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Comments (0)The German engineering corporation Siemens will no longer conduct business with Iran.
The major firm announced its decision at its annual shareholders meeting Tuesday.
The announcement came shortly after German Chancellor Angela Merkel said at a news conference in Berlin with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that she was seriously considering tougher sanctions on the Islamic Republic, which has failed to cooperate on disclosing its nuclear ambitions.
Siemens CEO Peter Loscher said the firm would no longer take orders from Iran, aside from bids that were open from last fall.
Other companies, however, are slow to follow suit, according to reports.
Merkel reiterated her position at a news conference Wednesday with Israeli President Shimon Peres, saying the U.N. Security Council would be discussing the issue of increased sanctions in February.
According to news reports, Germany also is pressuring chambers of commerce throughout the country to stop organizing seminars on how to increase business with Iran.
According to Reuters, the Siemens decision has not yet found resonance with other German companies, which earned some $4.6 billion for goods sold in Iran in the first 11 months of 2009, about 8 percent less than the year before. There has been a drop in banking ties and trade in machinery, but an increased interest in Iran’s natural gas resources, Reuters reported.
Meanwhile, an Israeli Foreign Ministry document obtained by Ynet revealed that European trade with Iran continues, the Web site reported Thursday.
According to the report, Germany and Italy are out in front on commerce with Iran, with France next. The document, reportedly based on EU figures, shows a total trade of $91 billion with Iran since 2006.
In the first half of 2009, the volume of trade was approximately $14 billion. Of that, $2.8 billion was in trade with Germany, followed closely by Italy and France.
Wiesel Warns on Iran, Raps Wartime Pope
Elie Wiesel renewed warnings against Iran and implicitly criticized World War II Pope Pius XII for remaining silent in the face of the Holocaust.
Addressing the Italian parliament and senior government leaders Wednesday at the main International Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony in Rome, Wiesel said Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad should be arrested the next time he leaves Iran and “hauled off to the International Court of Justice to face charges of incitement of crimes against humanity.”
Recalling the mechanism of the Holocaust, he said, “Whether at the lowest level of politics or the highest level of spirituality, silence never helps the victims. Silence always helps the aggressor.”
This was interpreted as a reference to Pius XII, whom critics accuse of turning a blind eye to Jewish suffering, but that the Vatican insists worked behind the scenes to save Jews.
Also Wednesday, German-born Pope Benedict XVI, who made his first visit to Rome’s synagogue 10 days ago, termed as “murderous insanity” the “crimes of unprecedented cruelty committed in the extermination camps created by Nazi Germany.”
“Deeply moved, our thoughts go to the countless victims of that blind racial and religious hatred who suffered deportation, imprisonment and death in those abhorrent and inhuman places,” the pope said.
Scores of commemorative and cultural events, as well as educational programs, were held throughout Italy to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
In Rome, the day was marred by unknown vandals spray-painting anti-Semitic and anti-Israel graffiti on the wall of a museum in the former SS headquarters and in other locations in the city. The graffiti included personal attacks on Rome’s mayor and the president of the Rome Jewish community, and also slogans such as “The Holocaust equals Zionist propaganda.”
Brazil’s Lula: ‘Impossible to Deny Holocaust’
“It’s impossible to deny the Holocaust,” Brazil’s president said at a ceremony held in the oldest synagogue in the Western Hemisphere.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was, at his request, the main speaker at Wednesday’s Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony at the Kahal Zur Israel synagogue in Recife.
“Nobody has the right to ignore the extermination of the Jewish people,” Lula said. “I showed Iran it’s impossible to deny the Holocaust.”
The Brazilian leader was referring to his talks with Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during a meeting held last November in Brasilia. A few days before, Lula had also welcomed separately Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Lula added that he will visit the Middle East in March and deliver “a message of tolerance and peace.”
Several Jewish and non-Jewish officials attended the ceremony, including Holocaust survivors. It was the fifth time that Lula had attended the annual event, which was held for the first time in a city other than the major Jewish centers of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
Founded in 1636, Kahal Zur Israel was built in Recife during a short Dutch rule in the northeastern corner of Brazil. The synagogue was the first Jewish temple established in the New World.
Today the building hosts a cultural center that is among the most visited tourist spots in Recife. Built later, in 1732, the Mikve Israel-Emanuel synagogue in Curacao is the oldest synagogue in the Americas still in use.