| For continuing coverage follow us on Twitter and join our Facebook group.
Top Stories
WSJ: "This June, a merchant ship flying the Hong Kong flag and sailing under the name of the Atlantic called at the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas-the southern end of a trade corridor to the U.S., advertised as 'the fastest route to the heart of North America.' That might be unremarkable, except the Atlantic, formerly called the Dreamland, and before that the Iran Saeidi, belongs to a curious network of 19 bulk carriers, all flagged out of Hong Kong and all blacklisted by the U.S. Treasury for their links to Iran. According to a recent transcript of Hong Kong's Marine Department Shipping Register, the Atlantic is owned by a Hong Kong-registered company called Harvest Supreme Limited. Scratch the surface and Harvest Supreme tracks back to an Iranian address, as do 18 other obscure and interlinked Hong Kong ship-owning companies with names such as Grand Trinity Limited and Sparkle Brilliant Development Limited. These are the hallmarks of the global shell game with which Iran continues to dodge U.S. and United Nations sanctions. This shell game began around 2008, when the U.S. imposed sanctions on Iran's state shipping company, the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, or IRISL, for its role in provisioning Iran's rogue missile and nuclear programs. The U.S. Treasury also blacklisted a slew of IRISL affiliates and 123 of its ships, including all 19 of these merchant ships now flagged to Hong Kong, making it potentially a crime under U.S. law to do business with them. Treasury also began pressuring players outside U.S. jurisdiction to shun Iran's proliferators, or risk being cut off from commerce with the U.S. IRISL responded by camouflaging much of its fleet, reflagging and renaming scores of its blacklisted ships. It parceled out some to newly minted affiliates and created shell companies abroad to serve as nominal owners. Behind the scenes, IRISL retained control." http://t.uani.com/q2YZt2
AP: "Iran has inaugurated its own production of carbon fiber, a material under U.N. embargo because of its potential use in the country's controversial nuclear program, the official IRNA news agency reported Saturday. Defense Minister Gen. Ahmad Vahidi said Iran decided to manufacture the strategic material domestically since it could no longer access carbon fiber on foreign markets because of the international sanctions. 'Because of the restrictions imposed by the enemies, Iran faced challenges in getting access to carbon fiber,' Vahidi was quoted by IRNA as saying. 'That had caused a bottleneck in Iran's production of advanced and smart defense systems,' Vahidi said. He claimed Iran has mastered the entire process of carbon fiber production. Iran uses carbon fiber for more advanced centrifuges, which spin uranium gas to produce enriched uranium. Low-enriched uranium can be used as nuclear fuel while highly enriched uranium can be used in a warhead." http://t.uani.com/p2Uouq
CNN: "The lawyer for two American hikers sentenced to eight years in prison said Sunday he has filed an appeal in the case. Masoud Shafiee said it could take the court anywhere from a few days to two months to respond. 'However, I am hopeful that because of the holy month of Ramadan, and because my clients are innocent, the authorities will show mercy and release Shawn Bauer and Josh Fattal in a few days,' he said. Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting, ends this week. In the past, the judiciary has presented a list of convictions to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, recommending he pardon the sentences." http://t.uani.com/nNqFN6
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
FP: "Last month, three members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC) -- Chairman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Subcommittee Chairman Connie Mack (R- FL), and freshman member David Rivera (R-FL) sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressing their concern over information they had received on suspicious activity involving Argentina, Venezuela, and Iran and asking the State Department to investigate whether any nuclear cooperation is at play between the three countries. Rather than making any serious effort to look into the matter, however, State dismissed the legislators' queries within a matter of days with a perfunctory: 'We have no reason to believe that Venezuela serves as an interlocutor between Iran and Argentina on nuclear issues, nor that Argentina is granting access to its nuclear technology.' Well, the members didn't have any reason to either -- until information started to coming to light that has raised disturbing questions." http://t.uani.com/qPZUQx
Daily Telegraph: "'The sentence to execute the terrorist Majid Jamali Fashi ... has been issued' for the assassination of scientist Masoud Ali Mohammadi, Iran's prosecutor general Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejeie said, quoted by IRNA. Mohseni Ejeie, who is also spokesman for the Iranian judiciary, said the sentence was passed on Sunday, less than a week after the opening of Jamali Fashi's trial. His defence lawyers have 20 days to launch an appeal. Jamali Fashi stood trial as the main suspect in the killing of Ali Mohammadi, a particle physics professor at Tehran University who was killed in a bomb attack outside his home in January 2010. He was accused of 'Moharebe (waging war against God) using assassination as the means ... by placing a bomb-laden bike in front of Ali Mohammadi's house,' the state television website reported." http://t.uani.com/rkal41
AP: "Iran has dropped Russian giant Gazprom from an oil field project near the Iraqi border, claiming development is taking too long. Hamid Karimi, a senior Oil Ministry official, is quoted by the semiofficial Mehr news agency as saying that a consortium of Iranian companies will replace Gazprom in the Azar oil field project... Years of sanctions have deterred significant investment by international companies with deep pockets and technical expertise." http://t.uani.com/okC7WS
Human Rights
AFP: "Iranian HIV doctor Arash Alaei has been released from jail in Tehran after spending more than three years behind bars for allegedly conspiring against the regime, his US-based brother said Monday. 'He got released today,' Kamiar Alaei told AFP in an email. 'He was among 100 Iranian political prisoners who got a pardon today due to the coming end of the Ramadan religious holiday, Eid al-Fitr.' Alaei also posted on a statement on his Facebook page, thanking his friends, colleagues and family for their 'tireless help and support.' The two brothers were arrested in June 2008 and accused of communicating with the United States in a bid to unseat the regime of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad." http://t.uani.com/p1A5W1
Domestic Politics
CNN: "Iranian opposition leader Mehdi Karrubi has not been seen for six weeks and may be facing psychological torture by the government, activists claimed Monday, citing sources in the country. 'We are extremely concerned for the health and well-being of Karrubi, who is 74 years old, and no one has heard from him for six weeks, not his wife, any family or associates,' said Hadi Ghaemi, the director of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. His wife said she had not had any contact with him since July 16, the campaigners said, citing the opposition leader's official website. Ghaemi alleged that Karrubi is 'surrounded by a team of psychiatrists working with his captors' to try to manipulate him into a televised confession. He cited 'a credible source from inside Iran,' without saying who it was." http://t.uani.com/qvZmCy
LAT: "Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has pardoned an unspecified number of political activists imprisoned for their part in tumultuous protests over the country's disputed 2009 presidential election, in what was seen as a conciliatory gesture ahead of next year's national elections. The pardons did not cover top leaders of the 2009 demonstrations, including former presidential candidates Mehdi Karroubi and Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who remain under house arrest. State news agencies announced the pardons of 100 'security' prisoners late Saturday night. About 70 of those granted clemency are believed to have been jailed for their role in massive street protests over the 2009 reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iranian rights groups say at least 100 people were killed when the government crushed the large-scale protests. Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari-Dolatabadi said the majority of those pardoned were being freed immediately. 'All of these security prisoners have been repentant for what they have committed and have asked for pardon from the supreme leader,' he said. The pardons were timed to coincide with the conclusion of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, traditionally a time of clemency for prisoners. Analysts said they saw the pardons as a gesture ahead of March parliamentary elections, which will be the first national vote since 2009." http://t.uani.com/pXwtma
Foreign Affairs
LAT: "Establishment of an independent Palestinian state would not stop efforts to wipe out Israel, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Friday. Palestinians are expected to present a petition to the United Nations General Assembly next month for full U.N. membership, which would confer international recognition of an independent Palestinian state. The United States is seeking to block any action on the bid. Creation of a Palestinian state would not satisfy those intent on 'annihilating' Israel, Ahmadinejad said, speaking at Iran's annual Quds Day rally in support of the Palestinian cause. 'Do not think that your existence will be recognized with the recognition of the Palestinian state,' the Iranian president said, addressing Israel. 'You have no place in our region and among our nations, and you will not be able to continue your ignominious life on even a small part of the Palestinian territories.' Ahmadinejad also renewed his previous characterizations of the World War II Holocaust as a 'lie.'" http://t.uani.com/n52FGI
NYT: "Iran, Syria's closest ally, called on the government in Damascus to recognize its people's 'legitimate' demands on Saturday, in the first such remarks to come from the Persian country since the five-month-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad started. Although the remarks, by Iran's foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, did not advocate any specific changes, they were the first public sign of growing unease with the crisis in Syria - even as Iran has maintained an unyielding crackdown on its own dissenters." http://t.uani.com/qk1y6c
Opinion & Analysis
WashPost Editorial Board: "The secret trial in Iran of two young American hikers, detained near the Iran-Iraq border in 2009, was a parody of justice, and the sentences they received - eight years for illegal entry and espionage - are a travesty. Not a speck of evidence has been publicly presented to substantiate the charges. The two supposed spies speak not a word of Farsi and were carrying nothing more incriminating than cameras. In fact, Shane M. Bauer and Joshua F. Fattal, imprisoned now for more than 750 days, are simply the latest American hostages to be seized by Iran. Their continued confinement as bargaining chips for some yet unspecified concession is indefensible... That disgraceful mistreatment has been compounded by the fact that they were granted no private access to their own Iranian lawyer, Masoud Shafiei, who apparently has done his best to represent them. But he has stood little chance in the face of a kangaroo court - closed to the public, the media or any independent witnesses - and a judiciary that answers to hard-line Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran's internal schisms and power struggles are opaque, but they may explain the discord between the Americans' harsh sentences and the statements from the Iranian foreign minister and other officials suggesting, just before the sentencing, that they might be on the verge of release. The Obama administration has called for the Americans' release, as has U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Amnesty International, Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu, Muhammad Ali and dozens of other prominent international figures. The Iranian government's contempt for international judicial norms does it no good. It ought to free the hikers." http://t.uani.com/quEfBa
Vali Nasr in NYT: "The Arab Spring is a hopeful chapter in Middle Eastern politics, but the region's history points to darker outcomes. There are no recent examples of extended power-sharing or peaceful transitions to democracy in the Arab world. When dictatorships crack, budding democracies are more than likely to be greeted by violence and paralysis. Sectarian divisions - the bane of many Middle Eastern societies - will then emerge, as competing groups settle old scores and vie for power... That is because throughout the Middle East there is a strong undercurrent of simmering sectarian tension between Sunnis and Shiites, of whom the Alawites are a subset. Shiites and Sunnis live cheek by jowl in the long arc that stretches from Lebanon to Pakistan, and the region's two main power brokers, Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia, are already jousting for power... This time, each side will most likely be backed by a nervous regional power, eager to protect its interests. For the past three decades the Saudi monarchy, which sees itself as the guardian of Sunni Islam, has viewed Iran's Shiite theocracy as its nemesis. Saudis have relied on the United States, Arab nationalism and Sunni identity to slow Iran's rise, even to the point of supporting radical Sunni forces. The Saudis suffered a major setback when control of Iraq passed from Sunnis to Shiites, but that made them more determined to reverse Shiite gains and rising Iranian influence. It was no surprise that Saudi Arabia was the first Arab state to withdraw its ambassador from Damascus earlier this month. The imprint of this rivalry was evident in regional conflicts before the Arab Spring. Saudis saw Iran's hand behind a rebellion among Yemen's Houthi tribe - who are Zaydis, an offshoot of Shiism - that started in 2004. Iran blamed Arab financing for its own decade-long revolt by Sunni Baluchis along its southeastern border with Pakistan. And since 2005, when Shiite Hezbollah was implicated in the assassination of Rafik Hariri, a popular Sunni prime minister who was close to the Saudis, a wide rift has divided Lebanon's Sunni and Shiite communities, and prompted Saudi fury against Hezbollah. The sectarian divide in Lebanon shows no sign of narrowing, and now the turmoil in Syria next door has brought Lebanon to a knife's edge. Meanwhile, Hezbollah's audacious power grab has angered Saudi Arabia. Officials in Riyadh see the turn of events in Lebanon as yet another Iranian victory, and the realization of the dreaded 'Shiite crescent' that King Abdullah of Jordan once warned against. In March, fearing a snowball effect from the Arab Spring, Saudi Arabia drew a clear red line in Bahrain, where a Shiite majority would have been empowered had pro-democracy protests succeeded in ousting the Sunni monarchy. The Saudis rallied the Persian Gulf monarchies to support the Sunni monarchy in Bahrain in brutally suppressing the protests - and put Iran on notice that they were 'ready to enter war with Iran and even with Iraq in defense of Bahrain.' The Saudis are right to be worried about the outcome of sectarian fights in Lebanon and Bahrain, but in Syria it is Iran that stands to lose. Both sides understand that the final outcome will decide the pecking order in the region. Every struggle in this rivalry therefore matters, and every clash is pregnant with risk for regional stability. The turn of events in Syria is particularly important, because Sunnis elsewhere see the Alawite government as the linchpin in the Shiite alliance of Iran and Hezbollah. The Alawite-Sunni clash there could quickly draw in both of the major players in the region and ignite a broader regional sectarian conflict among their local allies, from Lebanon to Iraq to the Persian Gulf and beyond." http://t.uani.com/oqCSHs
Ilan Berman in WT: "With soaring inflation, chronic unemployment and rampant poverty, Iran is nobody's picture of economic health. So when the International Monetary Fund (IMF) issued its latest working paper on Iran last month, the rosy assessment contained therein raised more than a few eyebrows. That study, 'Iran - The Chronicles of the Subsidy Reform,' heaped praise on the regime in Tehran for launching a raft of much-needed rollbacks of costly subsidies on everything from energy to foodstuffs. This effort, the report says approvingly, 'has created a unique opportunity for Iran to reform its economy and accelerate economic growth and development.' That rosy view has gained quite a bit of resonance of late. In June, no less prominent a publication than the Economist - using the IMF's preliminary conclusions as a point of departure - lauded the 'exemplary' steps Iran has taken in commencing structural reforms to its economic sector. All of this, of course, must be music to the ears of Iran's ayatollahs, who in recent months have redoubled their efforts to convince the world that the country is thriving despite the West's best efforts to ratchet up the costs associated with its nuclear program. But there's good reason to think the opposite. Over the past three years, the Iranian government - in its quest to eliminate the massive entitlements of the Khomeini era and make the national economy more competitive - has indeed taken serious steps to pare back costly economic subsidies. This effort, launched in 2008, has so far saved the regime about $68 billion that otherwise would have been spent on artificially lowering commodity prices. Still, it is clear that Iran's particular version of 'shock therapy' is having significant deleterious effects, at least in the short term. Without government offsets, prices for gasoline, bread and sundry other goods have soared exponentially, while inflation has jumped to just over 15 percent, nearly double what it was a year ago." http://t.uani.com/q2aMm5
Ash Jain in WINEP: "With the world's attention focused on the dramatic events of the Arab Spring, Iran continues to make progress on its nuclear program. If the regime succeeds in crossing the nuclear threshold, the implications for the United States and its allies could be profound. But how specifically might Tehran use such a capability to advance its interests? In this Policy Focus, Ash Jain outlines the ways in which a nuclear Iran might step up efforts to project power and influence in areas where it has already been active, both on the ground and rhetorically: the Gulf monarchies, Iraq, the Levant, Latin America, and, more broadly, terrorist activity against the United States and its interests. Although the regime does not appear to seek direct military confrontation, a nuclear capability could enhance its ability to challenge Washington and strengthen its resistance front. In Jain's view, preventing that outcome must remain a top U.S. policy priority." http://t.uani.com/pZO6rX |
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment