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U.S. Adds to Its List of Sanctions Against Iran
(New York Times) Rick Gladstone - In an executive order effective July 1, President Obama authorized sanctions on any foreign financial institutions that conduct "significant transactions" in the Iranian rial, the national currency, or maintains rial accounts outside Iran. An administration official said the order "should cause banks and exchanges to dump their rial holdings." The objective of the new sanction is to "make the rial essentially unusable outside of Iran." The executive order also authorized sanctions against any companies or individuals who do business with Iran's automotive industry. Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the automotive sanctions could have serious consequences for Iran, where the automotive industry is one of the biggest employers. Sanctions advocates also contend Iran's automotive industry is a major procurement network that imports material and technologies used to build uranium centrifuges instead of cars.