New York Times: With American and European sanctions spurring a currency crisis in Iran, officials say a growing number of Iranians are packing trucks with devalued rials and heading to the freewheeling currency market next door in American-occupied Afghanistan, to trade for dollars.
Iranian currency traders find a haven in Afghanistan
Struan Stevenson: Refugees face certain death without US help
Scotsman: Many innocent refugees are facing death in camps in Iraq and only the US can save them. More than 3,000 men and women are at the mercy of brutal Iraqi military guards who have shown on two previous occasions their willingness to kill in cold blood.
Iran’s Ahmadinejad says no place for Israel in new Middle East
Reuters: Many thousands of Iranians shouted “Death to America, death to Israel” during state-organized protests on Friday and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told them there was no place for the Jewish state in a future Middle East.
Camp Ashraf safety a final legacy for the US in Iraq
Daily Mail: In recent weeks the situation surrounding the safety of 3,400 members of an Iranian opposition group based in Iraq has taken a significant turn in the halls of the White House.
Organization of Islamic Cooperation suspends Syria
Reuters: The 57-member body’s rebuke is mostly symbolic, but it shows Syria’s isolation – as well as that of its ally Iran – across much of the Sunni-majority Islamic world.
Standard Chartered sued in U.S. over Iran ties to Lebanon bombing
Reuters: The estates of the victims of the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut sued Standard Chartered seeking compensation over the bank’s concealment of Iran-linked transactions.
Syrian rebels said to be holding elite fighters from Iran
New York Times: American officials said Wednesday that they had obtained credible information that at least some of the 48 Iranians captured in Damascus this month by Syrian rebels were members of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, not the pilgrims described by the government in Tehran.
Bahrain’s Gulf Air to resume flights to Iraq, Iran
AFP: Bahrain’s national carrier Gulf Air will resume flights to Iraq and Iran on September 20 after a hiatus of 17 months, the tiny Gulf kingdom’s official BNA news agency said on Wednesday.
Standard Chartered seen paying $1 billion to end probes
Bloomberg: Standard Chartered Plc may have to pay as much as three times more than the $340 million it was fined by a New York regulator to settle all the probes by regulators into its transactions for Iranian clients.
Germany makes arrests over Iran nuclear embargo violations
Bloomber: German authorities arrested three men charged with violating sanctions against Iran by delivering parts bound for a nuclear reactor in the Islamic republic.
