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Iran signed a deal Monday with Frances Total SA and Chinas state-run China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) to develop the South Pars offshore field, one of the worlds largest natural-gas fields. The $5 billion agreement is the first energy deal between foreign companies and Iran since Tehran signed the landmark nuclear deal with the U.S. and other world powers in July 2015, a move that was followed by the lifting of certain sanctions against the Islamic republic.

The contract, which was signed in Tehran, is for 20 years, and involves 20 wells, two wellhead platforms, and to connect two existing facilities by underwater pipeline. A second phase includes constructing offshore compression facilities. The projects goals is to process 2 billion cubic feet of natural gas each day, the equivalent of about 400,000 barrels of oil. Total will have 50.1 percent stake in the deal, with CNPC taking 30 percent, and Petropars, a subsidiary of the state-run National Iranian Oil Company, 19.9 percent.

This is a major agreement for Total, which officially marks our return to Iran to open a new page in the history of our partnership with the country, Totals CEO, Patrick Pouyann, said in a statement Monday. Total will develop the project in strict compliance with applicable national and international laws.

Total had previously worked on the oil field, but pulled out in 2006 when sanctions were imposed against Iran over its nuclear program, which critics said was being used to develop nuclear weaponsa claim Iran denies.

In 2015 the Obama administration negotiated limits on uranium enrichment and, in exchange, helped lift certain sanctions placed against Iran. President Trump criticized the agreement as the worst deal ever, but in May his administration renewed a waiver that upheld key portions of Obamas deal. At the same time, however, the Trump administration placed economic sanctions on several individuals and business it said were involved in human-rights abuses or were working with the countrys ballistic-missile program. Totals deal will likely give France and China negotiating power to pressure the Trump administration to leave the Iran nuclear deal intact.

Hossein Amiri Khamkani, a member of Irans parliamentary committee on energy, said Monday the deal breaks the taboo of American sanctions and opens the way for other companies.

Since the sanctions lifted, Iran has also signed deals with U.S.-based Boeing and its European rival, Airbus, both for contracts to buy aircraft. The agreement with Boeing was the first major deal by a U.S. company since Irans revolution in 1979.

On Monday, Irans oil minister, Bijan Zanganeh, said the country needs $200 billion in investments to make up for time lost during the sanctions, and he invited U.S. companies to make offers.

Read more here:
Iran Signs a $5 Billion Energy Deal With France's Total - The Atlantic

Iranian artist Hadi Asadi has beatenhundreds of other contestants to winfirst place in a Trumpism cartoon contest held in Tehran his winning caricature depicting President Trump as a flame-haired man wearing a suit made of dollar bills, drooling onto a pile of books.

The competition, called the International Trumpism Cartoon and Caricature Contest, was announced last month. It was organized by a group that hasalso organized cartoon contests on themes such as the Islamic State and the Holocaust (the group says the latter was designed to highlight double standards on free speech).

Trumps behavior clearly sets out Irans reasons to distrust the U.S.; consequently, we decided to use arts capacity for displaying the behavior,organizerAli-Asghar Jafari told reporters at the weekend.Aside from his personal characteristics, Trump has also posed different challenges to the world and treats Iran and the Islamic world unconventionally in particular.

President Trump said Iran is responsible for destabilizing the Middle East and supporting the Assad regime in Syria during a speech on May 21 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. (The Washington Post)

Asadi received$1,500 in prize money on Monday. Hetold the Associated Press that he wanted to show the money-mindedness and warmonger nature of the U.S. president. Asadis Facebook page suggeststhat he created the artwork last year and that hehas produced numerous other similar caricatures over recent years, often of celebrities.

Organizers claim that artists from 75 countries took part in the contest, where 1,600 artworks were considered including four from the United States. Many of the cartoons compared Trump to Hitler a deliberate theme atthe event, which used a logo based on the Nazi emblem.

Mocking and satirizing U.S. leaders has long been an officially sanctioned pastime in post-revolution Iran part of a broadermovement that includes annual protests outside the former U.S. embassy in Tehran. Although these protests had generally grown less enthusiastic in recent years, Trumps fierce anti-Iran rhetoric seems to have reignited a desire to ridicule American leaders.

The exhibition accompanying the Trumpism cartoon contest opened July 3 the day before Americas Independence Day and the 29th anniversary of the day aU.S. fighter jet shot down an Iranian plane, killing all 290 passengers and crew members on board. The exhibition is due to remain open for a week, with a selection of the artworks to be showcased afterward in 11 other countries, according to organizers.

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The winning entry in Iran's Trump cartoon contest shows a drooling president wearing a jacket made of US dollars - Washington Post

BERLIN Volkswagen will start exporting cars to Iran next month, returning to the resurgent Iranian market after more than 17 years in a move that may help the German carmaker reduce its reliance on volatile markets such as China and Brazil.

Volkswagen (VW) has signed an agreement with Iran's Mammut Khodro which will import VW brand models Tiguan and Passat via eight dealerships, focusing on the greater Tehran area, VW said on Tuesday.

Europe's largest automotive group is seeking to tap new overseas markets as it grapples with billions of euros in costs stemming from an emissions scandal while pushing a strategic shift to electric cars and new mobility services.

Group deliveries to China, VW's biggest market accounting for over a third of its sales, fell 3.3 percent between January and May to 1.51 million cars. Sales in Brazil were down 1.9 percent to 116,600 cars.

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VW Resumes Iran Exports, Picks Mammut Khodro as Partner - New York Times

WASHINGTON

Iranian artillery bombed Kurdish militants in northern Iraq on Monday, injuring at least three people and forcing hundreds to flee their homes, Kurdish officials told VOA.

The cross-border shelling in Iraqi Kurdistan's Haji Omaran region targeted positions of Iranian Kurdish rebel groups Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (KDPI) and Komala, Kurdish officials said.

"The shelling started at 5 a.m. [local time] and continued for several hours, forcing hundreds of civilians from nearby villages to flee their homes," Farzang Ahmad, the local administrator of the Haji Omaran sub-district in Iraqi Kurdistan, told VOA.

Ahmad added that one villager and two rebels were injured and many local farmers' livelihoods were destroyed as a result of the shelling.

"The Republic of Iran's justification for the attack is the presence of Iranian Kurdish rebels in the border region with Iraq," he said.

Iran is home to roughly 10 million Kurds who mostly live in the northwest of the country, close to Iraqi and Turkish Kurdish communities across the border.

Kurdish groups

Kurdish armed groups, such as KDPI and Komala, have been in conflict with the Iranian government for decades, and are seeking greater autonomy for the areas inhibited by ethnic Kurds. These armed Kurdish groups are widely spread across the 60-kilometer border with neighboring Iraq.

The mountainous nature of the terrain makes it difficult for the Iranian government to control the area.

To diminish the growing activity of the Iranian Kurdish rebels, the country's military has bombed areas inside the Iraqi border on several occasions in the past, drawing criticism from Iraqi Kurdish officials who charge that civilians bear the brunt of the bombing.

The Iranian government has not commented on Monday's shelling, but Iraqi Kurdish officials say the bombing was carried out in response to the killing of an Iranian commander and injuring two Iranian border guards during clashes in Kermanshah province on Saturday.

Mustafa Mauludi, the secretary general of KDPI, denied his group's involvement in the killing and added that no other Kurdish group has claimed responsibility for Saturday's attack.

Mauludi accused Iran of initiating escalations with Kurdish rebels and breaking a two-decades-old cease-fire in 2015.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran has been attacking us for years now, thinking we will abandon our struggle," Mauludi told VOA. "We have persisted our struggle despite difficulties and we will continue to do so."

Escalation of fighting

The predominately Kurdish province in northwestern Iran situated in the border region with Iraq has recently witnessed an escalation of fighting between Kurdish armed groups and Iranian border guards.

Iranian officials say that they have expelled the Kurdish rebels from the province.

"Thanks to efforts of the armed forces and struggles of the intelligence forces, security is in place on the border lines," Asadollah Razani, Kermanshah province governor general, said last Thursday.

Razani added that Iranian forces are closely monitoring the border region with Iraq and "any suspicious move will receive strong response."

However, Kurdish rebel leader Mauludi told VOA that his group receives broad support from the Kurdish population in Iran and that conflict in the province may continue "until [the] Kurdish issue is resolved."

He told VOA that continued Iranian attacks will more likely encourage Kurdish rebel groups to unify against the Iranian government forces.

"We have been in dialogue with other Kurdish parties in Iran for a while to develop a long-term cooperation mechanism and a mutual platform that will help us be more prepared for future challenges," Mauludi said.

Original post:
Kurds Accuse Iran of Cross-border Shelling in Northern Iraq - Voice of America

A Canadian court has accused Iran of supporting terrorism, upholding a previous ruling that requires the Islamic Republic to pay around $1.7 billion in damages to American victims of terrorism.

Ontarios Court of Appeal rejected Irans request to reconsider the ruling on Monday night, arguing that doing so would amount to a breach of Canadas Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act (JVTA).

The JVTA allows victims of terrorism to sue foreign states for damages.

The accusation came despite Irans firm response to similar cases in the past, where various American and European courts had taken punitive measures against Tehran over unproven claims of complicity in terror.

The new case was brought by families of Americans citizens who had been killed in a series of attacks between 1980s and 2002, mostly blamed on Palestinian and Lebanese resistance movements Hamas and Hezbollah.

The families claimed that the Iranian government supported the two organizations and was therefore responsible for their actions.

The complaints were first filed in the US but the claimants turned to Canada after finding out that the Iranian government had more properties and bank accounts there.

A one-story house in Toronto, an industrial building in Ottawa and two bank accounts were among the assets that were sought in the case.

Without offering further elaboration, the court also claimed in its ruling that Iran was seeking to frustrate the JVTAs implementation.

The Iranian government had reportedly told the court that it had immunity in the case. It had also argued that the judgment was against international law and exceeded the maximum damages allowable in Canadian law.

Tehran also argued that the victims had to prove Irans role in each attack instead of just repeating the US governments baseless allegations.

The court said Iran was only immune in terrorism cases that had occurred before January 1985, when Canadas State Immunity Act was passed.

A recurring trend

Last year, the US Supreme Court ruled that around $2 billion had to be turned over to the American families of the people killed in a 1983 bombing in Beirut and other attacks blamed on Iran.

Likening the act to highway robbery, Iran said back then that it would seek reparations.

The trend of the unfair rulings continued in March, when a New York court ordered Iran to pay $7.5 billion in damage to families of victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks and $3 billion to a group of insurers over related claims.

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The ruling surprised many since Washington had clearly blamed the attacks on the al-Qaeda terror group and even investigated members of Saudi Arabias royal family who had proven ties to the terrorist organization.

Various investigations have revealed that 15 of the 19 plane hijackers involved in the attacks were Saudi nationals and some of them had received big sums of money from Saudi royals.

The ruling lost even more weight in September, after the US Congress passed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), clearing the path to sue Saudi Arabia for the tragic death of over 3,000 people.

It was reported in March, however, that a judge in Luxembourg had quietly put a freeze on $1.6 billion in assets belonging to the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) to compensate the 9/11 victims.

The Canadian courts ruling came days after yet another anti-Iran ruling by a US court, which allowed the American government to seize an Iranian charitys office tower in New York City over claims that it was used to breach Iran sanctions.

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Canadian court upholds $1.7 billion ruling against Iran - Press TV