AFP: Pakistan risks sparking US sanctions if it pursues its plans with Iran to build a $7.5 billion gas pipeline linking the two nations, a senior US official said in a renewed warning Monday.
Pakistan risks US sanctions over Iran pipeline
Human rights abuses spiral in Iran: UN
AFP: Human rights violations in Iran spiralled in 2012, a United Nations monitor said Monday, spotlighting abuses including repression of freedom of speech, torture and secret executions.
Crucial time nears for Iran nuclear talks
Wall Street Journal: Like Iran’s nuclear program itself, the international effort to stop it is about to enter a critical phase. Put simply, it now seems possible that the world will know by the end of April whether diplomacy will be sufficient to halt what some fear is an Iranian march toward nuclear-weapons capability.
Iran allocates $2.7 billion for southern oil refinery, Mehr says
Bloomberg: Iran has allocated 2.1 billion euros ($2.7 billion) to build an oil refinery in the southern Hormozgan province that will begin operations this year, state- run Mehr news agency reported, citing an energy official.
Sasol’s profit drops 13% on Iranian polymer-unit writedown
Bloomberg: Sasol Ltd. (SOL), the world’s largest producer of motor fuel from coal, said first-half profit fell 13 percent as it wrote down the value of its Iranian polymers unit.
Pakistan leader to break ground on Iran pipeline
AP: Pakistan’s president is traveling to Iran on Monday for a ceremony to mark the start of construction of a controversial pipeline to bring natural gas from Iran despite American opposition to the project.
10 years after US invasion, Kurds look to the West
AP: At an elite private school in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region, children learn Turkish and English before Arabic. University students dream of jobs in Europe, not Baghdad.
Iran blocks use of tool to get around Internet filter
Reuters: Iranian authorities have blocked the use of most “virtual private networks”, a tool that many Iranians use to get around an extensive government Internet filter, Iranian media quoted an official as saying on Sunday.
Iran passes three-month stop-gap budget as sanctions hit revenue
Reuters: Iran’s parliament has passed a three-month stop-gap budget while it debates President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s full-year spending proposals, delivered nearly 90 days late at a time when economic sanctions have cast doubt over future revenue.
Report: Blast injures several people in south Iran
AP: An Iranian semi-official news agency is reporting that an explosion has injured several people in a port in the south of the country.
