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TOP STORIES
The State Department will close the U.S. consulate in Basra,
Iraq, and evacuate the diplomats stationed there, citing security
risks from Iran, according to administration officials.
Iran sentenced three people to death for corruption on
Sunday, in the strongest warning yet to officials and merchants not
to exploit the country's financial troubles as the next round of U.S.
sanctions loom.
Iran's state TV has broadcast footage purporting to show
a close encounter between the Revolutionary Guard's navy and the USS
Theodore Roosevelt early this year.
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC NEWS
Iran plans to get around U.S. sanctions on its oil sales
by selling its petroleum and conducting international trade in
currencies other than the U.S. dollar, the Iranian diplomat who
negotiated the nuclear deal said Saturday.
Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said on
Saturday that Tehran was closing in on an agreement to sell oil to
European nations despite American threats of sanctions against any
countries that do business with Iran.
The International Court of Justice will hand down an
eagerly awaited decision this week on Iran's demand for the
suspension of debilitating nuclear-related sanctions imposed by the
United States.
Iran has no plans to reduce oil production, the head of
the state-run National Iranian Oil Company, Ali Kardor, said on
Monday, according to the Tasnim news agency.
In just over a month, on November 5, the US government
is due to re-impose sanctions on Iran's exports of oil. As Iran's
biggest customer - buying roughly a third of its 2 million barrels a
day of exports last year - China will be heavily affected by the US
action. How Chinese oil buyers respond will have deep implications,
not just for China itself, but for other economies across Asia and
around the world.
MISSILE PROGRAM
The Iranian Navy on Saturday boasted that it possessed
airships capable of carrying out the swiftest missile strikes in the
world against enemy targets.
TERRORISM & EXTREMISM
A German court said Monday it has approved the
extradition of an Iranian diplomat wanted in Belgium on suspicion he
was part of a failed plot to bomb an Iranian opposition rally near
Paris.
A prominent Iranian lawmaker said an attack on a
military parade in the southwestern city of Ahvaz that killed 24
people was the result of negligence by security forces, semi-official
ISNA news agency reported Saturday.
PROTESTS & HUMAN RIGHTS
The artillery-scorched mountainside of this border area
bears evidence of Iran's effort to combat Kurdish rebels-just one of
several groups who are now more vigorously fighting for greater
autonomy within the Islamic Republic. The Kurdish group operating here
fled Iran more than two decades ago, but like other militants is now
seeking to use international pressure on Tehran, particularly from
the U.S. and its Gulf allies, to advance its struggle.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS & NEGOTIATIONS
The State Department has released an extensive report on
the scope of the Iranian regime's "destructive behavior" at
home and abroad on the eve of the Islamic Revolution's 40th anniversary.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in an
interview aired Sunday that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has made
"all the wrong moves against Iran."
The Trump administration's top officials last week
unleashed a full-court rhetorical press at the United Nations against
Iran - and, more important, against Tehran's enablers, who are
working hard to undermine Washington's reimposed sanctions regime.
Although most believe a direct confrontation is unlikely
in the short-term, Tehran's regional expansionism could eventually
place it in President Trump's crosshairs.
MILITARY/INTELLIGENCE MATTERS & PROXY WARS
The Trump administration has been steadily ramping up
its rhetoric on the threat posed by Iran this year. But the U.S.
military has scaled back its presence in the Persian Gulf region, say
officials and military experts, removing ships, planes and missiles
that would be needed in a major confrontation.
IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS
Iran's state-run IRNA news agency says 31 people have
died from drinking tainted alcohol across the country.
A senior Iranian parliamentarian on Saturday criticized
security personnel for failing to act decisively to stop a shooting
attack that killed 25 people at a military parade last weekend, the
semi-official news agency ISNA reported.
RUSSIA, SYRIA, ISRAEL, HEZBOLLAH, LEBANON & IRAN
The Trump administration has opened a new chapter in
American involvement in Syria, vowing to remain until the civil war's
conclusion in a bid to halt Iran's expansion across the Middle East.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards fired several
surface-to-surface ballistic missiles into Syria early Monday, saying
they were targeting ringleaders of last month's attack on a military
parade in the southwestern city of Ahvaz. Six missiles were fired
from a distance of 570 kilometers while seven drones bombarded the
positions of the terrorists in Syria, Islamic Republic News Agency
reported.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in an
interview broadcast Sunday that the Holocaust cannot be used "as
a justification for an apartheid policy in Palestine."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech on Thursday
about Iran at the UN is not likely to create any sudden changes in
the nuclear standoff any more than US President Donald Trump's
earlier speech. Netanyahu also did not actually go after Iran in any
serious way for increasing its nuclear capabilities. So his speech
was really another very public opportunity to peel away at the
Islamic Republic's credibility on the nuclear issue.
So the good news is, President Trump is not planning to
start a war with Iran in Syria without congressional authorization.
The bad news is, his administration still lacks a realistic policy
for ending the ongoing conflict and the threat that it, and Iran's
presence, pose to vital U.S. interests.
GULF STATES, YEMEN, & IRAN
Speaking to the United Nations General Assembly, the
United Arab Emirates' Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al
Nahyan said that his country rejected extremism and that their policy
of countering terrorism was firm.
UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs and International
Cooperation Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed accused Iran on Saturday of
being a "rogue state" and "attacking the security of
the region."
IRAQ & IRAN
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Sunday
denied that his country was responsible for increased threats against
a U.S. consulate in the Iraqi city of Basra.
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