Mike Fitzpatrick, vice president of energy at MF Global, attributed the sell-off to a series of rumors, including the liquidation by a large bank, a cap on commodities, and Iran making a nuclear deal.
China imports about 11% of its crude oil from Iran, making Iran its No. 3 supplier after Saudi Arabia and Angola.
Better, he says, to concentrate on preventing a nuclear arms race across the region before it starts, while containing Iran by making it clear that it will suffer devastating consequences if it takes the next step towards acquiring nuclear weapons.
The move has isolated Iran financially by making it almost impossible for money to flow in and out of the country.
In addition, we're going to be talking about a wide range of global issues, from the Middle East to the situation in Iran, where we both share a deep commitment to making sure that Iran abides by its international obligations, including in the nuclear area.
President Barack Obama, in an executive order signed Sunday, said that Iran's central bank was concealing transactions of sanctioned parties and that Iran wasn't making progress in halting money laundering.
And they went with me making this period Iran drama where I was the youngest person in the movie.
And rather than suspend its own suspect uranium-enrichment efforts (the stuff can be used for power generation or, with further enrichment, abused for bomb-making), Iran insists it will press ahead at all speed, even though it has no nuclear reactors that need the stuff.
Either way, he does not expect the Americans to impose sanctions on Total, a French firm making a huge investment in Iran.
Iran straddles a major geological fault line, making it prone to seismic activity.
Those fiscal straits will make Iran and Venezuela reluctant to forgo revenue by making cuts of their own, setting the stage for a row over quotas with Saudi Arabia.
Making his first narrative feature outside Iran, the writer-director Abbas Kiarostami embraces the sensuous beauties of the Tuscan landscape and the freedom to show a man and a woman openly flirting, quarrelling, and possibly going to bed together.
Iran's internal crisis also paralysed decision-making in Tehran and so killed a confidence-building deal that might have created more time for nuclear diplomacy.
On the same day that the letter was sent to Baroness Ashton, Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was making defiantly upbeat announcements about the country's nuclear progress.
The IAEA's chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, expressed optimism that the signs of progress from the Korean talks might even nudge Iran and its interlocutors (Germany, Britain and France) to resume their talks, which were broken off last month when Iran resumed some of its controversial nuclear fuel-making activities.
Knowing who is making decisions at any given time inside of Iran is tough.
Mr Obama will have to guard against the danger of Iran spinning out talks while also continuing to spin the centrifuges making the fuel that could be enriched for a bomb.
President Obama recently issued an Executive Order making it illegal to sell filtering technology to Syria and Iran.
FORBES: Operation Olympic Games, Project X, and the assault on the IT security industry
The Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has said he will consult the business community before making a final decision on cutting any oil imports from Iran.
BBC: Iran oil sanctions divide Asia's four largest economies
The move, which follows several days of diplomatic efforts between Iran and Britain, was sudden: The two countries had only recently acknowledged making overtures to end the standoff.
Russia and Iran will probably not abandon al-Assad until they are part of the deal-making process about Syria's future government.
应用推荐