Archive for month: August, 2014

The new round of sanctions imposed by the United States on Iran is “outrageous” while talks on Tehran’s nuclear energy program continue between the Islamic Republic and six world powers, an analyst tells Press TV.

“Well, certainly this is…an insult to Iran at the very time that negotiations were going on, when there was an agreement to extend the talks and no further sanctions until the end of November and then an act like this and it is absolutely outrageous,” Sara Flounders, co-director of the International Action Center, said in an interview with Press TV on Sunday.

She emphasized that the impact of bans on the Iranian economy would not be great as the country has managed to broaden trade with other countries over the past years.

“So it is not the end of the world for Iran by any means but it shows an arrogance on the part of the US and this continued use of sanctions against one country after another…it shows a real decline of US position and power,” Flounders added.

She further noted that Tehran has made every effort to find a way forward and resolve the current nuclear standoff.

On August 29, Washington imposed sanctions on over 25 individuals and companies, including shipping firms, oil companies, airlines and six banks over alleged links with Iran’s nuclear energy program.

The sanctions come as the Islamic Republic and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China – plus Germany are in talks to reach a final nuclear agreement.

The two sides signed a historic interim deal in the Swiss city of Geneva in November 2013. The agreement entered into force on January 20 and expired six months later. In July, Iran and the six countries agreed to extend their negotiations until November 24 in a bid to work out a final accord.

The next round of talks between Iran and the six countries will be held in New York in September.

SSM/SS

US government has positioned the “rogue” regime of Israel as a “nuclear base” in the Middle East, which has resulted in the “destabilization” and “instability” of countries in the region, an anti-war activist in Maine. 

“Clearly, the United States has always viewed Israel as its nuclear base in the region, a place where destabilization of other countries has happened,” said Bruce Gagnon, the Coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons Nuclear Power in Space.

“We see now the growing instability in the region as a result of Israel and US policy,” Gagnon told Press TV in a phone interview on Sunday. Israel is “a rogue state if you will and a rogue nuclear state at that.”

Gagnon stated that top-secret documents from 45 years ago showing how the US allowed Israel to possess nuclear program is not surprising and illustrates that the US “has never been serious about reducing nuclear weapons.”

The documents, which the US government has declassified, reveal how US government officials and senior advisers to the then US president Richard Nixon withdrew from a plan to block Israeli nuclearization ahead of a meeting with then Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir at the White House in September 1969.

According to World Bulletin, the documents “not only shows how American delegates agreed to Israel’s refusal to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty, but also how they came to terms with allowing Israel to refuse an American inspection of the Dimona nuclear facility and a deal which would have seen the delivery of strategic ground-to-ground Jericho missiles to Israel in exchange for their signing of the treaty.”

AHT/DDB

At least 13 Iraqi people have lost their lives in two separate explosions in the city of Ramadi.

According to Iraqi security forces and medics on Sunday, one of the deadly incidents took place after an explosives-laden vehicle detonated near Iraqi special forces’ base in the city.

The second explosion hit a joint special force and police checkpoint in the city, located about 110 kilometers west of Baghdad.

Reports say that around 17 people suffered injuries in the explosions.

ISIL Takfiri militants hold control of major areas in Ramadi, the capital of western Iraqi province of Anbar.

The twin blasts come as Iraqi army troops, backed by Shia and Kurdish fighters, entered the northern city of Amerli that has been surrounded by the ISIL militants since two months ago.

Thousands of people have been trapped in Amerli where the residents are facing a shortage of food and water. The humanitarian condition has also been described as dire by witnesses.

The ISIL terrorists have threatened all communities, including Shias, Sunnis, Kurds, Christians, Izadi Kurds and others, as they continue their advances in Iraq.

Several gruesome video footages were released, purportedly showing members of the ISIL cult brutally killing Shia Muslims in drive-by shootings in Iraq.

Senior Iraqi officials have blamed Saudi Arabia, Qatar and some Persian Gulf Arab states for the growing terrorism in their country.

The terrorist group has links with Saudi intelligence and is believed to be indirectly supported by the Israeli regime.

IA/MAM/AS

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has sworn in his new government, emphasizing on security and reconstruction as the country’s top priorities.

The swearing-in ceremony of the new cabinet, appointed earlier this week, was held in the capital, Damascus, on Sunday.

Syrian Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi heads the new cabinet, which consists of 11 new ministers, while other ministerial posts, including the foreign and defense ministers, remain unchanged.

During the ceremony, Assad urged the ministers to “provide a new vision” and to avoid “the negatives of the previous stage.”

The success of the new government will depend on “earning the trust of citizens through transparency and credibility,” he noted.

Assad was re-elected as the country’s president for a third term in June’s election, garnering 88.7 percent of the votes.

Syria has been gripped by deadly violence since 2011, with ISIL Takfiri terrorists currently controlling parts of it in the east.

The Western powers and their regional allies — especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey — are reportedly supporting the militants operating inside Syria.

More than 191,000 people have been killed in over three years of fighting in the war-ravaged country, says the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), calling the figure a probable “underestimate of the real total number of people killed.”

MSM/MAM/AS

Hundreds of demonstrators tracked through pouring rain and blistering heat on Saturday, calling for accountability for the officer who gunned down an unarmed 18-year-old here three weeks ago and for broader policing reforms.

The death of Michael Brown and the aggressive police response to the demonstrations that followed have sparked a national conversation about race and law enforcement. Now that much of the national media has moved on — a point that was repeatedly made by speaker after speaker at a rally in a nearby park on Saturday — activists are working on channeling the anger exposed in the wake of Brown’s death into concrete changes to policing tactics in the St. Louis region.

Some of the most recognizable faces from the past three weeks of protests were out on the scene on Saturday, including Brown’s family members, Missouri state Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal, St. Louis Alderman Antonio French, Ferguson Democratic committeewoman Patricia Bynes and Edward Crawford, the 25-year-old captured in a now-iconic photo hurling a flaming tear gas canister back at police officers while wearing an American flag T-shirt.

Brown’s mother, Lesley McSpadden, wore a T-shirt bearing an image of her son that read, “A Bond Never Broken.” She was protected by suited-up members of the Nation of Islam as she and Brown’s father, Michael Brown Sr., made their way across town. Spread out across the route were tables stacked with shirts with slogans like “I survived the Ferguson riots” and “I am Mike Brown.” There were also booths where protesters could register to vote and petitions calling for the indictment of Darren Wilson, the Ferguson police officer who shot Brown dead on Aug. 9.

The crowd, which numbered over 1,000 people, made its way from the Canfield Green apartment complex, where Brown died, to West Florissant Avenue, the epicenter of the protests and the home of businesses that were looted. Then the protesters marched up Ferguson Avenue, in the direction of the police station. As rain poured down, they headed to Forestwood Park, where a massive tent and a stage on loan from the St. Louis County Parks Department were set up.

The crowd was mostly black, but it included plenty of white demonstrators as well. One of them was Michael Maresco, 50, a Ron Paul supporter from Richmond Heights, Missouri, who was carrying a massive rainbow Tea Party flag and said he was there to call for police accountability. Another was Janet Cuenca, a 76-year old retired teacher, who rode a motorized scooter and wore a shirt that read, “I can’t believe I’m still protesting this crap.”

Police officers kept a light touch as the demonstrators blocked streets, wearing only normal uniforms and driving regular police cars. Heavily-armored, military-style vehicles were nowhere to be seen, nor were officers in riot gear or canisters of tear gas.

“Should be a nice anti-me rally,” Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson told The Huffington Post. Indeed, speakers on the stage called on both Jackson and Ferguson Mayor James Knowles III to resign their positions.

A few hours later, the crowd had thinned out, but some of the more aggressive demonstrators remained. One man yelled an anti-gay slur at officers, and said that one of the cops “looked like a child molester.”

Black police officers came under particular scrutiny from that small number of demonstrators, and attempts by others — including French — to calm them down were unsuccessful.