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Homemade bomb on board plane raises tension ahead of Iran elections | World news | guar... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...mb-plane-tehran-iran-elections Iran US Baluchistan Sistan-Baluchistan Khuzestan Ali Khamenei Hassan Firouzabadi Jundullah
shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 01 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Rising political tensions in Iran ahead of watershed presidential elections on 12 June intensified today with the discovery of a homemade bomb on board a domestic airliner. The incident closely followed a fatal attack on a mosque that hardline Iranian leaders blamed on the US, Israel and Britain.
  • The Ahvaz incident followed an apparent suicide bombing on Thursday at a mosque in Zahedan, in Sistan-Baluchistan province in south-eastern Iran, which killed 25 people and wounded more than 100. Three men convicted of planning the explosion were publicly executed yesterday.
  • Khuzestan and Sistan-Baluchistan provinces have witnessed numerous attacks attributed to separatists, ethnic and religious groups, and mujahideen resistance fighters since the 1979 revolution. Oil-rich Khuzestan, which borders Iraq, is home to Iran's Arab minority. Sistan-Baluchistan, bordering Pakistan, has a high concentration of Sunni Muslims. Iran is predominantly Shia.
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  • A Sunni opposition group known as Jundullah (God's Soldiers), which Iran links to al-Qaida and the US, claimed responsibility for the mosque bomb.
  • The Saudi-owned al-Arabiya television said a man claiming to represent Jundullah called it saying the bombing was a suicide attack aimed at Basiji forces, a religious militia, that were meeting in the mosque to co-ordinate election strategy.
  • Iran's leaders have repeatedly blamed US and Israeli "spy agencies" for arming and assisting insurgent groups, including dissident Kurds living in western Iran. They say the aim is to destabilise Iran and promote regime change.
  • Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader and a strong, public backer of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's bid to win a second term, added his weight to the claims. "No one can doubt that the hands of … some interfering powers and their spying services are bloodied by the blood of the innocent," he said.
  • Major General Hassan Firouzabadi, Iran's armed forces chief of staff, also blamed outside forces, pointing the finger at Britain in particular. "The attempts made by colonialism, Zionism and on top of them England for sowing discord between Shias and Sunnis have yielded no result," he said.
  • Any direct or indirect US involvement in fomenting pre-election tensions is considered unlikely, given Obama's new policy of engagement with Iran. Israel, which believes Iran poses an existential threat, takes a harder line.
  • Unconfirmed reports published in the US last year said the Bush administration obtained $400m in "off-the-books" congressional funding to finance covert operations aimed at assisting minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organisations inside Iran. It is unclear whether these alleged operations have continued since Obama took office.
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How Iran's Clerics Can Undermine Ahmadinejad - International Analyst Network - 0 views

www.analyst-network.com/article.php Iran Iran Elections 2009 Qom Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani Iranian Revolutionary Guards Bonyads Ali Khamenei Expediency Council
shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 22 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Although the president has the support of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC), the clerics still have considerable power over the country's charitable foundations (Bonyads). These multibillion dollar business organizations don't report their income or pay taxes. They report directly to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Their participation in the economy is crucial. They could make life difficult for Ahmadinejad's presidency by increasing their business clout in areas where the IRGC is trying to muscle in. These industries include energy, construction and the import/export sector. Last year, these clerics scored a major victory. Bonyade Mostazafin (Charity foundation for the dispossessed) was allowed to buy and sell oil, allowing them to compete directly with Iran's National Oil Company. This raised the fury of Ahmadinejad's supporters. As means of checking Ahmadinejad's power, they could expand further into this sector, or compete in the lucrative construction sector. These companies also have huge financial assets. These can be used to finance new businesses which compete directly with the IRGC.
  • They could also side with Ayatollah Rafsanjani. It is an accepted fact that Rafsanjani financed part of Mousavi's campaign. This obviously dented Ahmadinejad's popularity. So much so, apparently, that Ayatollah Khamenei felt compelled to assist the president by allowing fraud. Rafsanjani is already a millionaire many times over. Should the clergy start helping him financially, using his political muscle in the Assembly of Experts and the Expediency Council, he could further challenge Ahmadinejad politically.
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BBC News - Profile: First EU President Herman van Rompuy - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8358504.stm EU Van Rompuy
shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 21 Nov 09 - Cached
  • A veteran politician from Belgium's Flemish Christian Democrat party, he has been outspoken in the past in opposition to Turkey joining the EU. He warned it could dilute Europe's Christian heritage. "Turkey is not a part of Europe and will never be part of Europe," he said as an opposition politician five years ago.
    • Pedro Gonçalves
      Pedro Gonçalves on 10 Jan 10
       
      Does Rompuy's election signal the end of Turkey's aspirations to join the EU?
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Shlomo Sand: the man that Zionists love to hate | Books interview | Books | The Observer - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...omo-sand-judaism-israel-jewish Israel Jews Shlomo Sand Identity National Identity Nation Branding
shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 17 Jan 10 - Cached
  • The Invention of the Jewish People.
  • Sand's hands are depicting how most Jews are descended from converts who never set foot in the Holy Land.
  • according to Sand there was no exile, and as he seeks to prove by dense forensic archaeological and historical analysis, it is meaningless to talk today about a "people of Israel". At least not if by that you mean the Jews.
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  • another mass conversion took place in the Black Sea kingdom of Khazaria towards the end of the eighth ­century. The Khazar elite acquired Judaism as a form of diplomatic neutrality in the surrounding clashes between Christianity and Islam. That conversion gradually scooped up people of mixed ethnic ­backgrounds who are, Sand believes, the main ancestors of Eastern European Jewry
  • The Khazar conversion is no revelation. It was the basis for a 1976 book by Arthur Koestler, The Thirteenth Tribe, which was reviled, then ignored, by mainstream Zionism. But the Jewish Khazars were recognised by early Zionist historians, albeit as a numerically insignificant curiosity. They were only dropped from the story in the 1960s. After the 1967 Six Day War, to be precise.
  • Sand notes that the disappearance of converts from Israeli history books coincides with increased occupation of Arab land. This is not a conspiracy theory. Zionism was a typical modern nation-building exercise. It followed the pattern by which most European national identities were forged in the 19th and 20th centuries. Intellectual elites propagated myths that met "the deep ideological needs of their culture and their society". In Israel's case that was the myth of ethnic origins in a biblical kingdom based around Jerusalem.
  • He is not anti-Zionist, he says, but post-Zionist: accepting modern Israel as a fait accompli.
  • "A lot of pro-Zionists in London and New York don't really understand what their great-grandparents felt about Zion," says Sand. "It was the most important place in the world in their imagination, as a religious, sacred land, not a place to emigrate." That "Israel" was a metaphysical destination to be reached at the End of Days. The modern Israeli state is a political enterprise, conceived in the late 19th century, made necessary by the Holocaust, founded in 1948.
  • It is a young country. Many Jews see that as a weakness. The more insecure they feel, the tighter they cling to the myth of an ancient mandate. But Israel's best hope is to acknowledge that its nationhood is invented, and modernise even more. It must, Sand argues, reform itself so the state belongs to all its citizens, whether Jew or Arab.
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BBC News - Straw says Iraq 'most difficult decision' in his life - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8471511.stm Iraq War Jack Straw UK
shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 21 Jan 10 - Cached
  • He said he would never have "been a party" to such a policy: "I regarded it [the policy of regime change] as improper and self-evidently unlawful."
  • Before that meeting Mr Straw wrote to Mr Blair - in a letter subsequently leaked - that "regime change per se is no justification for military action: it could form part of the method of any strategy, but not a goal". Asked whether No 10 had "pre-empted" the Foreign Office over Iraqi policy, Mr Straw said Mr Blair was "aware" that regime change could not be a basis for acting against Iraq nor could it be "disguised" as such.
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China to Seek 'Stability' in Tibet via Development - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...24china.html Tibet China imperialism geopolitics Human Rights
shared by Larry Keiler on 24 Jan 10 - Cached
  • The emphasis on economic development indicates that Chinese leaders still see the solution to the problem of Tibet as one of supplying creature comforts. If the region can develop fast enough, the reasoning goes, then Tibetans will buy into Chinese rule.
  • A sign of the importance of the conference was the attendee list: besides Mr. Hu, it included Wen Jiabao, the prime minister; Xi Jinping, the vice president who is the favorite to succeed Mr. Hu; and Li Keqiang, Mr. Xi’s main rival for the top leadership position in China.
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BBC News - Clinton warns Iran 'becoming a military dictatorship' - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8515623.stm Iran China Saudi Arabia US Hillary Clinton
shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 15 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Mrs Clinton would press Saudi Arabia to help persuade China to support a tougher stand against Iran's nuclear ambitions.
  • US wanted Saudi Arabia, which has growing trade relations with China, to persuade Beijing to abandon opposition to a fourth round of UN Security Council sanctions.
  • Beijing fears a major loss of revenue from investments in Iran, and disruption of oil supplies from a country providing it with 400,000 barrels a day.
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  • secretary of state is expected to press the Saudis to reassure the Chinese that the kingdom can offset any disruption.
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BBC News - Ukraine: Tymoshenko vows to contest election result - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8514517.stm ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko viktor yanukovych
shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 15 Feb 10 - Cached
  • "I want to clearly state: Yanukovych is not our president," Ms Tymoshenko said in a live televised broadcast.
  • But she said she would not call people on to the streets to protest, as she had done after the 2004 presidential election. "I will not call another Maidan [Independence Square demonstration] and will not allow public protests," she said.
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Nato rockets kill 12 Afghan civilians | World news | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...-rockets-kill-afghan-civilians Afghanistan US Operation Moshtarak
shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 15 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Two Nato rockets aimed at Taliban insurgents in Helmand missed their target today, killing 12 civilians sheltering in their home and dealing a sharp blow to hopes that civilian casualties would be avoided in the largest western-led operation of the nine-year Afghan war.
  • The incident occurred in Nad Ali, an insurgent-infested area where British troops are operating. A Ministry of Defence spokeswoman said the rockets, which were fired by a sophisticated missile system, were a "US responsibility".
  • Operation Moshtarak (meaning "together") involves 15,000 troops, mostly US, British and Afghan
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France24 - Top official suspended over sex scandal - 0 views

www.france24.com/...ni-suspended-sex-scandal-abbas Palestinian Authority Rafiq al-Husseini
shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 15 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has suspended his chief of staff, Rafiq al-Husseini (pictured), after a video was released showing Husseini allegedly soliciting sex from a job applicant
  • Speaking to reporters in Ramallah, he said he had falled "victim to a trap set by members of a gang linked to Israeli intelligence."
  • The PA has been up in arms over the report, with the attorney general threatening to sue Israel's Channel 10 for "circulating lies and false claims."
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Netanyahu to lobby in Russia for Iran sanctions | World | Reuters - 0 views

uk.reuters.com/...idUKTRE61D0WJ20100214 Russia Iran Benjamin Netanyahu
shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 15 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will push for "crippling sanctions" against Iran over its nuclear programme in Moscow on Monday with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
  • Israel, seeing a mortal threat, has hinted it could attack Iran's nuclear facilities pre-emptively if it deems international diplomacy a dead end. That possibility drew cautionary words from Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. "I worry a great deal about the unintended consequences of a strike," he told reporters during a visit to Tel Aviv, referring to Iran's threats to retaliate against Israel and U.S. sites in the Gulf. "I think the Iranians are very difficult to predict."
  • Asked what Netanyahu meant by "crippling sanctions," an aide said: "Sanctions that target Iran's refined petroleum imports." While it is the world's fifth-largest oil exporter, Iran lacks domestic refineries and imports some 40 percent of its gasoline.
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  • For now, officials involved in the six-power negotiations expect new sanctions to stop short of hitting energy assets. Proposed sanctions include blacklisting Iran's central bank and other big banks, adding more Iranian individuals to a travel ban list, expanding an asset freeze to include more Iranian companies and imposing an arms imports ban.
  • Netanyahu last visited Russia in September on a secret one-day trip that was leaked to the media. Israeli reports said he had flown to Moscow to voice concern over the possible sale of Russian S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to Iran. The S-300 could hamper any air strikes by Israel, which is assumed to have the region's only atomic arsenal.
  • "There is a signed contract (to supply S-300 missiles) which we must implement, but deliveries have not started yet," Vladimir Nazarov, deputy secretary of Russia's Security Council secretary, told Interfax news agency in an interview.
  • Russia is interested in expanding its fleet of Israeli-made spy drones, having seen neighbouring Georgia use them against Russian forces in a 2008 war.
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This Week at War: Are the Ayatollahs Using COIN? | Foreign Policy - 0 views

www.foreignpolicy.com/..._are_the_ayatollahs_using_coin Iran US COIN Dan Cox
shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 15 Feb 10 - Cached
  • The COIN gurus recommend early recognition of the problem and a harsh decisive response. Cox concludes that the Iranian government, taking advantage of its authoritarian position, is employing the recommendations of these Western theorists and to good effect.
  • First, the regime appears to have developed good intelligence on the opposition. The opposition movement appears broad, but scattered, disorganized, and probably lacking many internal security measures. The security services have likely had an easy time penetrating the movement's leadership network and monitoring its electronic communications.
  • the Iranian government, in accordance with Western COIN theorists, has rapidly and efficiently responded to the embryonic insurgency. It has penetrated the protest movement, arrested the movement's organizers and propagandists, and achieved dominance over information and communications.
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BBC News - EU deplores Libya visa ban for Europeans - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8517642.stm Libya EU Switzerland
shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 16 Feb 10 - Cached
  • The European Commission has condemned Libya's decision to stop issuing visas to the many Europeans whose countries are in the Schengen border-free zone.
  • The Swiss ban is said to include Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and his family.
  • The Libyan-Swiss row dates back to July 2008, when Col Gaddafi's son Hannibal and daughter-in-law were arrested in Switzerland. The charges, of mistreating two domestic employees, were later dropped. Libya then halted oil exports to Switzerland, withdrew billions of dollars of assets from Swiss banks and put two Swiss businessmen working in Libya on trial for visa violations and other offences.
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Members of hit squad suspected of killing Hamas man 'had UK passports' | World news | T... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...hamas-leader-murder-hit-squad Hamas Dubai
shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 16 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Six members of an 11-strong hit squad suspected of killing a senior Hamas military commander in Dubai entered the country using British passports, police said last night.
  • Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, 49, was killed on 20 January in his hotel room, hours after arriving in the state. Last month Hamas claimed Israeli agents assassinated Mabhouh, who was wanted for the killing of two Israeli soldiers in 1989.
  • 11 people, including one woman, were wanted over the killing. He said all suspects had European passports. In addition to the six British passport holders, three were carrying Irish passports and the two others were from France and Germany
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  • Mohammed Nazzal, a Hamas leader, has previously said Mabhouh was ambushed by agents from Mossad, the Israeli foreign intelligence service, although he gave no evidence for his accusation.
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BBC News - Iran hits back at Clinton 'dictatorship' warning - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8517723.stm Iran US Saudi Arabia
shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 16 Feb 10 - Cached
  • On Monday Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister said imposing more sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme would not be a quick enough solution.
  • Prince Saud al-Faisal said the threat posed by Iran demanded a "more immediate solution" than sanctions.
  • On Tuesday, Turkey's foreign minister is due in Iran aiming to mediate.
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  • Speaking at a joint Riyadh news conference with Mrs Clinton, Prince Saud said: "Sanctions are a long-term solution. They may work, we can't judge. "But we see the issue in the shorter term maybe because we are closer to the threat... So we need an immediate resolution rather than a gradual resolution."
  • Some regional experts believe neither sanctions nor engagement will work with Iran and have suggested a multi-pronged approach involving intense economic pressure from Iran's neighbours, our correspondent adds.
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Mossad's foreign operations have often embarrassed Israel | World news | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...passports-israel-embarrassment Israel Mossad Jordan Canada New Zealand
shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 16 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Mossad agents have been caught with foreign passports before, triggering diplomatic rows. In 1997, two Mossad agents using forged Canadian passports were arrested in Amman after trying to assassinate Khalid Meshal, a Hamas official who is now the movement's leader, by spraying poison into his ear.
  • Two suspected Mossad agents were jailed for six months in 2004 in New Zealand for trying to falsely obtain a New Zealand passport . They were caught when an immigration official noticed a passport applicant was speaking with an American or Canadian accent.Helen Clark, the then New Zealand prime minister, criticised Israel for behaving in a way "unacceptable internationally by any country".
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France24 - Riyadh unwilling to lobby China over Iran sanctions - 0 views

www.france24.com/...usa-iran-nuclear-sanctions-oil Iran Saudi Arabia US China Hillary Clinton Iranian Revolutionary Guards
shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 16 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Saudi Arabia on Monday played down suggestions it could encourage China not to block sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme by giving Beijing oil supply guarantees.
  • Saudi Arabia on Monday played down suggestions it could encourage China not to block sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme by giving Beijing oil supply guarantees.
  • "Sanctions are a long-term solution (but) ... we see the issue in the shorter term because we are closer to the threat," Prince Saud said.    "If we want security for the region, it requires an Iran at peace and happy with themselves," he added.
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  • The Chinese "carry their responsibility" as one of the major world powers and "they need no suggestion from Saudi Arabia to do what they ought to do," Prince Saud said at a joint news conference with Clinton.
  • Saudi Arabia on Monday played down suggestions it could encourage China not to block sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme by giving Beijing oil supply guarantees.
  • Clinton's top assistant for the Middle East, Jeffrey Feltman, told reporters travelling with her that China had an "important trading relationship" with the Saudi oil kingpin.    "We would expect them (the Saudis) ... to use their relationship in ways that can help increase the pressure that Iran feels," said Feltman, the assistant secretary of state for Near East Affairs.
  • Clinton said the United States was not aiming to use military action to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions but rather seeking to build support for tough new sanctions at the UN Security Council.    She said the package Washington wanted adopted "will be particularly aimed at those enterprises controlled by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which we believe is in effect supplanting the government of Iran.
  • "We see the government of Iran, the supreme leader, the president, the parliament is being supplanted and Iran is moving toward a military dictatorship," she said.    "They are in charge of the nuclear programme."
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BBC News - Taliban commander Mullah Baradar 'seized in Pakistan' - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8517375.stm Afghanistan Taliban US Mullah Baradar
shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 16 Feb 10 - Cached
  • A man described as the top Afghan Taliban military commander and named as Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar has been captured in Pakistan, US officials say.He was seized in a US-Pakistani raid seven to nine days ago, a Pakistani military official told the BBC. The government has yet to confirm the arrest; the Taliban have denied it.
  • Senior US officials said Mullah Baradar was "providing intelligence".
  • a Taliban spokesman denied the reports, saying Mullah Baradar was still in Afghanistan actively organising the group's military and political activities.
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  • "He has not been captured. They want to spread this rumour just to divert the attention of people from their defeats in Marjah and confuse the public," Zabihullah Mujahid told Reuters news agency, referring to the US-led Nato offensive in the Marjah area of Helmand province.
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BBC News - Pakistan confirms Taliban 'number two' arrested - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8519354.stm Pakistan Afghanistan Mullah Baradar
shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 17 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Pakistan has confirmed that a Taliban suspect captured earlier this month is one of the organisation's top leaders, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.
  • US and Pakistani agents had seized Mullah Baradar in Karachi on 8 February, US officials said on Tuesday.
  • But a Taliban spokesman has said Mullah Baradar, thought to be their second-in-command, is free and in Afghanistan.
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  • The arrest suggests Pakistan is getting tough with Afghan Taliban leaders sheltering there, says the BBC's Orla Guerin in Islamabad, something that has long been a demand of the White House.
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untitled - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...official-accused-mossad-murder Israel Hamas Dubai Austria
shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 18 Feb 10 - Cached
  • A key security operative of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas was under arrest in Syria tonight on suspicion of having helped an alleged Israeli hit squad identify Mahmoud al-Mabhouh before he was assassinated in Dubai, the Guardian has learned.
  • Nahro Massoud, a Hamas security official, was in detention and under interrogation in Damascus in connection with the 19 January killing, which is now widely assumed to have been mounted by Israel's Mossad secret intelligence service.
  • Killings of Palestinians by Israel have often involved Palestinian agents being used to identity the target.
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  • Middle East experts and diplomats see the Dubai plot as part of a wider clandestine struggle between Israel and Hamas – and a deliberate attempt to weaken the Palestinian organisation's links with Iran. Israel considered Mabhouh to be the point man in smuggling longer-range Iranian rockets into Gaza that would be capable of striking Israel's urban heartland.
  • Dubai police identified Austria as ­"command centre" for the assassins, after mobile phone data showed at least seven numbers originating there.
  • In December 2008 radical Islamic terrorists also coordinated their bomb attacks in Mumbai, in which 160 people were killed, using Austrian mobile phone numbers.
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