Iran

Source : FrontLine | 25 Jan 2012

India is the first buyer of Iranian oil to agree to pay for its purchases in gold instead of the US dollar, debkafile's intelligence and Iranian sources report exclusively. Those sources expect China to follow suit. India and China take about one million barrels per day, or 40 percent of Iran's total exports of 2.5 million bpd. Both are superpowers in terms of gold assets.

By Reuters | Tehran/Jerusalem | 20 Jan 2012

An ally of Iran’s supreme leader called on Friday for Israel to be “punished” for killing a nuclear scientist and the top US general urged his Israeli ally to coordinate with Washington as crisis builds in the Middle East.

Source : AFP | 16 Jan 2012

Israel and the United States have agreed to postpone a major military defence exercise scheduled for spring, a senior security official said Sunday, amid rising regional tension over Iran's nuclear programme.

"Israel and the United States have agreed to postpone the manoeuvre planned for spring," the official said on condition of anonymity.

"The exercises will take place between now and the end of 2012," the official added, without elaborating.

By Mark Perry | Foreign Policy | 13 Jan 2012

By Agencies : Moscow | 12 Jan 2012

Russian Security Council secretary Nikolai Patrushev warned that military escalation is likely in Iran, with "real danger" of a US strike, in an interview published on Thursday.

He added that Syria, which has refused to break its ties with Tehran, could also be a target for Western intervention. "There is a likelihood of military escalation of the conflict, and Israel is pushing the Americans towards it," said Patrushev said in an interview published on the website of the daily Kommersant.

By AFP | Tehran |13 Jan 2012

Iran's supreme leader has accused the US and Israeli intelligence services of being behind the "abominable" assassination in Tehran this week of a nuclear scientist who was to be buried on Friday.

The "cowardly murder" on Wednesday of Moustafa Ahmadi Roshan, a deputy director of Iran's main uranium enrichment plant, was committed "with the planning or support of the intelligence services of the CIA and Mossad," said Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

By İsmail Duman, World Bulletin | 10 Jan 2012

“The U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq is reordering political dynamics not only in Baghdad but also in the broader Middle East. Nature abhors a vacuum, and a number of actors are seeking to fill the outsized role that America has played in Iraq over the last eight years.” says Sean Kane in his report ‘The Coming Turkish-Iranian Competition in Iraq’. “The two rising powers in the region, Iran and Turkey, share borders with Iraq and are rapidly becoming the most influential external actors inside the country.”

By Ramin Mostafavi | Reuters | Tehran | 11 Jan 2012

An Iranian nuclear scientist was killed by a bomb placed on his car by a motorcyclist in Tehran on Wednesday, and a city official blamed Israel for the attack, similar to attacks on nuclear scientists just over a year ago.

Fars news agency identified the victim as Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, a 32-year-old graduate of an oil industry university. It said he had supervised a department at Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment facility. Iran’s atomic energy organization said it would issue a statement shortly.

By Daniel Wallis | Reuters | Caracas | 09 Jan 2012

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez dismissed a US warning to avoid close ties with Iran on Sunday, denouncing what he said was Washington’s attempt to dominate the world as he welcomed the Iranian president to the Latin American nation.

Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived at the start of a tour to shore up support from the region’s leftist leaders, as tough new Western sanctions aim to isolate the Islamic republic and target its vital oil exports.

by Gareth Porter : IPS | Washington | 03 Jan 2012

President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are engaged in intense maneuvering over Netanyahu's aim of entangling the United States in an Israeli war against Iran.

Netanyahu is exploiting the extraordinary influence his right-wing Likud Party exercises over the Republican Party and the U.S. Congress on matters related to Israel in order to maximize the likelihood that the United States would participate in an attack on Iran.