Bloomberg: The Iranian Oil Ministry plans to build a refinery near the Caspian Sea that will process crude from the Sardar Jangal field, the Tehran Times reported, citing Masoud Jahdi, the explorations director of Khazar Oil Co.
Iran to build oil refinery near Caspian Sea, Tehran Times says
Iran arrests 28 over links to religious networks
AP: Tehran’s chief prosecutor says authorities have arrested 28 Iranians for alleged links to foreign-based TV networks advocating the Baha’i religion, which is banned in the Islamic Republic.
Iran says Western sanctions harm safety for ships
Reuters: Western sanctions imposed over the past months against Iran’s shipping industry will seriously affect international maritime and environmental safety, a senior Iranian official said.
HSBC to pay $1.9 bn to settle US claims: report
AFP: US authorities plan to announce a record $1.9 billion settlement with British bank HSBC to end allegations of money laundering, The Wall Street Journal reported on its website.
Sanctions push Iran into recession: IIF
Reuters: Crude oil exports have dropped sharply, the Iranian rial has plummeted and inflation has soared in 2012, the Washington-based Institute for International Finance said in its report on the Middle East and North Africa.
U.N. nuclear inspectors to press Iran on military site access
Reuters: U.N. nuclear inspectors will press Iran this week for a long-sought green light to visit a key military site, although suspected clean-up work may make it difficult to find evidence of any illicit atomic bomb research there.
Iran says it decoded data from captured CIA drone
AP: Iran’s Revolutionary Guard aerospace chief, Gen. Ami Ali Hajizadeh, told state-run Press TV that that the RQ-170 Sentinel craft had not carried out missions over nuclear facilities before it went down in December 2011 near the eastern border with Afghanistan.
Standard Chartered to pay $327 mn to settle US sanctions probe
AFP: British bank Standard Chartered will pay the United States $327 million to settle charges it violated US sanctions on Iran as well as on Myanmar, Libya and Sudan, the US Treasury announced Monday.
Iranian nuclear challenge must be tackled in 2013: Israel
Reuters: Iran is getting ever closer to being able to build a nuclear bomb and the problem will have to be confronted in 2013, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday.
Sanctions hit Iranian manufacturing hard
AP: A conservative Iranian news website says the number of manufacturing companies in the country facing financial crisis has increased four-fold over the past four years to nearly 1,600.
