Eye on Iran: Iran Arrests 3 over World Cup Video

Join UANI           Top Stories AP: "Iranian police have arrested three people who appeared in an online video of young men and women singing and dancing in support of the country's World Cup football team, the official IRNA news agency reported Monday. Provincial police chief Col. Rahmatollah Taheri was quoted as saying the video clip, produced by the London-based Ajam Band, features scenes from outside and inside Iran, including the city of Shahroud, where two 23-year-olds appearing in the film and a 26-year-old photographer were arrested. The video shows young people, including women not wearing the mandatory headscarf, singing and dancing in support of Iran's national team, interspersed with footage from matches. They are shown waving Iranian flags and dancing in cars, streets, homes and public parks. Taheri called the video 'vulgar' and urged the youth not to take part in such activities. The official said those arrested have been referred for possible prosecution. In May police arrested six young Iranian men and women for dancing to Pharrell Williams' song 'Happy' in an online video, but released them days later." http://t.uani.com/1nZRj4x Al-Monitor: "The head of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps has said that Iran's stability today owes to the Iran's defense of its borders during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. 'The safety of the country today is the result of the sacred defense,' Major General Mohammad Ali Jaffari said of the Iran-Iraq war, which started in 1980 when Then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein invaded the country. The war lasted until 1988. Jaffari said, 'Today, if many countries know Iran to be an island of stability in an insecure region, the reason is the eight years of the sacred defense and the eight months of sedition. We did not permit the enemy to make the country unstable.' 'Sedition' is the term used by government officials for the street protests that erupted after the contested 2009 elections... 'Iran's borders are safe,' Jaffari continued. 'No enemy, including America, would dare invade. The Americans, with the excuse of 9/11, attacked Afghanistan and Iraq, and by surrounding our country, intended to also invade Iran. But when they saw the readiness of the people and the armed forces of our country to back the supreme leader and the sacred Islamic Republic of Iran, they regretted thinking about attacking our country.'" http://t.uani.com/1lNKu7B Trend: "Iran's Industry, Mine, and Trade Minister Mohammad-Reza Nematzadeh said that his country's economy could not develop without the cooperation of international companies. 'Once under sanction, a country cannot absorb foreign cooperation,' Nematzadeh said, Iran's IRNA News Agency reported on June 24. He expressed hope that the upcoming nuclear talks between Tehran and the P5+1 group of countries be fruitful so that Iran finally will be able to absorb more foreign investments. 'The Industry, Mine, and Trade Ministry has started negotiations with foreign firms over their possible investment in Iranian projects,' he added." http://t.uani.com/TrLku8     Sanctions Relief Reuters: "Iran is lobbying to get HSBC to process humanitarian trade transactions that Europe's biggest bank has frozen because of concerns about potential breaches of international sanctions, sources familiar with the trades told Reuters... 'HSBC, like other banks, is increasingly worried about falling foul of any sanctions oversights. It is just not worth the risks, especially in this climate,' a banking source, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue, said... HSBC said it continued to consider humanitarian payments involving sanctioned countries 'on a case-by-case basis' to ensure they are in accordance with applicable regulatory requirements, and otherwise consistent with the bank's policy. 'This review process can be particularly challenging and therefore can take time to conclude. Our policy only requires the freezing of these payments where required under applicable laws and regulations,' HSBC said in a statement issued in response to Reuters questions... A Western intelligence source said HSBC's trade finance was 'completely consistent with our understanding and assessment'. 'It appears that HSBC is very concerned by the apparent lack of transparency in Iranian activity,' the source said." http://t.uani.com/1ws5BON Reuters: "The U.S. Federal Reserve is not involved in clearing payments made by India to Iran to pay some of its dues for oil bought from the Middle East country, a U.S. Treasury Department spokeswoman said. The comment was in response to a June 19 Reuters story citing sources with knowledge of the matter as saying that India planned to clear some oil payments to Iran through the United Arab Emirates central bank. According to the sources, the new payment system includes a step in which funds would be routed through the Federal Reserve. 'We can confirm that no U.S. financial institutions, including the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank, will be or have been involved in this payment installment,' the spokeswoman for the Department for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence said." http://t.uani.com/1l6JghF Trend: "Italian firms are serious about investing in Iran's water and power projects. A number of Italian investors met in Tehran with Abolfazl Koudehi, director of Iran's bureau for foreign investments at the Organization for Investment, Economic and Technical Assistance of Iran, Iran's IRNA news agency reported on June 24. The investors announced readiness to participate in the implementation of projects across Iran to establish water and power supply lines and build dams and power plants." http://t.uani.com/1mal4ez Trend: "A couple of European companies have participated in a tender for establishing natural gas storage facilities in Iran. Iran's Natural Gas Storage Company's Managing Director Masoud Samivand said 34 European and Iranian companies have participated in the tender, Iran's Mehr news agency reported on June 24. For the first time, 20-25 year contracts will be signed with foreign and domestic investors on Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) basis in the sector, he added." http://t.uani.com/V9aAa3 Human Rights IHR: "Seven prisoners were hanged in the prison of Rasht (Northern Iran) reported the official website of the Iranian judiciary in Gilan Province. According to the report all the seven prisoners were convicted of drug-related charges." http://t.uani.com/1sBzopQ Opinion & Analysis Michael Weiss in FP: "'There has never been any doubt in my mind that elements within Iran's security services have facilitated ISIS,' Col. Derek Harvey told Foreign Policy, referring to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, a terrorist network-cum-jihadist army that has now taken over territory in Syria and Iraq that, when combined, is roughly the size of Jordan. 'When given opportunities to interdict, or have an effect, [the Iranians] have refrained.' Harvey, a retired Army intelligence officer and senior Central Command advisor, was emphatic that any solution for containing the rising threat of ISIS, an al Qaeda breakaway group, must foreclose on the possibility of U.S.-Iranian collusion. His comments were echoed by two other high-ranking U.S. military officials who served extensively in the Iraq theater in the last decade and believe that Iran was the principal spoiler for American-led reconstruction efforts after the fall of Saddam Hussein. These reminders from Iraq war veterans come at a time when debate rages in the U.S. policy establishment and commentariat over whether or not the Obama administration should adopt an 'enemy of my enemy' logic in Iraq and work with Washington's 30-year foe in Tehran...  Yet American veterans of the decade-long Iraq war and occupation say that the idea is both preposterous and dangerous. Iran, they maintain, has long played a double game in Mesopotamia and the Levant, both enabling Sunni extremists to infiltrate countries such as Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon and then swooping in as the only safeguard heralded against the very forces they helped unleash. Another high-ranking retired U.S. military official, who asked not to be identified by name, told FP: 'Ansar al-Islam, the people who eventually became al Qaeda in Iraq [the forerunner organization to ISIS] -- where'd they come from? They came from Iran. They traveled from Iran through Iraqi Kurdistan and then through Mosul before moving south through Al Sharqat and then Tikrit.' The official added: 'Iran ran a very subversive campaign against Saddam long before we got into that country. And we were dealing with those same lines of communications before we got there. Look what they've done to the Levant, to Lebanon a couple times over. They're even in Gaza.' Col. Rick Welch spent roughly seven years in Iraq, and worked directly under Gen. David Petraeus during the surge and 'Anbar Awakening' period, acting as a chief U.S. military liaison with both the Sunni tribes and Shiite militia groups that were integral to containing what was then a roiling civil war. 'Back when we were getting intel from Iraqis at every level in our reconciliation program, they were telling us that Iran was funding any group that could keep Iraq chaotic,' Welch said. 'They did not want to see democracy in Iraq. They were keeping us tied down and were preventing the [post-Saddam] government from functioning in order to create the cover to let them to get their intelligence assets in place, especially in the south, and then influence the government piece by piece. That was not conspiratorial in nature; it was a deeply held conviction and perception throughout Iraq, and throughout the U.S. military.'" http://t.uani.com/1lmLgqP 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 Internal Revenue Code. 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