China’s Energy Giant CNPC Takes Over Total’s Share in Iran Gas Project – Reports
SPUTNIK NEWS – August 11, 2018: The article highlights that France’s Total had previously pledged to abandon the Iranian project unless it could secure a US sanctions waiver.
China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) has replaced Total of France with a 80.1 percent stake in the phase 11 of the South Pars [gas field],” the head of investment of Iran’s state oil firm NIOC, Mohammad Mostafavi, said, as quoted by Iranian state news agency IRNA.
There was no immediate confirmation of the report by China’s energy major.
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Turkey Ready to Conduct Trade With Partners in National Currencies – Erdogan
SPUTNIK NEWS – August 11, 2018: The article highlights that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced Ankara’s readiness to refuse dollars and euros in the country’s trade with its partners.
We are preparing to carry on trade in national currencies with China, Russia, Iran, Ukraine, which account for the largest volume of bilateral trade. If European countries want to get free from the dollar pressure, we are ready to create a similar system with them,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated during a meeting in Rize, Turkey.
Earlier in the day, the Turkish president urged the country’s citizens to sell dollars and euros in order to support the lira, Turkey’s national currency. The latter has been experiencing a major downfall since US President Donald Trump’s recently announced sanctions.
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Iran Supreme Leader Calls for ‘Swift, Just’ Legal Action to Face ‘Economic War’
SPUTNIK NEWS – August 11, 2018: The article highlights that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made a statement in response to the country’s judiciary chief’s stance on financial crimes and corruption in Iran.
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Exclusive: Iran moves missiles to Iraq in warning to enemies
REUTERS – August 31, 2018: The article highlights that Iran has given ballistic missiles to Shi’ite proxies in Iraq and is developing the capacity to build more there to deter attacks on its interests in the Middle East and to give it the means to hit regional foes, Iranian, Iraqi and Western sources said.
Any sign that Iran is preparing a more aggressive missile policy in Iraq will exacerbate tensions between Tehran and Washington, already heightened by U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
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Iran test-fires ballistic missile; and U.S. feuds with Turkey and Russia
FOXNEWS – August 11, 2018: The article highlights that for the first time in more than a year, Iran test-fired a ballistic missile in a brazen display of defiance months after President Trump pulled the United States out of a landmark nuclear deal and days before his administration slapped new sanctions on the Islamic Republic, three U.S. officials with knowledge of the launch tell Fox News.
(BattleForWorld: And that Turkey and Russia are working against U.S. interests in the Middle-East.)
The test of an Iranian Fateh-110 short-range ballistic missile coincided with a large-scale naval exercise by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard forces late last week involving over 50 small gunboats in the Strait of Hormuz to rehearse “swarm” tactics which could one day potentially shut down the vital waterway, through which 30 percent of the world’s oil passes each year.
While the U.S. military publicly acknowledged Iran’s naval activity, the missile test from an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps base in Bandar-e-Jask in southeastern Iran has not been previously reported. The launch of the missile was detected by U.S. spy satellites.
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Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif: ‘There will be no meeting’ with USA
FRANCE24 – August 11, 2018: The article highlights that Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Saturday there would be no meeting with the United States in the near future following Washington’s reimposition of sanctions.
Asked by the conservative Tasnim news agency if there was any plan to meet US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Zarif said: “No, there will be no meeting.”
He also noted that there are no plans for a meeting with US officials on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York next month (September), which both Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and his US counterpart Donald Trump are due to attend.
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‘We won’t let Washington dictate to us with whom we can do business’ – German economy minister
RT – August 13, 2018: Washington cannot dictate trade rules to others, Germany’s economy minister said, adding that his country should be more assertive and defy American sanctions – particularly by investing more in Iran.
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