Ukraine to go to polls on Sunday

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Ukraine is set to hold general elections on Sunday in a move that may dramatically reshape the 450-seat parliament.

The vote will be held in much of the country except in the restive east. No election will be held in the strategic Black Sea Crimean Peninsula either. The region, home to about two million people, joined the Russian Federation following a referendum in March.

The vote was called in August as President Petro Poroshenko came under pressure to purge the parliament of lawmakers, allegedly tied to the overthrown government of Viktor Yanukovych.

As many as 4.6 million Ukrainians are eligible to take part in the snap parliamentary elections.

Opinion polls show the president’s own party, the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, will win the elections, but it may not be able to form a majority and may have to join forces with nationalist parties.

The leaders of the breakaway eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk have refused to allow the polls to be held in territories under their control, with a population of almost three million.

Ukraine’s mainly Russian-speaking regions in the east have been the scene of deadly clashes between pro-Russia protesters and the Ukrainian army since the government in Kiev launched military operations in mid-April in a bid to crush the protests.

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Washington snubs Israeli war minister

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The Obama administration has rejected the Israeli military affairs minister’s requests to meet several high-ranking officials during his five-day visit to the United States this week.

Moshe Ya’alon met with US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power.

But the White House and State Department reportedly refused Israeli proposals for meetings with Vice President Joe Biden, National Security Advisor Susan Rice, and Secretary of State John Kerry.

Ya’alon has been critical of Kerry’s efforts to forge a peace deal between Tel Aviv and Palestinians.

Earlier in the year, he called Kerry’s efforts for Israeli-Palestinian peace “messianic and obsessive.”

In response, the State Department lashed out at Ya’alon for making “offensive and inappropriate” comments about Kerry.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that the remarks are “offensive and inappropriate especially given all that the US is doing to support Israel’s security needs.”

In a recent interview, the controversial minister said the borders of several Middle Eastern countries are bound to change in the future as a result of recent developments in the region.

Ya’alon added that the borders of some countries in the region were artificially drawn by the West.

He did not say whether the borders of Israel, also drawn by Western powers after World War I, would change or not.

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Nigerian oil minister sister abducted

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The sister of Nigerian Petroleum Minister Diezani Alison-Madueke has been kidnapped in the latest case of abductions targeting political families in the oil-rich African nation.

Osio Agama was seized at gunpoint in the oil hub of Port Harcourt on Tuesday night, Rivers state police spokesman Ahmad Muhammad said on Friday.

The Nigerian police “were not aware if any ransom demand had been made” and the motive for the abduction was unknown, Muhammad said.

In recent years, the southern oil-producing Niger Delta region, home to Africa’s largest oil industry, has witnessed waves of ransom kidnappings.

Some observers have attributed political motives to attacks against Nigeria’s powerful families.

Earlier in 2104, the uncle of President Goodluck Jonathan was also kidnapped in Bayelsa state in the Niger Delta.

In December 2012, Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s mother was abducted in Delta state and released a week later.

Okonjo-Iweala said that the abduction was linked to the Finance Ministry’s crackdown on oil companies abusing the country’s fuel subsidy plan, but her claim has never been corroborated.

Okonjo-Iweala and Alison-Madueke are considered the most influential members of Jonathan’s cabinet.

Despite daily production of two million barrels of oil, the area suffers abject poverty and high unemployment rate and witnesses rampant gang activities and abductions which mostly target prominent politicians, businesses and foreigners.

ASH/NN/HRB

Italy’s public debt on rise

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As the public debt of Italy, the world’s third biggest, continues to grow exponentially, the European statistics agency has warned that it has reached nearly 134 percent of the country’s gross domestic product in the second quarter of 2014, Press TV reports.

The figure was more than 3 percent over the first quarter of 2014, showing that Italy is on the brink of a socio-economic breakdown.

Media reported that the European Commission may see Italy’s recently passed budget law, which features 18 billion euros in tax cuts, not compatible with the EU’s Growth and Stability Pact.

The European Commission has asked the Italian government for clarifications about its 2015 budget law.

The Brussels-based commission warned Italy that it risks deviating significantly from medium-term budget targets it had agreed with the European Union.

“We have strongly criticized this budget law which won’t help at least economy at all. Quite the contrary, it will introduce new taxes,” Elio Lannutti, President of Adusbef Consumer Association, told Press TV.

“However, the EU bureaucrat should be ashamed of the role they are playing on the side of the banks, undermining people’s livelihood, jobs and prospects of socio-economic development,” he added.

On Friday, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said he hopes to agree a 2015 budget deal with the European Commission.

Some suspect that the EU and Italy’s top officials only pretend to argue on economic issues, but that when push comes to shove they will just act as one party behind the scenes.

Although official statistics indicate that the unemployment rate in Italy hovers over 12 percent, labor market experts insist that the situation is much more alarming.

Over the past decade, Italy has been the slowest growing economy in the eurozone as tough austerity measures, spending cuts, and pension changes have stirred serious concerns for many people already grappling with the European country’s ailing economy.

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‘US should back off Russia stand-off’

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The United States needs to take a step back from its confrontational policy on Ukraine and cooperate with both Europe and Russia, an analyst tells Press TV.

“I am concerned about the prospect of a hot war and that’s why we in the United States need to take a step back from our confrontational policy on Ukraine, realize there is no way to put Ukraine back together except in cooperation with Europe and with Russia,” James Jatras, a former US Senate foreign policy analyst from Washington said in an interview with Press TV on Wednesday.”

Jatras went on to say, “This idea of treating Ukraine as a zero-sum game is only further going to tear the country apart.”

The remarks come as an analysis to what Russian President Vladimir Putin has recently said about Washington’s interference in other countries’ affairs, accusing the United States of undermining the global stability by trying to impose its will on other countries.

Putin further noted that Russia did not initiate the ongoing tensions between Moscow and the West.

Jatras believes the US has taken a subjective attitude towards what are objective international standards, citing both Libya and Syria as cases in point. He concludes that Western powers “have no intention of abiding by the confines of international resolutions.”

Relations between Russia and the United States deteriorated after Ukraine launched aggressive military operations in mid-April to silence anti-Kiev protests in Ukraine’s mainly Russian speaking regions in the east.

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Egyptians protest government crackdown

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Hundreds of Egyptian demonstrators have rallied in Cairo and other cities across the country to denounce the violence by security forces against student protesters, Press TV reports.

The demonstrators from the Anti-Coup Alliance took to the streets across Egypt on Friday, calling for an immediate end to military rule and the release of political detainees.

One man was killed in clashes with the police in the Cairo neighborhood of Matariya.

Masked men also set ablaze two automobiles belonging to the Saudi Arabian consulate. This is the first attack against Saudi property in the North African country.

Egyptian protesters say Riyadh has been the biggest supporter of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the current president and the former head of the armed forces.

Following the ouster of Egypt’s first democratically-elected president Mohamed Morsi by Sisi in July 2013, students have staged massive anti-government protests across the country. The government clampdown on Morsi supporters has left hundreds dead and thousands detained.

Also on Friday, two bomb attacks in the volatile Sinai Peninsula claimed the lives of nearly 33 security personnel.

Following the Friday assaults, Sisi held an emergency meeting of the National Defense Council to discuss the new spate of violence in Sinai, and announced three days of mourning in the country.

The council also declared a state of emergency “for a duration of three months” in the northern and central parts of the Sinai Peninsula.

Dozens of similar attacks have taken place against army and police forces in Sinai over the past couple of years.

Ansar Bait al-Maqdis, an al-Qaeda-affiliated militant group, has claimed responsibility for most of the attacks in the restive region.

Although the Muslim Brotherhood had previously condemned such attacks, the Egyptian government insists that these attacks are encouraged and in some cases carried out by the Brotherhood.

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Report: MI5 spying on academics

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Britain’s domestic spying apparatus, the MI5, has been spying on a number of prominent academics for decades, newly declassified documents show.

According to documents released at the National Archives on Friday, the phone calls of leading British academics, especially historians, were tapped and their friends and family members were monitored in the 1940s and 1950s.

Oxbridge historians Christopher Hill and Eric Hobsbawm as well as Oxford don AJP Tayl, writer Iris Murdoch and philosopher Lady Mary Warnock were among those spied on for years.

MI5 has tried to defend its spying activities by arguing that the scholars were kept under surveillance in order to establish their contacts’ identities and their supposed communist leanings.

This comes as frequent revelations of espionage by the UK government have provoked growing public uproar over the lack of privacy for British citizens.

Classified documents leaked by American whistleblower Edward Snowden in June last year revealed that the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) was secretly accessing the network of cables that carry the world’s phone calls and Internet traffic and had been sharing the data with the US National Security Agency.

Civil liberties campaigners have launched legal action against the GCHQ over the violation of the privacy of millions of people across the UK and Europe via online surveillance.

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Saudi activists to defy driving ban law

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Activists in Saudi Arabia are set to defy a no-women driving law by getting behind the wheel amid warnings of punishment by officials.

Saudi activists are encouraging women to drive themselves in public on Sunday on the anniversary of an October 26 campaign last year by female drivers in defiance of a driving ban in the kingdom.

In recent weeks, campaigners have been pushing on social media for women to get behind the wheel and post pictures or films online.

The call is part of a renewed right-to-drive campaign which is scheduled to culminate this weekend.

Saudi authorities have strongly warned women against any move which would violate the female driving ban.

In a statement on Thursday, Saudi Interior Ministry warned women against any move which violates the kingdom’s controversial ban on female driving and said it will “strictly implement” measures against anyone who “contributes in any manner or by any acts, towards providing violators with the opportunity to undermine the social cohesion.”

Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world where women are prohibited from driving. The medieval ban is a religious fatwa imposed by the country’s Wahhabi clerics. If women get behind the wheel in the kingdom, they may be arrested, sent to court and even flogged.

Saudi authorities have defied calls by international rights groups to end what has been described as its violation of women’s rights.

SF/NN/HRB

Iranian woman executed for murder

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Iranian woman Reyhaneh Jabbari has been executed inside a prison near the capital Tehran after she was convicted of murdering a man in a controversial criminal case seven years ago.

Reyhaneh was hanged in the early hours of Saturday after being found guilty of killing Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi in July 2007.

The 26-year-old woman said she had stabbed the man to death to defend herself against attempted rape, but her claims were rejected based on further investigations and crime scene evidence.

Jabbari’s execution was halted earlier this month in order to give her lawyer more time to convince the victim’s family to pardon her.

Under Islamic law, a convicted murderer is put to death if the victim’s family demands execution.

ASH/NN/HRB

‘Israel benefits from Egypt insecurity’

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Iran’s Foreign Ministry has strongly denounced a bomb attack at a military checkpoint in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, saying Israel benefits from insecurity in the North African country.

On Friday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham sympathized with the families of the victims of the terrorist act, stressing that the Israeli regime takes advantage from weakening and causing insecurity in the Egyptian society.

Egyptian security sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said earlier in the day that a bomber “rammed a vehicle packed with explosives” into a checkpoint in the area of Karm al-Qawadees near the town of Sheikh Zuweid, close to the border with the Gaza Strip and about 334 kilometers (214 miles) northeast of the capital Cairo.

The Egyptian sources said at least 31 Egyptian soldiers were killed and nearly 30 others were wounded in the attack.

The Islamic Republic of Iran hopes that the Egyptian nation and the leaders of the country “maintain their national and revolutionary unity” and “prevent the Zionist regime’s acts from instigating sedition among the Egyptian people,” Afkham added.

The Sinai Peninsula has long been considered a safe haven for gunmen who use the region as a base for their acts of terror.

Since the ouster of Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s former president, on July 3 last year, gunmen have launched almost daily attacks in Sinai, killing members of security forces.

Ansar Bait al-Maqdis, an al-Qaeda-affiliated militant group, has claimed responsibility for most of the terrorist attacks in the region.

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