Eye on Iran: Iran Shifts Assets Out of Europe Banks
Mon, 08/30/2010 - 09:14 | by uaniadminTop
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
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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