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AFP: "Iran's first nuclear power plant will be ready to generate electricity on April 9, atomic energy chief Ali Akbar Salehi said on Friday, in signs of yet another delay. 'We hope that on Farvardin 20 (April 9) ... we will witness the connection of the plant to the national grid,' Salehi was quoted by the ISNA news agency as saying. On November 27, Salehi announced that the plant, built by Russia in Bushehr, has begun operations, and that Tehran hoped electricity produced there would be online 'in a month or two.' 'The reactor has started its operation and the next step is to reach critical phase which will happen by the end of Bahman (February 20). We have said before that due to some tests, we may have face delays but these delays are around a week or two,' he said on Friday. He again reiterated that the computer worm Stuxnet had not entered the 'main systems,' and that Iranians are 'pursing work with the Russians while observing all the safety issues.'" http://uani.com/g7do97
Reuters: "Global powers seeking to ensure Iran does not develop nuclear weapons are still hoping for a response from Tehran to a fuel swap proposal seen as a step towards ending the persistent standoff, Russia said on Thursday... Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said a revised fuel swap proposal, presented to Iran in Istanbul, could 'create the atmosphere of trust needed for more productive dialogue.' 'Now we are waiting for some reaction from Iran,' he said. The fuel swap idea, first proposed in 2009, is aimed at preventing Iran accumulating enough nuclear material for a weapon while enabling talks on a broader solution to proceed... Lukashevich did not describe the revised proposal in detail. During the January 21-22 talks in Istanbul, a Western diplomat said it called for Iran to send 2,800 kg of low-enriched uranium (LEU) and 40 kg of higher-grade material abroad." http://uani.com/g4LRVr
AFP: "Top Iranian officials said on Thursday that Tehran is determined to push ahead with its mega gas projects without foreign aid and is raising billions of dollars to ensure their timely completion. 'We will not stop national development because of the others; we will not slow it down because of the absence of others,' Pars Special Economic Energy Zone managing director Moussa Souri told reporters in the southern Gulf port town of Assalouyeh. Iran has already invested $48 billion (35 billion euros) in the South Pars projects, and the oil ministry has allocated $50 billion to them by 2016, Souri said. Assalouyeh, in the southern province of Bushehr, has been chosen as the base for developing the offshore field. Iran has planned a massive $200 billion investment in the energy sector over the five years to 2016." http://uani.com/hDnf14
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
Bloomberg: "Iran may halt crude shipments to India in two weeks if a gridlock over payments that threatens $9.5 billion of oil trade between the nations isn't resolved, a top official at an Iranian trade body said. Indian refiners owe Iran about $900 million for crude oil after payments to the Persian Gulf state stopped more than a month ago, Mehdi Fakheri, vice president of international affairs at the Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Mines, said in an interview in Mumbai today. 'If there is no payment solution, I am afraid Iran will be selling its oil to other countries,' Fakheri said. 'Then our trade exchanges will drop to almost 20 percent of' the current level, he said. Refiners including state-run Indian Oil Corp., the nation's largest, need to find a way to pay for Iranian crude after the Reserve Bank of India on Dec. 27 dismantled a mechanism used to settle oil trades in euros and dollars. Stoppage of shipments may force Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals Ltd., the largest Indian buyer of Iranian crude, to purchase oil at higher prices from the spot market." http://uani.com/f3irS1
Human Rights
CBC: "The latest legal battle pitting the family of slain photojournalist Zahra Kazemi against the Iranian government has ended in a draw. A Quebec judge ruled this week that the estate of Zahra Kazemi can't sue Iran because of Canada's State Immunity Act, but her son Stephan Hashemi can continue his civil suit because of a provision in the same act. It's a mixed result in a case that has been inching its way through Quebec Superior Court since 2006. The court ruling comes after a battle in which the Iranian government attempted to block the Kazemi family from suing for $17-million - arguing it was immune from legal action in Canada." http://uani.com/i98ZzV
Foreign Affairs
AP: "A senior Iranian cleric says protests in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen are evidence that his country's 1979 Islamic revolution is being replayed. Addressing thousands of worshippers at Tehran University Friday, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami said a new Middle East is emerging based on Islamic values, not U.S. desires. Violent protests in Tunisia toppled former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and a 'Friday of Wrath' has engulfed Egypt, a U.S. ally. Protesters in Yemen also called for the outser of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has ruled for nearly 32 years." http://uani.com/eRsXFI
Opinion & Analysis
Olli Heinonen in FP: "The world's major powers are locked in a dead-end conflict with Iran over its nuclear program. Last week, talks in Istanbul between Iran and the five members of the U.N. Security Council, plus Germany, ended badly, with no sign of a breakthrough on the horizon. As the former head of safeguards for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), I have spent much of the past decade watching the ups and downs of negotiations over Iran's nuclear program. In the last few years, the stalemate has only deepened. During that time, I have learned that proposals and counterproposals too often fulfilled either one side's concerns or the other's, making it difficult to start the process of cooperation. Here's a proposal that could let both sides break this impasse and start rebuilding the trust needed to get at bigger issues. The Iranians have been enriching uranium to 3.5 percent U-235 for the last four years, flouting U.N. resolutions and Western sanctions. Last February, they also began enriching to 20 percent, sparking further concerns in the West that Tehran is working toward the capacity to make nuclear weapons. Iran says it needs that higher-enriched uranium for fuel for its aging Tehran Research Reactor (TRR), which produces medical isotopes for the country's hospitals. This is a widely recognized, legitimate need; every country relies on such radioisotopes, for example, in cancer treatment and other medical procedures. But the West is also legitimately concerned about Iran enriching uranium to 20 percent, not least because that gets Iran closer to the 90 percent enrichment required to make weapons-grade U-235. These concerns have grown as Iran has limited its cooperation with the IAEA and brushed aside questions about possible military dimensions of its nuclear program. A tentative deal fell through last year that would have swapped much of Iran's stockpile of low-enriched uranium for research reactor fuel that would have been produced by a Russian -- French -- U.S. consortium. Further talks have been inconclusive. And all the time, Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium continues to grow. It now has more than 3 tons, which should be sufficient, if further enriched, for one to two nuclear devices. In 2012, with the introduction of advanced centrifuges, Iran will be in a position to convert its current stock to high-enriched uranium in less than a year's time. This troubling scenario is actually a golden opportunity for the United States and its partners to get together with Iran and agree to replace the TRR with a new reactor monitored by the IAEA." http://uani.com/gsv3Dh
Abolhassan Bani-Sadr in IHT: "By removing a despot who was the main obstacle to democracy, the Tunisian revolt has immense importance for the Arab and Islamic world. Above all, it has opened up a future that, due to the iron grip of an authoritarian political system backed by European and Arab governments, had been considered closed. As we see from the burgeoning demonstrations in Egypt, it is not lost on others in the region that ousting corrupt autocrats is no longer just an impossible dream. Tunisia's message to others in the region is that despotism is not a lot in life to which they must submit. That message is spreading fast because the Tunisian democratic movement is legitimately homegrown and not tied to a Western sponsor, as was the case with the U.S. invasion of Iraq. As I well know from personal experience, however, an open future includes not only the possibility of democracy, but the possibility of resurgent dictatorship. In order to achieve democracy and diminish the prospect of a new strongman taking over, certain conditions have to be fulfilled... The unfortunate lesson of the Iranian revolution was that most political organizations did not commit themselves to democracy. Lacking the unity of a democratic front, one by one they became targets of power-seeking clergy in the form of the Islamic Republic Party, and were pushed aside... Tunisia's experience has shown that a revolution can succeed without relying on a power-oriented Ayatollah Khomeini. When a social movement is spontaneous and horizontal, it has a far greater chance of achieving its goals." http://uani.com/eDcTSv
Golnaz Esfandiari in Radio Farda: "'The Islamic world is ripe with major new developments and Khomeini's Islam is the engine of these events,' Iran's hard-line daily 'Kayhan' wrote in a January 27 commentary devoted to the recent wave of protests in the Arab world. The daily, which often reflects the views of the Iranian establishment -- or more specifically, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei -- added that the third millennium is witnessing 'the powerful [presence] of Islam under Iran's leadership.' Iranian state media has been portraying the recent upheaval in Arab countries as a struggle against Western puppets in the region, while claiming that citizens who have taken to the streets in Tunisia, Egypt, and elsewhere are taking inspiration from Iran's Islamic Revolution. 'Kayhan' suggested that participants in Tunisia's uprising, as well in as protests in Jordan, Algeria, Yemen, and Egypt are taking inspiration from Iran's 1979 revolution, which led to the fall of the shah's U.S.-backed regime and the creation of an Islamic republic. 'Death to the U.S. Death to Israel. Islam is my religion. We don't want American rulers. We're not afraid of martyrdom. Are these slogans familiar to the ears and eyes of the world? Aren't these slogans the same that Iranian people [chanted] in the run-up to the Islamic Revolution?' wrote 'Kayhan.' The commentary made no mention of the calls for economic reforms and political freedom being voiced in the protests. There was also no mention of comparisons that have been made between Tunisia's uprising and the mass antigovernment demonstrations that shook the Iranian establishment in 2009." http://uani.com/fdN36O
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