PoliticsIran: Sanctions & Oil: With a new nuke test, Iran scoffs at Western oil sanctions

Christian Science Monitor began publishing a 3-page selection of its top stories, and you can receive it free for a month, to try it out and to decide if you want to obtain a paid subscription. I'm dutifully trying it out. The top story of the first issue issue received, a kind of sampler, I guess, is not current news "Iran tests powerful missile: launch determins claims of peaceful intention" (Dec17,2k9) by CSM reporter Scott Peterson. So, I'm not all that impressed, yet there's sometihing uncanny about the article, it's déjà-vu quality. Here it is after more than a year.

ISTANBUL, TURKEY – 
Iran test-fired the latest version

of its longest-range missile on Wednesday,

sending a message of defiance as pressure

mounts on Tehran over its nuclear program.

The test came a day after the US House of

Representatives overwhelmingly approved

tougher sanctions legislation against Iran.

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Iran: Mediation: A deal brokered by Brazil and Turkey fails, 'Big Powers' sanction Ayatollahland

Brazil brokers a swap deal between Iran and Turkey regarding enriched uranium (nuclear grade) for use in a key Turkish medical project, but meantime the slow grind of Big-Power diplomacy reaches agreement on draft resolution to be presented for a vote at the UN Security Council. Reuters via Yahoo! News offers this May18,2k10 dispatch, "Big powers agree on Iran sanctions draft":

The United States handed the U.N. Security Council a draft resolution on Tuesday that would expand U.N. sanctions against Iran by hitting its banking and other industries for refusing to halt nuclear enrichment.

The 10-page draft, agreed by the United States, Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia after months of negotiations, also calls for international inspection of vessels suspected of carrying cargo related to Iran's nuclear or missile programs.

The Security Council draft restricts Iran's international expansion of banking for nuclear-war purposes, and it specifically names the Revolutionary Guard's activities, alerting the world to the latter's insidious if clandestine manoeverings.