Iran Focus

Reuters: The organization that provides the world's banks with a system for moving money said on Friday it is working with officials in the United States and European Union to address concerns about the services it provides to blacklisted Iranian banks.

AFP: Iran banned its citizens on Friday from travelling to Syria by road following the abduction of nearly 30 Iranians in the escalating uprising in its key Middle East ally, state media reported.

UPI: Increasing pressure on Iran's energy sector is a way to coerce the regime in Tehran to abandon its nuclear ambitions, a U.S. Senate banking committee said.

AP: Iran successfully launched a new small satellite into orbit early Friday, state media reported, the latest in the country's ambitious space program that has raised concerns because if its possible military applications.

Reuters: The Iranian government has been intimidating and detaining relatives and friends of foreign-based Persian-language journalists to obtain information or silence them.

AFP: US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta believes there is a "strong possibility" that Israel will strike Iran's nuclear installations this spring, the Washington Post said Thursday in an editorial.

AFP: A key US Senate panel adopted a sweeping package of tough new sanctions Thursday aimed at forcing Iran to freeze its suspect nuclear program amid escalating worries of a military confrontation.

Bloomberg: Turkey’s ties with Iran are under growing strain as the countries split on sectarian lines over Middle East conflicts, depriving the Islamic republic of an ally against western nuclear pressure.

WSJ: Iran denied United Nations inspectors access to a suspected nuclear site, scientists and documents during a visit to Tehran this week, dimming already scant hopes for a breakthrough to end a standoff over Iran's nuclear work, according to diplomats briefed on the International Atomic Energy Agency's mission.

AP: Britain's Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said Thursday he has concerns there could be a military conflict with Iran over its disputed nuclear program.

Bloomberg: The International Atomic Energy Agency has wrapped up its visit to Iran, with its chief inspector, Herman Nackaerts, saying “we had a good trip” and announcing plans for another “in the very near future.”

WSJ: Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday submitted a budget that will cut spending by 5.6%, seeking to reduce the country's reliance on oil as it faces potentially stifling new sanctions.

New York Times: Some senior Iranian leaders are now more willing to carry out attacks inside the United States in response to perceived American threats against their country, the Obama administration’s top intelligence official said on Tuesday, pointing to last fall’s suspected assassination plot against the Saudi ambassador to Washington.

AP: An American Muslim group has appealed to Iran's top leader to show clemency for an ex-U.S. military translator with dual citizenship condemned to death on accusations of being a CIA spy.

AP: Britain's High Court said Tuesday a retired businessman who allegedly plotted to sell missile components to Iran cannot appeal against his extradition to the United States.

AFP: Sanctions and diplomacy still have a chance to persuade Iran to give up its nuclear program as Tehran's leaders have shown a rational "cost-benefit approach" in their calculations, US intelligence chiefs said Tuesday.

UPI: "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." Sadly, those words by Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels more than 70 years ago still ring true and remain a key tactic of despots.

AFP: Officials from the IAEA, the UN nuclear watchdog, were scheduled on Tuesday to wrap up a three-day visit to Iran seen as a chance to defuse an intensifying international showdown over Tehran's atomic activities.

AP: India has joined China in saying it will not cut back on oil imports from Iran, despite stiff new U.S. and European sanctions designed to pressure Tehran over its nuclear program.

AFP: Frustrated by Iran's defiance of global pressure to halt its nuclear program, key US lawmakers on Monday unveiled plans for more punishing economic and political sanctions aimed at Tehran.

Bloomberg: Senate Banking Committee leaders circulated draft legislation that would tighten sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program and its human-rights record.

Reuters: Iranian traffickers, trying to dodge an embargo imposed by Western nations over Iran's nuclear program, are smuggling weapons on container ships owned by firms from the countries that imposed the sanctions, a think-tank said Monday.

AFP: Iran has developed laser-guided artillery rounds designed to home in on stationary or moving targets at a distance of up to 20 kilometres (12 miles), Defence Minister Ahmad Vahidi told state media Monday.

AFP: India said Monday it may use its own currency, the rupee, to pay for oil imports from Iran in the face of a US-led sanctions campaign aimed at forcing Tehran to abandon its nuclear programme.