News

One of the world's largest engineering firms, Siemens, could lose hundreds of millions of dollars in sales to the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) because it sold Iran equipment used to spy on dissidents.

California politicians and Iranian human rights advocates say in awarding contracts, officials should take into account the fact that the German company participated in a joint venture with Nokia in 2008 to sell Iran's telecommunications company a monitoring center that, according to the joint venture's own promotional literature, can intercept and catalog e-mails, telephone calls and Internet data.

Political pressure because of Iran's recent crackdown on postelection protesters - as well as the country's advancing nuclear program - could affect a vote next week on who will supply rail cars for Los Angeles County.