Top Stories
JPost:
"US intelligence agencies have assessed that as early as 2015,
Iran will be set to test an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM),
that has the capability to strike the United States, a released
Pentagon report states. 'Iran has ambitious ballistic missile and space
launch development programs and continues to attempt to increase the
range, lethality, and accuracy of its ballistic missile force,' the
report says. 'Iran could develop and test an ICBM capable of reaching
the United States by 2015.' The US Department of Defense assessment was
compiled by The National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC) at
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, together with the Defense
Intelligence Agency's Missile and Space Intelligence Center and the
Office of Naval Intelligence." http://t.uani.com/13FkVNY
Reuters:
"European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton will host a
meeting of senior officials from six major powers in Brussels on
Tuesday to discuss how to move forward nuclear talks with Iran after
the election of a new president, the EU said on Thursday. Senior
officials from the six powers - the United States, China, Russia,
Britain, France and Germany - will discuss 'how to move forward in the
Iran nuclear file. We are keen to make concrete progress in the talks
following the election of the new president,' Ashton's spokesman,
Michael Mann, said. The election last month of a relative moderate,
Hassan Rouhani, as Iran's new president has raised hopes for a
resolution of a long-running dispute with the West over Iran's nuclear
programme." http://t.uani.com/12rST5Y
Reuters:
"Iran has asked India to settle all oil trade including $1.53
billion owed to Tehran in the partly convertible rupee as the
sanctions-hit nation cannot find an alternative payment channel,
industry and government sources in Delhi said. India has been paying
for 45 percent of its Iranian oil imports in rupees, which has limited
international acceptability, and was settling the remainder in euros
through Turkey's Halkbank, but this was halted in February under
pressure from tighter western sanctions... Since April 1, Indian
refiners have held on to 55 percent of payments as Iran has been
exploring avenues, including settling in roubles through Russia, the
sources said. The non-payment was seen as a hidden incentive or a
temporary relief on top of attractive credit terms offered by Iran to
Indian clients. 'The Russian route didn't work out so they have asked
us to make the entire payment, including dues, in rupees and we have no
problems in that. Soon we will start clearing the dues in rupees,' said
an official at an Indian refiner." http://t.uani.com/1b6qMxS
Sanctions
WSJ:
"When CCA Civil Inc. won a bid this spring to rebuild a section of
the Pulaski Skyway in New Jersey, the runner-up in the contest saw a
chance to snatch away the huge road-building job. CCA Civil is a
division of China Construction America Inc., the U.S. arm of China
State Construction Engineering Corp., one of the largest Chinese
building companies. Because the government of China has an ownership
interest in the parent company, and in companies that have done
energy-sector work in Iran, the rival contractor charges, CCA Civil
should be barred from receiving government contracts in New Jersey
under a new divestment law aimed at isolating the Middle Eastern
nation... A rise in legal challenges is a 'definite possibility' as
more states begin to pass laws codifying lists of companies that are
barred from receiving government contracts because of economic ties to
Iran, said Lori Damrosch, a professor of international law at Columbia
University... Under New Jersey's law, the state Department of the
Treasury has published a list of 41 entities that are barred from
public contracts because of work in Iran." http://t.uani.com/13FjTBK
Human Rights
Reuters:
"Syrian plans to run for a spot on the U.N. Human Rights Council
met with sharp criticism from the United States and Israel on Thursday,
while Tehran announced it had withdrawn its candidacy for the world
body's rights watchdog. The General Assembly's annual elections for the
United Nations' 47-nation, Geneva-based human rights body will be held
in November in New York... A spokesman for Iran's U.N. mission,
however, said on Thursday that Iran had withdrawn its candidacy and did
not provide an explanation. 'It (withdrawing) is a normal practice
within all the U.N. regional groups,' the spokesman said. U.S. Ambassador
to the United Nations Rosemary DiCarlo said neither Syria nor Iran
belonged on the U.N. rights council. 'Attempts by either country to
join the Human Rights Council are highly inappropriate given existing
Human Rights Council mandates to investigate human rights violations in
these countries, their egregious records on human rights, and their
on-going collaboration to suppress the democratic aspirations of the
Syrian people,' DiCarlo said." http://t.uani.com/178Ez2a
Domestic
Politics
AP:
"Some arrived in Porsches or BMWs, which were whisked away by
valet parking attendants. The hotel lobby was awash with the celebrated
and powerful including A-list actors, well-known artists and captains
of commerce. For one glimmering moment late last month, the Iranian
capital was the talk of the world's art market after 80 works sold for
$2 million, astonishing a country whose economy is battered by Western
sanctions but still has pockets of wealth looking for investment havens
for their money. This is the other side to Tehran - hidden by walls
surrounding elite enclaves or in high-rise towers with doormen - that
has more in common with well-heeled spots in Manhattan or London... Car
dealers get orders - even at inflated price tags because of import
complications - for a $300,000 Mercedes Benz or BMWs at $200,000 each.
Ice cream flaked with edible gold dust was a signature dish at the
rotating restaurant atop Tehran's 435-meter (1,427-foot) Milad
Tower." http://t.uani.com/1agG6VK
Foreign
Affairs
Reuters:
"Egypt accused Iran on Thursday of 'unacceptable interference' in
its domestic affairs for having criticized the Egyptian army's removal
of elected president Mohamed Mursi last week. The incident signaled a
return to cooler relations between the two Middle Eastern powers after
an attempt at rapprochement under Mursi, who hails from the Islamist
Muslim Brotherhood. Iran on Monday called the ousting of Mursi after
mass protests against him a 'cause for concern' and suggested that
'foreign hands' were at work in the Arab state. Egypt shot back on
Thursday, expressing 'extreme discontent' with the Islamic Republic's
comments and saying they reflected a 'lack of precise knowledge of the
nature of the democratic developments Egypt is witnessing.'" http://t.uani.com/178E6wI
Opinion &
Analysis
Claudia Rosett
in Forbes: "When President Obama visited Tanzania
last week, he praised the East African country as a place with which he
feels a 'special connection.' A glitch he did not mention is that
Tanzania has developed a special connection of its own - to Iran's main
oil tanker fleet. Since turning up last year as a leading flag of
convenience for sanctioned Iranian ships, Tanzania just can't seem to
cut itself loose. That's not for lack of Tanzanian promises. Last
summer, a number of U.S. lawmakers voiced bipartisan protest over
Tanzania's flagging of at least 36 sanctioned Iranian vessels, urging
that the Obama administration penalize Tanzania itself unless it kicked
this habit. Tanzanian authorities first denied there were any Iranian
ships registered under their flag. Then they conceded there were, but
said that all such ships would be deregistered. By last December, they
were saying the deregistration was complete. That's not what
ship-tracking data suggests. Analysis of information on Lloyd's List
Intelligence shipping database shows that dozens of tankers blacklisted
by the U.S. as owned by the government of Iran are still signaling as
flagged to Tanzania. Tougher U.S. sanctions that took effect July 1
under the Iran Freedom and Counter-proliferation Act of 2012 (IFCA) are
meant. among other things, to help shut down Iran's
foreign-flagging operations, potentially targeting the provision of
registry, flagging and classification services to Iran's shipping
sector. But over the past month, at least 39 Iranian oil tankers have
signaled as registered to Tanzania, 34 of them since the beginning of
July. That number accounts for well over half the crude carriers of
Iran's main tanker fleet, owned by NITC, formerly known as the National
Iranian Tanker Company. The most curious aspect of this continuing
Tanzania connection is that according to Lloyd's, only 12 of the 39
tankers signaling within the past month as flagged to Tanzania are
actually registered there. The rest were previously listed as flagged
to Tanzania. They now appear as flag 'unknown.' But they have continued
to identify themselves in shipping traffic as flagged to Tanzania. The
tell-tale sign is a nine-digit number known as a Maritime Mobile
Service Identity number, or MMSI, part of the onboard signaling system
that transmits the registered identity of a ship as well as its
location. The MMSI number is unique for each vessel, but the initial
three digits identify the ship's flag state (677 for Tanzania)... Part
of the problem may be that Tanzania's balkanized ship-flagging
arrangements do not lend themselves to transparency or straightforward
supervision. Tanzania's flag also represents the semi-autonomous
archipelago of Zanzibar, run by the Revolutionary Government of Zanzibar,
which has its own maritime registry. Some time ago, Zanzibar contracted
out its ship registration services to a private company called Philtex
Corporation, with offices spread around the globe, in places such as
Dubai, the U.S. and the Philippines. Philtex is run by an American
named Chris Warren, who described himself in an email to me last summer
as 'a US citizen and small business owner in Austin, Texas' ... In
February, a New York-based watchdog organization called United Against
Nuclear Iran, or UANI, released the results of an inquiry it had made
into the persistent links between Tanzania's flag and Iran's tankers.
UANI is run by a former U.S. envoy to the U.N., Mark Wallace. In a
letter addressed to the president of Tanzania, the ruler of Dubai, and
Obama, among others, Wallace alleged that Philtex was an 'illegitimate
front company,' issuing 'key shipping documentation' to Iran's 'illicit
oil-carrying ships.' Wallace wrote that this was part of 'an
Iranian-sponsored fraud, which is designed to avoid the full impact of
sanctions against Iran.' He included a description of oil-smuggling
methods employed by Tanzanian-flagged Iranian ships, and appended a
sheaf of exhibits, including copies of some of the Iranian ship
documents issued via Philtex and the TZIRS." http://t.uani.com/1aymXSL
Tehran Bureau:
"The evening the results of the presidential election were
announced, I locked myself in - a voluntary house arrest. Moments after
Hassan Rouhani's victory was officially endorsed, Tehran had burst into
celebration. Hearing the happy clamor of crowds cheering the victory of
their presidential candidate placed me, unexpectedly, within a
minority. This was the minority who had not voted because they do not
believe in gradual reform within a militaristic theocracy, and because
they are unwilling to trade the long-term interests of the Iranian
people for skin-deep change. It was a drunken sort of celebration (sans
alcohol, of course). Those who voted must have needed to get drunk.
With a deft sleight of hand, the regime had not only led the populace
to vote, with no little hope and hoopla, for a conservative cleric from
the military/security apparatus, but it also had them feeling that this
time around their vote was not stolen, even that they had made history.
What the celebrations clarified was that we had, indeed, been played.
The middle class, scared out of its wits by the prospect of another
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had demonstrated that it would accept whatever
alternative the regime would allow. The burgeoning radicalism that, had
there been a refusal to participate in the masquerade, could have dug
in its roots and grown into a formidable challenge to the regime was
forsworn. Ideals of freedom and civic participation gave way to a
naïvely optimistic reliance on the right to vote. Even a large number
of experienced political activists, brandishing sentimental slogans
about democracy, put their weight behind the election. The list of
demands the crowd turned into impromptu slogans was so long and
thorough that you would think Rouhani held the 'key' (the symbol of his
campaign) to a storehouse of panacea. One can only pray that it will
not turn out to be hemlock instead. The reality is that Rouhani is an
excellent choice - for the ruling elite. The current condition of
out-and-out economic and political bankruptcy demands a figure like
him: someone with no real clout (has anyone paid him a thought in the
past 30 years?) but clean enough hands to try and wipe away the memory
of Ahmadinejad's corrupt, destructive presidency. Someone to blow hot
air into the deflated balloon that carries the regime's banner of
'democracy.' In the aftermath of Rouhani's election, the people's list
of demands only grows: he is to release political prisoners, rein in
the brutal Revolutionary Guards, end the atomic danse macabre with the
west, convince the US to find another bad guy for its foreign policy,
and so on. What is interesting is that the Iranian public could not
possibly have forgotten the failure of reformist president Mohammad
Khatami - with his much stronger mandate - to achieve very similar
goals. The Khatami experiment now seems not so much like a bright spot
in the past, but rather a short-lived flare in the dark. Four years
ago, the street clashes that followed the presidential election began
with a stately gesture: a silent protest, composed of millions, who
posed a simple, rhetorical question, 'Where is my vote?' As the silence
broke and the protests faced mounting violence, the question was turned
into a promise to the lost: 'Neda [Agha Soltan], Sohrab [Arabi], we
will take back your vote!' Now, in the jubilation that followed the
announcement of Rouhani's victory, crowds declared the fulfillment of
that promise: 'Neda, Sohrab, we took back your vote!' Did no one stop to
consider the absurdity of mirroring these two events: one in which
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei brazenly disregarded democratic procedure,
and another in which he played the magnanimous father, generously
allowing the vote to be counted? Does not this second election, with
its halo of legitimacy, make a mockery of the green movement?" http://t.uani.com/1agFGOY
Sebastian
Rotella in ProPublica: "Last year, Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited his ally President Hugo Chavez in
Venezuela, where the firebrand leaders unleashed defiant rhetoric at
the United States. There was a quieter aspect to Ahmadinejad's visit in
January 2012, according to Western intelligence officials. A senior
officer in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) traveled secretly
with the presidential delegation and met with Venezuelan military and
security chiefs. His mission: to set up a joint intelligence program
between Iranian and Venezuelan spy agencies, according to the Western
officials. At the secret meeting, Venezuelan spymasters agreed to
provide systematic help to Iran with intelligence infrastructure such
as arms, identification documents, bank accounts and pipelines for
moving operatives and equipment between Iran and Latin America,
according to Western intelligence officials. Although suffering from
cancer, Chavez took interest in the secret talks as part of his
energetic embrace of Iran, an intelligence official told ProPublica.
The senior IRGC officer's meeting in Caracas has not been previously
reported. 'The aim is to enable the IRGC to be able to distance itself
from the criminal activities it is conducting in the region, removing
the Iranian fingerprint,' said the intelligence official, who requested
anonymity because he is not authorized to speak publicly. 'Since
Chavez's early days in power, Iran and Venezuela have grown
consistently closer, with Venezuela serving as a gateway to South
America for the Iranians.' A year and a half later, Chavez has died and
Ahmadinejad is no longer president. But the alliance they built is part
of an Iranian expansion in the Americas that worries U.S., Latin
American, Israeli and European security officials. Experts cite public
evidence: intensified Iranian diplomatic, military and commercial
activity in the region; the sentencing this year of an Iranian-American
terrorist in a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington;
U.S. investigations alleging that Hezbollah, Iran's staunch ally,
finances itself through cocaine trafficking; and a recent Argentine
prosecutor's report describing Iran's South American spy web and its
links to a 2007 plot to bomb New York's JFK airport." http://t.uani.com/1ayoica
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