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IHR:
"Two men were publicly hanged in the city of Kermanshah (Western
Iran) yesterday August 7, reported the Iranian state media... The
executions were carried out at the 'Liberty Square' of Kermanshah, which
has been the site of many public executions in the recent years. With
these executions, the number of executions since the end of the Muslim
holy month of Ramadan (last week) has reached to 11. 10 of the executions
have been carried out in public. On August 6. four men were hanged
publicly in Shiraz (Southern Iran). Two of the men were sentenced to
death charged with sodomy, according to the official Iranian
sources." http://t.uani.com/1owwWsn
Reuters:
"U.S. and Iranian officials had a 'constructive discussion' about
Iran's nuclear program in Geneva on Thursday, the U.S. State Department
said without providing details. U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns
and Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi met in Geneva, where
major powers and Iran last year struck an interim agreement giving Tehran
some sanctions relief in return for curbing its nuclear program. 'It was,
I would say, a constructive discussion,' State Department spokeswoman
Marie Harf told reporters in Washington. 'We're not going to get into
details.' ... Harf said the six major powers and the European Union would
meet with Iran in advance of this September's U.N. General Assembly in
New York. The location for that meeting has yet to be decided, she added.
The same players would likely meet again during the annual U.N.
gathering, possibly with the involvement of their foreign ministers
rather than lower level officials." http://t.uani.com/1kr0UCR
NYT:
"Jason Rezaian knew he was being watched. A man on a motorcycle had
been following him and his wife for weeks, his colleagues said. The tail
was so blatant that Mr. Rezaian, The Washington Post's correspondent in
Tehran, had even managed to take a picture of the license plate. Like
many foreign journalists accredited by the Iranian authorities, Mr.
Rezaian had grown painfully accustomed to being under constant suspicion.
Opponents of Iran's leaders accuse correspondents of soft-pedaling to
avoid being expelled, while conservatives inside Iran often call them
spies. Some hard-liners even say they should be executed. 'It's like
walking a tightrope,' Mr. Rezaian, 38, said in June. 'When you fall down,
it is over.' Then on July 22, plainclothes men waving an arrest warrant
signed by Iran's judiciary forced their way into Mr. Rezaian's apartment,
taking him and his wife, Yeganeh Salehi, a journalist for a newspaper in
the United Arab Emirates, to an unknown location." http://t.uani.com/V3RQIv
Nuclear Program & Negotiations
Al-Monitor:
"Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns and Jake Sullivan, Vice
President Joe Biden's national security advisor, will stay on as special
government employees to work to reach a comprehensive Iran nuclear accord
after they leave their current posts in the coming weeks, State
Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf said Aug. 7. Sullivan is due to
leave his job in Biden's office shortly to teach at Yale Law School,
while Burns is due to retire as deputy secretary in October after a
three-decade diplomatic career. The decision shows the Obama
administration is 'very serious about getting a deal done by November
24,' a senior US official, speaking not for attribution, told Al-Monitor.
'They are not letting anybody get out. It's all hands on deck.'" http://t.uani.com/1opc4It
Sanctions
Relief
Trend:
"Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says the country's inflation rate
has dropped below 25 percent. He said he had promised that the inflation
rate would fall to 25 percent in the current year, but the current
inflation rate is already below 25 percent, Iran's IRNA news agency
reported on August 8. He added that he will announce the new inflation
rate next week. He also said that the economy will not contract in the
current year. When Rouhani took office in August last year, the Central
Bank of Iran (CBI) had put the inflation rate at 45 percent. The CBI has
announced that the inflation rate for the 12-month period that ended on
the last day of the Iranian calendar month of Tir (July 22) was 25.3
percent, a 2.4 percent decrease compared to the previous month, ISNA
reported on July 28." http://t.uani.com/1sEOuZp
Reuters:
"India took about 46 percent more oil from Iran in January-July
compared with a year ago as its refiners continued to lift higher volumes
while world powers and Tehran work to resolve a decade-old dispute over
the OPEC nation's nuclear programme... India, Tehran's top client after
China, received about 210,300 barrels per day (bpd) of Iranian oil last
month, nearly six times the volume as in July a year ago, data on tanker
arrivals from trade sources shows. Last year, though, Indian refiners
drastically cut their imports from Tehran starting from April due to a
lack of insurance for units processing Iranian oil. The intake from Iran
in July 2013 at 35,500 bpd was the lowest since at least 2010. Over the
first seven months of the year, India's intake from Iran has averaged
about 270,600 bpd, up from 185,700 bpd in the same period last year. In
July, imports from Iran rose by about 26 percent from the previous month."
http://t.uani.com/1srYTG3
Sanctions
Enforcement & Impact
Bloomberg:
"David Cohen, the Obama administration's top official for terrorism
and financial intelligence, warned that any Russian companies engaging in
deals with Iran would be subject to U.S. penalties. Russia and Iran
signed a five-year memorandum of understanding to expand trade
cooperation, the Russian Energy Ministry said on Aug. 5. Russia will help
organize Iranian oil sales under the agreement including in Russia, as
suggested by the Persian Gulf state, the ministry said in a later
statement, without elaborating. 'It is almost certain that any entity
involved in any such deal would be exposing itself to U.S. sanctions,
possibly to sanctions from others as well,' Cohen, a Treasury undersecretary,
said during a conference call with reporters today. 'We have been very
clear in communications with the Russians at the highest level that they
ought not move forward with any such deal.'" http://t.uani.com/1oLvRl5
Human Rights
Al-Monitor:
"Iranian President Hassan Rouhani spoke in anticipation of
Journalists Day, to be held Aug. 8 in Iran, saying that steps have been
taken to create an alternative journalists guild, a proposal that falls
short of satisfying the demand of most Iranian journalists: the reopening
of the original journalists guild, defunct due to legal troubles.
"The administration will produce a bill to consider for an
association related to journalists so that this association can be active
for the work of journalists. If there is an infringement, this guild and
professional association can state its position on that infringement,'
Rouhani said at an Aug. 7 press conference. He added that the bill would
be made public so that experts can weigh in before it is presented to
parliament. Iranian journalists have long hoped for the Association of
Iranian Journalists (AIJ) to be reopened. It was created when former
President Mohammad Khatami took office in 1997, but suffered numerous
legal troubles. In August 2009, two months after the contested
presidential elections, its doors were shut on the order of Tehran
prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi. The association was later reopened but closed
once again. Rouhani avoided the issue in his latest statement by
introducing another guild to address the needs of working journalists...
'God willing, Journalists Day is a happy day for all of the journalists,
and the journalists can do completely professional and national work,'
Rouhani said. 'If we want to battle rumors in a professional way, the
path is for active journalists to spread accurate awareness for the
people.'" http://t.uani.com/1yd6gCT
Opinion &
Analysis
Karim Sadjadpour
in the Carnegie Endowment: "During Iran's 2013
presidential campaign, Hassan Rouhani marketed himself to a wary Iranian
public and hardline political establishment as the man who could
reconcile the ideological prerogatives of the Islamic Republic with the
economic interests of the Iranian nation. Iran needn't decide whether to
wage Death to America or détente, whether to resist the global order or
reintegrate with it, or whether to be theocratic or democratic. Under his
leadership, Rouhani implied, the Islamic Republic of Iran could do it
all. From the outset of his presidency, Rouhani understood that Iran's
economic malaise could not be reversed without lifting sanctions, and
lifting sanctions requires a nuclear deal. He accordingly invested all of
his political capital in foreign policy rather than domestic affairs, and
refrained from unsettling Iran's conservatives-whose support he needs to
secure a nuclear compromise-with talk of democracy and human rights.
Iranian civil society nonetheless patiently accommodated him, hoping that
a more relaxed external environment could usher in a less repressive
domestic environment. One of Rouhani's greatest advantages as president
has been that his bombastic predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, set an
incredibly low bar for competent management and public diplomacy. Indeed
some of Rouhani's most tangible achievements have been simply undoing the
damage wrought by Ahmadinejad, such as restoring relations with the
United Kingdom that were severed after a government-sanctioned mob
ransacked the British Embassy in Tehran in 2011. Most importantly,
Rouhani deserves credit for helping to normalize direct dialogue between
Tehran and Washington. For three decades the nearly sole method of
communication between the two countries had been public threats and
invectives. While mutual antipathy remains, today U.S. and Iranian
officials communicate regularly via email and telephone, when they aren't
negotiating in European hotels. Rouhani himself broke a 35-year Islamic
Republic taboo by talking via phone with President Obama. But Rouhani has
had less success moderating the revolutionary principles that most
animate the U.S. Congress, namely Iran's active rejection of Israel's
existence and support for militant groups such as Hezbollah, Islamic
Jihad, and Hamas (a once-fraught relationship that rekindled after
Israel's recent onslaught in Gaza). Nor has Tehran's support for the
Syrian government wavered, despite Bashar al-Assad's brutality-including
an August 2013 chemical weapons attack just weeks into Rouhani's tenure
that killed, by some estimates, nearly 1500 people, including over 400
children. This record, together with worsening human rights and a
still-elusive nuclear deal, has led to public disillusionment with
Rouhani. Such criticism is misdirected. Rouhani is at best second
lieutenant to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a rigid 75-year-old ideologue
whose goal is to conserve Iran's revolutionary principles, not alter or
dilute them. After eight years of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, an exasperated
Iranian public and international community had unrealistic hopes that
Rouhani, a pragmatic regime insider, had both the will and ability to
bring fundamental change." http://t.uani.com/1sENuDD
Azadeh Moaveni in
the Carnegie Endowment: "When Hassan Rouhani was
campaigning for president during the spring of 2013, he chose a key as
the overarching symbol of his electoral platform and vision for a new
Iran. That key, he vowed, would open up the country's tightly sealed
political sphere and unlock the path to basic civil rights. One year into
Rouhani's tenure, the key has emerged as rich fodder for caricaturists, who
have shown it to be alternately lost, blunted, or mismatched to its lock.
Today, the president finds himself presiding over a roughly unchanged
Iran. The lawlessness and arbitrary detentions that overshadowed the era
of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have continued unabated. The state regularly
arrests civil society activists and journalists, and executes scores of
prisoners without fair trial. The country's once-vibrant NGO and media
climate remains intimidated and quiet, and the political bullying that
pushed reformist politicians and other critics to the margins of public
life remains firmly in place. The sameness has been so evident that UN
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon chastised Rouhani's government in March for
not having 'changed its approach' to the death penalty or the protection
of free expression. Since the start of this year, the state has executed
nearly 400 prisoners, many of whom human rights groups believe were
activists for ethnic minority rights spuriously charged with criminal
offenses. Authorities have also imprisoned at least 30 journalists and
technology specialists, and in a particularly aggressive move in July,
arrested the Washington Post's Tehran correspondent. Not only have
Rouhani's most notable electoral pledges about bringing Iranians digital
freedom, dignity as citizens, and respect in private life remained
elusive, the state has revitalized its efforts to enforce Islamic dress
codes and limit women's access to public spaces. Parliament recently held
a session on the moral threat posed by leggings, and authorities forbade
women from watching volleyball matches in Tehran's Azadi Stadium. The
Rouhani government's scorecard on human rights and civil society is now
widely discussed even within his administration as its most alarming and
public failure. The president's allies argue that he must focus first on
securing a nuclear deal, and then use the political capital such a
victory would garner to push forward more contentious social and
political reforms. That strategy, however, risks losing the Iranian
public-who are seeing neither a spike in living standards nor greater
freedom-along the way... A profound disillusionment is seeping into the
youthful ranks of those who voted Rouhani into office. In their eyes, it
is no great feat that Rouhani and his diplomats are on their way to
securing a nuclear deal. The Supreme Leader has backed those endeavors,
leaving the dirty work for the negotiating tables of Europe, not the
political backrooms of Tehran. For those expecting the Rouhani key to
open at least a few doors, the president's first year has been a
disappointing one. Rouhani's Iran is as lawless and intellectually cowed
as the one he inherited, a country where a muscular intelligence
apparatus makes the political decisions, not the politicians Iranians
voted into office." http://t.uani.com/1pGbTYl
Mohammad
Jahan-Parvar in the Carnegie Endowment: "Rouhani,
however, has publicly committed himself to improving the livelihood of
ordinary Iranians. Yet one year into his tenure, Iran continues to suffer
from a host of short and long-term issues. In the short run, the harsh
and prolonged stagflation caused by tightening international sanctions
remains the most pressing issue. Between 2012 and 2013, for instance,
Iran faced 40 percent inflation and an almost 6 percent contraction in
GDP. Today, inflation still hovers around 25 percent and GDP is set to
contract by another 3 percent by the Persian new year (March 2015).
Ironically, of all policy areas, economic growth offered the Rouhani
administration its greatest chance of success. This prolonged recession
is primarily an outcome of sanctions, particularly those imposed by the
United Nations, the United States, and the European Union. These
sanctions have been effective; Iran's economy is in a severe slump. An
Iranian minister recently admitted that at least 50 percent of industrial
plants are operating below capacity. Without a negotiated agreement with
the West over Iran's nuclear program, the continued freeze of Iranian
assets will likely cause the economy to remain in recession. Fears of
stagnation and a lost generation are now talk of the town. Iran's
economic recovery roadmap document, published last week by Rouhani's
economic team, is written with the explicit assumption that international
sanctions will be in place for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile,
double-digit inflation rates remain a curse for the Iranian economy.
Perennially high inflation, coupled with persistent double-digit
unemployment, low labor force participation, low productivity growth,
rampant corruption, a hostile business environment that actively
discourages entrepreneurship, weak financial institutions, and
ineffective macroeconomic stewardship, has led to one of the world's
worst peacetime economic performances in the last three decades. These
underlying weaknesses are masked to some degree by sizable oil revenues,
which buoy the per capita income level. The Rouhani administration so far
has no plan to address these long-term problems. The published recovery
plan yields little more than slight changes to pre-Ahmadinejad economic
policies, which clearly failed to generate sustained growth and keep
inflation at bay. The plan does not offer innovative solutions, and reads
instead as a wish list, invoking unrealistic assumptions and expectations
(i.e. harnessing 'hot money') as the basis for delivering the desired
outcomes (raising capital for investments in infrastructure). What is new
in this document is the administration's ill-advised intention to scrap
the underwriting standards of the financial sector. Banks will as a
result lend based on their own judgment rather than adhering to
prudential lending practices. This policy will open the door for abuse
and corruption and lead to financial suppression and credit rationing. In
plain language, team Rouhani is setting the stage for a banking crisis in
the not too distant future. The document also demonstrates the limits to
Iran's macroeconomic policy toolbox. Since the mid-1980s, officials have
removed interest rate targeting from policymaking. Monetary authorities
have in response increased the money supply. But in the absence of a
developed and active debt market, this process leads to an almost
irreversible expansion of the monetary base and perennially high
inflation. For example, the optimism that accompanied Rouhani's election
last year, along with his team's success in engaging the P5+1, led to
reduced inflation expectations and an initial drop in actual inflation
from 40 percent to 25 percent. However, the administration freely admits
that the monetary base expanded by 27 percent in the 2013-2014 fiscal
year. Simply put, we can confidently predict another episode of high
inflation for 2014-2015... A year into his tenure, Rouhani must reassess
his economic policies and his economic team. He holds the future of 78
million people in his hands. Clinging to tried and failed policies will
not unlock the gates to a brighter future." http://t.uani.com/V7LFmz
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