At least 411 prisoners have been executed in Iran from the beginning of January 2014 to the end of June of the same year. This indicates that the execution wave, which recommenced after the most recent Iranian presidential election, is continuing. According to reports by Iran Human Rights (IHR), more than 870 people have been executed since the election of Mr. Hassan Rouhani in June 2013. IHR calls on the international community to take serious measures to stop the execution wave in Iran.
By Aurélia
Paris (AFP) – As the world’s reserve currency, the dollar gives Washington a powerful influence over global financial markets — a point underlined again this week when a record fine was levelled against France’s leading bank.
French banking giant BNP Paribas has agreed to pay $8.9 billion (6.5 billion euros) to US authorities for violating sanctions against Iran, Sudan and other countries even though the transactions were not illegal under French or European law.
It fell foul of US rules because the exchanges were carried out in dollars, and the huge penalty has sent shockwaves across Europe where other major banks such as Credit Agricole, Deutsche Bank and UniCredit fear they could be next in the cross-hairs of the US authorities.
For some, it is a sign that Europe must wean itself off the dollar.
“The global reach of American standards through the use of the dollar should push Europe to boost the euro as an international exchange currency,” French Finance Minister Michel Sapin said after the fine was announced.
US authorities were able to catch BNP’s embargo violations by monitoring clearing houses for large interbank transactions.
By: David Ingnatius
With the sudden rise of the terrorist Islamic State , a little-noted aspect is that Gen. Qassem Suleimani, the supposed strategic genius of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, has blundered disastrously. By overreaching in Iraq and Syria and triggering a violent reaction, Iran now faces dangerous instability on its border for years to come.
Most commentary on the Iraq situation has focused on U.S. errors and the potential dangers to U.S. interests, and there are plenty of both. But perhaps we can put aside our national myopia and look at what recent events mean for Iran, which shares a 900-mile border with Iraq and desperately wants political hegemony there. It’s not a happy picture.
By MICHAEL CORKERY, JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG and THOMAS ERDBRINK APRIL 17, 2014
President Obama has warned that Iran is not open for business, even as the United States has loosened some of its punishing economic sanctions as part of an interim nuclear pact.
Yet, on Tuesday morning, Iran had an unlikely visitor: a plane, owned by the Bank of Utah, a community bank in Ogden that has 13 branches throughout the state. Bearing a small American flag on its tail, the aircraft was parked in a highly visible section of Mehrabad Airport in Tehran.
April 20th 2014
CNN’s FAREED ZAKARIA GPS features an interview with professor at the Harvard Business School, and Director at the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness, Michael Porter. Porter spoke about “The Social Progress Index”, a new report that ranks countries on how well their citizens live. He discussed why the United States rank 16th.
By: Mahmood Monshipouri 20 April 2014
By: Thomas L. Friedman
IT occurred to me the other day that the zealously pro-Israel billionaire Sheldon Adelson and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, actually have one big thing in common. They are both trying to destroy Israel. Adelson is doing it by loving Israel to death and Khamenei by hating Israel to death. And now even Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey inadvertently got drawn into this craziness.
What’s the logic? Very simple. Iran’s leaders want Israel destroyed but have no desire, in my view, to use a nuclear bomb to do it. That would expose them to retaliation and sure death. Their real strategy is more subtle: Do everything possible to ensure that Israel remains in the “occupied territory,” as the U.S. State Department refers to the West Bank, won by Israel in the 1967 war.
By Parisa Hafezi and Fredrik Dahl
(Reuters) – Iran said it hopes enough progress will be made with major powers this week to enable negotiators to start drafting by mid-May a final accord to settle a long-running dispute over its nuclear program.
The Islamic Republic and six world powers will hold a new round of talks in Vienna on Tuesday and Wednesday intended to reach a comprehensive agreement by July 20 on how to resolve a decade-old standoff that has stirred fears of a Middle East war.
By Amir Paivar April 3rd 2014
The honeymoon with the new government is over. Iranians are coming back from their New Year holidays to see their utility bills go up, some by 24%.
Petrol prices are also due to rise, a move that usually prompts discontent and triggers inflation.
Starved of cash, President Hassan Rouhani’s government has no choice but to cut state subsidies for fuel and energy.
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