Top Stories
NYT: "Iran has transferred assets
out of European banks in its latest effort to defend itself against the effects
of sanctions that are part of what Iranian officials have called an 'economic
war' against the country by the United States and other Western countries. Iran's
'Central Bank had previously specified a list of its banking reserves in Europe
and has transferred them,' the bank's governor, Mahmoud Bahmani, was quoted as
saying by Iran's semiofficial Fars news agency on Saturday." http://nyti.ms/cFcXXe
AFP: "Tehran's notorious former
prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi and two judges have been suspended over the prison
deaths of three anti-government protesters, Iranian newspapers reported Monday,
quoting MPs. The Iranian judiciary had earlier this month announced the
suspension of three high-ranking officials, paving the way for their trial over
the deaths in Kahrizak jail last summer, but did not name them." http://yhoo.it/ar5jJn
Reuters: "Investigations
into spying allegations against three American hikers detained in Iran will be
completed soon, Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi said in a news report on
Saturday. Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Josh Fattal were detained after they
strayed into Iran from northern Iraq at the end of July 2009, further
complicating relations between Tehran and Washington already deadlocked over
Iran's nuclear work." http://bit.ly/diqzez
Nuclear Program
JPost: "Iran unveiled a new artillery shell on Sunday, vastly improving its
arsenal's range. Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi said the new
130 millimeter advanced artillery shells will be far outstrip the previous
capabilities of the Islamic Republic's army, Press TV reported on Sunday. 'This
ammunition uses solid propellants and act like ballistic missiles,' the Iranian
defense minister noted." http://bit.ly/96lozb
Commerce
AP: "The
Tehran Stock Exchange has hit a record high, shooting up nearly 4 percent in
two days. The benchmark index rose to more than 17900 on Monday, pushing the
exchange's total value to more than $80 billion, up from $70 billion in
mid-July." http://yhoo.it/b01OFt
Human Rights
AFP: "An Iranian reformist
website says a top aide to the country's opposition leader has been convicted
and sentenced to five years in prison. Friday's report by Kaleme website didn't
specify the charges against Qorban Behzadiannejad, who was the campaign manager
for Mir Hossein Mousavi in June 2009 presidential election. The report says
Behzadiannejad was also ordered to pay a fine of 1 million rials ($100) for
insulting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad." http://bit.ly/bOSpnq
CNN: "Iranian judicial
authorities say a final verdict in the case of a woman sentenced to death by
stoning has not yet been made and defended the country's legal process amid an
outcry over the pending execution, Iranian media reported Saturday. Sakineh Mohammadi
Ashtiani, a mother of two, has been sentenced to death for adultery by stoning.
Last month, Iran's top human rights official said the Islamic regime was
reviewing her sentence as international outrage emerged over the case." http://bit.ly/ahulRd
Domestic Politics
LAT: "As many as 600 people aboard three different planes owned by Iranian
airline companies were endangered when two of the aircraft made emergency
landings after the engines caught fire and another ran off the runway, all
within a 24-hour period. Iran's aviation industry has a history of fatal
technical failures, with 14 fatal civilian and military aviation accidents
since 2000, seven of which have taken place during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's
presidency, according to a previous report by the Los Angeles Times." http://bit.ly/bBAGNJ
AFP: "A Swedish-Iranian employee of
Swedish cosmetics firm Oriflame was charged in Iran for establishing a pyramid
scheme and deriving illegal earnings from it, Sweden's foreign ministry said
Sunday. 'He has been formally charged with establishing a pyramid scheme and
deriving illegal earnings from it,' ministry spokeswoman Camilla Aakesson
Lindblom told AFP." http://bit.ly/aTVkHq
Foreign Affairs
Daily Telegraph: "Mrs. Bruni-Sarkozy, the wife of Nicolas Sarkozy,
the French
president, was attacked after she signed a petition calling for the release of
Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, who is accused of cheating on her husband and then
helping to kill him. Kayhan, an Iranian
newspaper, which is under control of the government, called Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy
and Isabelle Adjani, the French actress who is campaigning for Ashtina's
release, 'prostitutes' in an editorial, while Iranian state television accused
the former supermodel of 'immorality.'" http://bit.ly/90su2t
Der Spiegel: "In a SPIEGEL interview, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki,
57, discusses the stoning of adulterers, the consequences of Western sanctions
against Iran and the risk of a military strike against his country." http://bit.ly/a3T0f8
Opinion
WSJ Editorial: "This month seven
leaders of the Bahai faith in Iran were sentenced to 20 years in prison,
following their arrest more than two years ago on charges that include
espionage, propaganda, and 'corruption on earth.' Their real crime is their
faith, which forms the country's largest non-Muslim minority religion. The
Bahai Seven's lawyers are now appealing their sentence, and we wish them every
success. Given that Fariba Kamalabadi, Jamaloddin Khanjani, Afif Naeimi, Saeid
Rezaie, Mahvash Sabet, Behrouz Tavakkoli, and Vahid Tizfahm, are all
middle-aged or older, their prison sentence is likely a life term. For more than three decades, the Bahai have formed
the ground zero for repression in Iran." http://bit.ly/cpUliM
JPost Editorial: "Nevertheless,
Ahmadinejad is showing an acutely dangerous potential for miscalculation. And
since this newspaper's coverage (which featured at Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah's
rambling Beirut press conference earlier this month) is doubtless brought to
his attention, let us make this clear: If Israel were to determine that
sanctions had failed, that Iran was about to acquire the capacity to carry out
its declared goal of Israel's demise, and that only Israeli military
intervention could prevent a second Holocaust, our leaders would have no
choice, however reluctantly, but to act." http://bit.ly/a28qGq
Roxana Saberi in WashPost: "For
several weeks last year, I shared a cell in Tehran's notorious Evin prison with
Mahvash Sabet and Fariba Kamalabadi, two leaders of Iran's minority Bahai
faith. I came to see them as my sisters, women whose only crimes were to
peacefully practice their religion and resist pressure from their captors to
compromise their principles. For this, apparently, they and five male
colleagues were sentenced this month to 20 years in prison." http://bit.ly/9UeIUd
Reza Kahlili in WT: "Russia turned
on the switch to Iran's first nuclear power plant on Aug. 21 after repeated
delays and more than 15 years of construction. The hard-liners in Iran celebrated
it as a victory over 'the Great Satan,' repeating the famous phrase by Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini, father of the Islamic revolution. Their message: America
can't do a damned thing. The Iranians have managed to open a second front for
their nuclear bomb project. The Bushehr nuclear power plant is now untouchable
because any military action against its reactor containing plutonium would lead
to widespread deadly contamination throughout the region." http://bit.ly/dlXA92
Louis René Beres in U.S. News &
World Report: "Israel must move immediately to strengthen its nuclear
deterrence posture. To be deterred, a rational adversary will need to calculate
that Israel's second-strike forces are invulnerable to any first-strike
aggressions. Facing the Arrow, this adversary will now require increasing
numbers of missiles to achieve an assuredly destructive first-strike against
Israel. With any non-rational adversary, however, all Israeli bets on
successful deterrence would be off. International law is not a suicide pact.
Israel has the same residual right granted to all states to act preemptively
when facing an existential assault." http://bit.ly/do0oJK
Prakash Shah and Ramesh Thakur in The
Japan Times: "The United States,
no more but no less than other countries, tends to make self-centered
assessments of other countries' policies. This is one reason Washington missed
the Iran factor as the most likely explanation for Saddam Hussein's deliberate
ambiguity about a weapons-of-mass-destruction capability. Washington may be committing
a similar error with respect to Iran's nuclear motives. Iranian security
concerns are focused as much to the east on Pakistan as to the west on Israel.
Iran's quest for nuclear weapons may be aimed at meeting the Sunni threat - not
just the Israeli threat." http://bit.ly/aNBXTn
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