Bloomberg: Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi-UFJ agreed to pay $250 million to the state of New York to settle claims it transferred billions of dollars for countries facing U.S. sanctions including Iran, Sudan and Myanmar, state regulators said.
Mitsubishi-UFJ to pay $250 million to N.Y. regulator
US sees sanctions impact on Iranian politics
AP: American officials are hailing the election of an Iranian president who vows to seek relief from international sanctions as the first tangible evidence that the U.S. strategy is influencing Tehran’s nuclear policy.
Report: Iranian navy detains UAE fishermen
AP: Iran’s state TV says the country’s navy has detained 13 fishermen from two United Arab Emirates vessels after they trespassed into what the report said were Iranian territorial waters.
More EU pressure on Iran, Israel PM tells Ashton
AFP: Europe must take a firmer line with Iran over its controversial nuclear programme, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday at the start of a working meeting with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.
Iran and Hezbollah go global
Asia Times Online: The recent discovery in Nigeria of an arsenal with Hezbollah’s fingerprints all over it has reinforced the suspicion that Iran and the Party of God are extending their outreach while helping security forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
As sanctions bite, Iranians invest big in Georgia
Wall Street Journal: Economic sanctions against Iran have made it increasingly hard for Iranians to do business abroad. But Iranian businessmen are flocking to Georgia, a longtime U.S. ally in the Caucasus region, to pursue profits evaporating in much of the world.
New Iranian president’s son committed suicide over father’s extremism
Front Page Magazine: The news is full of cheerful reports that Iran new clerical president Hassan Rouhani is a “moderate”. Since Hassan Rouhani was really chosen by the clerical regime, rather than the voters, as the last election should have made clear, Hassan Rouhani’s supposed moderation doesn’t matter.
Condemnation of attack on Iranian refugees
UPI: The most recent terrorist attack on June 15, which left two dead and more than 70 people wounded, proved once more that the most urgent question now is the security and safety of the 3,100 people of the Iranian opposition People’s Mujahedin of Iran trapped in Camp Liberty.
Hamas says its Iran ties worsen over Syrian civil war
Reuters: Hamas said on Wednesday its relations with financial backer Iran have suffered as a result of the Islamist group’s support of rebels battling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a long-time Iranian ally.
Iran says appeals for ‘jihad’ in Syria fuel radicalism
Reuters: Calls by Sunni Muslim clerics for a holy war against the Syrian government and its Shi’ite allies are fuelling radicalism in the region, a senior Iranian official said on Wednesday.
