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AP reported that "Iran spent nearly twice as much on U.S. imports during President Barack Obama's first months in office as it did during the same period in 2008, showing that despite trade penalties and tense relations, the two countries are still doing business. The U.S. exported $96 million in goods to Iran from January through April, according to an Associated Press analysis of U.S. government trade data compiled by the World Institute for Strategic Economic Research in Holyoke, Mass. U.S. exports to Iran totaled $51 million during the same period in 2008 and $27 million over those months in 2007. Soybeans, wheat and medical supplies - all considered humanitarian items exempt from U.S. trade sanctions - are among the top exports this year." (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gUg-I6_iSl9-azPuAad_Qe...)

ABC News reported that "She sinks to the ground -- and a few minutes later she is dead. A video that has been repeatedly posted on the Internet purports to show the last moments of Neda, a young Iranian woman shot in the heart by government sharpshooters. Overnight she has become a symbol of the opposition. She had already become a kind of Joan of Arc. 'It took only one bullet to kill Neda. It will take only one Neda to stop Iranian tyranny,' was one posting from Tehran on Twitter. 'Neda died with open eyes. Shame on us who live with closed eyes,' was one entry. 'They killed Neda, but not her voice,' was another. During the day thousands of people replaced their profile pictures with tributes to the young woman, such as 'I am Neda' or 'Neda forever.' Others posted images of a broken heart in green, the color of the opposition movement. Many blogs, including that of the New York Times, are now speculating if the footage could change the course of history. There are parallels being drawn to the images that became iconic during the Islamic Revolution. The film could become as much as a symbol as those now historic images from 1979 which showed the Shah's troops shooting on unarmed demonstrators." (http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=7897043&page=1)

The Wall Street Journal reported that "The Iranian regime has developed, with the assistance of European telecommunications companies, one of the world's most sophisticated mechanisms for controlling and censoring the Internet, allowing it to examine the content of individual online communications on a massive scale. Interviews with technology experts in Iran and outside the country say Iranian efforts at monitoring Internet information go well beyond blocking access to Web sites or severing Internet connections...the Iranian government appears to be engaging in a practice often called deep packet inspection, which enables authorities to not only block communication but to monitor it to gather information about individuals, as well as alter it for disinformation purposes, according to these experts. The monitoring capability was provided, at least in part, by a joint venture of Siemens AG, the German conglomerate, and Nokia Corp., the Finnish cellphone company, in the second half of 2008, Ben Roome, a spokesman for the joint venture, confirmed." (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124562668777335653.html)

The New York Times reported that "Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, ended his prayer sermon in tears on Friday, invoking the name of a disappeared Shiite prophet to suggest that his government was besieged by forces of evil out to destroy a legitimate Islamic government. The opposition leader, Mir Hussein Moussavi, in criticizing the government, demanded the kind of justice promised by the Koran and exhorted his followers to take to their rooftops at night to cry out, 'Allahu akbar,' or 'God is great.' In the battle to control Iran's streets, both the government and the opposition are deploying religious symbols and parables to portray themselves as pursing the ideal of a just Islamic state." (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/22/world/middleeast/22security.html?em)

The Financial Times reported that "As the Iran crisis enters a new phase, after thousands of people defied warnings from the supreme leader and took to the street on Saturday, only to face a violent security response, Mr. Moussavi, who had spent much of the past two decades painting, has been forced to assume a leadership role. Although Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had declared in his Friday speech that Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, the radical president, was the rightful winner of the June 12 vote, Mr. Moussavi issued a statement on Sunday insisting that the election was rigged, and people had the right to protest peacefully against it. Yet, with every day that goes by and every defiant statement, the risk grows that Mr. Moussavi will be arrested, joining dozens of reformist politicians who have been locked up over the past week." (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/237a3544-5e96-11de-91ad-00144feabdc0.html)

AFP reported that "Western leaders expressed rising anger Sunday at Tehran's crackdown on protesters disputing Iranian election results and on foreign journalists covering the story soiled diplomatic relations. Following a call from Germany for a full presidential vote recount, French President Nicolas Sarkozy articulated external dismay at the reaction of Iranian authorities to a crisis that has already claimed 17 lives. 'The attitude of the Tehran authorities in the face of the legitimate desire for truth of a large part of the Iranian population is inexcusable,' Sarkozy said, highlighting the Iranian government's 'pariah' status. Tehran, already isolated due to ambiguous nuclear ambitions, was now 'depriving its people of their most basic democratic rights,' he said." (http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gc-DUktQ1FwLZ_i2P640T...)

The New York Times reported that "Even before his daughter and four other relatives were briefly detained on Sunday, one of the big mysteries to envelop Iran since the disputed presidential election has been the role of former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. One of Iran's wealthiest and most powerful men, a former right-hand man to the father of the revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Mr. Rafsanjani was an outspoken critic of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during the campaign and a supporter of the opposition candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi. His absence from public view, coupled with the provocative, though temporary, detention of his family members appears to have escalated an internal battle between two classes of Iran's political elite. Even if the street protests are stopped, the split threatens to paralyze the state and undermine the legitimacy it has tried to construct since the 1979 revolution, analysts say." (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/22/world/middleeast/22rafsanjani.html?hp)

The Washington Post reported that "The government media offensive is accelerating. The official Islamic Republic News Agency carried a lengthy article on Mousavi and quoted Alireza Zahedi, a member of the pro-government Basij militia, as saying that Mousavi instigated the unrest 'because he didn't have a following among the people.' Authorities appeared to be seeking to blame the violence on radicals. Iranian state television charged that 'the presence of terrorists...was tangible' at Saturday's events. It asked viewers to send video recordings of protesters to help authorities make arrests." (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/21/AR200906...)

AP reported that "In most cases - when the battles are big and the stakes are high - journalists from around the world are there. But in the possibly history-shaping struggles now unfolding in Iran, the international media has been blocked from its normal front-line role and is quickly making adjustments to counter an official ban on firsthand reporting. Instead of the main dispatches coming from the scenes, the equation has been greatly reversed. Many major news outlets now rely on phone calls, e-mails and Web chats - and other methods - to contact Iranian protesters and officials for information that bolsters the reports from colleagues in Tehran, who must remain in their offices." (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hsW_B7QkIa35KPgboxQPtn...)
Reuters reported that "Iran began three days of airforce exercises on Monday in the Gulf and the Sea of Oman to raise operational and support capability, Iranian media said. 'Long-distance flights of around 3,600 km (2,237 miles) along with aerial refuelling from tanker to fighter jet and from fighter jet to fighter jet will be part of this exercise,' state broadcaster IRIB's website reported. 'Low altitude flights over the waters of the ... Gulf and the Sea of Oman by Iranian fighter jets over distances of 700 km will also be tested' it said." (http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSHOS233576)

AP reported that "Italy will consider its G-8 summit invitation to Iran rejected if Tehran does not reply by the end of the day, officials said Monday. Italy had invited Iran to attend the meeting of the Group of Eight foreign ministers starting Thursday in Trieste, and said Tehran could contribute to discussions on stabilizing Afghanistan and Pakistan. Rome said recently that the invitation was still open, even amid the bloody crackdown on protests over a disputed presidential election. But Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said Iran must respond by the end of Monday or 'the invitation is to be considered implicitly rejected'." (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hCqgRWwr5OZAzr0XyOtZHO...)

UANI Advisory Board Member Fouad Ajami wrote in today's Wall Street Journal that "In truth Iran had never wanted an opening to the U.S. For the length of three decades, the custodians of the theocracy have had precisely the level of enmity toward the U.S. they have wanted -- just enough to be an ideological glue for the regime but not enough to be a threat to their power...They had inherited a world, and they were in no need of opening it to outsiders. They were able to fly under the radar. Selective, targeted deeds of terror, and oil income, enabled them to hold their regime intact. There is a Persian pride and a Persian solitude, and the impact of three decades of zeal and indoctrination." (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124563005022735881.html)

E.J. Dionne wrote in today's Washington Post that "If the Iranian regime simply suppresses its political adversaries, it will be impossible anytime soon to resume diplomacy as if nothing had happened. And even if the present government survives in the short term, we now know that its hold on power is shaky. There is more opposition in Iran than we -- and probably Iranians themselves -- knew existed, and thus more opportunity for change. That's why Obama had to toughen his rhetoric. He sent a clear message on Saturday when he called on the Iranian government 'to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people' and warned that it could not expect 'the respect of the international community' if it failed to 'respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.' The president, in concert with our allies, is now telling the Iranian regime that it will pay a price for repression. The bottom line of American policy must be that no matter how committed we are to negotiation, we are also committed democrats. Obama's initial caution served the interests of freedom by making clear that the revolt against Iran's flawed election is homegrown. As the struggle continues, we cannot pretend that we are indifferent to its outcome." (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/21/AR200906...)