Daily Times – Former British premier Tony Blair warned in an interview on Wednesday that the international community may have ‘no alternative’ to taking military action against Iran if it develops a nuclear weapon. “I am saying that I think it is wholly unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapons capability and I think we have got to be prepared to confront them, if necessary militarily,” he said in extracts pre-released by the BBC from an interview to publicise his memoirs. “I think there is no alternative to that if they continue to develop nuclear weapons. They need to get that message loud and clear.” Read Article
Guardian – Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning, was told on Saturday that she was to be hanged at dawn on Sunday, but the sentence was not carried out, it emerged tonight. Mohammadi Ashtiani wrote her will and embraced her cellmates in Tabriz prison just before the call to morning prayer, when she expected to be led to the gallows, her son Sajad told the Guardian. “Pressure from the international community has so far stopped them from carrying out the sentence but they’re killing her every day by any means possible,” he said. Read Article
Al Bawaba – There are growing fears in the Gulf region of an imminent clash with Iran following the launch of Bushehr nuclear facility. Although Western circles downplay the importance of the facility to Iran’s efforts to develop atomic bombs, the Arab states in the Gulf region believe the potential of military action against Iran exists. The ongoing threats towards Iran by Tel Aviv and Washington come with practical preparations for a possible war such as the deployment of Patriot missiles in Kuwait. Read Article
The Guardian – Iranian newspapers have been banned from publishing the names or photos of the leaders of Iran’s green movement, according to a confidential governmental ruling revealed by an opposition website. The move is part of a new round of censorship, which follows the recent closure of a newspaper and the suspension of two magazines. The ruling, issued by Iran’s ministry of culture and Islamic guidance on 18 August, was stamped “top secret” and “urgent”. Read article
Deustche Welle – The joint Finnish-German venture Nokia Siemens said surveillance equipment it sold Iran was legal and dismissed a lawsuit filed against it. The company also questioned the court’s jurisdiction and the suit’s premise. In a lawsuit filed in an American federal court earlier this week, two Iranians alleged that the sale of Nokia Siemens Networks mobile phone surveillance technology led to the arrest and torture of one of them in Iran over a year ago. Read Article
PressTV – The Venezuelan ambassador to Tehran says his country is ready to sell gasoline to Iran despite US and EU unilateral sanctions against the Islamic Republic. “Every time Tehran announces its demand, we will provide it with gasoline,” David Velasquez Caraballo told Fars news agency on Monday. Caraballo added that the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has announced Caracas’ readiness to provide Tehran with gasoline. In September 2009, Hugo Chavez said that his country is to provide Tehran with 20,000 barrels of gasoline per day. Read Article
Daily Telegraph – Iran will begin building its third uranium enrichment plant in early 2011, a top official said, defying world powers who have imposed new sanctions on Tehran for pursuing the sensitive nuclear work. Read Article
Israel National News – Iran warns that if Israel were to invade Lebanon, it would be counter-attacked by several countries in the region. Iran’s Fars News Agency reported that Ramin Mehman-Parast, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, issued the warning yesterday, saying that while it’s unlike Israel will invade Lebanon, the “Zionist regime would be slapped hard in the face by the regional states if it dares to attack Lebanon again.” Read Article
Jerusalem Post – There is wide support in Congress for using all means to keep Iran from becoming a nuclear power, “through diplomatic and economic sanctions if we possibly can, through military actions if we must,” visiting US Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) said Wednesday in Jerusalem. Lieberman, flanked at a Jerusalem press conference by his senate colleagues John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), used very tough language, saying the words “military action” in regards to stopping Iran’s nuclear program. Most US officials opt to tiptoe around the subject, saying “no options are off the table.” Lieberman said that “a certain trumpet needs to sounded here for the Iranian regime to hear.” Read Article
The Guardian – Russia will begin to load fuel into the reactor at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power station next week, marking the start of its launch after years of delay, Moscow said today. Russian and Iranian specialists are to begin loading uranium-packed fuel rods into the reactor on 21 August, a process that will take about two to three weeks. This will be a key step towards starting up the reactor, although it will not be considered operational from that date. Read Article
Guardian – Iran appears to be quietly changing the sentences of Iranians awaiting death by stoning to hanging after international outcry following the case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a 43-year-old mother of two. Mariam Ghorbanzadeh, 25, who was six months’ pregnant and miscarried after being beaten up in Tabriz prison this week, was initially sentenced to death by stoning for adultery but her sentence has been commuted to hanging in a rapid judicial review. The decision is thought to have been driven by the Iranian authorities’ desire to avoid further international condemnation over the barbaric punishment. Read Article
Reuters – Russian oil giant LUKOIL (LKOH.MM: Quote) has resumed gasoline sales into Iran in partnership with China’s state-run firm Zhuhai Zhenrong, even as the United States urges the international community to be tough with Tehran. Iran is the world’s fifth-largest oil exporter but lacks adequate refining capacity to meet domestic demand for motor fuel, forcing it to import up to 40 percent of its requirements. Read Article
BMI – You might wonder how the media – and, more to the point, the oil markets – have missed an important story like this. On Aug. 8, Iran announced over its state-run airwaves that four new submarines were added to its fleet. But very little has been said about the potential havoc this technological advance could allow the Iranians to play with the world oil markets. However, on CNBC’s Aug. 9 broadcast of “Street Signs,” CNBC contributor John Kilduff, vice president and co-head of MF Global, warned that with this new threat that could endanger the Strait of Hormuz – a major oil shipping point – $200-a-barrell oil is quite possible. Read Article
Daily Telegraph – International sanctions against Iran have helped strengthen Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government and suppress the opposition, according to one of the country’s most prominent reformists. Read Article
Haaretz – A semiofficial Iranian news agency says Iran has obtained four S-300 surface-to-air missiles despite Russia’s refusal to deliver them. Read Article
Guardian – The client of human rights lawyer Mohammad Mostafaei has been sentenced to death in spite of retracted testimony. An 18-year-old Iranian is facing imminent execution on charges of homosexuality, even though he has no legal representation. Ebrahim Hamidi, who is not gay, was sentenced to death for lavat, or sodomy, on the basis of “judge’s knowledge”, a legal loophole that allows for subjective judicial rulings where there is no conclusive evidence. Read Article
ABC – Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has reportedly survived an assassination attempt after an explosive device was thrown at his convoy in western Iran. Iranian media say a handmade grenade or bomb was thrown at a convoy the president was travelling in, but his own car was about 100 metres away from the blast and he was unhurt. Read Article
AP – The U.S. military has a plan to attack Iran, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Sunday, although he thinks a military strike is probably a bad idea. Not long after Adm. Mike Mullen’s aired on a Sunday talk show, the deputy chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard was quoted as saying there would be a strong Iranian response should the U.S. take military action against his country. Read Article
Press TV – US authorities and senior Israeli officials have held a meeting in Washington to discuss Iran and the latest sanctions imposed against the Islamic Republic, a US official says. “As a matter of fact, this afternoon we have a meeting with the senior Israeli team to talk about Iran and to talk about sanctions,” AFP reported Robert Einhorn, a US State Department adviser, as saying on Thursday. Read Article
Haaretz – A former CIA director says military action against Iran now seems more likely because no matter what the U.S. does diplomatically, Tehran keeps pushing ahead with its suspected nuclear program. Michael Hayden, a CIA chief under President George W. Bush, said that during his tenure “a strike was way down the list of options.” But he tells CNN’s State of the Union that such action now “seems inexorable.” Read Article
BBC – In northern Iraq, a 26 year conflict has been causing thousands of villagers to flee their homes. For more than a decade a Kurdish rebel group, the PKK, has used the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan as a base from which to plan and execute attacks inside Turkey. A splinter group, known as PJAK, has expanded its front into Iran. Both countries have been hitting back with attacks on bases and villages inside Iraq. Read Article
IPS – Olli Heinonen, the Finnish nuclear engineer who resigned Thursday after five years as deputy director for safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), was the driving force in turning that agency into a mechanism to support U.N. Security Council sanctions against Iran. Read article
AFP – US President Barack Obama said in an Israeli TV interview broadcast on Thursday it is highly unlikely the Jewish state would surprise Washington with an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. “It is unacceptable for Iran to posses nuclear weapons and we are going to do everything we can to prevent that happening,” Obama told Israel’s Channel 2 television in the interview taped on Wednesday. Read article
Haaretz – The 1,000-megawatt unit of the Bushehr plant was scheduled to be finished at the beginning of the decade but has been delayed at least five times. Iran said Wednesday that the Bushehr nuclear power plant, a joint project with Russia, would be ready for operation in two months, the ISNA news agency reported. Read article
BBC – The authorities in Iran have announced that a woman convicted of adultery will not be stoned to death. But it is not clear whether they have lifted the death sentence against Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, who has been in prison in Tabriz since 2006. The 43-year-old had already been punished with flogging for an “illicit relationship” outside marriage when another court tried her for adultery. Read article
