IRAN: Iran and Afghanistan, threaten Gulf security

The Afghan war and the Iran nuclear crisis are among the threats to security in the Gulf region, Kuwaiti foreign minister and deputy prime minister Sheikh Muhammed Sabah al-Salem al-Sabah said Friday.

Sheikh Muhammed was addressing delegations from more than 25 countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council at the opening of the sixth Manama Dialogue security conference in Bahrain.

Threats to GCC security ran from "Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan, go through Iran's confrontation with the international community, to the reality of Palestine and the suffering of the Palestinian people, down the Horn of Africa, to the crisis in Yemen," he said.

In additional and implicit swipe at Iran, he spoke of "when people call for rebellion against the regime, challenging the government and calling for the overthrow of the government in place."

Gulf officials "should recognise the risks of abusing ideologies in the relations between states," he added. Iran has been accused by the West and various Gulf states of interfering in the affairs of its neighbors and attempting to foment instability.

Sheikh Muhammed also discussed what he described as mid-term problems: the threat posed to Gulf countries by international economic downturns, and the risk of relying primarily on oil for revenue. And he added: "We must look closely at the demographic situation of our six GCC countries, and we will note that there are real demographic challenges in the mid- and long-term."

These challenges included the projected 30 percent rise in the population of the GCC countries by 2020; the large percentage of young people; and the large number of foreign workers in the Gulf.

The consequently large remittances being sent out of the Gulf and the growing number of children of foreign workers in GCC countries also posed a problem, he added. "This generation has no other home than the GCC countries -- they were born, have lived and worked here, and they represent a great challenge in terms of absorption into society from a cultural and a social viewpoint," he said.

The Manama Dialogue conference is sponsored by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. This year's conference, which lasts through Sunday, will focus on Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Iran.

Iran: Student and Civil Unrest provokes Internet Censorship, Journalists confined to quarters

As the rain poured down, Government opponents shouted "Allahu Akbar" and "Death to the Dictator" from Tehran's rooftops on the eve of student demonstrations planned for Monday.

Authorities choked off Iran's Internet access and have given severe warnings to journalists working for foreign media, to stay in their offices for the next three days. Journalists working for foreign media organisations are banned from covering Monday's protests. They were told by the Culture Ministry that their press cards would be suspended for three days starting Monday.

Thousands of riot police and Revolutionary Guard members armed with tear gas, batons and firearms were deployed Monday outside Tehran University to prevent student demonstrations backed by the opposition. Witnesses said police were conducting ID checks on anyone entering the campus to prevent opposition activists from joining the students.

The measures were aimed at depriving the opposition of its key means of mobilising the masses as Iran's clerical rulers keep a tight lid on dissent.

Government opponents are seeking, nonetheless, to get large numbers of demonstrators to turn out on the streets on Monday and show their movement still has a potent momentum.

Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi threw his support behind the student demonstrations and declared that his movement is still alive. A statement posted on his Web site said the fundamental clerical establishment cannot silence students, free speech and was losing legitimacy in the minds of the Iranian people.

Iran cracks down on student protests in universities

Iranian students are besieged by an official clampdown in the universities, with a wave of arrests and expulsions.
This pre-emptive tactic is in anticipation of a major anti-government protest to be held on Monday.

Police enforce rule
In addition, authorities are intensifying enforcement of Islamic morals on women's dress and men's hair length, to further punish and discourage political dissence and civil unrest.

Students confined to campus
Students report that authorities have cracked down at campuses nationwide, in an attempt to prevent the demonstrations from becoming widespread. Students recruited as informers by the pro-government Basij militiamen are being told to be more watchful and to inform on any classmates suspected of being pro-opposition "troublemakers."

Police Statement issued
The police warned of a tough response, especially if demonstrators try to break out of their containent area inside the campuses and into the streets. "Any gathering or ceremony outside the permitted designated places will be considered illegal and an act of provocation towards the authorities. If this happens then the police will take quick, forceful and decisive action," a statement said.

Thought Control
The crackdown was described by students as part of a widespread government campaign to control, not only internal 'security' issues but also 'open thinking and new ideas' at universities. Universities are often perceived as strongholds of revelution and reform movements in oppressive regimes. Iran believes that the universities are behind the unrest and public demonstartions that took to the streets after the disputed presidential election in June.

Courses Banned
The university curriculums have also been taken under the control of the authorities. Some courses seen as too Western-based and promoting free thinking, have been replaced with more strict "Islamic" fundamental ones, students say.

Abuse of Women
Since classes began in October at Tehran's prestigious Sharif University of Technology, members of "herasat," a feared force of guards and morals police in universities, have been instilling fear and repression by policing student behaviour. Openly stopping and abusing women at campus gates for wearing clothes that are too colourful or not all-covering enough.

Herasat's role in oppression
A herasat official uses a cellphone to photograph male students with long hair or those wearing colorful T-shirts, said Kouhyar Goudarzi. "If a student complains, he grabs his student card and says 'when you look like a human being, you will get your card back,"' he said.

"Student dissatisfaction has reached a point where it's about to explode," he said.

Expulsion as punishment
Goudarzi, a 23-year-old aerospace student, said he was expelled because he spoke to the BBC's Persian TV service about a campus demonstration in October.

Aggressive surveillance
"Six months later, the fire is still burning," said Atieh Vahidmanesh, a 24-year-old economics post-grad at Sharif University. "We are under aggressive surveillance."

"Not all our sympathisers are active themselves, many are afraid to come to the protest," said one student leader at Tehran's Allameh Tabatabei University who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of further persecution.

"We are not calling on others to participate because we don't want them to pay the high price of protest in Iran," he said.

Pro-governemnt students
Some pro-government students on campus dismiss such talk. "The western media are used to exaggerating issues," said Mahdi Eslami. "I don't feel there's been any change in the atmosphere of universities." Interestingly, the pro-government supporters have no fear of retribution from speaking to the press and are open to their names being revealed to the press.

Ahmad Bakhshayesh, a political science professor at Tehran's Allameh Tabatabaei, a leading humanities university, said "it's not a police atmosphere at the university. Students are stricly controlled, but not openly"; e.g. new students are confined to separate dorms, to shield them from 'contamination' from older, more politicised students, he said.

Oil prices increase following concerns for weak dollar and Iran

World oil prices surged for the second straight day Tuesday as a weaker dollar lifted commodities and the market fretted about geopolitical tensions over Iran's nuclear program.

New York's main contract, light sweet crude for January delivery, closed at 78.37 dollars a barrel, up 1.09 dollars from Monday.

In London, Brent North Sea crude for January delivery gained 88 cents to settle at 79.35 dollars a barrel.

Japan's Amano takes the helm as IAEA chief and faces Iran conflict

Japanese diplomat Yukiya Amano took the helm on Tuesday of the UN atomic watchdog, pledging a steady hand to steer the agency through the storm surrounding Iran's nuclear drive.

"This is the first day as director general of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) for me," the 62-year-old told reporters as he arrived for his first staff meeting on a cold, rainy day in the Austrian capital.

"As you can see, it is raining," Amano said. "But the situation surrounding the agency is stormy now. We have a lot of difficult issues and challenges, but I would like to do my best."

Amano, who succeeds the Egyptian diplomat Mohamed ElBaradei, is taking over at a particularly difficult time for the agency with a solution to a long-running standoff with Iran apparently farther away than ever.

Last week, the watchdog's 35-member board passed a sternly-worded resolution against Tehran over its controversial nuclear programme.

After nearly seven years of intensive investigation, the IAEA has been unable to confirm if the programme is peaceful as the Islamic republic claims.

In response to the resolution, Tehran said it planned to build 10 new uranium enrichment plants.

The UN atomic watchdog said it had not been officially informed yet of Iran's decision.

"The IAEA is aware through media reports of Iran's announcement that it intends to build 10 new uranium enrichment facilities," said agency spokeswoman Gill Tudor.

"Iran has not yet informed the agency directly of its decision. The agency will be seeking clarification from Iran on its announcement."

The Islamic Republic slammed last week's IAEA resolution as an "act of bullying" and has even begun to question the importance of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

The installation of Amano, who served as Japan's ambassador to the IAEA from August 2005 until his selection as director general in July 2009, marks a new era in the agency after ElBaradei's 12-year stint.

ElBaradei came under frequent fire during his three terms as IAEA chief, with critics saying he was too soft on Iran and accusing him of overstepping his mandate as head of a purely technical agency by making political statements.

Amano promised to be "impartial, reliable and professional as director general. I would like to get your support."

"I would like to address the global issues, that includes non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, enhancing nuclear security, addressing energy needs, providing good healthcare and water management among others," Amano said.

In Tokyo, Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada said he was "sincerely and profoundly pleased" Amano had become the first Asian head of the IAEA.

The watchdog "is faced with a variety of challenges including the nuclear issues in North Korea and Iran as well as the necessity to strengthen technical cooperation for nuclear energy in order to address global issues in fields such as medicine, food provision and the environment," Okada said.

In Vienna, where the IAEA is headquartered, Austrian Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger described Amano as an "experienced diplomat and expert in the areas of nuclear disarmament and the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction".

Spindelegger also thanked ElBaradei for "strengthening the IAEA and Vienna as a hub of international security dialogue with his steady hand, expert knowledge and clear-sighted view of the big picture."

The change in leadership at the IAEA came at a particularly challenging time, the Austrian minister said.

"Iran's latest announcement that it plans to build further enrichment plants deals a severe blow to our efforts to reach a negotiated solution," he said.

"Our hand remains outstretched, but the patience of the international community is wearing thin. Iran must not allow things to escalate further."

Iran says IAEA resolution is 'law of the jungle'

Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Monday the UN atomic watchdog was imposing the "law of the jungle" by denouncing the Islamic republic over its uranium enrichment drive. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) "resolution against Iran is not logical. No-one can bring any reasoning in face of such logic," Mottaki told a news conference.

"This is an act of bullying. Today, we call it the law of the jungle," he said in the comments carried and translated into English by state-run Press TV. Mottaki also reiterated that Tehran would never give up its "legitimate" right to pursue nuclear technology.

On Friday, the IAEA passed a resolution condemning Iran for building a second uranium enrichment plant and asked it to stop its construction in a mountain near the Shiite holy city of Qom. In his response, Mottaki said that "such measures will destroy the very foundation of the UN Security Council and the IAEA."

"We cannot accept discrimination in international relations. Either there are rights or such rights do not exist," he added, indicating Iran had the right to enrich uranium given it is party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Iran: Brazil Enjoying Closer Nuclear Co-operation

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defended closer ties with Brazil Friday, hinting at a bilateral nuclear cooperation ahead of a state visit.

Ahmadinejad stressed the "need for cooperation between the two countries in various fields," according to a statement distributed here by the Iranian embassy.

"While there is an unfair polemic in Western countries against Iran's peaceful nuclear program, the people of Brazil side with the Iranian people."

Pointing to Brazil's own nuclear program, Ahmadinejad said Brazilians "understand that a few arrogant powers... are trying to prevent other nations from having access to advanced science."

Ahmadinejad arrives in Brazil on Monday for a busy day-long visit that includes a meeting with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, signing bilateral trade deals, a visit to Congress, a press conference and a speech at a Brasilia university, according to the embassy.

It will be the first visit by an Iranian president to Brazil, and Ahmadinejad's third round of talks with Lula, who is scheduled to visit Tehran in early 2010.

Israel, whose conservative government considers Ahmadinejad-ruled Iran an existential threat, has already blasted Brazil's "mistake" in hosting the firebrand leader.

Brazil has backed Iran's nuclear development program, as long as it serves peaceful, civilian uses. Lula told AFP in September that he was against sanctions on Iran, preferring instead diplomacy.

His stance contrasts with the United States, its Western allies and Israel, which charge that Tehran is seeking to develop a nuclear bomb under the cover of its suspect nuclear program.

World powers are engaged in long-running efforts to persuade Iran to curb its nuclear ambitions but in the latest setback, Tehran has rejected a proposed nuclear fuel deal.

The Iranian leader called for Brasilia's cooperation on Middle East concerns, as Brazil seeks to boost its international profile to match its growing economic heft.

"If the Brazilian people and the Iranian people are united on issues such as the Zionist regime's cruel attack on the defenseless people of Gaza, this will show a mutual desire" for peace, Ahmadinejad said.

He was referring to the 22-day Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip that ended in January, killing some 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.

Ahmadinejad's stop in Brazil, part of a broader Latin American tour to boost its influence in the region, comes just over a week after Lula hosted Israeli President Shimon Peres.

Iran using more Sophisticated Tactics to Block Internet Access for Government Critics

Iran is using a number of new technologies to censor the Web. Some of these Government tools are simplistic and blunt, while others are more precise and surgical. Both are intended to stifle so-called dissidents.

One month after a disputed presidential election sparked widespread unrest in Iran, the country's government has initiated a cyber-crackdown that is challenging hackers across the globe to find new ways to help keep Iranian dissidents connected to the Web.

Iranian Government Strategy step-up
While the government's initial efforts to censor the Internet were crude and consequently ineffective, it has started employing more sophisticated tools to thwart dissidents' attempts to communicate with each other and the outside world. Iranian dissidents are not alone in their struggle, however, as several sympathetic hacker groups have been working to keep them online.

NedaNet
One such group is NedaNet, whose mission is to "help the Iranian people by setting up networks of proxy severs, anonymisers, and any other appropriate technologies that can enable them to communicate and organise."

NedaNet project coordinator Morgan Sennhauser, who has just written a paper detailing the Iranian government's latest efforts to thwart hackers, says that the government's actions have been surprisingly robust and have challenged hackers in ways that the Chinese government's efforts at censorship have not.

Chinese Internet censorship: An inside look
"China has several gigabytes per second of traffic to deal with and has a lot more international businesses," he says. "They can't be as heavy-handed with their filtration. The Iranians aren't as concerned about that, so they get to use all these fancy toys that, if the Chinese used them, could cripple their economy."

Here are five of the most commonly-used technologies the Iranian government has been using to stifle dissents, as outlined in Sennhauser's paper.

IP Blocking
IP Blocking is one of the most basic methods that governments such as Iran are using for online censorship. It simply prevents all packets going to or from targeted IP addresses. Sennhauser says that this was how the government banned access to the BBC's Persian news services and how it took down websites that were critical or in any way negative about the election.

While these operations are relatively simple to execute, they don't tackle the problem of individual communications between users, especially if the users have set up multi-hop circuits that, in themselves use multiple servers to create a proxy ring.

Traffic Classification (QoS)
QoS is a much more sophisticated method of blocking traffic than IP blocking, because governments can halt any file sent through a certain type of protocol, such as FTP. They can simply limit the bandwidth available on that port and throttle transfers because the government knows that FTP transfers are most often sent through TCP port 21.

Sennhauser says that this type of traffic shaping practice is the most common one used by governments today, as "it is not too resource intensive and is fairly easy to set up."

Shallow Packet Inspection
Shallow packet inspection is basically a blunter, broader version of the deep packet inspection (DPI) technique that is used to block packets based on their content. 'Shallow packet' inspection makes broad generalities about traffic, based solely on checking out the packet header, unlike DPI, which intercepts packets and inspects their fingerprints, headers and payloads.

Although shallow packet inspection can't provide the Iranian government with the same detailed traffic assessments as DPI, Sennhauser says that it is much better at handling volume than DPI.

Reading the label on the packet
"It's a less refined tool, but it can also deal with a lot more traffic than true DPI." he explains. "Shallow packet inspection is more like judging a book by its cover. If a packet says that it's SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) in the header, then a shallow packet inspector takes it at face value."

However, this is a double-edged sword. If a user disguises their SSL packets as FTP packets in the header, the shallow packet inspector won't be able to tell the difference.

Packet Fingerprinting
This is a slightly more refined method of throttling packets than 'shallow packet' inspection, as it looks not only at the packet header but at its length, frequency of transmission and other characteristics to make a rough determination of its content.

Sennhauser says the government can use this technique to better classify packets and not throttle traffic sent out by key businesses.

Mix 'n Match
"A lot of things don't explicitly say what they are, e.g. a lot of VPN traffic is indistinguishable from SSH traffic, which means that it would be throttled if SSH was," he says. "but what if businesses relied on VPN connections? You'd move the system to fingerprinting, where the two are easily distinguishable."

Deep Packet Inspection / Packet Content Filtering
DPI is the most refined method that the government has for blocking Internet traffic. As mentioned above, deep packet inspectors examine not only a packet's header but also its payload. This gives governments the ability to filter packets at a more surgical level than any of the other techniques discussed so far.

"Viewing a packet's contents doesn't tell you much on its own, especially if it's encrypted," he says. "But combining it with the knowledge gained from fingerprinting and shallow packet inspection, it is usually more than enough to figure out what sort of traffic you're looking at."

DPI Downside
There are downsides to using DPI, of course: it's much more complicated to run and is far more labour-intensive than other traffic-shaping technologies. On the down side, Sennhauser says there is no magic bullet for getting around DPI. Users can usually only temporarily elude it by "finding flaws in their system." and even this won't help for long, as the government can simply correct their system's flaws once they're discovered.

"Once they fix the flaw, you've lost unless you can figure out some real way to circumvent it," Sennhauser notes.

Endgame still unclear
Sennhauser says that the government has employed these technologies very quickly and very smartly, despite being caught flat-footed by the initial furor after the election. Indeed, he thinks the only reason that Iran hasn't yet completely shut down dissidents' communications is that they've had to fight with an army of hackers who tirelessly search for flaws in their system.

"It really is like an arms race," he says. "They create a problem, we circumvent it, they create another, we get around that one. This continues on until the need to do so is removed. The circumstances which will end the competition aren't clear yet."