Reuters: Signs build that Iran sanctions disrupt food imports

[TomClash]

KUALA LUMPUR/TEHRAN, Feb 8 (Reuters) - More evidence emerged on Tuesday of the crippling impact of new sanctions on Iran, with international traders saying Tehran is having trouble buying rice, cooking oil and other staples to feed its 74 million people weeks before an election.

New U.S. financial sanctions imposed since the beginning of this year to punish Tehran over its nuclear programme are playing havoc with Iran's ability to buy imports and receive payment for its oil exports, commodities traders said.

Iran denies that sanctions are causing serious harm to its economy, but Reuters investigations in recent days with commodities traders around the globe show serious disruptions to its imports. That is having a real impact on the streets of Iran, where prices for basic foodstuffs are soaring.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak was in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, the latest leader of a major Asian oil importing country to visit the Middle East seeking alternative sources of oil as sanctions make it more difficult to import from Iran.

Traders in Asia told Reuters on Tuesday that Malaysian exporters of palm oil - the source of half of Iran's consumption of a food staple used to make margarine and confectionary - had halted sales to Iran because they could not get paid.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/08/iran-idUSL5E8D85QB20120208

[atreides1]

1. The old ways still work

Surround the city and starve it into submission...siege warfare!

Sometimes the old ways are the best, aren't they?

[DUIC]

2. Iran keeps the war machine going, defaults on its staples

Typical hardline regime....stop paying for food that your people need, but still work on getting your weapons in and your oil out, that your people do not need.

[polly7]

3. Well .......... sanctions were proven to work in Iraq ...

so well that 500,000 children under the age of 5 were prevented from carrying out their WMD ambitions, why wouldn't it work here as well? "We think it was worth it ” – Madeline Albright

[DUIC]

5. Let's not repeat fallacious numbers

The idea that sanctions in Iraq have killed half a million or more children were based on a flawed 1995 study. The study's conclusions were eventually withdrawn by its authors.

[polly7]

6. Like the John Hopkins / Lancet study was flawed?

So many choices, which number do you pick in order to minimize horror?

[DUIC]

9. You are entitled to your own opinions, you are not entitled to your own facts

You don't "pick" the number. That is how that number kept climbing up to 1.5 million. You can agree on the established numbers that meet the scrutiny of peer-review. Anything less is substituting conjecture for fact.

[polly7]

10. Like I said ..... pick a number you feel most comfortable with.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctions_against_Iraq

Estimates of deaths due to sanctions

Estimates of excess deaths during sanctions vary depending on the source. The estimates vary [31][38] due to differences in methodologies, and specific time-frames covered.[39] A short listing of estimates follows:

Unicef: 500,000 children (including sanctions, collateral effects of war). "[As of 1999] [c]hildren under 5 years of age are dying at more than twice the rate they were ten years ago."[31][40]
Former U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq Denis Halliday: "Two hundred thirty-nine thousand children 5 years old and under" as of 1998.[41]
"probably ... 170,000 children", Project on Defense Alternatives, "The Wages of War", 20. October 2003[42]
350,000 excess deaths among children "even using conservative estimates", Slate Explainer, "Are 1 Million Children Dying in Iraq?", 9. October 2001.[43]
Economist Michael Spagat: "very likely to be [less than] than half a million children." He claims that these estimates are unable to isolate the effects of sanctions alone due to the lack of "anything resembling a controlled experiment".[44]
"Richard Garfield, a Columbia University nursing professor ... cited the figures 345,000-530,000 for the entire 1990-2002 period"[45] for sanctions-related excess deaths.[46]
Zaidi, S. and Fawzi, M. C. S., (1995) The Lancet British medical journal: 567,000 children.[47] A co-author (Zaidi) did a follow-up study in 1996, finding "much lower ... mortality rates ... for unknown reasons."[48]
Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark: 1.5 million (includes sanctions, bombs and other weapons, depleted uranium poisoning).[49]
Iraqi Baathist government: 1.5 million.[29]
Iraqi Cultural Minister Hammadi: 1.7 million (includes sanctions, bombs and other weapons, depleted uranium poisoning)[50]


"Denis Halliday was appointed United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Baghdad, Iraq as of 1 September 1997, at the Assistant Secretary-General level. In October 1998 he resigned after a 34 year career with the UN in order to have the freedom to criticise the sanctions regime, saying "I don't want to administer a programme that satisfies the definition of genocide"[35]"

[bahrbearian]

11. So what is the acceptable number of Childrens Death?

[DUIC]

25. That's the problem with making emotionally charged statements

Throws the whole premise in question. Another way to say it is "how many Iraqi children were killed because of Saddam's actions".

[Scootaloo]

8. The pointed question remains; Did the Iraq sanctions do what they were supposed to do?

And the obvious answer is fuck no, they did not. Unless, I suppose, the double-decret unspoken goal of the sanctions was indeed to visit needless and dangerous poverty upon the Iraqi people without actually touching Saddam, thus ending any of the slightest bit of goodwill we might have earned from Iraq's neighbors.

Sanctions don't fucking work. And at least, at the very fucking least, the Iraq sanctions were put into place after over ten years of Iraq attacking, invading, and using proscribed weapons against three of its neighbors.

[dipsydoodle]

4. They'll do an exchange/barter deal with India

as payment for oil.

[Hugabear]

7. So we starve Iranian children based on unfounded accusations

We're willing to starve Iranian children because we THINK that they MIGHT be working on nuclear weapons - despite any concrete evidence to support that claim.

Meanwhile, nobody says a damned word about the huge stockpile of nuclear weapons that Israel ALREADY HAS.

[Indydem]

12. Yeah, I HATE it when Israel does all that threatening.

It's so crazy when they threaten to wipe all the arabs off the map and vow that mecca should be destroyed.

Wait, what?

[Hugabear]

13. I've never seen anything to suggest Iran wants to wipe all Jews off the map

Considering that there are quite a few Jews living in Iran - and that the Ayatollah issued a 'fatwa' ordering their protection - doesn't seem likely that they have this genocidal urge to destroy all Jews.

[Indydem]

14. Really?

Perhaps you should read more:

http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/ahmadinejad-iran-is-determined-to-eradicate-israel-1.380629

http://in.reuters.com/article/2009/09/18/idINIndia-42553620090918

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080602124328.f6eyi8y1&show_article=1 (It's on Breitbart, but it's AFP)

http://www.israeltoday.co.il/default.aspx?tabid=178&nid=14125

[nebenaube]

15. bullshit links based on mis-translated propaganda

There are a few of us who remember and are not susceptible to propaganda.

[Indydem]

18. Keep clinging to that disproven myth.

"the occupation regime over Jerusalem should vanish from the page of time."

The "correct" translation is no less offensive and threatening than the "wrong" translation.

[Hugabear]

24. So if, in 2004, I had said "the Bush regime over DC should disappear from the page of time"...

...would you automatically have assumed that I was advocating for the total destruction of Washington, DC?

If someone now were to day that the Kim Jong regime over North Korea should vanish from the page of time, would you assume they meant the complete destruction of North Korea, and the annihilation of all North Koreans?


I suppose it's okay for the United States to push for regime change in other countries - but it's NOT okay for other countries to push for regime change. After all, we're the GOOD GUYS

[Hugabear]

16. Breitbart? Really?

Why not just link to World Nut Daily while you're at it?

[Indydem]

19. Hereit is on reuters.

For all his bullshit, Breitbart just reposts AFP, AP, and reuters stories.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/06/03/us-iran-israel-usa-idUSL0261250620080603

[Hugabear]

21. Still doesn't change the fact that those are based on mistranslations

But never let facts and truth get in the way of a good demagoguery

[SayIt]

23. Iran's 1994, 2001 genocidal calls

1) Rafsanjani: Muslims Should Use Nuclear Weapon against Israel. [Iran Press Service (IPS), December 14, 2001].

2) Or 1994 by [mastermind of butchery of AMIA massacre in Argentina] Mohsen Rabbani, the Iranian Islamic cleric in 1994 that called Israel must disappear from the face of the Earth. [Los Angeles Times, August 04, 1994, Tracy Wilkinson - Times Staff Writer]

[SayIt]

22. Thy'd prefer to let a few Jews live, for now.. towards

Towards their goal of eradicating [Israelis] 6,000,000??? It helps them politically,

[SayIt]

17. Iran like palestinians using children?

To demonize the West. Nothing new. Cruel!!!

[truthisfreedom]

20. Margerine and confectionery?

"Traders in Asia told Reuters on Tuesday that Malaysian exporters of palm oil - the source of half of Iran's consumption of a food staple used to make margarine and confectionary - had halted sales to Iran because they could not get paid."

Erm... I fail to see how a lack of margarine (eww, it's poison) and confectionery (dessert?) is a crisis.