Top Stories
AP: "The U.N. nuclear agency is investigating reports from its experts that their cellphones and laptops may have been hacked into by Iranian officials looking for confidential information while the equipment was left unattended during inspection tours in the Islamic Republic, diplomats have told The Associated Press. One of the diplomats said the International Atomic Energy Agency is examining 'a range of events, ranging from those where it is certain something has happened to suppositions,' all in the first quarter of this year. He said the Vienna-based nuclear watchdog agency was alerted by inspectors reporting 'unusual events,' suggesting that outsiders had tampered with their electronic equipment. Two other diplomats in senior positions confirmed the essence of the report but said they had no further information. All three envoys come from member nations of the International Atomic Energy Agency and spoke on condition of anonymity because their information was privileged. Agency spokeswoman Gill Tudor said the IAEA had no comment on the issue. IAEA inspectors are in Iran touring various facilities every other week." http://t.uani.com/lb530Y
FT: "Iran's president, who has declared himself 'acting' oil minister, might chair next month's meeting of Opec, according to a senior aide, setting the stage for a highly politicised gathering of the cartel. Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, who is locked in a power struggle with rivals in Iran's conservative establishment, has put himself in temporary charge of the oil ministry at a time when Iran holds the rotating presidency of Opec. As such, he could become the first head of state to chair a gathering of the world's biggest oil producers if he goes to Vienna for the June 8 meeting. 'Iran's oil ministry holds the Opec presidency currently and if any meeting takes place, the president or a government representative would attend,' Mohammad Reza Mir-Tajeddini, the vice-president, told the official news agency. Opec's first conclave since December will take place during exceptional volatility on the market, with the price of a barrel of Brent crude, the benchmark, rising to $125 on April 28, before experiencing one of the biggest falls on record and trading at $112 on Wednesday. Experts fear that rivalries within Opec, particularly between its two biggest producers - Saudi Arabia and Iran - could prevent any big decisions from being reached in Vienna." http://t.uani.com/iTqMSi
AP: "The death of Osama bin Laden has put a new focus on what role Iran might play in al-Qaida's future, as intelligence officials around the world analyzed reports that Saif al-Adel had taken over as al-Qaida's interim leader. Al-Adel was last known to be under house arrest outside Tehran. The terrorist resume of al-Adel, one of al-Qaida's founders, includes helping orchestrate the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa. But he had sharp disagreements with bin Laden's leadership and opposed the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He accurately predicted that inciting the wrath of the U.S. would hurt al-Qaida's worldwide efforts. Al-Adel is among the many senior al-Qaida figures who fled into Iran after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. They were arrested there in 2003 and were placed under what has been loosely called 'house arrest' in a compound outside Tehran. Over the years, some have been able to come and go, and the U.S. has worried that Iran would someday free them to restore al-Qaida's ranks. This week, Noman Benotman, a former jihadist with links to al-Qaida in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sudan who is now a security analyst in London, said al-Adel will serve as al-Qaida's interim leader until bin Laden's permanent successor is named." http://t.uani.com/loayUq
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
WSJ: "The United Nations' nuclear watchdog is probing whether Iran succeeded in hacking into the computers and telephones carried by the agency's inspectors while monitoring nuclear facilities in country, say people familiar with the matter. Officials at the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, which has complained of being thwarted in their attempt to determine whether Iran's nuclear program is for military purposes, are angered at what they say are Iran's blatant attempts to compromise their security, diplomats say. It is still unclear whether Iran succeeded in routing out any information, but IAEA officials are concerned Iranian intelligence officials may have gained access or read confidential documents that would let them identify-and potentially punish-people assisting the inspectors or evade the agency's probes, diplomats said. The agency's investigation focuses on whether inspectors' SIM cards, the small chips placed in the back of phones to activate access to mobile networks, or other components were manipulated or replaced, according to one diplomat briefed on it. Such activity could reprogram the phones to allow the monitoring of calls and even eavesdropping on conversations made in the vicinity of the phone." http://t.uani.com/lLjq1T
Reuters: "The European Union is expected to significantly expand its sanctions against Iran on Monday, adding about 100 companies to its embargo list, EU diplomats said on Thursday. 'There is a list of about a 100 companies, to be added to the EU sanctions on Monday,' one EU diplomat said. Another diplomat said Germany's Hamburg-based Europaeisch-Iranische Handelsbank (European-Iranian Trade Bank -- EIH) would be included in the bloc's new sanctions, which are intended to target Tehran's nuclear programme." http://t.uani.com/kXlaVt
Human Rights
AFP: "The lawyer of detained US hikers in Iran told AFP on Thursday that he has sought judiciary permission to meet his clients after their family raised concerns the two men could be on a hunger strike. 'I wrote a letter to the judge of the case and the chief judiciary three days ago ... for immediate access to them in light of rumors of the duo going on hunger strike,' Masoud Shafii told AFP. Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal were arrested along with Sarah Shourd, 32, on the border between Iran and Iraq on July 31, 2009, and accused by the Iranian regime of spying. They insist they lost their way while on a hiking trip. In a statement released overnight, the families of Fattal and Bauer, both aged 28, raised concerns that the two men with whom they have had no contact for months, have begun a new hunger strike to protest against their prolonged detention. The statement said the mothers of the two men have 'begun a hunger strike in solidarity with their sons today,' indicating that the detainees were on a fresh hunger strike as they had done repeatedly in the past." http://t.uani.com/k74UdL
AFP: "The United States on Wednesday welcomed Tehran's decision to allow an American journalist of Iranian origin to leave Iran, and urged the country to free two other Americans held there. Dorothy Parvaz, 39, an Al-Jazeera Television journalist who went missing after arrival in Syria last month, is free and in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar after having been deported to Iran, the news channel and her family said. Parvaz holds American, Canadian and Iranian passports. 'We welcome the Iranian decision to allow her to depart Iran,' State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters. 'We... take this opportunity to urge the Iranian government to show the same compassion for Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer, who've been in prison for almost two years, so that they can be reunited with their families,' he added." http://t.uani.com/lav5JC
Domestic Politics
AP: "A hard-line publication called on security forces Wednesday to arrest President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's closest political aide amid a widening political power struggle over who will shape Iran's next government. The demand by the Ya Lesarat weekly, considered the mouthpiece for some of Iran's most extremist factions, does not necessarily mean authorities will act. But it reflects the fierce internal battles between Ahmadinejad and ultra-conservative groups who accuse him of trying to defy the authority of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The heart of the crisis is over attempts to block Ahmadinejad and his loyalists from controlling the next parliament and influencing the candidates to succeed Ahmadinejad when he leaves office in 2013. Ahmadinejad's critics claim he seeks to expand his powers at the expense of the ruling clerics, who were once his solid allies. The commentary in the hard-line weekly urges the arrest of Ahmadinejad's chief-of-staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, calling him a 'very dangerous person who is propping up a new cult' - a reference to accusations that Mashaei seeks to undermine the ruling system in place since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Mashaei is also despised by hard-liners for views that elevate the values of pre-Islamic Persia and his statements suggesting Iran can oppose Israel's government but can be friendly with the Israeli people. Authorities have already arrested up to 25 people loyal to Ahmadinejad and Mashaei in recent weeks, including Kazem Kiapasha, a close Mashaei ally. Officials also have blocked half a dozen websites allied to them." http://t.uani.com/mRdHxO
Foreign Affairs
Bloomberg: "Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has taken over the country's Oil Ministry, will attend next month's OPEC meeting, raising concern that he may use the gathering to criticize western governments. 'Whoever is responsible for the Oil Ministry also participates in OPEC meetings,' Mohammad Reza Mir-Tajeddini, Iran's vice-president for parliamentary affairs, told state-run Fars news agency today. 'If OPEC meetings take place during his time as a caretaker, he will attend himself.' ... 'His presence will raise some fears that he wants to use the OPEC platform for anti-Western rhetoric and talk up the price,' said Samuel Ciszuk, a Middle East energy analyst at IHS Global Insight in London. 'It's not only the U.S. that will fear this. Saudi Arabia won't take kindly to someone trying to bring militancy to the meeting, especially at a time of fragile economic recovery.'" http://t.uani.com/lF2SLh
AFP: "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday accused Western countries of devising plans to 'cause drought' in the Islamic republic, as he inaugurated a dam in a central province. 'Western countries have designed plans to cause drought in certain areas of the world, including Iran,' the official IRNA news agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying in the central city of Arak in Markazi province. 'According to reports on climate, whose accuracy has been verified, European countries are using special equipment to force clouds to dump' their water on their continent, he said. By doing so, 'they prevent rain clouds from reaching regional countries, including Iran,' Ahmadinejad charged." http://t.uani.com/ldS3sL
Opinion & Analysis
Emanuele Ottolenghi in Commentary: "Responding to criticism of Iran's abysmal record in death sentences (including the highest number of child executions in the world), Mohammad Javad Larijani, the head of Iran's High Council for Human Rights, threatened to flood European markets with heroin: 'Westerners have to either be Iran's partner in the fight against drug traffickers or we must think otherwise and, for instance, allow the transit' of drugs across Iranian territory, according to an Associated Press report. Larijani suggested that 74 percent of those hanged in Iran every year are executed on drug-related charges and, therefore, if the West helped Iran more, death sentences would drop by 74 percent! If Iran's record were not so gruesome, Larijani's suggestion would be laughable. Leaving aside the fact that the remaining 26 per cent of executions not only involve common criminals but also an abundant and ever-growing list of political dissidents and members of ethnic and religious minorities, the complete lack of due process and the most basic principles of judicial fairness in Iran's judicial system ensure that even in those cases where truly heinous crimes are being punished by the death penalty, judgment is passed without justice. Besides, the figure Larijani offers is bogus-many dissidents have been executed on trumped up charges-as it was the case with Dutch citizen Zahra Bahrami. She was sentenced to death for drug-related crimes, but she had originally been arrested for participating in anti-regime demonstrations in 2009, while on a visit to relatives in Iran. Her crime, then, was to have joined millions of other Iranians in protesting peacefully against their oppressive regime. Drug-crimes were a pretext, which make her, and many others, fall into the bizarrely inflated estimate Larijani cited. Sadly, Larijani knows his threats will be taken seriously. Iranians complain routinely that they fight drug traffickers without recognition, having done everything to convince Europeans that an alliance with Iran in the war on drugs is possible... As a consequence, Iran benefited repeatedly from Western aid in the fight against drugs' trafficking. That aid included the supply of advanced military equipment the sale of which was authorized, despite existing embargoes, by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. In 2005, for example, Austrian arms manufacturer, Steyr Mannlicher, sold 800 sniper rifles under license. Iran was also supplied with British-made bullet proof vests and night vision equipment for the same purpose... It is not just that the aforementioned arms supplies were not used to fight drug traffickers but served other, less noble purposes-the Austrian guns were reverse-engineered by Iran's military industry, as I have documented elsewhere-and their replicas ended up being supplied to Iraqi Shi'a militias fighting Western forces, while the night vision equipment made its way to Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon. The reality is far worse. Not only has the Iranian regime exploited Western assistance in the war against drugs to acquire sophisticated technology that ended up benefiting Iran's supported terrorists in the region. What's worse, Iran is actually making a profit from the drug trade, which, according to Wikileaks cables from the U.S. Embassy in Baku, is in fact run by the regime... The main culprit of heroin transits (and, it appears, a main beneficiary of its revenues) turns out to be the Islamic Republic of Iran, a regime that acts like a crime syndicate in how it runs its foreign policy while winning all the prizes for worst human-rights records in the world." http://t.uani.com/m9S2TT
Saeed Kamali Dehghan and Julian Borger in The Guardian: "Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has suffered a series of dramatic setbacks in his power struggle with the country's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, after a failed attempt to challenge the clerical establishment, according to Iranian observers and diplomats. Ahmadinejad, who drew on crucial backing from Khamenei during his disputed re-election in 2009, has been so roundly rebuffed by his erstwhile patron that it is by no means certain he will complete his second term as president. In recent days, Ahmadinejad and the men described as his strongest allies - his chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, and executive deputy, Hamid Baghaei - have come under direct attack from senior figures in the powerful Revolutionary Guards and some of most important clerics in the Islamic regime. Ahmadinejad's many enemies across the political and religious spectrum have scented blood after the arrest of at least 25 people close to him and Mashaei. The president's immediate entourage has been reduced to a handful of serious people and has faced accusations of corruption, revolutionary 'deviancy' and even espionage. Even the president's spiritual mentor, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, who strongly supported him in the 2009 presidential election, is distancing himself. In a recent interview with an Iranian publication, Yazdi said: 'That a human being would behave in a way that angers his closest friends and allies and turns them into opponents is not logical for any politician.' He told Shoma Weekly that he believed 'with more than 90% certainty' that Ahmadinejad had been bewitched'. 'We saw that this questionable person [Mashaei] has conquered this gentleman [Ahmadinejad] and is in his fist,' he said. Ayatollah Ahmad Janati, a close ally of Khamenei and head of the Guardian Council, also attacked Ahmadinejad directly. 'We did not expect this from him,' Janati said. In a reference to Mashaei, he said that 'some people seek to cause a deviation, and act against the country and the supreme leader'. Yazdi and Janati's comments have been repeatedly echoed by senior officials in the Islamic Republic in recent days. 'It is like wolves who have been waiting for a sign of weakness and they are now lunging in,' said Meir Javedanfar, an Iranian-Israeli Middle East analyst and co-author of book on Ahmadinejad, The Nuclear Sphinx of Tehran." http://t.uani.com/iHWiT1
Reza Kahlili in Fox News: "In November of last year, the German daily Die Welt reported that a secret agreement between the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, and his Iranian counterpart, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had been signed. The agreement was said to have been signed and finalized on October 19 by both parties, though no details were offered. Hugo Chávez, who had traveled to Iran on what was called expansion of relations between the two countries, acknowledged that the details of the latest accords were not released, and that some agreements went beyond those put on paper. The leaders of Iran and Venezuela hailed what they called their strong strategic relationship, saying they are united in efforts to establish a 'New World Order' that will eliminate Western dominance over global affairs. Now, the German newspaper, however, confirms that the bilateral agreement signed in October was for a missile installation to be built inside Venezuela. Quoting diplomatic sources, Die Welt reports that, at present, the area earmarked for the missile base is the Paraguaná Peninsula, located 120 kilometers from the Colombian border. A group of engineers from Khatam Al-Anbia, the construction arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, covertly traveled to this area on the orders of Amir Hajizadeh, the commander of the Revolutionary Guard Air Force. Die Welt writes that the Iranian delegation had been ordered to focus on the plan for building the necessary foundations for air strikes. The planning and building of command stations, control bases, residential buildings, security towers, bunkers and dugouts, warheads, rocket fuel and other cloaking constructs has been assigned to other members of the Revolutionary Guard Corps of Engineers. The IRGC engineers will also be interfacing with their Venezuelan counterparts in fabricating missile depots that are said to go as deep as 20 meters in the ground... Based on my sources, I believe the radicals ruling Iran are emboldened by the confusion of the Obama administration in confronting Iran's nuclear program. The Iranian regime feels that America has exhausted all of its options with its negotiation and sanctions approach and therefore no longer poses a serious threat to Iran's nuclear drive. The Iranian officials recently announced that Iran will continue enriching uranium to the 20 percent level (enriching uranium to 20 percent is going 80 percent of the way to nuclear bomb material), and that it also intends to install centrifuges in the previously secret site at the Fardo enrichment plant. With Iran's pursuit of the bomb, its collaboration with rogue states, and its continuous support of terrorist groups in the Middle East and around the world, it is time to realize that the Iranian regime poses the gravest danger to world peace, global stability and our national security." http://t.uani.com/kzKWqI
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