Report: Ahmadinejad, Nasrallah and Meshaal to meet in Damascus

Lebanese sources were quoted as saying on Tuesday by the Saudi Okaz daily that a meeting between Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hizbullah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah and head of Hamas political bureau, Khaled Meshaal will be held in Damascus this weekend during the Iranian leader's visit to Syria. The same sources added that senior leaders of the Lebanese opposition forces will also travel to Damascus to meet with Ahmadinejad.

The report said that the meetings with Ahmadinejad in the Syrian capital with the leaders of prominent Lebanese and Palestinian resistance groups is a clear message Iran's support to them in the event of any Israeli aggression. It is worth mentioning that the Iranian president's recent comments on Hizbullah's readiness to face an expected Israeli war were criticized by officials from Lebanon's majority.

© 2010 Al Bawaba

Source: Al-Bawaba.
Link: http://albawaba.com/en/news/261659.

Japan offers to enrich uranium for Iran

Japan has offered to enrich uranium for Iran allowing access to nuclear power by the Islamic Republic, the Nikkei business daily reports.

The Japanese proposal is aimed to allay international fears that Iran might be seeking an atomic weapon, according to Wednesday's edition of the report.

The uranium would be used at Tehran's research reactor to produce medical isotopes, the report added.

According to the publication, the Iranian government has not yet responded to the proposal, but the issue was expected to be discussed Wednesday when the visiting Iranian Parliament (Majlis) Speaker Ali Larijani and Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada meet in Tokyo.

"Japan strongly hopes Iran's nuclear issue will be resolved peacefully and diplomatically ... and that Iran considers a related UN Security Council resolution seriously", a foreign ministry spokesman quoted Katsuya as saying in the meeting.

Iran says that it is a signatory of the NPT and, unlike Israel, neither believes in atomic weapons nor, as a matter of religious principle, does it intend to access such weapons of mass-destruction. Furthermore, Tehran has repeatedly called for the elimination of all nuclear weapon development, production and arsenals throughout the globe.

Iran's nuclear facilities and enriched uranium remain under the supervision of IAEA inspectors, as outlined in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Safeguards Agreement.

The UN nuclear watchdog has carried out the highest number of inspections in Iran, compared to any other country throughout its history and has found nothing to indicate any diversion toward weaponization.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=119384§ionid=351020104.

Iran border guards detain terrorist group members

Iranian security forces have arrested three members of a terrorist group in the northwestern city of Sardasht as they tried to cross over into the country.

Sardasht border guards detained the three members of the terrorist Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), in southern parts of the West Azarbaijan Province.

"These individuals were trying to enter the country through the border near Sardasht and Piranshahr when they were caught by the border guards," the Public Security Deputy of the West Azarbaijan Border Guard Department announced on Wednesday.

"The three detained members of the Democrat rebel group, who were trained outside the country, planned to carry out an attack in Iran," Colonel Kheibar Tiba added.

The official, however, pointed out that the border guards were able to detain the three terrorists as they had been monitoring the activities of rebel groups over the past months.

Iran's West Azarbaijan Province shares borders with Iraq, Turkey and the Republic of Azerbaijan.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=119383§ionid=351020101.

British Muslim woman killed in Pakistan

A British woman who converted to Islam has been killed in a car bomb attack after she joined her husband in Pakistan.

Belinda Khan died when the explosion ripped through a busy market in Mingora, the main city in the troubled Swat Valley in the North Western Frontier Province.

Her first Pakistani husband, Yahya Khan, was also killed by the Taliban in 2008.

Her new husband told British newspaper The Guardian: "She came to have a second life with me. My family and I are missing her very much."

She was apparently shopping in Mingora's market when the car bomb went off on Monday, killing at least eight people and injuring dozens more.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=119371§ionid=351020401.

Family of killed US activist to sue Israel

The family of an American activist who was killed after an Israeli army bulldozer ran over her in 2003 in the Gaza Strip is intended to sue Israel.

Rachel Corrie was run over by an Israeli bulldozer during a demonstration in Rafah, which borders Egypt.

Hussein Abu Hussein, the family's lawyer, told AFP on Wednesday that Israel "should take responsibility for the death of Rachel Corrie."

"We believe her killing was done intentionally or at least out of negligence and wrongdoing," he added.

Cindy and Craig Corrie of Olympia, Washington, say they have four key witnesses, three Britons and an American, who saw Rachel crushed underneath a Caterpillar bulldozer in Rafah in 2003.

Israel has allowed the four activists who witnessed the incident to enter Israel and testify in the court due to be held on the 10th of March.

A Palestinian doctor who treated Corrie before her death has not been given permission to leave the Gaza Strip and attend the hearing.

Corrie wrote about her experiences in the Palestinian territories while she was alive. Her diaries have been published as a play.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=119387§ionid=351020202.

Snowstorm cuts road traffic in Xinjiang

URUMQI: An overnight snowstorm has completely cut road traffic to a city and county in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, the local meteorological authorities said on Tuesday.

The meteorological department of Wusu city said the accumulated snow reached 55 cm in urban area as of 11 am Tuesday, the heaviest daily fall in 57 years.

The Wusu city government has mobilized grassroots cadres to visit door to door in the rural area to investigate casualties.

The meteorological authority in Shawan county said snow started to hit the county at around 8 pm Monday, and as of 8 am Tuesday, the county recorded precipitation of 19 cm and snowfall of 21.5 cm, with the accumulated snow being 50 cm. The meteorological staff said the storm will continue on Tuesday.

Tacheng prefecture, which administers Wusu city and Shawan county, has been frequently hit by snow storms in winter. The prefecture also faces possible flooding from thawing snow as temperature rises in spring.

Peng Jiarui, secretary of the prefectural committee of the Communist Party of China, has urged local government departments to mobilize people to help farmers and herdsmen to clear accumulated snow near their residences and ordered evacuation of people living in areas vulnerable to possible flooding at an early date.

Authorities in Altay prefecture in north of Xinjiang, also affected by heavy snow in winter, have prepared flood-relief goods and are monitoring reservoirs around-the-clock to prevent flooding.

Source: China Daily.
Link: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-02/23/content_9491550.htm.

Saudi, Yemeni leaders discuss Houthi rebels, al-Qaeda, pirates

Riyadh - The president of Yemen and the Saudi King on Tuesday met near Riyadh to discuss terrorism, internal conflict and piracy. The meeting, at King Abdullah bin Abdelaziz's royal campsite east of Riyadh, was King Abdullah's first with Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh since Houthi rebels near the Saudi-Yemeni border accepted a ceasefire earlier this month.

It also preceded a conference of donors to Yemen, led by the oil-rich countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), scheduled to be held in Riyadh on February 27.

The leaders' discussions focused on joint efforts to prevent Saudi-born al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden from establishing a base in Yemen, and broader joint efforts to combat extremism and piracy, a Saudi diplomat told the German Press Agency dpa.

The Saudi delegation stressed the importance of the Yemeni government's "taking concrete and active steps to crush the rebels, eliminate their financing and foreign support, and reveal their links and those who support them," the diplomat said.

Saudi Arabia, which entered Yemen's conflict with the Shiite rebels along the Saudi-Yemeni border in November, has repeatedly accused Iran of supporting the rebels.

Both countries have for years fought a campaign against al-Qaeda militants who have claimed hundreds of lives in attacks in both countries.

Yemeni officials hope that increased attention to the country, the Arab world's poorest, following a failed attack on a US airplane over Detroit in December, and the intensified fighting with the rebels last autumn and winter, will produce an increase in international aid.

GCC Secretary General Abdel-Rahman al-Atiya said that a team had been assigned to study Yemen's development needs for the 2011-2015 period.

They would be based on a study of the problems faced in carrying out development projects in the four years since a February 2006 donors conference in London granted Yemen 5.7 billion dollars.

GCC countries contributed 3.7 billion of the total pledged in 2006.

Al-Atiya said the recommendations of the team will be submitted to Yemeni authorities and donor countries at a meeting attended by the Islamic Development Bank, the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development, and the OPEC Fund for Development.

Representatives of donors from the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the European Union, the United States, Japan, and the United Kingdom will also attend, he said.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/310850,saudi-yemeni-leaders-discuss-houthi-rebels-al-qaeda-pirates.html.