Business: Spread off Petrobrinkmanship

Banking is dragged deeper into the Iranian crisis

Fear and uncertainty shook the money markets as petrobrinkmanship spread further than ever into the nervous realm of high finance. While Iranian officials openly delighted in the chaos they were creating, the acting Finance and Foreign Minister threatened to renege on his government's debts to foreign banks and other creditors the world over. Renouncing previous pledges of payment, Abol Hassan Banisadr declared: "We will not pay back these debts. How can we repay loans that former plunderers received from their foreign accomplices and put back into...

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