Reuters: Iran threatens retaliation over oil embargo

Reuters
By Parisa Hafezi

TEHRAN | Fri Feb 3, 2012

(Reuters) – Iran’s supreme leader threatened on Friday to retaliate against the West for sanctions, a day after a U.S. newspaper said defense secretary Leon Panetta believed Israel was likely to bomb Iranwithin months to stop it building a nuclear bomb.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s defiant televised speech marking the anniversary of the 1979 Iranian revolution was the first time the top authority has spoken publicly about the impact of the new sanctions, which have strangled the Iranian economy since the start of the year.

The long-simmering confrontation between the West and Iran over its nuclear program entered a decisive phase last month. Iran began enriching uranium at a deep underground bunker and the United States and Europe imposed new sanctions to prevent Tehran selling oil, putting its economy in a downward spiral.

BBC: Iran accused of intimidating BBC Persian staff

BBC
Feb. 3, 2012

The BBC’s director general has accused the Iranian authorities of intimidating those working for its Persian service.

Mark Thompson wrote in a blog that the BBC had seen “disturbing new tactics”, including the targeting of family members of those working outside Iran.

Last week, the sister of a BBC Persian staff member was detained and held in solitary confinement at a Tehran jail.

Iran accused the BBC of inciting unrest after the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009.

BBC Persian broadcast online videos and interviewed protesters, who described deaths, injuries and arbitrary arrests carried out by security forces.

Israelisches Werbevideo empört Iran

Mossad-Agenten, verkleidet als Frauen, und ein explodierender Atomreaktor in Iran: Aus diesen Zutaten hat eine israelische Kabelfernseh-Firma einen makaberen Werbespot gemixt. Der Videoclip verbreitet sich im Netz rasant – und erzürnt die Gemüter in der Islamischen Republik.

Die vier Frauen – sind Männer. Verkleidet, schlecht geschminkt und mit Kopftuch laufen sie durch ein verstaubtes Nest, angeblich in der Nähe der iranischen Metropole Isfahan. „Bist du vom Mossad?“, fragt einer aus dem Quartett einen Mann, der gelangweilt in einem Café sitzt. Dessen Antwort: „Psst.“

The Latest from Iran (4 February): Missing the Story on the Supreme Leader

0630 GMT: Most of the international coverage of the Supreme Leader’s Friday Prayer in Tehran was incomplete, narrowed into presentation of the Islamic Republic v. the US-led „West“.

Reuters‘ lead on Ayatollah Khamenei was that „Iran would retaliate over Western-backed oil sanctions and any threat of attack“ with the Supreme Leader’s address „the first direct response to tighter sanctions imposed by the West“. The Washington Post is blunt in its headline, „Khamenei: Iran will back ‘any nations, any groups’ fighting Israel“. 

Motivationskampagne gestartet: „Deutsch lernen, Deutschland kennen lernen“

Friedrich startet bundesweite Motivationskampagne für Elternintegrationskurse.

Am 3. Februar hat Bundesinnenminister Dr. Hans-Peter Friedrich die bundesweite Motivationskampagne für Elternintegrationskurse „Deutsch lernen, Deutschland kennen lernen“ gestartet. Zu der Eröffnungsveranstaltung an der Grundschule am Hedernfeld in München waren auch der Bayerische Staatsminister für Unterricht und Kultus, Dr. Ludwig Spaenle, Schauspieler Ralf Moeller aus Los Angeles sowie Lehrer, Eltern und Kinder gekommen. Wer mangelnde Deutschkenntnisse hat, dem fällt es schwer, seine Kinder in schulischen Belangen zu unterstützen. Einfache Dinge wie die Hilfe bei Hausaufgaben oder Absprachen mit den Lehrern sind eine Herausforderung. Dieser Zustand ist für alle Beteiligten unbefriedigend. Hier setzen die Elternintegrationskurse an. In kleinen Gruppen lernen Eltern an der Schule ihrer Kinder die deutsche Sprache und Wissenswertes über Land und Leute, um sich in Deutschland besser zurecht zu finden. Die Motivationskampagne möchte auf diese Möglichkeit aufmerksam machen und um Teilnehmer werben.

Iran Targeting Expatriates

Roya Boroumand

Executive director, Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com

“I could hear her make prisoners laugh. Sometimes, she even made the guards laugh.” This is what a former prisoner remembers of Zahra Bahrami, who, she says, was lively, kind to her fellow prisoners, and defiant towards the guards. (Boroumand Foundation interview with a former political prisoner, January 2012) One year ago in one of the last days of January 2011, the Islamic Republic of Iran announced the execution of Zahra Bahrami, an Iranian-Dutch citizen visiting Iran. Bahrami is one of many Iranian expatriates punished following an unfair judicial process. Over the years, several Iranians with dual citizenship who worked with the Iranian civil society, facilitated exchanges of ideas, or relayed news coming from Iran, have been arrested. Some have been released thanks to sustained international pressure. Others however, are still serving prison sentences, or are on death row, such as Saeed Malekpour, an Iranian-Canadian computer programmer. The government message is clear: communicating independently with Iranians or echoing their voices is not allowed. And it works.

Eye on Iran: Senate Panel Approves Potentially Toughest Penalty Yet Against Iran’s Wallet

Top Stories

NYT: „The Senate Banking Committee unanimously approved a new regimen of anti-Iran sanctions on Thursday that would for the first time threaten to punish the global financial telecommunications network that nearly all banks rely on to conduct their daily business. The legislation’s banking provision, aimed at forcing the telecommunications network to expel Iranian banks that have already been blacklisted, would be financially catastrophic for Iran if carried out fully, according to proponents and sanctions experts. Expulsion from the network – the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, known as Swift – would deny to Iran many billions of dollars in revenue from abroad that is routinely routed into its domestic banking system. ‚The Senate Banking Committee has sent a strong message,‘ said Mark D. Wallace, the president of United Against Nuclear Iran, an advocacy group based in New York that has been pushing for such a provision. He has argued that Swift, which based in Belgium, is already in violation of other sanctions against Iran as well as its own rules. „Swift must end its business in Iran,“ he said. The legislation does not specify what action would be taken against Swift if it did not comply. There was no immediate comment by Swift on the legislation. But officials of the network, mindful of pressure from Mr. Wallace’s group and others that have increasingly advocated stricter sanctions against Iran, denied it was acting illegally, in a statement posted earlier Thursday on the network’s Web site.“ http://t.uani.com/z0nwrW 

UANI Applauds UAE and Qatar Central Banks for Restricting Finances to Iran, Renews Call on SWIFT

 United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) President, Ambassador Mark D. Wallace, issued the following statement Friday regarding the actions of the Central Banks of UAE and Qatarto stop financing trade with Iran:

We applaud these Central Banks for their responsible decisions to stop financing trade with Iran. This is yet another example of the international community exercising economic responsibility with regards to Iran.

It is particularly glaring that this responsible action would be reported just as the Belgium-based SWIFT organization insists on continuing to improperly provide the means for Iranian banks to access the international financial system. SWIFT must adhere to U.S. and EU sanctions, by terminating its relationships with Iranian banks and institutions.

On Monday, January 30, UANI submitted a detailed legal explanation to SWIFT, international banking and regulatory officials, and U.S. lawmakers, showing how SWIFT is in violation of U.S. and EU sanctions by affording Iranian banks BICs and access to the SWIFT system. Yesterday UANI issued a statement, after SWIFT responded to UANI on its own website.

Click here to read UANI’s full letter to SWIFT.

Click here to send a message to SWIFT.

VOA: Iran Threatens to Strike Back Against Sanctions, Attack

Photo: Reuters

Iranian women walk in front of the pictures of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic (R) and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during the anniversary ceremony of Iran’s Islamic Revolution at the Behesht Zahra cemetery, south of Tehran, February 1, 2012.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned Friday that Iran will retaliate against Western-backed oil sanctions and threats of attack, as media reports say U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta fears Israel could strike Iran in the next few months.

BBC Reporter Interrogated Online By Iran’s Revolutionary Guards

Security officials with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) have used the Internet to interrogate an employee of the London-based BBC Persian service, according to a February 2 report on the opposition website „IranGreenVoice.“

The report says the sister of a BBC reporter was detained and put in Tehran’s Evin prison, where the IRGC is thought to exert considerable control.

IRGC officials then contacted the reporter in London using e-mail information obtained from her detained sister.

They told the BBC staffer that if she talked to them, her sister would be released.