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Top Stories
Reuters:
"For most of this year, the threat of tough U.S. sanctions on Iran,
the world's third-largest oil exporter, helped push crude oil prices
higher and higher, adding a menacing headwind for struggling global
economies. But in the past few weeks, a combination of higher output from
Iran's rival Saudi Arabia and economic troubles in China and Europe have
pushed oil prices down 25 percent, putting the threat of sanctions back
squarely on Iran. As June 28 approaches - the day the law allows U.S.
President Barack Obama to enforce sanctions on countries that do oil
deals with Iran's central bank - Washington is revving up efforts to
tighten the squeeze on Tehran. Lawmakers in Congress hope to finalize in
July a new package of sanctions aimed at further crippling Iran's oil
revenues after international talks in Moscow last week failed to convince
Tehran to scale back its nuclear program." http://t.uani.com/N1YkMa
WSJ:
"Iranians protesting soaring food prices launched a spontaneous
three-day boycott of milk and bread purchases, in a sign that growing
economic hardship could lead to more civil disobedience. The grass-roots
campaign, which ran from Saturday through Monday, wasn't affiliated with
any opposition group. Dozens of Iranians said in interviews and on
social-networking sites and blogs that they had participated in the
boycott, and a number of bakeries and grocery stores across Tehran, the
capital, reported declines in milk and bread sales of as much as 90%.
Iran's economy has been deteriorating amid domestic mismanagement,
corruption and international sanctions that have made it difficult for
manufacturers to import raw material and to conduct banking transactions.
A European Union embargo on Iranian oil is set to start July 1. Prices of
basic goods rise almost daily. Independent economists estimate annual
inflation is hovering between 50% and 60%. In the past two weeks, the
price of bread has increased 33%, chicken 28.5% and milk prices are
climbing daily, according to Iranian newspapers and semiofficial news websites."
http://t.uani.com/N211xd
NYT:
"Iran's vice president delivered a baldly anti-Semitic speech on
Tuesday at an international antidrug conference here, saying that the
Talmud, a central text of Judaism, was responsible for the spread of
illegal drugs around the world. European diplomats in attendance
expressed shock. Even Iranian participants in the conference,
co-sponsored by Iran and the United Nations, privately wondered at their
government's motive for allowing such a speech, even given its longstanding
antagonism toward Israel... Mr. Rahimi, second in line to President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said the Talmud teaches to 'destroy everyone who
opposes the Jews.' The 'Zionists' are in firm control of the illegal drug
trade, Mr. Rahimi said, asking foreign dignitaries to research his
claims. 'Zionists' is Iran's ideological term for Jews who support the
state of Israel. 'The Islamic Republic of Iran will pay for anybody who
can research and find one single Zionist who is an addict,' Mr. Rahmini
said. 'They do not exist. This is the proof of their involvement in drugs
trade.'" http://t.uani.com/MvLfOg
Nuclear
Program & Sanctions
Reuters: "Iran acknowledged
for the first time on Wednesday that its oil exports have fallen sharply,
down 20-30 percent from normal volumes of 2.2 million barrels daily. A
National Iranian Oil Company official in Moscow denied exports had been
hit by sanctions against Iran's nuclear program, saying that oilfields
were under maintenance and crude production was being diverted for
refining. But the admission that exports have fallen substantially is a
change of tack from Tehran which until now has denied that the U.S. and
European measures have had much or any impact. 'It was 20 to 30 percent
we reduce regarding to our export,' NIOC official Mohammad Ali Emadi said
in English. 'Some part of the reduction is shifting for the refinery
internally.' ... Emadi said Iran's normal crude exports were 2.2 million
bpd, in line with external estimates. A 20-30 percent fall would put
Iranian exports at 1.54-1.76 million bpd, off 440-660,000 bpd." http://t.uani.com/Qjbl8s
Reuters:
"Lawmakers from the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate are
working to finalize a new package of sanctions aimed at further reducing
oil and other revenues used by Iran to further its nuclear program. The
new measures build on penalties for foreign banks that handle
transactions for Iranian oil, sanctions that were signed into law by
President Barack Obama in December. Tehran has insisted its nuclear
activities are for civilian purposes, but U.S. lawmakers want to prevent
Iran from building a nuclear bomb. The new package is designed to further
tighten sanctions. The House passed its version last December, and the
Senate added a number of measures in its bill, passed last month. The
House version of the bill combined existing Iran sanctions laws into one,
made more sanctions mandatory, and made it harder for the administration
to grant waivers for sanctions. The Senate version gives the
administration more discretion in how to apply sanctions, but also added
a number of measures. Here is a summary of key provisions and some of the
remaining issues that may be considered." http://t.uani.com/Lsneob
CNN:
"Iran threatened Wednesday to halt all imports of goods from South
Korea in response to Seoul's announcement a day earlier that it would
stop accepting Iranian oil. South Korea said Tuesday that it would
suspend all Iranian oil imports from the start of July in response to a
European Union insurance ban on tankers carrying crude from Iran. The
Iranian ambassador to South Korea, Ahmad Masumifar, responded by saying
in an interview with the South Korean news agency Yonhap on Wednesday
that Tehran 'may decide to fully stop importing Korean goods.'" http://t.uani.com/NMLmGU
Reuters:
"Iran, which faces tightening sanctions on its oil industry aimed at
halting development of its nuclear programme, is looking to export more
gas to India and Pakistan to make up for a fall in crude exports, a
National Iranian Oil Company official said. 'We are trying to compensate
(for) the less (oil) export,' NIOC's managing director for research and
technology, Mohammad Ali Emadi told reporters at a Moscow conference on
Wednesday. 'We are in negotiation with Pakistan and India to increase
export of natural gas.'" http://t.uani.com/MB0pAi
NJJN:
"The state Assembly scheduled a vote on an Iran sanctions bill for
June 28, postponing action on a bill that passed in the Senate on June
25. Leaders of the state's Jewish community and allies gathered in the
Statehouse in Trenton Monday hoping to celebrate the legislation, which
would prevent companies doing business in New Jersey from contracting
with Iran's finance or energy sectors. The state Senate unanimously
passed the measure that morning. However, the Assembly put off its
evening vote on the measure until later in the week, citing scheduling
issues... It would make New Jersey the sixth state after New York,
Florida, California, Indiana, and Maryland to enact such legislation.
However, New Jersey would become the first state to bring its sanction
threshold in line with lower federal limits expected to be in effect by
the end of the summer. Legislation requiring President Barack Obama to
sanction companies that make an 'investment' in Iran of more than $5
million (reduced from $20 million) has already passed the House and
Senate and is now in conference before being sent to Obama." http://t.uani.com/KMzO6x
Opinion &
Analysis
Shahrzad
Elghanayan in LAT: "Imagine where the U.S. economy
would be today if John Jacob Astor, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie
or any of the magnates who helped turn America into an industrialized
society had been gunned down by a revolutionary firing squad. In 1979,
that is what happened in Iran to my grandfather, Habib Elghanian, Iran's
most prominent Jewish industrialist and philanthropist. My grandfather's
execution was not only a personal loss but a turning point for Iran. His
execution and the subsequent fleeing of businessmen from Iran contributed
to derailing the country's chances of building a modern, diversified,
export-based economy, and foreshadowed Iran's neglect of its most
valuable resource: its people. Since the revolution in 1979, a new
generation of Iranians has been left to foot the hefty losses caused by
the Islamic Republic's hostility to independent businessmen, its fixation
on oil, uranium and nuclear power and its cantankerous rhetoric against
Israel. In the months after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's return to Iran
on Feb. 1, 1979, about 200 former high-ranking members of the shah's
security forces, military and government were killed, many charged with
'association with the shah's regime.' That May, my grandfather was the
first businessman to be executed. During a show trial that lasted no
longer than 20 minutes, he was falsely charged with being a 'Zionist spy'
and a 'corrupter on Earth.' Newspaper stories and editorials around the
world, including in the Los Angeles Times, carried the news of the
execution of 'Iran's plastics king.' My grandfather's crime, according to
the prosecutor, was making financial contributions to Israel and meeting
with Israeli politicians when they came to Iran or when he traveled to
Israel - as was customary for leaders of the Jewish diaspora. He was the
leader of Iran's 80,000 to 100,000 Jews in the 1960s and 1970s when Iran
and Israel enjoyed peaceful, if not always cordial, relations under the
shah. Not mentioned was how hard he had worked to form partnerships with
Muslim and Armenian businessmen, how he had rehabilitated hospitals -
including one in which injured revolutionaries were treated - and had
funded charities to help poor schoolchildren and the elderly. It didn't
matter that even as members of the elite were fleeing the country with
their money, my grandfather had returned to Iran from a brief visit to
the U.S. and Israel in November 1978. 'I have done nothing wrong; I'm
going home,' he said. The prosecutor instead focused on his contributions
to Israel and concluded that made him 'a friend of God's foes and a foe
of God's friends.'" http://t.uani.com/MWzRrV
Garrett Nada in
the Iran Primer: "After struggling for decades to
combat narcotics, Iran is today both fighting and facilitating narcotics,
according to reports by the United Nations, the United States and Iran.
Tehran has escalated its campaign against narcotics use and trafficking
with help from the United Nations. At the same time, however, an elite
Revolutionary Guards force has reportedly allowed traffickers to smuggle
drugs through Iran in exchange for helping Tehran arm Taliban forces
fighting NATO troops in Afghanistan. In 2012, the United States
sanctioned a senior Revolutionary Guard commander for facilitating drug
smuggling that also aided an extremist group. The Islamic Republic now
openly admits having a drug problem that it denied for years. 'For a long
time nobody wanted to admit it, but drug abuse was ravaging our
society...Now the scourge is so bad that we are finally reaching the
point where the government is getting really involved,' Abbas
Deylamizade, managing director of Rebirth, told The Toronto Globe and
Mail in May 2012. Rebirth is Iran's largest non-governmental organization
working on drug treatment. Since the 1979 revolution, Iran claims to have
lost some 3,720 security forces fighting drug traffickers, many of whom
were heavily armed. Tehran estimates that it spends around $1 billion
annually on its war on drugs. In 2009, Iran accounted for 89 percent of
worldwide opium seizures and 41 percent of heroin seizures, according to
the 2011 U.N. World Drug Report. But in 2012, the United States revealed
inconsistencies in Iran's public narrative. The U.S. Department of the
Treasury imposed sanctions in March on General Gholamreza Baghbani, a
commander in the Revolutionary Guards' Qods Force (IRGC-QF). The Qods
Force is the elite military wing charged with overseeing foreign
operations. Baghbani allegedly allowed narcotics traffickers to smuggle
opiates from Afghanistan through Iran in exchange for their assistance in
delivering weapons across the border to the Taliban in Afghanistan. NATO
officials claim the Iranian weapons have been used repeatedly against
NATO forces." http://t.uani.com/LoUX1E
Barbara Slavin in
Al-Monitor: "Iraq's once-battered oil sector is
further eclipsing production in Iran, relieving pressure on world oil
markets and facilitating the imposition of draconian new sanctions on
Iran. A day after the European Union confirmed that its oil embargo on
Iran would go into effect as scheduled on July 1, a spokesman for Iraqi
Deputy Prime Minister for Energy Affairs Hussain al-Shahristani told
Bloomberg news Tuesday (June 26) that Iraq's output in June was more than
3.07 million barrels a day, just shy of Iran's 3.1 million barrels. Iraq
predicts production of 3.4 million barrels a day by the end of the year.
Despite bureaucratic hurdles in Iraq and the continued absence of a
national oil law, the challenges there to production and exports pale in
comparison to Iran's situation. Unlike in Iran, international oil
companies are actively renovating Iraqi fields neglected during long
years of war and sanctions against Iraq. In Iran, however, outside
investment is drying up and customers are fleeing. On Tuesday, South
Korea announced that it was also ending imports of Iranian crude
effective July 1. Battered by sanctions directed against the country's
nuclear program, Iranian oil exports have plummeted this year from 2.5
million barrels a day to between 1.2 million and 1.8 million barrels.
However, the price of oil has also been dropping lately to under $80 a
barrel primarily due to the weakness of European economies and a slowdown
in China's frenetic growth. Guy Caruso, an energy expert at the Center
for Strategic and International Studies, said Tuesday that the
combination of increasing Iraqi and Saudi production is sufficient to
satisfy Iran's former European and other customers for now. Speaking at
the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies,
Caruso noted that the Barack Obama administration has provided waivers
from US sanctions to seven countries to continue to buy some Iranian oil
because they have complied with new US legislation requiring significant
reductions in petroleum imports from Iran. China, however, has yet to
receive a waiver." http://t.uani.com/QjlfHe
Korea Times
Editorial Board: "Economic ripples are expected to
be felt keenly as Iran threatened to halt all imports from South Korea in
protest against Seoul's decision to ban Iranian oil under sanctions
imposed by the European Union. Iranian Ambassador to Seoul Ahmad
Masumifar said in an interview with Yonhap News Agency Wednesday that his
country 'may decide to fully stop importing Korean goods' if Seoul slaps
the import ban on Iranian oil. The warning comes as South Korea will be
forced to halt oil imports from Iran due to the EU's ban on insurance of
oil tankers transporting Iranian oil from July 1 as part of sanctions on
Iran after it has resisted international pressure to give up its nuclear
development program. Earlier, we urged the government to make an all-out
effort to tackle the anticipated fallout from the suspension of Iran oil
imports but little has been done so far. It may be belated but the
government should do what it can to minimize the impact. It's a comfort
to hear that there would be little problem in securing crude thanks to
efforts to date to diversify oil import sources. It's also fortunate that
crude prices remain stable in the aftermath of the eurozone debt crisis.
Most worrisome are small- and medium-sized companies that would take a
direct hit. According to the Ministry of Knowledge Economy, about 2,900
Korean companies engage in trade with Iran and 2,700 of them are SMEs.
They usually receive payments for merchandise exports from the money
Tehran earns from selling oil to Korean refiners under a unique
settlement system. Now the money barely amounts to 1.8 trillion won and
SMES can't get paid if oil imports from Iran are halted. Korea's
shipments to Iran amounted to $6 billion last year. The situation becomes
all the more serious should the Iranian envoy's threat translate into
action. The government says it will help SMES diversify to export to
other countries but it won't be easy to look for new markets in such a
short span of time. Instead, they urge the government to expand soft
loans." http://t.uani.com/LOB0Cp
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
Nuclear Iran (UANI) a program of the American Coalition Against Nuclear
Iran, Inc., a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the
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email Press@UnitedAgainstNuclearIran.com
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