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After the recent move by the US Congress to renew sanctions on Iran, one prominent Iranian extremist went so far as to call Zarif an American spy

“Since the nuclear deal was reached, the ‘worried ones’ [the hard-liners opposed to the JCPOA] have been waiting for a suitable excuse to attack Zarif. … What better excuse than the 10-year extension of the Iran Sanctions Act? Now is the perfect moment to say that the Iranian national hero is an American spy.”

during the past few years, in spite of extensive sanctions on exports of conventional military equipment, Iran has managed to become self-sufficient in the production of a vast range of weapons and military equipment. Indeed, a large portion of Iran’s military equipment is presently met by domestic production. Given this capacity, Iran appears now ready to establish a serious and effective presence in the international armament market.

deliveries of weapons to Iraq have increased so much that all semi-heavy artillery equipment, sniper weapons and many other types of personal and armored weapons presently used by Iraqi paramilitary forces are Iranian-made. In addition, over the past year, Iran has also started sending the T-72S main battle tank to Iraq.

Iranian-made military equipment is officially and extensively now in use in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria. Since Iranian-made arms and equipment have yet to be tested, it is not possible to compare them with the originals they’re modeled after. However, the expansion of terrorism in the region has given Iran an opportunity to test its military equipment in action and learn about possible defects

Diplomatic observers in Tehran have no doubt about the potential of this moment to change the course of history. Ambassadors from Eastern European countries sense a familiar spirit in the air, and regale their colleagues with stories of the final days of Honecker and Ceausescu.

Deeper sanctions would be welcomed by Mr Ahmadinejad — it would allow him to appeal to nationalist sentiment and tighten his grip on the economy. (Of course, a military attack would be the ultimate gift to the theocracy, something hardline elements of the regime are reportedly seeking actively to provoke.) Worse still, an agreement would enable the leadership to claim victory without actually impeding its repressive rule. Having lost legitimacy in the streets of its own cities, the regime is being offered a chance to regain it, in different form, in the halls of the United Nations. With its very existence in the balance, pressure on the regime to freeze its nuclear programme is not a threat, but an opportunity to regain international credibility.

Before being led down a strategically barren path of sanctions and threats focused exclusively on the nuclear programme, Western leaders have a unique opportunity to seize on the promise of a movement far more consequential to the future of Iran and the broader Middle East than any nuclear deal with the existing regime. This is a moment for Europe’s leaders to draw on their countries’ longstanding knowledge of Iran to explore a different path. The US Government, even under Mr Obama, appears constrained by history and an unwillingness to think creatively about Iran. And yet the moment cries out for something other than a predictable set of tortured Security Council negotiations that will achieve little.

Tougher sanctions against Iran that the U.S. and its allies are considering to pressure it over its nuclear program might only strengthen its hard-line president and the Revolutionary Guard, boosting the elite force's economic and political muscle, experts warn.

Mr Walt argued that Bush-era foreign policy represented a disastrous departure from an American tradition of similar restraint, and that Barack Obama showed promising signs of a return to those roots.

The challenge with Iran is to preserve the clear impression, both on the part of China and on the part of the world at large, that it is not America that is upsetting the balance by asking for sanctions; it is Iran that is upsetting the balance by pursuing nuclear weapons, with consequences that America cannot forestall alone.

Their gratuitously provocative, adolescent threat Sunday to build ten new nuclear processing plants—a threat everyone agrees they lack the capacity to follow through on—makes them appear simultaneously scary, unreliable and weak.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he intends to tighten his grip on the economy and take more responsibility for monetary policy if he wins an election next month.

Erdogan told Bloomberg TV in London on Monday that after the vote transforms Turkey into a full presidential system, he expects the central bank will have to heed his calls for lower interest rates. The central bank’s key rate is now 13.5 percent, compared with 10.9 percent consumer-price inflation.

The lira slid to its weakest level ever against the dollar after his remarks were published

United Nations is preparing to issue a major funding appeal for more than $1.5 billion on Wednesday to prepare for outbreaks of the new coronavirus in areas suffering some of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, including Gaza, Myanmar, Syria, South Sudan, and Yemen, according to diplomatic and relief officials familiar with the plan

the request—which would be in addition to ongoing humanitarian operations—comes at a time when the world’s leading economies are reeling from the economic shock induced by one of the most virulent pandemics since the 1918 Spanish flu

“Some of the biggest donors are seeing global recession about to hit them,” said one senior relief official. “How generous are they going to be when they have a crisis looming in their own backyards?”

72% of Iran’s exports go to Iraq

“Iran is in dire need of Iraq, particularly at this stage; not only to market its goods, but to export them to other countries, or to facilitate the movement of Iranian funds through Baghdad to Damascus and Beirut.” He said, “Iraq is Iran’s economic outlet to the world.”

In February, OPEC called for an oil production “freeze” to raise crude prices in conjunction with Russia. But this effort collapsed at a meeting in Doha, Qatar, in April when Iran refused to join any freeze in order to regain the pre-2012 production levels of close to 4 mbpd it enjoyed before U.S. and European Union nuclear sanctions were imposed, following the removal of certain sanctions after the 2015 nuclear deal. A similar proposal failed at the OPEC meeting in June, again following Iran’s refusal, despite outreach by the Qataris.

OPEC again called for a form of output cut on Sept. 28 at an extraordinary meeting in Algiers. Markets bit on the news, with Brent prices rising sharply by about 15 percent in the following week, from $46 to $52 per barrel.

Can action by the cartel sustain higher crude prices over the long term? Probably not. Like a desert mirage, the image of an OPEC resurrection vanishes when approached.

US military will incorporate counter-atrocity planning into its operating procedures

a presidential study directive (number 10 ↑ ) issued in 2011 that aimed to bridge the gap between national interest and altruistic intervention. It claimed that "preventing mass atrocities and genocide is a core national security interest" as well as "a core moral responsibility of the United States. Our security is affected when masses of civilians are slaughtered, refugees flow across borders, and murderers wreak havoc on regional stability and livelihoods. America's reputation suffers, and our ability to bring about change is constrained, when we are perceived as idle in the face of mass atrocities and genocide."

genocide campaigners should beware functioning as the administration’s cheerleaders. Even if atrocity-prevention is a national interest, that hardly means it will trump other national interests - strategic and commercial, for example.The fate of the "ethical dimension" of New Labour’s foreign policy is a warning: it remained just a dimension, and an increasingly subordinate one at that.

"This week, Blizzard tightened up its procedures to ensure compliance with these laws, and players connecting from the affected nations are restricted from access to Blizzard games and services," read the statement. Unfortunately, said Blizzard, the same sanctions meant it could not give refunds to players in Iran or help them move their account elsewhere. "We apologise for any inconvenience this causes and will happily lift these restrictions as soon as US law allows," it added. Although the block on Wow has been imposed by Blizzard, other reports suggest a wider government ban might have been imposed. Players of Wow and other games, including Guild Wars, said when they had tried to log in they had been redirected to a page saying the connection had been blocked because the games promoted "superstition and mythology". Blizzard said it had no information about Iranian government action against online games.

"This is not a matter of us choosing to impose punishment on the Iranians," he told the BBC. "This is a matter of the Iranian government ultimately betraying the interests of its own people by isolating it further." And he pointed out that countries such as Russia and China had also backed the UN sanctions. "Most of these sanctions are targeted at the regime, at its military, and we think that over time, hopefully, there's enough reflection within the Iranian government, that they say to themselves, you know, 'This is not the best course for our people. This is not the best course for Iran.'"

the Iranians "seem to be talking about talks about talks".

al-Qadhafi has sought to promote the status of women and to encourage them to participate in his Jamahiriya project

e directly challenged the prevailing conservatism in Libya, though his regime at times has struck a conciliatory tone with the Islamist political opposition and the conservative populace at the expense of women's rights

al-Qadhafi has pushed for women to become equal citizens and has introduced legislation aimed at reducing discrimination between the sexes.