US rejects Iran offer to swap nuclear fuel

THE US has bluntly dismissed an Iranian offer to swap nuclear fuel, which a senior US official said was inconsistent with a deal allowing Tehran to avoid further sanctions.

The rebuff came yesterday amid revelations that more than $US2 billion allegedly held on behalf of Iran in Citigroup accounts was secretly ordered frozen last year by a court in Manhattan, in what appears to be the biggest seizure of Iranian assets abroad since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

The US government is intensifying efforts to use the global financial system to pressure Iran into giving up its nuclear program and support for terrorism.

Iran's Foreign Minister proposed that Tehran swap 400kg of low-enriched uranium for nuclear fuel in an exchange on the island of Kish, a free trade zone, as the first phase of a deal with world powers. But the US official said: "Iran's proposal today does not appear to be consistent with the fair and balanced draft agreement proposed by the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) in consultation with the United States, Russia and France."

The official said Iran's offer contained "nothing new" and urged the country to take up the existing IAEA proposal, which calls on Iran to send 1200kg of its low-enriched uranium to Russia "in one batch". "We remain committed to these terms. Unfortunately, Iran has been unwilling to engage in further talks on its nuclear program," the official said. "We urge Iran not to squander this opportunity."

Many in the West suspect Iran is developing technology to enrich uranium to highly refined levels to build a nuclear bomb. Tehran says its nuclear program serves peaceful purposes.

The US official said the IAEA-brokered agreement was "an opportunity for Iran to begin to build confidence in the peaceful nature of its nuclear program".

On Friday, the White House warned Iran it faced "credible consequences" if it did not respond positively this month.

The legal order freezing the Citigroup accounts, executed 18 months ago by the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, has yet to be made public. The court acted in part because of information provided by the US Treasury Department.

The frozen $US2 billion stands at the centre of a legal struggle between Luxembourg's Clearstream Banking SA, the holder of the Citibank account, and the families of hundreds of US marines killed or injured in a 1983 terror attack on a marines barracks in Beirut.

Clearstream is primarily a clearing house for financial trades and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Germany's Deutsche Boerse AG. Luxembourg's bank secrecy laws have helped it grow into a European financial centre.

There is no indication that Citibank knew the funds may ultimately belong to Iran. US firms that do business with Iran face stiff penalties.

A federal judge in Washington ruled in 2003 that Iran orchestrated the bombing of the marines barracks and ordered Tehran to pay the victims' families $US2.7 billion in compensation.

Lawyers for the families are arguing that Clearstream is holding Iranian funds at Citibank and are seeking to seize the assets as payment for their clients.

"I was stunned when this money popped up in New York," said Steven Perles, a lawyer representing the victims' families. "I had no idea there was Iranian money of this size flowing through the United States."

The outlines of the dispute appear in judicial filings and in the federal court's docket sheets.

The documents show that Clearstream has denied it is holding funds for the Iranian government and that the European firm has been fighting to release the $US2 billion.

The court initially ordered Citibank in June last year to freeze $US2.25 billion of Clearstream's accounts, but the company's lawyers were able to get $US250 million released the following month, according to court records.

The Australian

Thousands of Palestinians may lose jobs in Dubai crash

Thousands of Palestinian workers in Dubai may lose their jobs due to the financial crisis there, economists project.

Over the past few months, thousands of the estimated 100,000 Palestinian laborers working in Dubai have lost their jobs.

The Gulf state's economy is grinding to a halt, due to the huge international debts the country took on to drive its breakneck expansion coupled with the global economic crisis.

Last week, the Dubai government announced its flagship conglomerate needed a six-month halt to interest payments on $59 billion worth of debt.

Arab financial analysts said the crisis in the Gulf states, compounded by debts and falling oil prices, will affect the economy in the Palestinian Territories, where many families depend on money from relatives working in Dubai, primarily in construction.

Other Palestinians work as engineers, instructors and in technology-related professions in Dubai. Some have started construction businesses there, such as Arab-Tech, which was among the country's first victims of the financial crisis.

This recession resulted in the cancelation of building contracts and projects and sent the industry into a freeze, prompting many Palestinians to leave Dubai for neighboring Qatar - which last month injected $6 billion in fresh capital into its banking system to "restore confidence" in its own economy - and in Saudi Arabia. Some have returned to the West Bank.

One Dubai-based Palestinian businessman said Palestinians working in Dubai were generally "highly skilled personnel with long years of experience in their respective fields."

"Many West Bank families are losing their sources of income, as these people are no longer sending much money," he told Haaretz.

The sheikdom of Dubai, ruled by the Makhtoum family, has staked its future on plans to become the tourist, transport and finance hub of the Middle East, encouraging outsiders to buy apartments in the plethora of new tower blocks sprouting like poplars across the sand.

But the international financial conglomerate Citigroup warned has warned that several Dubai developers have been caught in a severe squeeze, and their projects are increasingly unlikely to be finished.

Haaretz

Four U.S. banks to open branches in Iran

"If they can work according to Iran's banking law, they will be allowed to open branches in Tehran and other cities." So in other words, Western banks operating in Islamic countries have to abide by Sharia Finance restrictions. And Western banks operating in Western likewise are increasingly accommodating Sharia Finance restrictions.

This is in microcosm (albeit admittedly a rather macrocosmic microcosm) the same stealth jihad phenomenon we see in other areas: in Muslim countries, Muslims demand that Westerners conform to Islamic sensibilities, and likewise in Western countries, Muslims demand that Westerners conform to Islamic sensibilities.

And the banks willingly go along. Lovers of freedom should divest their assets from these banks. Read more ...

Source: Voz Is Neias?
H/T: Jihad Watch

The 300 Billion Dollar Bailout of Sharia Finance

By Daniel Greenfield

We are now seeing the third round of bailouts for Citigroup, after the US government already has taken a 36 percent stake in the bank. This makes the US government the largest shareholder of a bank, whose second largest shareholder is Saudi Prince Alaweed Bin Talal.

Currently American taxpayers are in hock for 45 billion dollars to bailout Citigroup, while the Treasury, the FDIC and the Federal Reserve cover 90 percent of Citi’s 335 billion dollar losses. The numbers are scary and since most financial experts predict that the bailout isn’t done yet, is likely to only be the beginning. It’s unclear how much US taxpayer will have to go into debt in order to bail out Citigroup.

But in bailing out Citigroup, the American taxpayer isn’t simply bailing out Prince Alaweed Bin Talal’s bank, who actually increased his stake at the end of 2008 when investors were jumping overboard, or protecting the investment of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. We’re also engaging in a 300 billion dollar plus bailout of Sharia finance. Because Citigroup’s Islamic Banking operation represents the world’s leading of Islamic loans and Sukuk bonds. Read more ...

Source: Canada Free Press