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Top Stories
WSJ:
"Canada said it would enforce a total trade ban on Iranian goods,
going further than any other major Western nation in imposing
trade-related penalties amid a broad effort by Washington and its allies
to persuade Tehran to give up its nuclear program. Canadian Foreign
Minister John Baird said on Wednesday that the trade ban would prohibit
the import or export of all Iranian goods. Since 2010, Canada has joined
the U.S., Europe and other powers in imposing increasingly tough economic
sanctions on Iran. The European Union has ratcheted up its own economic
penalties against Iran, but has stopped short of a total trade ban. The
U.S., through a series of specific and targeted sanctions over many
years, maintains what's effectively a trade ban against Iran. But it,
too, has stopped short of declaring a blanket ban on all goods coming in
or out of Iran. Mr. Baird, the foreign minister, said the move was
necessary due to a failure by Iranian leaders to cooperate with the
International Atomic Energy Agency. 'Iran has failed to engage
meaningfully, while the risk posed by its enrichment activities
increases,' Mr. Baird said. 'We are compelled to take further actions
against this reckless and irresponsible regime.'" http://t.uani.com/10Khi2j
Reuters:
"Total SA agreed to pay $398.2 million to settle U.S. criminal and
civil allegations that it paid bribes to win oil and gas contracts in
Iran, and a French prosecutor has recommended that the company and its
chief executive be brought to trial in its home country. France's largest
oil producer on Wednesday agreed with the U.S. Department of Justice to
enter a deferred prosecution agreement and pay a $245.2 million fine to
resolve three charges that it violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
Total will also give up $153 million of illegal profit in a related civil
settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The criminal
penalty is the fourth-largest under the FCPA, an anti-bribery law,
Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr said... But the affair is not over,
as a French prosecutor said Total and its Chief Executive Christophe de
Margerie should face trial for allegedly corrupting foreign public
officials over contracts with Iran in the 1990s and early 2000s." http://t.uani.com/114BFGk
AP:
"The Argentine prosecutor who charged a handful of former Iranian
officials with masterminding the 1994 bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish
center accused Iran on Wednesday of 'infiltrating' South America and
setting up intelligence networks to carry out more terrorist attacks in
the region. Alberto Nisman accused Mohsen Rabbani, Iran's former cultural
attache in Buenos Aires and a suspect in the attack that killed 85
people, of working continually over the last two decades to develop an
intelligence network in Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, Colombia,
Guyana, Surinam and Trinidad and Tobago. 'These are sleeper cells. They
have activities you wouldn't imagine. Sometimes they die having never
received the order to attack,' Nisman said as he presented a 500-page
indictment. He said Iran has sought 'to infiltrate the countries of Latin
America and install secret intelligence stations with the goal of
committing, fomenting and fostering acts of international terrorism in
concert with its goals of exporting the revolution.'" http://t.uani.com/15lum1g
Nuclear Program
Reuters:
"The U.N. nuclear watchdog acknowledged on Wednesday it might not
find anything if allowed access to an Iranian military facility, in an
apparent reference to suspected clean-up work there, diplomats said.
Herman Nackaerts, deputy director general of the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA), made the comment during a closed-door briefing
where he showed satellite imagery indicating Iran had now partly paved
the site, they said. The picture was the latest sign of what Western
officials suspect is an Iranian attempt since early last year to remove
or hide any evidence of illicit nuclear-related activity at Parchin,
located southeast of the capital Tehran. In response to a question, 'he
(Nackaerts) said there is a chance they won't find anything', in view of
the suspected sanitization efforts, said one diplomat who was at the
meeting." http://t.uani.com/18AWJdK
Sanctions
WSJ:
"The U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control said Tuesday
in a report it issues annually that Washington's sharply increased
sanctions on Iran have led to nearly $2 billion dollars in blocked
terrorist assets. The Terrorist Assets Report, which is prepared by OFAC
and delivered each year to key congressional committees, provides
cumulative figures of the blocked assets of listed state sponsors of
terrorism as well as entities or groups placed under sanctions. More than
$2.4 billion in assets relating to the U.S.-listed state sponsors of
terrorism were identified by OFAC as of 2012, and sanctions blocked about
$2.3 million of that. Stepped-up sanctions on Iran led to the U.S.
blocking more than $1.9 billion in Iranian assets as of Dec. 31, 2012, an
increase of almost 3,500% over the $55.4 million figure posted at the end
of 2011." http://t.uani.com/11dCwZj
FT:
"The remote industrial complex of Lia boasts one of the larger
concentrations of factories in Iran's northwest - not that you would know
it if you visited on a working day. While Lia is home to hundreds of
small businesses and thousands of workers, traffic is slow and there are
few workers on the streets. It is a sign, businessmen say, of how much
domestic industry has suffered in recent years, hit hard not just by
international sanctions but by the populist policies of Mahmoud
Ahmadi-Nejad, the out¬going president. In the countdown to next month's
presidential election, Iran's acute economic problems - laid bare by
soaring inflation and rampant unemployment - have been a central focus of
the rival campaigns. But there is little prospect that any of the eight
candidates running will be able to turn the flagging economy round."
http://t.uani.com/14abpw0
ISNA:
"Iran has been selected as Renault's industrial agent in the Middle
East, said Managing Director of Renault Pars Peiman Kargar. 'Renault's
activities in Iran will enter into a new phase based on which Iran will
join international markets under international standards,' he said. Iran
will also work as Renault's agent for 13 Middle Eastern states, and cars
produced in Iran would be exported to 13 countries covered by Middle
Eastern Renault. The main department of Middle Eastern Renault is
deployed in Tehran. The marketing and sales department is in Dubai and
the supporting team is in Paris. Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait,
Bahrain, the UAE, Oman, Qatar, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and
Afghanistan are covered by Renault's Middle East agent. 'Renault has been
and will remain in Iran despite all problems in trading, because it has
chosen Iran as its strategic partner based on a fundamental and strategic
decision,' he added." http://t.uani.com/10KjNlf
June 14
Elections
RFE/RL:
"A group of independent human rights experts from the United Nations
has voiced concern about the mass disqualification of potential
candidates in Iran's upcoming presidential election, particularly of all
30 women who applied. The disqualifications are 'discriminatory' and
violate international norms and standards, they said. 'This mass
disqualification including that of women wishing to stand in the
presidential elections is discriminatory and violates fundamental right
to political participation, and runs contrary to the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Iran has ratified,' the UN
statement quoted the organization's special rapporteur on human rights in
Iran, Ahmed Shaheed, as saying." http://t.uani.com/177wIF2
Bloomberg:
"Iranian presidential candidate Saeed Jalili said his nation must
defend the rights of women as mothers and resist the approach of Western
nations where they are counted as an 'economic tool.' 'Women's core
identity lies in motherhood and her role should be defined within that
framework, not in an economic context,' Jalili, who's also Iran's chief
nuclear negotiator, told a female audience at a political rally late
yesterday... 'The West says society should work to its full potential,
and since women constitute half of the population, their work power
cannot be ignored and should be included in the economic cycle,' Jalili
said. 'Making use of women as an object and lowering her greatness to the
level of a workforce and economic tool is very different from how they
are viewed in Islam,' Jalili said. 'We are backers of women's rights,
especially in comparison to the West.'" http://t.uani.com/12RavFo
Guardian:
"On 16 May, human rights watchers sounded alarm bells following the
emergence of a two-hour recording in which Ghalibaf addresses an
obstinate group of the Basij, the IRGC's paramilitary wing. The tape,
which appears to have been recorded in recent months, shows Ghalibaf
taking credit for a series of violent acts of repression, including a
passage in which he describes himself 'beating [protesters] with wooden
sticks' on the back of a motorbike during the 1999 events. Elsewhere in
the recording, he boasts of ordering police to fire gunshots at
protesters during on-campus student demonstrations in 2003. He also
commends himself for an effective response to the unrest following the
disputed 2009 presidential election, which saw widespread killings and
abuse of demonstrators. Throughout his effort to ingratiate himself with
the young Basijs, Ghalibaf refers to his career-long commitment to
stomping out opposition while defending some of his more moderate
decisions. He explains the logistical pragmatism of keeping the metro
open during demonstrations, and highlights the impracticality of removing
trash cans to prevent their incineration by protesters, pointing out they
make a more acceptable target than automobiles." http://t.uani.com/12Rf7eK
Syrian Civil
War
FT:
"Iran has sought a bigger role for itself in the diplomatic
wrangling around Syria, hosting an international conference in Tehran on
Wednesday amid reports that it had extended a $4bn credit line to the
cash-strapped regime of Bashar al-Assad. Iran has a longstanding alliance
with the Syrian regime which has allowed it to project power into the
Levant, in part by facilitating weapons supplies to the Lebanese militant
group Hizbollah, which is closely linked to Tehran. Until recently, the
roles of both the Shia Hizbollah and mainly Shia Iran in helping Mr Assad
to try to crush the rebellion against his rule have been shrouded in
secrecy." http://t.uani.com/177xpy7
Human Rights
AFP:
"Iran has amended its internationally condemned law on stoning
convicted adulterers to death to allow judges to impose a different form
of execution, according to the revision seen by AFP on Thursday. The
controversial practice, in which stones are thrown at the partially
buried offender, has provoked outcries from human rights organisations,
international bodies and Western countries urging Iran to abandon it. An
article of Iran's Islamic new penal code, published earlier this week,
states that, 'if the possibility of carrying out the (stoning) verdict
does not exist,' the sentencing judge may order another form of execution
pending final approval by the judiciary chief." http://t.uani.com/135wutU
Opinion &
Analysis
Pete Hegseth in
NRO: "After analyzing in yesterday's column the
threat that Hezbollah, armed with unconventional weapons, presents to
Israel, it's time to turn to Iran. The facts are well known: Iran is
engaged in a longstanding proxy war with Israel, it has executed direct terrorist
attacks against Israelis, and genocidal rhetoric emanates regularly from
Tehran. An Iranian regime that talks openly about 'wiping Israel off the
map' can be either bluffing or serious. Can Israel afford to hope they're
bluffing? Israel cannot. And neither can we. Iran is an avowed enemy of
the United States - killing our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan,
supporting our enemies around the globe, and vowing 'death to the Great
Satan.' Israel on its own (though with U.S. financing and technology, if
not troops) has more or less managed the plague of terrorism and the
recurring threats to its territory. But the Iranian threat is global, and
so it looms large for the U.S. as well. An Iranian nuclear bomb would be
a geopolitical game-changer, immediately jeopardizing American security
and interests, empowering our enemies around the globe, elevating the
cause of radical Islam, creating an Islamic nuclear-arms race, and
threatening the very existence of our ally Israel. Recent independent
reports - seconded by Israeli officials - put Iran at least 80 percent of
the way toward having enough weapons-grade nuclear material for a bomb.
Sanctions haven't deterred the Iranians from pursuing a nuclear weapon,
nor have toothless international resolutions. The Israeli officials we
met with underscored the cold fact that the Iranians will not change
their behavior until they believe the U.S. - not Israel - will act to
prevent them. The middle of 2003 was the only time the Iranians stopped
their centrifuges, for fear they would be next in the American crosshairs
after Afghanistan and Iraq. As the dust settled, they began again. Nobody
- not in Israel or the United States - wants a military solution to the
Iranian nuclear problem. This obviously includes President Obama. However,
the Obama administration's equivocal and tepid stand on the option for
military action has emboldened the regime in Tehran to continue full
speed ahead. Until the Iranians believe the U.S. is serious about using
military means if necessary, they will not stop. This means that only
tough talk of military action, alongside even stronger sanctions, can
prevent a military confrontation and a nuclear Iran. I know the
president, in anti-George W. Bush fashion, doesn't like tough talk, but
any hope for an enduring peace requires it. And he can't just produce the
rhetoric; the Iranians need to believe he means it." http://t.uani.com/119PO5Z
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
Nuclear Iran (UANI) a program of the American Coalition Against Nuclear
Iran, Inc., a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the
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email Press@UnitedAgainstNuclearIran.com
United Against Nuclear
Iran (UANI) is a non-partisan, broad-based coalition that is united in a
commitment to prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a
regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons. UANI is an
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