Iran Focus: Tehran, Aug. 13 – Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) is running a major smuggling network from the southern Iranian island of Qeshm, situated in the strategic Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf below the port city of Bandar Abbas in mainland Iran, according to a leaked IRGC internal report.
Guards involved in smuggling at Iran port
Iran activist’s personal account of activities against the state
Iran Focus: Tehran, Aug. 13 – The following is a personal account emailed to Iran Focus by a pro-democracy activist of activities earlier this week to mobilise anti-government protests. The activist’s name is being deliberately withheld:
Wheat rally will raise deficits in North Africa, Iran, FAO says
Bloomberg: Higher wheat prices will raise budget deficits in North Africa and Iran because of spending on bread subsidies, said Abdolreza Abbassian, senior grains economist at the Food and Agriculture Organization
Slogans target Iran’s Supreme Leader
Iran Focus: Tehran, Aug. 13 – From the Grapevine… Slogans targeting Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei are among a number of mantras that appeared on Saturday and Tuesday in various areas of Tehran, political activists say. Vanak Square and Jordan, Saberi, Sherafat, Sedaqat and Sayeh streets had anti-regime graffiti on some of their walls.
Activists continue graffiti campaign in Iran capital
Iran Focus: Tehran, Aug. 13 – From the Grapevine… Political activists in Tehran earlier this week filled public sites with anti-regime graffiti. Slogans condemning the authorities and inviting people to participate in further protests were written in a number of areas in the Iranian capital.
AP’s former bureau chief in Iran dies at 66
Iran Focus: London, Aug. 13 – Alexander G. Higgins, who covered the U.S. Embassy siege in Tehran as The Associated Press’ last bureau chief in Iran and served as a longtime AP bureau chief in Geneva, has died, the AP reported on Thursday.
Russia says to load fuel in Iran reactor on Aug 21
Reuters: Russia will begin to load fuel into the reactor at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power station on August 21, a spokesman for Russia’s state atomic corporation said on Friday.
Ambassador leaves Iraq with much still unsettled
New York Times: Christopher R. Hill, the ambassador to Iraq charged with reshaping the American role here, on Thursday ended his 16-month tenure in an anxious, unsettled country, with a military withdrawal afoot but a key task not done: the formation of a government that will inherit the country.
Flow of oil from Iraq to Iran raises concerns
NPR: In northern Iraq’s autonomous region of Kurdistan, the long lines of tanker trucks carrying oil into Iran are under scrutiny.
Iraq agrees to Iran-Syria gas pipeline plan
AFP: Iraq will allow an Iranian gas pipeline which plans to take gas to Syria to cross its territory, a spokesman for the oil ministry in Baghdad said on Thursday.
