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February 15, 2012 | | Revenge In response to European sanctions, Iran announced Wednesday that it would cut off oil exports to Portugal, Italy, France, the Netherlands, and Greece. The country also announced it has achieved two major steps toward producing nuclear fuel, according to various Iranian media. In northern Tehran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad oversaw the insertion of the first domestically made fuel rod into a research reactor. The Fars news agency also reported that a “new generation of Iranian centrifuges” had been installed at the main uranium-enrichment plant in Natanz. The move was perceived in the West as a defiant response to sanctions that are crippling Iran’s economy. CRISIS Signs are mounting that the euro zone is fed up with Greece’s inability to get its fiscal act together—and is insulating itself against a potential default. The Daily Beast’s Christopher Dickey reports SURGE A new New York Times/CBS poll shows that Obama’s approval ratings have reached 50 percent amid voters’ growing optimism over the economy. Conducted between Feb. 8 and 13, the survey reveals that the percentage of people who believe the economy is improving is double the percentage of those who think it’s getting worse. Furthermore, the results show that the president currently holds an edge over all four Republican presidential candidates, earning approval from 48 percent of voters in comparison to Mitt Romney’s 42 percent, and 49 percent to Rick Santorum’s 41 percent. Last month, Romney and Obama were tied at 45 percent. SYRIA The Obama administration may not be moving to intervene in Syria’s ongoing massacre, but they aren’t buying President Bashar al-Assad’s promises of reform. Responding to an announcement by Assad Wednesday that he has ordered a referendum for a new constitution, press secretary Jay Carney said the move was “quite laughable” in light of the regime’s daily assault on its citizens. The new constitution pledges to allow additional political parties to participate in Syria’s government, but Carney said Assad never delivered any of the reforms promised thus far. INVESTIGATION A source told the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday that investigators are likely to hand out subpoenas to Whitney Houston’s doctors and pharmacies to determine if there is any relationship between her death and the prescription drugs found in her hotel room. Authorities have collected several prescription-drug bottles from Houston’s suite at the Beverly Hills Hilton, where she was found dead on Saturday night. A police source would not go into specifics of the case, but said it is standard practice for investigators to look into whether she was receiving too many prescriptions, whether the prescriptions were actually what was in the bottles. | | 
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