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TOP STORIES
Twelve members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard have been
killed in an Israeli airstrike over Syria, according to Arabic media.
The director of the CIA says he sent a letter to a top
Iranian general warning him that Washington will hold Tehran
responsible for any attacks on U.S. interests by Iran-backed forces
in Iraq.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani inaugurated on Sunday a
newly built extension to the country's main Arabian Sea outlet, the
strategic Chabahar Port on the Gulf of Oman, which more than triples
its capacity and poses a challenge for a port under construction in
neighboring Pakistan. The $340 million project was constructed by a
Revolutionary Guard-affiliated company, Khatam al-Anbia, the largest
Iranian contractor of government construction projects. It involved
several subcontractors, including a state-run Indian company, and
brings the capacity of the port to 8.5 million tons of cargo
annually, from the previous 2.5 million tons.
NUCLEAR & BALLISTIC-MISSILE PROGRAMS
Senior Iranian officials have reiterated that the
country will not negotiate with the United States and Europe powers
over its missile program, the Iranian media reported. "It is
Iran's permanent policy not to negotiate over its missile
power," Alauddin Boroujerdi, the chairman of the Iranian
Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, said
today. "Iran under no circumstances will allow other countries,
including America, to interfere in the country's missile
program," he added.
SANCTIONS ENFORCEMENT
In an ongoing federal trial in New York, Turkish
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is accused of personally approving a
scheme to evade U.S. sanctions against Iran.
SANCTIONS RELIEF
China is financing billions of dollars worth of
Chinese-led projects in Iran, making deep inroads into the economy
while European competitors struggle to find banks willing to fund
their ambitions, Iranian government and industry officials said.
Freed from crippling nuclear sanctions two years ago, Iran is drawing
unprecedented Chinese funding for everything from railways to
hospitals, they said. State-owned investment arm CITIC Group recently
established a $10 billion credit line and China Development Bank is
considering $15 billion more.
South Korea's Hyundai Rotem signed a 720-million-euro
($856 million) deal with Iran on Saturday to manufacture 450
railbuses for suburban trains, Iranian state media reported.
Iran says it has signed an agreement with Oman that
could take both countries closer to an ambitious project to jointly
export liquefied natural gas (LNG) to international markets. Iran's
Petroleum Minister Bijan Zanganeh was quoted by media as saying that
he had signed the agreement with Oman's Oil Minister Mohammed bin
Hamad al-Rumhi on the sidelines of this past week's meeting of the
Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
Senior ministerial officials of Iran and the Netherlands
signed a joint plan of action on expansion of bilateral economic ties
in the coming year. In a meeting in The Hague, the Netherlands, on
Friday, Iran's Deputy Economy Minister Mohammad Khazaei and his Dutch
counterpart, Martin Van den Berg, signed the plan of action for 2018,
which entails cooperation in the fields of energy, water management,
agriculture, shipping, banking, technology and airport development,
Tasnim News Agency reported.
TERRORISM AND EXTREMISM
Recent pro-Iranian and Syrian regime remarks by an
Afghan Shiite leader may attract regional sectarian rivalries to
Afghanistan, and incite more violence and terror by the Islamic State
terrorist group in the war-torn country, analysts warned.
HUMAN RIGHTS
The wife of Princeton student Xiyue Wang, imprisoned in
Tehran on spying charges while conducting dissertation research in
Iran, is imploring U.S. President Donald Trump to intervene in her
husband's case, saying the White House is the focus of "all my
hope."
Iran state television has aired a new video about
imprisoned British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, accusing her of
running a global spy network. The broadcast was part of an
"aggressive propaganda campaign" by Iran to blacken Ms
Zaghari-Ratcliffe's name ahead of a new court appearance on December
10, her husband Richard Ratcliffe told The National.
Saudi Reforms
Put Spotlight on Iran's Women's Movement | Al-Monitor
Saudi Arabia attracted significant media attention when
it announced that it would finally allow women to drive as of June
2018. It was also announced later that women will be allowed into
some of the country's sports stadiums next year. Many have since
drawn comparisons between Saudi Arabia and Iran, where women have
long been allowed to drive but face difficulties entering stadiums.
Portions of the
2018 World Cup draw broadcast were censored in Iran because
authorities decided co-host Maria Komandnaya's clothing was too
revealing. I
In Iran, it's more often women disguising themselves as
men to sneak into sporting events, where they are banned. But in a
reversal of sorts, the male coach of the Thai women's national
kabaddi team wore a head scarf to the Asian Kabaddi Championship in the
Iranian city of Horgan on November 26 to evade a ban on men attending
women's sporting events.
RUSSIA & IRAN
Today, the latest round of UN-brokered Syria peace talks
begins in Geneva, with the goal of bringing President Bashar al-Assad
and various armed opposition factions to a political settlement that
could put an end to half a decade of civil war in the country.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
President Trump's push for a peace agreement between
Israel and the Palestinians stems from a belief that his broader
goals of stopping Iranian aggression and Islamist extremism will not
be possible without it, presidential adviser Jared Kushner said in a
rare public appearance Sunday.
Iranian
Vice-President for Women and Family Affairs Massoumeh Ebtekar and
President of Estonia Kersti Kaljulaid met in Iceland on Thursday
calling for expansion of mutual relations and cooperation.
SYRIA CONFLICT
In the early hours of December 2, reports claimed that a
base or ammunition warehouse south of Damascus had been hit by
missiles from an airstrike. Foreign media has alleged that Israel was
behind that strike. However, unlike previous airstrikes on Syria,
some of which Israel has taken credit for, this one was conducted
against a site that was well known. It raises questions as to the
timing of the attack and what it was meant to achieve.
The chief commander of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards
corps (I.R.G.C.) has revealed that the Guards, rather than the
Iranian private sector or other state-run companies, will spearhead
Syria's reconstruction efforts, Tasnim News Agency reported.
Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said today that Iran
is not obliged to abide by any agreement between the United States
and Russia about southwestern Syria.
Washington has sought to calm Israeli concerns that Iran
will take advantage of a Syrian ceasefire to cement its presence
along Israel's northern border, assuring Jerusalem that it will maintain
its activities in the country until a permanent solution is reached,
Channel 10 reported Saturday. "We've made it clear to Israel
that we are not pulling out of Syria, we are staying there until the
end of the civil war," an unnamed administration official told
the Israeli TV station.
IRAQ CRISIS
French President Emmanuel Macron has called on Iraq to
dismantle all militias -- including an Iran-backed military force -
and for the government in Baghdad to open dialogue to ease tensions
with Iraqi Kurdish leaders. Macron on December 2 told a news
conference in Paris that "France calls for a constructive
national dialogue to engage in Iraq." Macron made the comments
in a joint news conference with Iraqi Kurdish leaders, including
Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani.
With the fight against ISIS in Iraq almost over, Iran's
allies within the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (P.M.F.) are
gearing up for next year's parliamentary elections. In the latest
effort, several Iranian-backed P.M.F. groups led by the Badr
Organization have formed a new political bloc, tentatively
called the "The Mujahideen Alliance." In addition, the new alliance
consists of pro-Iranian and anti-American groups Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq,
Harakat al-Nujaba, Kata'ib Hezbollah, Kata'ib Jund al-Imam, Kata'ib
al-Tiar al-Rasali. It will also try to incorporate Sunni tribal
groups from western Iraq.
GULF STATES, YEMEN, LEBANON, AND IRAN
Violent clashes between rival factions in Yemen's
rebel-held capital continued Saturday for the fourth straight day as
forces loyal to a former president and Iran-backed Shiite rebels
known as Houthis faced off in the streets of Sana'a, signaling
disintegration in the rebel alliance at war with a Saudi-led
coalition for nearly three years.
Saudi Arabia and Iran have exported their bitter
regional tussle to Rome, accusing each other of villainous meddling
in the Middle East during diplomacy talks in the Italian capital.
Usually the Iranian media compete to broadcast news of
Houthi infiltrations against the Yemeni people or the Arab countries,
starting from besieging Yemeni cities and starving people there, to
the launch of Iranian-made ballistic missiles against Saudi Arabia.
But with the latest developments during the past 24 hours in Sanaa,
the media and its officials are keeping silent, specially after
residents of the Yemeni capital refused to obey the Houthis' orders in
an incident described as cleansing of the first Arab capital occupied
by Iranian militias since 2014.
IRANIAN DOMESTIC ISSUES
Government officials and investors all agree that Iran
needs to improve its business climate to attract the needed
investment for job creation. One of the phenomena that can help ease
the process of doing business is the country's customs organization.
Incidentally, Iran's current minister of economic affairs and
finance, Massoud Karbassian, was promoted from his previous position
as head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration
(IRICA). During his confirmation debate in parliament, there was
broad agreement that in his four-year term in that position he
managed to improve customs regulations as an important step in
fighting corruption in the Iranian economy.
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