, chairman of the Munich Security
Conference, warned against any move by Europe to join Washington in
withdrawing from the agreement, since the accord was intended solely
to halt Iran's nuclear program and did not address other behavior in
the region or spying.
The United States is likely to
extend waivers from sanctions on Iranian oil imports in May but will
reduce the number of countries receiving them to placate top buyers
China and India and to decrease the chance of higher oil prices,
analysts said. Washington surprised oil markets after granting
waivers to eight Iranian oil buyers when the sanctions on oil imports
started in November.
NUCLEAR DEAL & NUCLEAR PROGRAM
The date Jan. 16 marks the third
anniversary of the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of
Action (JCPOA), more commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal, which
was signed on July 14, 2015. Iran and the five permanent members of
the United Nations Security Council and Germany were the signatories
of the JCPOA. The agreement was a consequence of a decade-long
diplomatic process and almost two-year-long negotiations.
Amid the controversy over the
fate of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or Tehran's nuclear
deal with world powers, an influential ayatollah says,
"Ultimately, the deal should be burned." Ayatollah Ahmad
Jannati, 91, who chairs the influential Assembly of experts, is an
ultraconservative cleric and longtime opponent of JCPOA. He often
echoes the views of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. "Europe
is not helping preserve JCPOA by demanding additional negotiations on
issues like missiles", IRNA reported Jannati as saying on
Tuesday, September 4, 2018.
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC
NEWS
China's state-run energy giant
is making a new approach to clinch a $3 billion deal for more
development of an Iranian oil field, seeking to take advantage of
waivers allowed under U.S. sanctions as two European nations have
ended crude purchases, according to people familiar with the matter.
The moves highlight the divergent ways nations are reacting
to temporary exemptions from U.S. sanctions on Iran.
A European Union official has
reportedly said that a trade mechanism meant to circumvent reimposed
US sanctions on Tehran is ready to be activated. The official
news agency IRNA quoted an "EU spokesperson" as saying on Thursday
that the Special Purpose Vehicle (SVP) for trade with Iran "is
about to become operational."
PROTESTS & HUMAN RIGHTS
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has
criticized Iran for "widespread arrests" in the winter of
2018, including thousands of arrests made during the country-wide
protests in December 2017 and January 2018, as well as for jailing a
large group of environmentalists and women who protested against
compulsory hijab (aka Revolution Street Girls).
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS & NEGOTIATIONS
A U.S. effort to enlist Europe
in its pressure campaign against Iran faced a setback after officials
said ministers from several European Union members will likely skip a
summit organized by Washington on Iran and the Middle East. The
summit, which will be co-hosted by Poland and the U.S. and take
place in Warsaw, was announced during Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo's tour of the Middle East last week.
An American journalist working
for Iran's state television channel Press TV who Iran says has been
detained in Washington will appear in a U.S. court on Friday, the
channel reported on Friday. Iran has called for the immediate
release of TV anchor and documentary film maker Marziyeh Hashemian,
whose employer, the English-language channel Press TV, said was
arrested on Sunday by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) at
St. Louis Lambert International Airport.
The Iranian regime that has
repeatedly been criticized for detaining Americans and then ignoring
calls for their release is now crying foul following the FBI's arrest
of an anchorwoman from Iran's state-run English-language TV
channel. News of the detention of Press TV's Marzieh Hashemi, an
American-born newscaster who also holds Iranian citizenship, emerged
just a week after Iran revealed it has been holding Michael
White, a U.S. Navy veteran and the first American to be taken into
custody by the Islamic Republic during President Trump's
administration.
President Donald Trump on
Thursday unveiled the first overhaul of American missile defense
doctrine in nearly a decade at the Pentagon. Known as the missile
defense review, the unclassified report, which was expected last
year, is believed to have been delayed because of sensitivities about
how to frame threats posed by China, Russia, North Korea and Iran,
according to several defense officials.
RUSSIA, SYRIA, ISRAEL, HEZBOLLAH, LEBANON & IRAN
Hamas said Thursday it had
allocated new homes funded by Iran in the Gaza Strip
to former Palestinian prisoners who had been held in Israeli
jails.The prisoners ministry said 26 apartments in a new building in
southern Gaza Khan Younes had been given out in a lottery between 125
former Palestinian prisoners, Officials from Hamas, which rules
the Gaza Strip, said the program was the first of its kind funded
by Iran.
Based an intensive strategic
assessment at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel
Aviv, dozens of researchers, along with retired generals and
intelligence chiefs, concluded that Israel was facing a real
challenge, represented by a so-called "first North war" in
which Iran, Syria and Hezbollah will align along the front extending
from the Golan Heights till Ras al-Naqoura.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu acknowledged for the first time Jan. 13 that
Israel has carried out strikes against Iranian and Iranian-backed
forces inside Syria. "We worked with impressive success to
block Iran's military entrenchment in Syria," Netanyahu said at
a cabinet meeting. He added that Israel had carried out
"hundreds of strikes," claiming that it had just
recently targeted alleged Iranian warehouses and Iranian targets at
the international airport in Damascus and that Israel will
continue such strikes as long as an Iranian presence
remains in Syria.
As Lebanon prepares to
host a regional economic summit this weekend, the meeting has been
overshadowed by divisions over Syria's future and efforts
to contain Iran. Having previously confirmed their attendance at
the Arab Economic and Social Development summit in Beirut, many heads
of state are now set to stay away. The emirs of Qatar and Kuwait
will not attend, Egypt is planning to send the prime minister rather
than the president, while the Palestinian Authority president has
said he will be in New York.
GULF STATES, YEMEN & IRAN
A United Nations report reaffirmed that the convoy
moving retired Dutch General Patrick Cammaert, who is leading the
current UN ceasefire monitor team, has arrived at its destination
safely after having come under Houthi fire. A car was hit with one
round as they returned to the city center from a meeting with a
delegation from the legitimate Yemeni government, UN spokesman
Stephane Dujarric said.
OTHER FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Much has been written about the
brittle nature of the Iranian regime, which clings to power only
through murder, repression and deceit. The reimposition of sanctions
by the Trump administration has truly brought this Islamic
extremist cabal to its knees, and rightly so. With the fall of the
regime in Iran and the installation of a new democratic government
in Tehran, the problems in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon will suddenly be
immensely easier to resolve.
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