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Monday, February 15, 2010

Spain to take five from Guantanamo

Spain has said it is willing to take five inmates from the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba, which the US administration has pledged to close.

Miguel Angel Moratinos, Spain's foreign minister, said on Monday that the former prisoners would not pose a security threat to the country.

"It will obviously be done with every legal guarantee needed in order to defend the country's security and legal situation," he said.

Officials had said previously that Spain would take two inmates, a Palestinian and a Yemeni.

The minister did not announce the nationalities of the three additional inmates.

A foreign ministry official told The Associated Press news agency that it was not yet known when Spain would give final approval for the transfers.

A number of other European countries have agreed to take in Guantanamo inmates, including France, Hungary, Ireland, Italy and Portugal.

Persecution fears

Barack Obama, the US president, has pledged to close the prison camp, but has missed his January 22 deadline partly because it has not yet resolved where the remaining inmates will be sent.

Washington asked other countries to help by taking in detainees cleared of any charges who cannot be sent back to their homelands, often because of fears they could be persecuted there.

Daniel Fried, Obama's special envoy for the task, met with Spanish officials in Madrid last June and asked the country to take in four prisoners.

Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Spain's prime minister, has been eager to establish good ties with the US, after angering then-president George Bush in April 2004 by withdrawing Spanish peacekeepers from Iraq.

Zapatero has also agreed to send more Spanish troops to Afghanistan in response to a plea from Obama for more allied help in fighting the Taliban.

Source: Al-Jazeera.
Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2010/02/201021515278672731.html.

'Israel, US spread Iranophobia to divide ME states'

Sat, 30 Jan 2010

Iran's Parliament (Majlis) Speaker Ali Larijani says the US and Israel are attempting to spread Iranophobia in the region to create division among the Middle Eastern states.

"It is necessary to recognize that by creating a non-realistic sense of fear and dread towards Iran, the US and Israel are seeking to expand their military bases in the region," the top Iranian official said on Friday during a visit to Kuwait.

Larijani added that the US and Israel make the most out of forging unreal enemies in the oil-rich region by "selling their armaments and plundering oil reserves."

Referring to "the enemies' efforts" to inflame sectarian disputes between Shia and Sunni Muslims, Larijani said that "tracks of Zionist and American intelligence agencies can be traced in such disputes in the region."

The Parliament speaker echoed remakes by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who had earlier said that the West seeks to dominate the Middle East under the pretext of establishing democracy.

"They (the West) are occupying Iraq and Afghanistan and interfering in Pakistan and Yemen under the pretext of establishing democracy," Ahmadinejad said in mid-January.

The Iranian president, however, maintained that Tehran will not let the Western "dream" of dominating the region materialize.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=117392§ionid=351020101.

Sri Lankan president to dissolve parliament

Fri, 29 Jan 2010

Re-elected Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa will soon dissolve the country's parliament and call for legislative elections.

The date of the proposed elections is unclear; however, the current parliament's term will be up in April.

The announcement came a day after the 64-year-old politician won his second war in a year, crushing an electoral challenge by former army chief General Sarath Fonseka who broke ranks with him just months after they claimed victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

Fonseka, who claimed the election was rigged in favor of the incumbent president, said at a news conference in Colombo on Thursday that his name was blacklisted.

He said authorities harassed members of his political team and arrested some of his associates.

Information Minister Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena, however, denied Fonseka's claims that the authorities had put his name and passport number on a blacklist, preventing him from leaving the country.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=117330§ionid=351020406.

US Senate passes legislation on Iran sanctions

Fri, 29 Jan 2010

The US Senate has approved a bill that would allow President Barack Obama to impose new sanctions on Iran over its nuclear energy program.

The sanctions, approved on a voice vote on Thursday, will deny loans and other assistance to US firms that export gasoline to Iran or help expand the country's oil-refining capacity.

The US House of Representatives has already passed similar legislation. Differences between the two bills will have to be worked out before the measure can be signed into law by the president.

The Senate's new legislation will impose a broad ban on direct imports from Iran to the United States and exports from the United States to Iran, except for food and medicine.

It will also require the Obama administration to freeze the assets of some Iranians, including officials with Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Washington and its allies accuse the Islamic Republic of pursuing a military nuclear program. However, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has repeatedly said that it has found no evidence supporting the allegation.

The IAEA has conducted numerous inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities, confirming the non-diversion of nuclear material in the country's functional and under-construction plants.

Tehran says as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty it is entitled to the peaceful application of nuclear energy.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=117321§ionid=351020104.

Obama: I will never waver from supporting Israel

Fri, 29 Jan 2010

Although US President Barack Obama vaguely acknowledged Israel as the cause of Palestinian "plight," he affirmed that he will never waver from support for Tel Aviv.

Obama made the remarks in a speech to a crowd in a gymnasium in Tampa, Florida, on Thursday when he was asked about his policy on Israel.

"Here's my view: Israel is one of our strongest allies. It is a vibrant democracy. It shares links with us in all sorts of ways. It is critical for us, and I will never waver from Israel's security," Obama said.

Obama referred to Israel as a "vibrant democracy," while Israel does not even have a constitution, "since the Constituent Assembly and the first Knesset were unable to put a constitution together," reads a statement on the Israeli Parliament (Knesset)'s website.

Furthermore, Israel does not have a bill of rights and has a history of legislating unequal civil rights, privileges and access to public funds. And its pursuit of a so-called "Jewish State" is an apparent discrimination against the non-Jewish.

Obama, however, went on to say that "the plight of the Palestinians is something that we have to pay attention to."

He said it was not good for the security of the US and Israel if millions of Palestinians feel hopeless.

His comments were a vague reference to numerous violations of human rights and international law by Israeli forces against Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

About 1.5 million Palestinians are suffering from a grave humanitarian crisis as a result of an Israeli-imposed blockade on the Gaza Strip, which has been in place since 2007.

This is while in West Bank, Palestinians are constantly being kidnapped during overnight raids conducted by Israeli troops.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=117319§ionid=351020202.

Qaddafi son links Germany to Israel war crimes

Thu, 28 Jan 2010

Libyan Leader Muammar Qaddafi's son leveled criticism against Germany's military aid to Israel, accusing the European power of complicity in war crimes committed in Gaza.

In a letter to Chancellor Angela Merkel, Muammar Qaddafi's eldest son, Saif al-Islam, urged the German leader to clarify her position on Germany's alleged free military aid to Israel.

Qaddafi charged Berlin with spending German tax-payers' money to provide miscellaneous weaponry for Israel, which he condemned as "the greatest violator of human rights in the world."

"I do not think that the German people who have suffered from dictatorship, suppression and terrorism either during the Nazis era or the communist reign agree to the money of tax-payers being spent to purchase offensive non-defensive weapons and submarines on which long-range ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear war heads will be mounted as per reports," Qaddafi wrote in a letter published by Ma'an news agency.

Qaddafi said Germany spent an estimated one billion Euros on boosting Israeli offensive capabilities, suggesting the amount "would be better ethically, humanly and politically" to have been spent to maintain the starving population in the Israeli-blockaded Gaza.

Saif also recalled Israel's devastating military offensive against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in January 2008, which killed at least 1,400 people.

The head of the Qaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation, Saif described the German consideration for Israel as aimed at atoning "for the mistakes of the past," a reference to the Holocaust.

"But I assure you that one day you will be thoughtful towards us to atone for today's mistake," he concluded.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://edition.presstv.ir/detail/117273.html.

In democratic Iran, human rights guaranteed: Larijani

Iran on Monday rejected Western accusations of human rights abuse in Islamic Republic as politically-motivated, declaring in its open democracy free speech and justice are guaranteed.

"Iran is becoming one of the prominent democratic states in the region," Mohammad Javad Larijani, the secretary general of Iran's High Council for Human Rights, told the UN Human Rights Council.

Earlier, Western powers accused Tehran of having waged "bloody repression" after its June 2009 presidential election.

"The authorities are waging bloody repression against their own people, who are peacefully claiming their rights," French Ambassador Jean Baptiste Mattei told the UN council. "France recommends that Iran accept the creation of a credible and independent international inquiry mechanism to shed light on these violations."

His remarks were supported by Britain and the US, Reuters reported.

British Ambassador to the UN Peter Gooderham claimed "grave human rights violations continue to be committed" in Iran.

Larijani, however, refuted the allegations and said the country has been in full compliance with its international commitments to safeguard human rights.

He then accused the West of using the issue as a political tool to apply pressure on Iran. The official further pointed that some Western governments support anti-Iran terrorist groups.

"With the victory of the Islamic Revolution, the situation of human rights has consistently been used as a political tool to apply pressure against us and to advance certain ulterior political motives by certain Western countries," Larijani said.

Cuba, Syria and Venezuela defended Tehran's record on social and human rights development. Russia, along with a number of Non-Aligned Movement members and Islamic nations, noted progress in Iran's social and economic rights.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=118681§ionid=351020101.

Hezbollah, Druz call for unity against Israel

Hezbollah Secretary-General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah has discussed the importance of national unity in the face of mounting Israeli threats with Druz leader Walid Jumblat in Beirut.

A statement released by the Lebanese movement on Monday, said the two leaders had discussed internal and regional developments, the Lebanese daily Naharnet reported.

They also discussed the "importance of national unity and internal cohesion in the face of Israeli threats," the statement added.

The Lebanese leaders also stressed the "need to resort to dialogue and reach consensus and understanding on internal issues in order to strengthen an atmosphere of calm and stability."

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=118680§ionid=351020203.

Mossad orchestrated Christmas Day bomb plot

Thu, 28 Jan 2010

The Nigerian terrorist suspect accused of attempting to blow up a US airliner on Christmas Day had been arranged by the Israeli-owned 'International Consultants on Targeted Security' to perform a “walk around” without a passport in Amsterdam.

Despite tighter screening processes since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Northwest Airlines Flight 253 experienced no delays in takeoff. According to the Mathaba News Agency “It is evident that clearing the terrorist with higher-ups took a matter of a minute or so and the Indian man, who had arranged the boarding, obviously had a high-level security pass.

Then, during the flight, onlookers noted that another passenger spent a great deal of time filming the 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab with his camcorder. Even stranger, once the suspect tried to ignite his “crotch bomb,” throughout the incident, the man continued filming the terrorist, calmly and without interruption.

Next, after the plane landed, another Indian man was led away in handcuffs after the bomb-sniffing dogs detected explosives in his luggage. Officials, however, have refused to release the Schiphol CCTV airport footage from Amsterdam, the air-bound “video passenger” film, or the identity of the man arrested in Detroit.

The Indian link doesn't seem surprising since Israel and India are very close business partners, especially via their military contracts. Also, the Indian intelligence agency works hand-in-hand with Israel.

Abdulmutallab's home country, Nigeria, is also clandestinely controlled by the Israeli army and Mossad.

Mossad's reach extends even further, directly into Yemen. On Oct. 7, 2008, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh said that security forces had arrested a group of militants linked to the Israeli intelligence agency.

Abdulmutallab has at times denied any association with the militant al-Qaeda group and claimed that he was trained in Yemen. Washington, however, accuses him of being instructed in the Arab country, which US authorities claim is infested with al-Qaeda militants.

According to military analyst and counterinsurgency specialist Gordon Duff, “There is no al-Qaeda in Yemen. George Bush released a couple of phony operatives from Guantanamo, and after traveling to the Middle East, they hooked up with the Mossad. The only reason Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez released them is because they're assets.”

Abdulmutallab's story is intended to keep ratcheting up Orwellian-style trauma and project Yemen, as well as the African continent, are the brand-new focus of the American so-called 'war on terror.'

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=117281§ionid=3510203.

Copt killings trial begins in southern Egypt

Sat, 13 Feb 2010

Nagaa Hamadi, Egypt (Earth Times) - The trial of three suspects charged with shooting Coptic Christians outside a church in the southern Egyptian town of Nagaa Hammadi in January began on Saturday, only to be quickly adjourned until March. The three defendants pleaded not guilty before the emergency security court in Qena city, a human rights organization said.

The three men, all Muslims, were charged with premeditated murder, harming public security, the use of force and violence, and endangering the lives of citizens.

Gunmen opened fire on Christians leaving a Coptic Christmas Eve mass last month in Nagaa Hamadi, 650 kilometres south of Cairo. Coptic Christians celebrate Christmas on January 7.

The attack left eight Christians and one Muslim policeman guarding the church dead.

On Saturday, there was heavy security, with everyone entering the court building subjected to two searches. The building was surrounded by anti-riot forces carrying firearms, central security forces, and explosive detection officers, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights said.

The trial was adjourned until March 20 to summon witnesses and to give the injured victims a chance to testify.

The organization said on its website that the trial was adjourned when an Egyptian lawyer asked the court to summon Parliament Speaker Fathi Surur as a witness, based on a press statement by Surur "indicating he knew who instigated the shootings."

The attack led to clashes between police and crowds of Christian residents, causing major damage in the city center. Rioting by angry Muslims also erupted.

According to government figures, Christians account for roughly 10 per cent of Egypt's population, but many Egyptian Christians believe the real figure is higher.

While tensions exist between Egypt's Christian and Muslim populations, actual outbreaks of violence are rare.

Turkey says Israel threatening global peace

Mon, 11 Jan 2010

Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has lashed out at Israel over the violation of Lebanese airspace through which it threatens peace in the region.

Speaking at a joint press conference with his Lebanese counterpart Saad Hariri, Erdogan said Israel has to stop violating Lebanon's airspace and its territorial waters, the Associated Press reported on Monday.

"We can never remain silent in the face of Israel's attitude. ... It has disproportionate power and it is using that at will while refusing to abide by UN resolutions. We can never accept this picture,” Erdogan said.

“These steps threaten global peace," he warned.

Hariri also described Israel as an enemy that threatens his country's security through "its violation of our airspace and waters.”

Lebanese army said earlier in the day that its anti-aircraft artillery fired at Israeli fighter jets flying over the country's southern airspace.

The Lebanese army reports almost every day violations of its airspace by Israeli warplanes.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=115893.

Peres blames Iran for no Palestinian state

Tue, 26 Jan 2010

Israeli President Shimon Peres declares Tehran as the main obstacle to the creation of a viable Palestinian State.

"The big problem today is Iran," he said in an interview with German television channel, ARD.

The 86-year-old politician who arrived in the German capital of Berlin on an official visit to mark the so-called 'International Holocaust Remembrance Day,' was especially critical of Iran's support for the Islamic resistance movements in the region, namely Hamas and Hezbollah.

Iran's connections with the Palestinian Resistance Movement Hamas, he claimed, have until now prevented the creation of a Palestinian state.

Observers in the region, however, insist that Israel's preconditions on the creation of a Palestinian state render a viable, independent and sovereign Palestinian state impossible.

Tel Aviv says a future Palestinian state would have to be demilitarized, cede control of its airspace to Israel and recognize the territory occupied and run by the regime in Tel Aviv as the 'Jewish homeland.'

Israel also geographically separates Gaza and the West Bank, strangling trade and other exchanges between the two territories at will.

"Iran supports Hezbollah, which has divided Lebanon,” Peres claimed. “They bought 80,000 missiles. We must refer to the source, to the heart of the problem."

According to observers, the Israeli president is infamous for making baseless claims during his foreign tours in efforts to demonize Hezbollah and Hamas. Such claims have been refuted and condemned by Lebanese officials and other world leaders, namely the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Referring to efforts to contain Iran's peaceful nuclear program, the Israeli leader also expressed concern for a world where "nuclear proliferation is no longer controllable."

Israel, the sole possessor of nuclear warheads in the Middle East, accuses Tehran of making efforts to build a nuclear bomb and has openly threatened Iran with military strikes should the country continue enriching uranium.

As one of the four countries that have refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Tel Aviv has maintained the policy of neither admitting nor denying its possession of nuclear warheads. However, it is widely believed that Israel has some 200 nuclear warheads in its arsenal.

The doctrine of nuclear ambiguity has enabled Israel to deter foes for decades in a region with only one alleged nuclear power.

In order to maintain its military advantage, Tel Aviv insists on preventing other Muslim countries, especially in the Middle East, from acquiring nuclear capabilities while remaining outside of the international nuclear non-proliferation system.

Peres' visit to Germany comes after the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Chancellor Angela Merkel last week in a bid to press Berlin to sell six Dolphin-class diesel submarines to Tel Aviv.

Israel had previously received three submarines as a donation from the government of the then German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

The Dolphin submarines are among the most sophisticated and capable submarines in the world that could be equipped with nuclear missiles.

Built in German shipyards for the Israel Navy, the submarine is capable of carrying American-supplied Harpoon cruise missiles equipped with nuclear warheads.

While the restrictive German export regulations bar the sale of weapons to crisis areas, the German government has justified the submarine sale by invoking its "special responsibility" towards Tel Aviv.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=117110§ionid=351020604.

Leader: US, Israel worst of all enemies

Tue, 26 Jan 2010

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei described the United States and the “Zionist regime” as "the worst of all enemies of the Iranian nation,” insisting that their countless attempts at bringing down the Islamic Republic have been proven futile.

In a Tuesday address to a large gathering of citizens from the northern City of Amol, the Leader of the Islamic Revolution reiterated that the timeworn conspiracies of some governments against Iran and its people 'have failed to succeed.'

"The failure of these conspiracies is mostly because the Islamic Republic of Iran is now much stronger than before," Ayatollah Khamenei said.

"But now [the Islamic Republic] is continuing its path with a much greater determination and growing momentum," added the Leader.

Ayatollah Khamenei said in the years following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, certain individuals and groups existed who claimed to be intellectuals, advocates of people's choices and of a democratic nature, but eventually ended up taking arms in confronting the very people who brought to power the Islamic establishment at a great cost.

"These political movements challenged the foundation of the Islamic Republic and thus caused a great deal of inconvenience at a time when the country was already at war," said the Leader.

The Leader clarified that such movements were mostly comprised of individuals that were seditionists (members of the terrorist Mojahedin Khalq Organization), nonbelievers, westoxified figures, and even supposed acolytes.

Such individuals and groups, the Leader said, first protested the basic principles of the late Imam Khomeini and the Islamic Republic through intellectual rhetoric, and later gradually transformed the scene for thought and political struggle to a scene of armed struggle and rebellion, creating a great deal of trouble for the people and officials during the war.

Ayatollah Khamenei next highlighted the reliance of those who oppose the Islamic establishment on the enemy, reiterating that “in the past 30 years, the US government, the Zionist regime and global Zionism have emerged as the worst of all enemies of the Iranian nation; and even today they honestly are the worst of [our] enemies and reliance on these enemies is a huge blunder.”

"We must regain cognizance and if we have done wrong or committed an error, take corrective measures,” the Leader said.

The Leader said enemy conspiracies, particularly those by the American government, have failed to yield the desired results.

"The US officials say that they have passed a $45 million budget in an effort to bring down the Islamic Republic via the Internet,” asserted the Leader. Expressing his amazement at the persistence of such efforts, he added, "This demonstrates how desperate the enemy is, since they have so far spent tens of 45-million-dollar amounts to confront the Islamic system by means of diplomacy, sanctions, planting spies, hiring mercenaries, and other ways, but they have achieved nothing."

Referring to the post-election developments in Iran, the Leader said the enemy had originally contrived to provoke unrest and chaos in the country, but their evil plots instead awakened the Iranian nation.

The Leader was speaking at an event commemorating the people's resistance against a terrorist uprising in the city of Amol some 30 years ago.

Following the victory of the Islamic Revolution, nearly 50 armed elements of a small Maoist group called the 'Communist Union' launched a calculated and planned attack on the city of Amol.

The rebels aimed to lay a military siege on Amol, but failed due to the vigilance of the people of the city.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=117104§ionid=351020101.

Unite to change the world, WSF says

Wed, 27 Jan 2010

The 10th World Social Forum (WSF) has kicked off five days of criticizing capitalism in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

Participants want to remind the world that capitalists are exploiting the poor.

Meanwhile, its antithesis, the 14th World Economic Forum (WEF), a meeting of rich nations, opens on Wednesday in Davos, Switzerland. It is an annual meeting held to debate issues facing the global economy.

The WSF, set up to counter the "worldview" of rich nations, on Tuesday called on activists worldwide to "unite to change the world."

Brazilian human rights activist Sergio Bernardo proclaimed that "the rich have driven the capitalist system into chaos, but the WSF will be letting them know that we can create a world free of exploitation that will help the poor."

More than 25,000 trade unionists and social, environmental, and political activists from around the globe kicked off the first of almost 30 WSF events that will take place throughout the world this year.

Catholic liberation theologist Francisco Whitaker pointed out that "lingering fallout from the financial crisis is proof that the world economy must be re-tooled to benefit people, not big companies."

The WSF is only "a tool" and must not be confused with the global movement for another world, Whitaker said.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=117145§ionid=351020706.

'Israel behind murder of Iranian particle physicist'

Wed, 27 Jan 2010

Iranian Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar says the assassination of nuclear physics professor Massoud Ali-Mohammadi was a premeditated act carried out by the Israeli government.

"The Israelis are naive to think that through committing such crimes they can curtail the country's achievements in science and technology," Mohammad-Najjar said in an interview on Tuesday.

Dr. Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, a lecturer at the University of Tehran who taught particle physics, was killed in a remote-controlled bomb attack in the Iranian capital on January 12.

The professor was killed in front of his home in the Qeytariyeh neighborhood in northern Tehran.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry had earlier declared that Iran had discovered traces of US and Israeli involvement in the assassination of Ali-Mohammadi.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=117139§ionid=351020101.

Iraq inquiry hears damning evidence from legal advisers

Tue, 26 Jan 2010

Evidence from a former legal adviser suggests that former British prime minister Tony Blair and his foreign secretary were set on going to war with Iraq regardless of legality qualms.

Appearing before Britain's inquiry into the country's role in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the chief legal adviser to then foreign secretary Jack Straw said he had warned the official that the conflict would be illegal under international law.

Sir Michael Wood also stressed that it would "amount to the crime of aggression."

During the same session on Tuesday, another advisor, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, said ministers did not properly address the legal case for the invasion and the process was "lamentable."

Wilmshurst was the Foreign Office lawyer who controversially resigned in protest at the Iraq war.

Last week, declassified letters from April 2002 showed that Attorney General Lord Goldsmith, who gave a legal green light for the invasion, wrote a letter of warning to discourage former defense minister Geof Hoon from a military action he deemed illegal.

Ahead of his own testimony earlier this month, Straw leaked a secret letter he had written to Blair urging him against leading the country into war.

But the new evidence shows he was not very keen on avoiding the conflict.

He told Wood not to blow the whistle on the legality of the war, saying he was being "dogmatic" and that "international law was pretty vague," Sir Michael said.

On January 12, an independent commission's investigation into the Netherlands' support for the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq said the US and Britain rushed to war without sufficient legal backing under international law.

The commission's 551-page report said UN resolutions prior to the outbreak of the war did not provide a mandate for the attack.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=117130§ionid=351020601.

Hezbollah warns against attack on Iran, Syria

Hezbollah's deputy secretary general for political affairs says the Lebanese movement would consider any attack on Iran or Syria as aggression against themselves.

"Hezbollah considers any attack on any faction of the resistance movements, or on the two supporting nations of Iran or Syria, as an attack on all of them," Hassan Khalil told Kuwait's Al-Dar.

"We will respond to any Israeli aggression on Lebanon," he added.

Earlier this month, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said that Damascus would stand by Beirut, should Israel launch another war on Lebanon.

"Syria will stand alongside the government and people of Lebanon against any possible Israeli aggression launched on Lebanon," Assad said in a meeting with visiting Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in Damascus.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak had recently said that Syria should clinch a peace deal with Israel or find itself in a "full-fledged war" with Tel Aviv.

A few days later hawkish Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman threatened Assad with a war in which "his family will lose power" on top of a military defeat for the country.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=118656§ionid=351020203.

Downgrading ties with UK tops agenda: Lawmaker

An Iranian lawmaker says the Parliament (Majlis) has reached the conclusion that the Islamic Republic should downgrade its economic and cultural relations with the UK.

Member of the Parliament National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Zohreh Elahian said the commission was initially considering cutting ties with UK due to London's apparent interference in Iran's post-election riots.

"There are evidence and documents pointing to the uncalled for involvement of the British Embassy in the post-election unrest. The support of the British politicians for the 'green seditionists,' testifies to direct UK meddling in Iran's internal affairs," She said.

She said that the decision had been made after holding several meetings with representatives from the Foreign Ministry.

Elahian pointed to the letter written by British Ambassador to Tehran Simon Gass to the chairman of the Parliament National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, Alaeddin Boroujerdi in which the British official said any decision by the Iranian Parliament to downgrade ties with the UK "would be regrettable." The British envoy claimed that Britain had not interfered in Iran's post-election riots.

Deputy Head of the Commission Esmail Kowsari charged that the US and Israel gathered intelligence on Iran through the British Embassy in Tehran.

He pointed out that Britain's meddling in Iran's internal affairs dates back to the Pahlavi era.

Kowsari referred to launching the BBC Persian television channel and the participation of several British Embassy employees in post-election riots as examples of British interference in Iran's internal affairs.

"The British ambassador's letter to the chairman of the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, regarding the downgrade of relations, displays the weakness of the British government and its dependency on Iran," he said.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=118676§ionid=351020101.

Indian troops kill three in Kashmir

Amid a fresh wave of violence in Indian-Administered Kashmir, government troops killed three people on Monday during an exchange of fire.

The Indian Army says that the three were local fighters. The incident took place in Kulgam and Ragouri districts south of Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian-Administered Kashmir.

"The gun battles erupted after soldiers raided two houses where the militants had taken refuge, "a police spokesman was quoted by AFP as saying.

Indian-Administered Kashmir has recently witnessed a surge in violence after months of relative calm.

Violent opposition against Indian rule in the region erupted in 1989 and has claimed more than 47,000 lives, according to an official count.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=118674§ionid=351020402.

Zionist regime will disappear one day: Leader

Tue, 26 Jan 2010

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei says that Middle Eastern countries will witness the disappearance of Israel.

"Undoubtedly, the day will come when the nations of the region will witness the disappearance of the Zionist regime," IRNA quoted Ayatollah Khamenei as saying during a meeting with Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz in Tehran on Tuesday.

"Whether that day will be near or far depends on the actions of Islamic countries and Muslim nations," the Leader added.

Ayatollah Khamenei stated that strengthening ties with Islamic countries is a pillar of Iran's foreign policy and expressed hope that the Mauritanian president's visit to Iran would enhance the level of ties between the two countries.

The Leader hailed Mauritania's decision to sever ties with Israel and observed that the move could be a "good model for some Arab governments."

Ayatollah Khamenei said that Israel is a "major threat to the Muslim world" because it is trying to dominate the region.

The Mauritanian president said that Iran's scientific and technological progress makes Muslims around the world proud.

He also called for the expansion of ties between Iran and Mauritania.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=117129§ionid=351020101.

Kurdish PM: Kurds inside and outside the region must vote

Baghdad -The Prime Minister of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region of Iraq called on Sunday for Kurds both inside and outside the area to participate in upcoming Iraqi elections. Premier Barham Salih said in a statement carried by the Kurdish government site that the polls set for March 7 would be "a turning point based on which new political systems will be built."

"This is why it is important that the sons of the Kurdish nation both inside and outside the area participate in these elections with vigor," he added.

Debate between Kurdish and Arab lawmakers delayed the passage of the Kurdish region's elections law for months.

The disputed city of Kirkuk, which many Kurds hope will be the capital of a future Kurdish state, was left out of elections in previous years as lawmakers could not agree on a system for weighing its votes.

Salih added: "There are still many problems between us and the federal government, which means we must maintain a heavy Kurdish presence in the parliament so as to resolve these disputes to the favor of the Kurdish nation."

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/309154,kurdish-pm-kurds-inside-and-outside-the-region-must-vote.html.

Kenyan president reinstates ministers amid corruption scandal

Nairobi (Earth Times) - Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki reinstated Sunday evening two ministers suspended over fraud investigations by his prime minister hours earlier. The president said that he had not been consulted and Prime Minister Raila Odinga did not have the authority to order the suspensions. Therefore "constitutionally, the two ministers remain in office," the president said.

Odinga had declared Sunday afternoon that Agriculture Minister William Ruto and Education Minister Sam Ongeri were suspended in connection with frauds worth millions.

The president's overruling of his prime minister's decision reveals more cracks in Kenya's coalition government.

"This position should not be interpreted in any way as undermining the ongoing war against corruption," Kibaki said in a statement. "The war against corruption will be successfully fought when we do so in accordance with the constitution and the due process of law."

Odinga's move was a bold one, as ministers are rarely fingered in the East African nation's frequent corruption scandals.

A Price water house Coopers audit recently revealed that 26 million dollars of government money were diverted in a maize scam.

Government auditors also said 1 million dollars were missing from a scheme to provide free primary school education. Britain and the United States have suspended aid to the program over the scandal.

Most Kenyans believe their politicians are irremediably corrupt and more concerned with politicking than tackling the nation's problems. The latest clash between the president and the prime minister is unlikely to dispel that notion.

Odinga was appointed prime minister in 2008 as part of a power-sharing deal that ended months of election-related violence in which over 1,300 people lost their lives.

Odinga's Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) had accused Kibaki's Party of National Unity (PNU) of rigging the December 2007 general election.

An independent report into the violence said that several reforms were necessary if a repeat of the clashes was to be avoided in the next elections in 2012.

However, the ODM and PNU's coalition government has so far failed to implement the recommended reforms, with the two parties instead fighting each other tooth and nail for power.

Two Indonesian schoolchildren drown, five missing in Indian Ocean

Jakarta - Indonesian rescue teams recovered the bodies of two junior high school pupils Monday morning on a Java beach, as the search continued for five others swept out to sea, an official said. Huge waves carried the pupils out into the Indian Ocean when they were swimming off a beach near the central Javan city of Yogyakarta on Sunday, media reports said. The bodies were found around 500 meters from the spot where the swimmers disappeared.

The search and rescue operation was combing nearby coastal areas, said Taufik, a member of the team who like many Indonesians uses only one name.

The state-run Antara news agency reported that 20 pupils were swimming off Parangtritis beach when the waves struck. Thirteen managed to swim ashore, two of them slightly injured.

They were part of a group of 120 pupils from a junior high school in Kuningan, West Java, visiting Parangtritis beach as part of a school trip to Yogyakarta.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/309257,two-indonesian-schoolchildren-drown-five-missing-in-indian-ocean.html.

Tibetans mark new year with protest in China

Beijing - Some 400 Tibetans in south-western China's Sichuan province staged a sit-down protest to mark the start of the Tibetan lunar new year, a news report said on Tuesday. The protest by monks and lay Tibetans in Sichuan's Ngaba county on Monday, the first day of the Year of the Tiger, led to a standoff with police, the pro-Tibetan independence website phayul.com said.

In the central square of Ngaba town, Tibetans "said prayers and threw tsampa (barley flour) in the air to mourn the killings of several Tibetans in the 2008 protests," the report quoted witnesses as saying.

A religious affairs official from nearby Kirti monastery, the home of many of the protesting monks, urged them to disperse.

Security forces later surrounded the protesters and confiscated the mobile phones of people seen taking video and photographs of the incident, the report said.

Military barricades were set up on the main routes into the square to prevent more protesters gathering, it said.

Tension has simmered in Ngaba since March 2008, when police admitted that they shot four Tibetans during violent anti-Chinese protests in the county town.

Exile groups allege that police killed up to 39 Tibetans in Ngaba.

Widespread Tibetan protests against Chinese rule began in Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region, in early March 2008 and spread to many other Tibetan areas of China in the following weeks.

The government said ethnic clashes in Lhasa left 18 people dead and hundreds injured in March 2008.

Since the 2008 protests, the government has tightened controls in Tibetan areas, turning away journalists, limiting access of foreign tourists and cutting off communications in some places.

Last month, leaders of China's ruling Communist Party outlined a 10-year economic and social development plan for Tibetans areas, which critics say will only consolidate Chinese control.

The Tibetan and Chinese lunar years usually start on different days, but this year they started on the same day for the 18th time since 1950, Chinese state media said.

More than 100,000 Tibetan pilgrims flocked Monday to Tibet's most important temple, the Jokhang in Lhasa, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/309285,tibetans-mark-new-year-with-protest-in-china.html.

Yemen rebels free Saudi soldier captured during fighting

Sana'a, Yemen - Yemeni Shiite rebels released on Monday a Saudi soldier captured during the fighting with Saudi forces, a rebel spokesman said. "We handed over the Saudi soldier Yahya Abdullah al-Khuzayee to (Yemeni) government mediators," the spokesman, Muhammed Abdul-Salam, told the German Press Agency

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/309294,yemen-rebels-free-saudi-soldier-captured-during-fighting.html.

Clinton: Iran is becoming a military dictatorship

By ROBERT BURNS, AP National Security Writer

DOHA, Qatar – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that Iran is becoming a military dictatorship, a new U.S. accusation in the midst of rising tensions with Iran over its nuclear ambitions and crack down on anti-government protesters.

Speaking to Arab students at Carnegie Mellon's Doha campus, Clinton said Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps appears to have gained so much power that it effectively is supplanting the government.

"Iran is moving toward a military dictatorship," she said. "That is our view."

Last week the U.S. Treasury Department announced that it was freezing the assets in U.S. jurisdictions of a Revolutionary Guard general and four subsidiaries of a previously penalized construction company he runs because of their alleged involvement in producing and spreading weapons of mass destruction.

The Revolutionary Guard has long been a pillar of Iran's regime as a force separate from the ordinary armed forces. The Guard now has a hand in every critical area, including missile development, oil resources, dam building, road construction, telecommunications and nuclear technology.

It also has absorbed the paramilitary Basij as a full-fledged part of its command structure — giving the militia greater funding and a stronger presence in Iran's internal politics.

Asked if the U.S. is planning a military attack on Iran, Clinton said "no."

The U.S. is focused on gaining international support for sanctions "that will be particularly aimed at those enterprises controlled by the Revolutionary Guard, which we believe is in effect supplanting the government of Iran," she said.

Meanwhile, a semi-official news agency quoted the head of Iran's nuclear program as saying the country received a new proposal last week from the United States, Russia and France, three of the countries trying to rein in Tehran's uranium enrichment program.

Iran said that it was studying the joint proposal purportedly made after the country announced last week it had begun enriching uranium to a higher level than previously acknowledged. The ILNA news agency quoted Ali Akbar Salehi as saying various countries have also offered Iran proposals on a nuclear fuel swap, adding that Iran is reviewing all the proposals. He did not provide any more details.

The Obama administration is trying to "send a message to Iran — a very clear message" that the U.S. is still open to engagement "but that we will not stand idly by while you pursue a nuclear program that can be used to threaten your neighbors and even beyond," Clinton said.

Later, as she boarded her plane for the next stop on her Middle East trip, Clinton said, "The civilian leadership is either preoccupied with its internal political situation or is ceding ground to the Revolutionary Guard."

She told reporters traveling with her that it appears the Revolutionary Guard is in charge of Iran's controversial nuclear program and the country changing course "depends on whether the clerical and political leadership begin to reassert themselves."

She added: "I'm not predicting what will happen but I think the trend with this greater and greater military lock on leadership decisions should be disturbing to Iranians as well as those of us on the outside."

Clinton said the Iran that could emerge is "a far cry from the Islamic Republic that had elections and different points of view within the leadership circle. That is part of the reason that we are so concerned with what we are seeing going on there."

In her Doha appearance, Clinton also said she foresees a possible breakthrough soon in stalled peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

"I'm hopeful that this year will see the commencement of serious negotiations that will cover every issue that is outstanding," she said, adding that "everyone is anticipating" progress after more than a year of impasse between the negotiating parties.

The peace talks broke down in late 2008 with Israel's incursion into Gaza, which had launched rocket attacks on Israeli targets.

Clinton spoke in an interview with the Al-Jazeera TV network before a live audience of mostly Arab students at the Carnegie Mellon campus.

In remarks in the Qatari capital on Sunday, Clinton said she and the president are disappointed that the administration's efforts to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks had failed thus far.

Reflecting the extent of concern in the Persian Gulf region about a U.S. confrontation with Iran, another member of the audience asked Clinton about the outlook for improving relations with Tehran. Clinton reiterated the Obama's administration view that Iran has violated its international obligation to use nuclear technology only for peaceful purposes. And she regretted that Iran has not accepted U.S. offers of nuclear negotiations.

Clinton makes a point of raising the topic of women and girls' rights whenever she travels abroad. In a speech Sunday to a forum on U.S.-Muslim relations, she stressed it in the context of U.S. support for nations seeking to build democratic institutions.

"As nations strive to build and strengthen governments that reflect the will of their people, grounded in their own traditions, they can count on the United States to be their partner," she said. "But the will of the people means the will of all the people, men and women. Women's rights are an issue of singular importance to me personally and as secretary of state."

She also cited the issue of violence against women, without mentioning any specific country.

"Even today, in 2010, women are still targets of violence," she said Sunday. "And all too often, religion might be used to justify it. But there is never a justification for violence against women. It is not cultural. It is criminal. And it is up to religious leaders to take a stand for women, to call for an end to honor killings, child marriages, domestic and gender-based violence."

Later Monday, Clinton flew to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for a meeting with King Abdullah and a session with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal.

Meanwhile, a semi-official news agency quoted the head of Iran's nuclear program as saying the country received a new proposal last week from the United States, Russia and France, three of the countries trying to rein in Tehran's uranium enrichment program.

Iran said that it was studying the joint proposal purportedly made after the country announced last week it had begun enriching uranium to a higher level than previously acknowledged. The ILNA news agency quoted Ali Akbar Salehi as saying various countries have also offered Iran proposals on a nuclear fuel swap, adding that Iran is reviewing all the proposals. He did not provide any more details.

Obama names special envoy to OIC

By Ramesh Mathew

In a major step aimed at improving US relations with the Muslim world, President Barack Obama has appointed one of his deputy associate counsels as his special representative to the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC).

Rashad Hussain, who works at the White House focusing on national security, news media, and science and technology issues would be his nominee to the powerful Muslim forum, which represents more than 50 Islamic countries.

The announcement of Hussain’s appointment came during Obama’s televised address to the delegates of the US-Islamic World Forum, which opened in Doha yesterday. The gathering greeted his appointment with a thumping applause.

Hussain, who was present at the conference, was later introduced to the gathering, by The Brookings Institution’s vice president and foreign policy program director Martin Indyk.

Describing Hussain a widely respected Muslim leader in the US, Obama expressed the hope that Hussain would be able to play a major role in improving relations between people of two diverse worlds.

Hussain had also previously served as a trial attorney at the US Department of Justice.

In his address, the US president reiterated his administration’s commitment to strengthen democratic institutions, traditions and principles.

While thanking the Emir of Qatar HH Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani for his sincere efforts to improve relations between the US and the Muslim world, Obama felt the ongoing exercise of Brookings Institution would go a long way in strengthening relations.

Specifically recalling former US president Bill Clinton’s efforts to find a permanent solution to the Israel-Palestine crisis, Obama felt long-lasting peace in the territories would help a long way in bringing permanent peace to the whole of the Middle East.

“Prosperity in the region would help create more educational and employment opportunities to the region’s youth,” he felt.

Obama also recalled the initiatives made by the US Administration in sending a four-member team of highly qualified Muslim doctors in a bid to prevent HIN1 in spreading to more areas of the region.

Source: Gulf Times.
Link: http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=342902&version=1&template_id=36&parent_id=16.

Israel is accused of waging covert war across the Middle East

February 13, 2010
Sheera Frenkel in Jerusalem

Israel is waging a covert assassination campaign across the Middle East in an effort to stop its key enemies co-ordinating their activities.

Israeli agents have been targeting meetings between members of Hamas and the leadership of the militant Hezbollah group, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

They are also suspected of recent killings in Dubai, Damascus and Beirut. While Israel’s Mossad spy agency has been suspected of staging assassinations across the world since the 1970s, it does not officially acknowledge or admit its activities.

The current spate of killings began in December when a “tourist bus” carrying Iranian officials and Hamas members exploded outside Damascus. The official report by Syria claimed that a tire had exploded but photographs surfaced showing the charred remains of the vehicle — prompting speculation that a much larger explosion had taken place.

Several weeks later a meeting between members of Hamas, which controls Gaza, and their counterparts from Hezbollah in its southern Beirut stronghold in Lebanon was also attacked, resulting in several deaths.

Hamas had sought to cover up the incidents because it was embarrassed, a senior Palestinian official in Ramallah told The Times.

“There has been growing co-operation between Gaza and Iran. Israel can read the writing on the wall and they know that with the help of Iran, the Hamas Government in Gaza will become stronger and will fight better.

“But Israel is overstepping their boundaries. Other countries don’t want to become a killing field for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

Most recently, the top Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was killed in Dubai on January 19, 2010. He is believed to have been poisoned by a woman who visited his room at the Al Bustan Rotana Hotel in Dubai.

Israeli officials said that Mabhouh had been a key figure in procuring Iranian-made longer-range rockets for Hamas that could be fired at targets in central Israel.

The exiled Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal has vowed revenge for Mabhouh’s death. He has also suggested that the current fighting between Hamas and Israel will become more regional. In an interview with the London-based al-Hayat newspaper, Mr Mashaal said that future wars with Israel would not be fought solely in the Gaza Strip.

Under the current Mossad chief, Meir Dagan, Israel is believed to have renewed efforts to kill high-level opponents. Only months after the former paratrooper assumed leadership of the intelligence service in October 2002, senior Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon began to be targeted. He was credited with ordering the killing of two relatively senior Hezbollah members who were killed in southern Beirut in July 2003 and August 2004.

More recently, Israel has been accused of planting a car bomb in Damascus that killed the top Hezbollah leader Imad Mughniyah in February 2008. The Israeli Cabinet minister Daniel Herschkowitz last week praised the Mossad chief as one of the agency’s most successful leaders.

When asked about Mossad’s involvement in the Dubai slaying, Eli Yishai, the Interior Minister, smiled and said: “All the security services make, thank God, great efforts to safeguard the security of the state of Israel.”

While some countries are questioning whether Israel isn’t taking credit to increase the reputation of its defence establishment, other moderate Arab States are now describing the assassinations as a “covert war” between Israel and Hamas.

Diplomats said they were aware that covert Israeli operations had increased. “We watch their comings and goings; we are aware that there is more activity both on our ground and other countries in the region,” said an Egyptian diplomat. “They are trying to embroil us all in their conflict.”

Tensions between Israel and Hamas have remained high, despite the relative quiet that has ensued since the end of Israel’s offensive in Gaza last winter. Israeli troops were placed on alert yesterday after intelligence suggested that Hamas planned to abduct soldiers. Israel said this week that it had foiled a kidnapping in December by arresting the Hamas operative Slaman Abu Atik on the Israeli-Gaza border. He planned to enter Israel via Egypt, said the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service.

Source: Times Online.
Link: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article7025821.ece.

Russia commits to deliver S-300 system to Iran

The Kremlin's powerful Security Council says Moscow sees no reason to delay the sale of its S-300 anti-aircraft systems to Tehran.

"There is the signed contract that we must fulfill, but supplies have not started yet. This deal is not restricted by any international sanctions, because these are merely defensive weapons," Russian Security Council Deputy Secretary Vladimir Nazarov told the Interfax news agency on Sunday.

"Any of our actions must facilitate global and regional stability, respect for international law and international commitments, including under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and that is another matter," he added.

The possible sale of Russian air defense hardware to the Islamic Republic is a major irritant for Israel and its close ally the United States. Both have pressed Moscow not to go ahead with a deal that may help protect Iran's nuclear facilities from threats.

"Russia received and continues to receive many requests and even demands to supply or not to supply weapons. Those countries that are addressing such calls to us should better look at their own deals with Georgia," Nazarov noted.

Nazarov also said a military strike on Iran would be a big mistake and the problems linked to Iran's nuclear program should be resolved through diplomacy.

"Any military action against Iran will explode the situation, will have extremely negative consequences for the entire world, including for Russia, which is a neighbor of Iran," he warned.

Despite Iran's full cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog and the transparency of its nuclear program, the United States and its allies accuse the Islamic Republic of covertly seeking to produce nuclear weapons.

However, Iran denies the claims and insists its nuclear activities are only conducted for civilian applications of the technology and generating electricity in order to meet its soaring energy demands.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=118637§ionid=351020101.

Saudi author murdered for 'forsaking Wahhabism'

A female Saudi author has been reportedly murdered by her family members for expressing support for the non-Wahhabi Islamic faiths, including Shiism.

Belqeis Molhem was murdered by two of her "fanatical" brothers in the Shia-populated city of al-Ahsa, east of Saudi Arabia, some months ago, the Kuwaiti Arabic language daily Al-Watan reported.

Also a poetess and a teacher, the 1977-born Molhem had graduated in Islamic studies from the King Faisal University

Molhem's death is blamed on her religious stance and her positive position on the Islamic faiths other than the Kingdom's official religion of Wahhabism -- an extremely intolerant interpretation of Islam.

The victim had recently written a number of articles, censuring the ignorance in Saudi Arabia about the family of the Prophet of Islam Muhammad (PBUH) -- buried in Saudi Arabia and highly revered within the Shia faith.

Wahhabism is known for the strict limits it imposes on the females who, in line with the school's restrictions, are not allowed to drive or visit the shrine of the Shia religious figures.

She had also written an article, reflecting on her daughter's respect for Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the Secretary General of the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah.

The works prompted far-reaching reactions from her family and the religious circles within the Kingdom who accused her of turning her back on the ancestral religion of Wahhabism and gravitating towards Shiism. The allegations later caused Molhem's husband to divorce her.

The Saudi authorities arrested the perpetrators, both employed by the state-owned national oil company Saudi Aramco, following a complaint submitted to the Interior Ministry by one of the victim's children. The survivor has blamed foul play on his two uncles.

The director of the Malek Fahd hospital in Al-Hofuf of the Al-Ahsa Oasis and a cousin of the victim is being questioned in the case. The suspect is said to have issued the permission for Molhem's burial and alleged that the victim had died of natural causes.

The incident is reportedly the second of its kind to happen in the Kingdom due to religious bigotry after a Saudi female was killed last year by her sibling for converting from Wahhabism.

Saudi officials have refused comments on the aspects of the crime and the motives behind it.

Molhem's younger brother, Abdul-Rahim, is affiliated to the al-Qaeda terrorist network and is currently imprisoned in Iraq on terrorism charges. He recently appeared on the Iraqi television to confess.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=118628§ionid=351020205.

Israel accuses Turkish PM of anti Semitism

Tue, 26 Jan 2010

Israel has accused Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of inciting "anti-Semitism" by making remarks on the war crimes committed against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

A new report prepared by the foreign ministry in Tel Aviv charges that although Erdogan has stresses that anti-Semitism is "a crime against humanity," he "indirectly incites and encourages" it in Turkey, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported.

"In our estimate, ever since his party took power, Erdogan has conducted an ongoing process of ... fashioning a negative view of Israel in Turkish public opinion," through endless talks of Palestinian suffering, repeatedly accusing Israel of war crimes and even "anti-Semitic expressions and incitement," read the report.

The seven-page report written by the Center for Political Research has already been distributed to Israeli embassies and consulates abroad.

"For Erdogan and some of those around him," the report claimed, "there is no distinction between 'Israeli' and 'Jewish,' and therefore, [their] anti-Israel fervor and criticism become anti-Jewish."

"Turkey today, under the leadership of the AKP [Erdogan's Justice and Development Party], is different from the Turkey with which Israel forged a strategic relationship in the early 1990s," the report concluded.

Relations between Israel and Turkey began to deteriorate after Erdogan publicly slammed Israel over its late 2008 incursion into Gaza and charged the regime with committing "barbarian" acts against the Palestinian civilians.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=117096§ionid=351020202.

Neo-Nazis rally on Dresden bombing anniversary

By JUERGEN BAETZ, Associated Press Writer – Sat Feb 13

DRESDEN, Germany – Thousands of protesters formed a human chain in Dresden on Saturday, determined to stop neo-Nazis from exploiting the German city's painful history on the 65th anniversary of its deadly Allied bombing in World War II.

Heavy security including riot police was in place to prevent clashes between the two groups, and five police helicopters flew overhead to monitor the crowds.

Neo-Nazis have caused outrage in the past by comparing the 1945 bombing of Dresden to the Holocaust. Organizers of a far-right protest Saturday characterized it as a "mourning march."

Some 5,000 far-right supporters poured into the city, according to police, who limited them to a rally near a railway station rather than a march for security reasons after opponents staged sit-down blockades in streets nearby.

When that decision was announced, far-right demonstrators chanted "open the streets to the German youth."

Across the Elbe River, some 10,000 people joined hands to create a human chain symbolically protecting the restored city center from neo-Nazis, after the city mounted an unsuccessful legal challenge to block the far-right march.

"Dresden doesn't want them, and this gang doesn't belong here," Mayor Helma Orosz said.

The human chain helps to "make Dresden a fortress against intolerance and stupidity," and the anniversary provided a reminder of who started the war, she said.

There were some minor skirmishes, with a car flipped over and some barricades set ablaze but quickly extinguished. A busload of far-right supporters was turned back after its headlights and windows were smashed.

Police said some people sustained minor injuries, including people hit by rocks, but said the opposing sides were largely kept separated. There were up to 30 arrests in all, including demonstrators from both sides.

Most of the far-right supporters later left Dresden without incident.

Three successive waves of British and U.S. bombers on Feb. 13-14, 1945, set off firestorms and destroyed Dresden's centuries-old baroque city center.

The total number of people killed in the Dresden bombing has long been uncertain. In 2008, a panel commissioned by state officials found that the firebombing killed no more than 25,000 people — far fewer than scholars' previous estimates that ran as high as 135,000.

Dresden has been rebuilt painstakingly over the years. Its landmark domed Frauenkirche, or Church of Our Lady — for decades no more than a mound of rubble — reopened in 2005.

Karolin Hanebuth, 20, came from Hannover in western Germany to counter the far-right protest.

"Fascism is not an opinion, it is a crime," she said.

The far right is marginal in Germany and has no seats in the national parliament. However, Saxony, where Dresden is located, is one of two eastern German states where the far-right National Democratic Party has seats in the regional legislature.

Gone fishing: Secret hunt for a sunken Soviet sub

By CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press Writer – Sat Feb 13

WASHINGTON – In 1974, far out in the Pacific, a U.S. ship pretending to be a deep-sea mining vessel fished a sunken Soviet nuclear-armed submarine out of the ocean depths, took what it could of the wreck and made off to Hawaii with its purloined prize.

Now, Washington is owning up to Project Azorian, a brazen mission from the days of high-stakes — and high-seas — Cold War rivalry.

After more than 30 years of refusing to confirm the barest facts of what the world already knew, the CIA has released an internal account of Project Azorian, though with juicy details taken out. The account surfaced Friday at the hands of private researchers from the National Security Archive who used the Freedom of Information Act to achieve the declassification.

The document is a 50-page article quietly published in the fall 1985 edition of Studies in Intelligence, the CIA's in-house journal that outsiders rarely get to see.

In it, the CIA describes in chronological detail a mission of staggering expense and improbable engineering feats that culminated in August 1974 when the Hughes Glomar Explorer retrieved a portion of the submarine, K-129. The eccentric industrialist Howard Hughes lent his name to the project to give the ship cover as a commercial research vessel.

The Americans buried six lost Soviet mariners at sea, after retrieving their bodies in the salvage, and sailed off with a hard-won booty that turned out to be of questionable value.

Despite the declassified article, the greatest mysteries of Project Azorian remain buried three miles down and in CIA files: exactly what parts of the sub were retrieved, what intelligence was derived from them and whether the mission was a waste of time and money. Despite the veil over the project, its existence has been known for decades.

"It's a pretty meaty description of the operation from inception to death," said Matthew Aid, the researcher who had been seeking the article since 2007, when he learned of its publication thanks to a footnote he spotted in other documents. "But what's missing in the end is, what did we get for it? The answer is, we still don't know."

Much of the operation on the scene unfolded as Soviet vessels watched and sometimes buzzed the Glomar Explorer with helicopters. The Americans told the Soviets they were conducting deep-sea mining experiments.

Journalists broke the story in 1975, led by Seymour Hersh, then of The New York Times, and columnist Jack Anderson. The CIA maintained its silence except for declassifying a videotape of the burial of the Soviet seamen that was turned over to Russian President Boris Yeltsin in the early 1990s.

Now the CIA article, written by an unidentified participant in the operation, brings back to life a time of brinkmanship between two nuclear-armed superpowers as they raced to uncover each other's military secrets. That competition ranged from space, across continents, to the ocean depths.

For Washington, that meant sparing no expense to retrieve a mammoth vessel loaded with nuclear arms, codes and Soviet technology.

Yet the disclosed sections of the article hint that not much of value was found, just as long-ago reporting on the episode concluded.

It only claims "intangibly beneficial" results such as a boost in morale among intelligence officers and advances in heavy-lift technology at sea. The author argues the value in mounting the operation was in proving it could be done — an assertion that does not point to a trove of intelligence.

"Lifting a submarine weighing approximately 1,750 tons from a depth of 16,500 feet had never been attempted or accomplished anywhere before," the article says. "A government or organization too timid to undertake calculable risks in pursuit of a proper objective would not be true to itself or to the people it serves."

To researchers, that sounds like bureaucratic justification for a project thought to have cost over $1.5 billion in today's dollars.

Accounts vary about what was actually brought back. Years later, Russian officials concluded the CIA recovered at least two nuclear-armed torpedoes, not much of a bounty. In other tellings, most of the vessel broke up and fell back to the ocean floor, yielding little. The article does not settle such questions.

Nor does it say why the submarine is thought to have gone down.

The saga began in March 1968 when K-129, carrying three ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads as well as its torpedoes, sank 1,560 miles northwest of Hawaii with all hands lost. It took six years to ready the Glomar Explorer, create a winching system and sail to the wreck.

The CIA article carefully recounts the engineering hurdles of the operation, discloses the fears of the U.S. crew that Soviets would try to land on the Glomar Explorer and confirms that plutonium contamination was found in the salvage, apparently leaking from retrieved torpedoes.

But much else on the salvage is redacted and the CIA's story ends with the ship going to Hawaii, leaving out what was taken and its significance once investigated back on land.

Libya secures jobs for more than 3,800 youths

2010-02-14

More than 3,000 jobs have been secured by the monitoring committee of Libya's National Youth Employment Program, the Tripoli Post reported on Saturday (February 13th). The program posted 23,152 job vacancies in local and foreign companies. The committee also found that foreign corporations are breaching a new January law that requires all foreign companies based in Libya to recruit 30% of its staff with Libyan nationals, Employment and Labor Director Hassen Al-Kassah said.

Source: Magharebia.com
Link: http://magharebia.com/en_GB/articles/awi/newsbriefs/general/2010/02/14/newsbrief-04.

Algeria's public sector health workers continue strike

2010-02-14

Doctors and health workers have decided to continue their strike over wages and will wage sit-ins this week, local and international press reported. The two largest health worker unions, SNPSP and SNPSSP, will organize a protest in front of the chief government office on Wednesday to pressure officials to re-open talks with the unions. Some of the protesters have been on strike since December 24th.

Source: Magharebia.com
Link: http://magharebia.com/en_GB/articles/awi/newsbriefs/general/2010/02/14/newsbrief-05.

Tunisia frees jailed journalist ahead of scheduled release date

2010-02-14

A Tunisian court on Friday (February 12th) issued an early release for imprisoned journalist Zouhair Makhlouf, local and international press reported. "We do not know on what basis the Tunisian authorities made this surprise decision, but it is very good news," Makhlouf's lawyer told press. Makhlouf, jailed since October after reporting on the environment in the Nabul industrial region, was originally scheduled to be released February 19th. Tunisian authorities arrested Makhlouf, a legislative candidate who worked for the Progressive Democratic Party opposition newspaper Al-Mawkif, days before the October 25th Tunisian elections.

Source: Magharebia.com
Link: http://magharebia.com/en_GB/articles/awi/newsbriefs/general/2010/02/14/newsbrief-02.

Vancouver Olympics stage green games

New York, Feb 14 : The organizers of the Winter Olympics that kicked off this weekend in Vancouver are hoping to stage some of the greenest Games ever, thanks to a partnership with the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).

For the past three years the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) and UNEP have worked together to improve the environmental footprint of these Games and to use the high-profile sports gathering to increase public awareness about green issues.

Low-flow toilets that use rainwater for flushing, separate bins for compostable waste and energy-efficient grass-clad roofs are some of the environmentally-friendly features on display at Olympic sites in and around Vancouver.

VANOC has also tried to reduce the carbon impact of the Games by expanding the public transport system and introducing various forms of clean technology, according to a press release issued by UNEP.

The agency said it will publish an environmental assessment report later this year that will examine the greening of the venues, sustainable transport and waste management.

Saturday UNEP and VANOC were to announce the winner of a video contest in which Canadian youth were invited to produce a short video or animation clip to show how young people can help create a more environmentally-friendly lifestyle during and after the Games.

Wilfried Lemke, the Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Sport for Development and Peace, attends the award ceremony.

UNEP is also working with the organizers of the next Winter Olympics, to be staged in Sochi, Russia, in 2014, as part of its campaign to help lower the carbon footprint of major sporting events.

In addition, the UN agency is partnering with the organizers of the FIFA World Cup in South Africa later this year, the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi in October and the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket competition.

Source: New Kerala.
Link: http://www.newkerala.com/news/fullnews-51323.html.

UN welcomes release of Myanmar politician

New York, Feb 14: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has welcomed the release of a prominent opposition politician in Myanmar on Saturday after six years of house arrest, saying he hopes the move will lead to a more credible and inclusive political process.

U Tin Oo, the Vice-Chairman of the National League for Democracy (NLD) was released in Yangon, the largest city in Myanmar, after the expiration of his term of house arrest.

The release comes two days before the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, Tomas Ojea Quintana, is due to arrive in the Asian nation for a five-day official visit.

"The Secretary-General hopes that this development will contribute to the advancement of substantive dialogue between the NLD and the Government of Myanmar as a necessary step towards a more credible and inclusive political process," according to a statement issued by a spokesperson for Ban.

"To that end, the Secretary-General reiterates his call on the Government of Myanmar to lift without further delay the restrictions on NLD General Secretary Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and to release all remaining political prisoners."

Quintana said last week that he hopes to be able to meet Nobel Peace Prize winning pro-democracy leader Suu Kyi, who remains under house arrest, during his visit.

The first elections in Myanmar in more than two decades are slated to take place later this year as part of a Government-designed timetable towards greater democratization.

Source: New Kerala.
Link: http://www.newkerala.com/news/fullnews-51322.html.

Space station observation deck being relocated

By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – The International Space Station's fancy new observation deck was booked for a late night ride.

Astronauts on the shuttle-station complex were going to use a giant robot arm to move the domed lookout from one side of the newly installed Tranquility room to the other. First they had to depressurize the compartment, which took longer than expected Sunday night and held up the relocation job.

The $27 million lookout was launched last week in a temporary position on Tranquility that allowed it to fit in shuttle Endeavor's payload bay.

A clearance problem almost scuttled the relocation of the deck.

On Saturday, bolts prevented the astronauts from attaching a thermal cover between Tranquility and the observation deck. Space station commander Jeffrey Williams removed the bolts and managed to secure the hatch cover over Tranquility's docking mechanisms early Sunday.

After hours of review, NASA concluded there would be no clearance problem when it came time to install the observation deck in its final position.

The lookout — described as a bay window — is 5 feet tall and nearly 10 feet in diameter at its base. It sports seven windows, including the biggest one ever in space.

Because the port was going to be empty once the observation deck was moved, NASA wanted a cover there to keep Tranquility's docking mechanisms from getting too cold. That port wasn't going to be vacated for long. The astronauts planned to move a docking adaptor into that slot Monday night.

During the third and final spacewalk of the mission Tuesday night, astronauts will unlock the window shutters on the observation deck. Then their colleagues inside will crank open the shutters and soak in the views of Earth, outer space and the space station itself. NASA sees the dome as a huge improvement to the quality of life 220 miles up.

The first two spacewalks focused on the installation of Tranquility, a 23-foot chamber that was powered up early Sunday.

Both the dome and Tranquility are European contributions to the space station and represent the last of the major building blocks. NASA's part of space station construction will end with the retirement of the space shuttle fleet, scheduled for this fall.

Endeavor and its crew of six have been at the orbiting outpost for nearly a week. They will depart Friday.

US forces scale back Haiti relief role

By JAMES ANDERSON and JONATHAN M. KATZ, Associated Press Writer

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – The biggest U.S. military surge since Iraq and Afghanistan is scaling back a month after the troops arrived in haste to aid victims of Haiti's catastrophic quake.

Great gray ships have been leaving behind Haiti's battered shores as thousands of American troops pack up their tents. The mission, however, is far from over.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates says the U.S. will be in Haiti for the long haul, although troop strength is down to 13,000 from a Feb. 1 peak of 20,000. Those who remain will accompany Haitians in an arduous struggle toward recovery.

Within a broad international relief effort, U.S. forces have provided some of the most visible support to a nation whose government and infrastructure were nearly wiped out in less than a minute on Jan. 12.

They have shored up the capital's quake-damaged port to operate at several times its pre-quake tonnage, while acting as a security and logistics mainstay for U.N. food distributions. Military choppers have delivered life-sustaining relief to isolated villages.

The flow of injured quake victims to the USNS Comfort hospital ship has eased, but the need for medical facilities remains overwhelming in Port-au-Prince.

"We're pretty saturated. This is the chokepoint," said Air Force Maj. John Mansuy of St. Clairsville, Ohio, the operating room nurse in a tented, full-service unit with zipper doors and a positive air flow to keep out choking dust that blankets a landfill in the teeming Cite Soleil slum.

His medical team takes in people strapped to stretchers — with fractures, open wounds and other life-threatening maladies — before rushing them offshore to the Comfort.

The Haiti aid operation, costing the Pentagon $234 million and counting, has added a new strain to an already overtaxed military. About seven in 10 members of the Cite Soleil's modern-day MASH unit are veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — and many are scheduled to return there.

U.S. Southern Command chief Gen. Douglas Fraser would not specify during a weekend visit what U.S. troop levels would be in the coming months.

"Remember that the capability and the capacity the United States military brought in was for immediate relief," he told reporters.

The U.S. military already is turning certain tasks back over to the Haitians, such as daytime air-traffic control at Port-au-Prince's damaged international airport, where commercial flights are expected to resume by Friday.

The Haitians have generally greeted the Americans with warmth and appreciation, despite language barriers in the Creole- and French-speaking Caribbean nation.

One day at the gates of the collapsed Hotel Montana, a group of Haitian children greeted soldiers with the 82nd Airborne with a rendition of Michael Jackson's moonwalk. The soldiers replied with a moonwalk of their own. "Hey, you're good!" one of the kids shouted.

"No one is scared of them. They aren't aggressive, they wave hello. They have a peaceful attitude," said Jacques Michilet, 31, who lost his home and is raising two daughters in roadside shack.

Like many impoverished Haitians, Michilet doesn't just want the soldiers to stay: He said he wants his country taken out of the hands of its current business and political leaders and annexed by the United States.

U.S. forces have not always been so welcome in their long history of intervention in Haiti.

A Marine-led occupation from 1915 to 1934 is widely seen among Haitians as a high water mark of U.S. imperialism. Troops returned repeatedly, paving the way in 1994 for President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's return to power — and then quelling widespread violence in 2004 after Aristide flew into exile aboard a U.S. plane.

Critics say American perception of Haiti as an innately violent place drove the troops to focus unduly on security, at the expense of some humanitarian aid.

Patrick Elie, a former Haitian defense minister now helping restructure the country's dismantled security forces, said the U.S. troops have done good but were too focused on security initially.

"The foreign countries that came to our aid fell victim to their own propaganda," Elie said. "They were afraid of a monster that never existed except in their own fantasies ... that Haitians are bloodthirsty savages."

After the disaster, there were isolated street fights and killings of looters by security guards, and some gang violence in slums driven by leaders who escaped from prison. But the capital has been largely calm and orderly as Haitians organize themselves from the ground up.

On Sunday, volunteers with whistles directed traffic around fallen buildings and rubble in the hard-hit Bel Air slum. Uniformed scouts routed cars around singing church parades — a toned-down substitute for this year's missed Carnival season.

Still, U.S. military analyst Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute said the security precautions were warranted.

"Desperate people do desperate things," he said. "It would be dangerous and probably counterproductive to put U.S. civilians on the ground there without military forces to ensure order."

A 9,000-strong Brazilian-led U.N. peacekeeping force has been in place since 2004 to help Haiti contain gang violence and maintain basic order.

Earlier this month, Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive defended the size of the American military presence when confronted by wary Haitian senators. He said the government's acceptance of the U.S. military force boiled down to "a reality of capacity, of power, of proximity, of logistics."

Half of the 13,000 current U.S. troops in Haiti are on the ground, with the others offshore on hospital boats or handling deliveries and logistics.

Many Haitians said they are most grateful for the U.S. troops providing security during food distributions, a life-and-death matter for most of the 1.2 million made homeless by the quake. The U.S. said it has helped deliver food to 160,000 people a day, but meals remain scarce and food has been diverted or stolen because of inadequate protection.

Far smaller contingents of Canadian, French, Italian, South Korean and Japanese troops are also in Haiti, and European Union engineering units are expected in coming weeks to help build temporary shelters.

But the American contingent is the one that Haitians worry about losing in their greatest time of need. Told that some U.S. troops are leaving, 29-year-old rooster trainer Watson Geranson grew worried.

"Haiti needs help, we had a catastrophe," he said as a U.S. Humvee rumbled by a new shantytown of quake refugees, where signs were posted pleading for food. "I don't see why they should go."