The Guardian newspaper published an article stating that Iran has sentenced an American citizen to death and reports have emerged that the country has started enriching uranium underground in a show of defiance of western sanctions. Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, an Iranian-American born in Arizona in 1983, was shown on Iranian television in December confessing to being a CIA agent, sent to gain the trust of the Iranian government by pretending to offer US state secrets. Hekmati's father said he had gone to Iran to visit his grandmother. The announcement on Monday of Hekmati's death sentence came as Keyhan, a newspaper with close connections to the conservative clerical establishment, reported that Iran has started enriching uranium at the Fordow plant, a heavily fortified site dug under a mountain near the city of Qom. According to the media agency, The death sentence and the Fordow announcement appeared to signal Iranian defiance of western sanctions amid heightened tensions in the Gulf. The US Congress has passed financial sanctions aimed at Iran's oil trade, due to come into effect in June, and EU foreign ministers are expected to agree an embargo on imports of Iranian oil at the end of the month, which are also due to take effect after a few months' delay.
The same agency published an article headlined “Trying to get at the truth of Turkey's jailed journalists”. The author states that according to the Turkish Journalists' Union and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), the country currently has 72 journalists in jail. Turkey's ministry of justice, which disputes the unions' list, says that only 63 of the named people were jailed and that the overwhelming majority of them were sentenced on charges that "had nothing to do with the conduct of journalism."
Another analytical article published by The Guardian states that with the arrest of General İlker Başbuğ, Turkey is at last facing up to its militarist culture. In the author’s opinion, the sight of a general like Başbuğ being tried in a civil court is among the biggest triumphs imaginable for Turkish democracy. “It seemed to many of us as if Turkey had finally started to get to grips with its militarist culture. After all, Başbuğ is accused of being part of a failed coup against a democratically-elected government. So the message sent to Turkey's military establishment was clear: do not mess with the Turkish people's political choices,” the author states. Only a decade ago nobody would believe the sight of a Turkish general being tried in a civil court. In fact, the mere idea would be seen as an absurdity. For it was usually the other way around. People were used to Turkey's general staff calling the shots by issuing almost daily statements on political matters, threatening Turkey's dissidents and forcing politicians they found irritating out of office. The military apparatus was a cause for grave fear for politicians, who dared not say things that might anger the generals. ‘But the times are changing for Turkey's once mighty and omnipotent commanders,” the author concludes. However, one should also have a careful look at the current generals, who seem to enjoy privileges similar to those of their predecessors.
The Washington Post published an article entitled ‘Iran looks for friends in Latin America’. With his government increasingly isolated by sanctions and facing the U.S. Navy close to home, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad flew to Venezuela on Sunday to meet with a like-minded leader who shares his goal of challenging the United States, President Hugo Chavez. According to the agency, the arrival of Ahmadinejad in the Venezuelan capital, to be followed by a swing this week through Nicaragua, Cuba and Ecuador, allows Iran to show that it still has friends and economic partners, despite sanctions designed to cripple its nuclear program.
