NEWS,29.09.2012

US embassy warning: Philippines on alert

Philippine security forces were on stepped-up alert on Saturday after the US embassy issued an emergency advisory about an alleged threat against Americans in the capital."As a matter of precaution, we have augmented security," deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said. "Police visibility has been heightened."The US embassy said in its advisory that the "threat against American citizens in metropolitan Manila ... has been detected by reliable security forces" but it did not give details on the nature of a possible attack."This threat remains in effect until October 10," the embassy said in the advisory posted on its website on Friday.Britain, Australia and Canada also issued warnings to their citizens, citing the US advisory."Any attack could be indiscriminate, and we advise British nationals to exercise particular caution and extra vigilance in places frequented by expatriates and foreign nations," Britain's advisory said.Australia stressed the need for its citizens to avoid travelling to the conflict-wracked southern region of Mindanao, and Canada urged its citizens to be "extremely vigilant and increase their personal security awareness"."Bomb attacks could occur at any time in Manila and other key cities," Canada said in its advisory. "Targets could include places frequented by foreigners, such as large shopping malls and convention centres."Philippine police earlier stepped up security at the US embassy in Manila after violent protests in several countries over a US amateur film considered insulting to Islam.

Last Western detainee leaves Gitmo

The last Western detainee held at the Guantanamo Bay US military prison has returned to Canada after a decade in custody and has been transferred to a maximum security prison in Canada where he awaits parole, Canada's public safety minister said on Saturday.Vic Toews said that 26-year-old Omar Khadr arrived at a Canadian military base on a US government plane early on Saturday and was transferred to the Millhaven maximum security prison in Bath, Ontario.Khadr pleaded guilty in 2010 to killing a US soldier in Afghanistan and was eligible to return to Canada from Guantanamo Bay last October under terms of a plea deal. Khadr was 15 when he was captured in 2002 in Afghanistan, and has spent a decade at the Guantanamo prison set up on the US naval base in Cuba to hold suspected terrorists after the September 11, 2001 attacks. He received an eight-year sentence in 2010 after being convicted of throwing a grenade that killed Army Sergeant 1st Class Christopher Speer during a 2002 firefight.Toews noted that the US government initiated the transfer and suggested that Canada had little choice but to accept him under Canadian law."Omar Khadr is a known supporter of the al-Qaeda terrorist network and a convicted terrorist," Toews said. "Omar Khadr was born in Canada and is a Canadian citizen. As a Canadian citizen, he has a right to enter Canada after the completion of his sentence."John Norris, Khadr's Canadian lawyer, has said Khadr would be eligible for parole as early as the spring of 2013. It will be up to Canada's national parole board to release him, Toews said."I am satisfied the Correctional Service of Canada can administer Omar Khadr's sentence in a manner which recognises the serious nature of the crimes that he has committed and ensure the safety of Canadians is protected during incarceration," Toews said.

Iran condemns US for taking group off terror list

Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of Iranian opposition party National Council of Resistance of Iran, smiles as she attends an international conference on Iran policy in Brussels. Maryam Rajavi, the Paris-based head of the exiled opposition group, said in an interview that she hopes the organization can now have the ear of the world's diplomats to help bolster its bid to overthrow Iran's clerical regime. She stressed that its goal was to replace the Islamic Republic with a democratic government Iran condemned on Saturday the Obama administration for taking an Iranian militant group formerly allied with Hussein off the U.S. terrorism list, saying it shows Washington's "double standards."The Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), which began as a guerrilla movement fighting Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, helped overthrow the monarch in 1979 then quickly fell out with the Islamic Republic's first leader, Khomeini. It fought in the 1980s alongside Saddam's forces in the eight-year Iran-Iraq war but disarmed after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.The State Department delisted the group on Friday, meaning that any assets the MEK has in the United States are unblocked and Americans can do business with the organization. On Saturday, at their Paris headquarters, MEK members gathered to celebrate, tossing flower petals and displaying photos of members killed in the past 15 years."We call on the international community to respect the will of the Iranian people for a regime change in Iran," Maryam Rajavi, the Paris-based head of the exiled opposition group, said Saturday.Iranian State TV criticized the decision, saying that the U.S. considered the MEK "good terrorists" and claims Washington is using the group to work against Tehran. State radio said the move highlights President Barack Obama's anti-Iranian sentiments."There is much evidence of the group being involved in terrorist activities. Delisting them shows America's double standard policy on terrorism," state TV said. The U.S. distinguishes between "good and bad terrorists" and the MEK are now "good terrorists because the U.S. is using them against Iran," the report also said, adding that Washington and Israel use the group to spy on Iran's nuclear program.The U.S. and its allies accuse Iran of using its civilian nuclear program as a cover to develop nuclear weapons. Iran has denied the claims, saying the program is peaceful and is intended for electricity generation and scientific research.The State Department said the MEK hasn't committed terror for more than a decade. The group has also complied with demands that over 3,000 of its once-armed members abandon their base in Iraq near the Iranian border for a camp outside Baghdad, an essential step to ending their decades-long presence in Iraq.The group claims it is seeking regime change through peaceful means, aiming to replace Tehran's clerical system with a secular government.However, a senior State Department official suggested that removing MEK from the U.S. terrorist list does not translate into a shared common front against the Islamic Republic. The official said Washington does not view MEK as an opposition movement that can promote democratic values in Iran. The official on Friday briefed reporters on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly on the matter.In a rare interview on Friday, Rajavi said "the most important impact ... will be seen inside Iran.""The balance of power is going to change. For example, the first message for the Iranian people will be they won't fear increasing their activity and increasing their demonstrations," she said. The fear "will evaporate ... and that will lead to the expansion of anti-regime activities within Iran."Iran says MEK is responsible for the deaths of more than 12,000 Iranians over the past three decades, including senior government officials.The MEK spent huge sums of money over years lobbying for removal from the U.S. terror list, holding rallies in European capitals and elsewhere that featured luminaries like former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge from the administration of George W. Bush. Former House Speaker and presidential candidate Newt Gingrich was among those recently welcomed by the MEK to Paris.The group was protected in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, but its members are disliked by the new Iraqi government, dominated by Shiite Muslims like those in Iran.The United States had insisted the MEK's members leave Camp Ashraf, their home in Iraq, as a condition for removal from the terrorist list. All but several hundred militants are now located in Camp Liberty, a former U.S. base outside Baghdad, looking for placement in third countries.The MEK was removed from the European Union's terrorist list in 2009.

NEWS,22.05.2012.

Deal on probe reached with Iran: UN

Despite some remaining differences, a deal has been reached with Iran that will allow the UN nuclear agency to restart a long-stalled probe into suspicions that Tehran has secretly worked on developing nuclear arms, the UN nuclear chief said on Tuesday.

 

The news from International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Yukiya Amano, who returned from Tehran on Tuesday, comes just a day before Iran and six world powers meet in Baghdad for negotiations and could present a significant turning point in the heated dispute over Iran's nuclear intentions. The six nations hope the talks will result in an agreement by the Islamic Republic to stop enriching uranium to a higher level that could be turned quickly into the fissile core of nuclear arms.Iran denies it seeks nuclear arms and says its reactors are only for power and medical applications.By compromising on the IAEA probe, Iranian negotiators in Baghdad could argue that the onus was now on the other side to show some flexibility and temper its demands. Although Amano's trip and the talks in Baghdad are formally separate, Iran hopes progress with the IAEA can boost its chances on Wednesday in pressing the US and Europe to roll back sanctions that have hit Iran's critical oil exports and blacklisted the country from international banking networks.Differences no obstacleIt was unclear, though, how far the results achieved by Amano would serve that purpose, with him returning without the two sides signing the deal, despite his upbeat comments.After talks in Tehran between Amano and chief Iranian nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, "the decision was made... to reach agreement" on the mechanics of giving the IAEA access to sites, scientists and documents it seeks to restart its probe", Amano told reporters at Vienna airport after his one-day trip to Tehran.Amano said differences existed on "some details", without elaborating but added that Jalili had assured him that these "will not be an obstacle to reach agreement". He spoke of "an almost clean text" that will be signed soon, although he could not say when.Western diplomats are sceptical of Iran's willingness to open past and present activities to full perusal, believing it would only reveal what they suspect and Tehran denies - that the Islamic Republic has researched and developed components of a nuclear weapons programme. They say that Tehran's readiness to honour any agreement it has signed is the true test of its willingness to co-operateThe United States is among those sceptics. In a statement released soon after Amano's announcement, Robert A Wood, America's chief delegate to the nuclear agency, said Washington appreciated Amano's efforts but remained "concerned by the urgent obligation for Iran to take concrete steps to co-operate fully with the verification efforts of the IAEA, based on IAEA verification practices".Good intentions"We urge Iran to take this opportunity to resolve all outstanding concerns about the nature of its nuclear programme," said the statement. "Full and transparent co-operation with the IAEA is the first logical step."German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle also urged Iran to put professed good intentions into action."Enduring and substantial co-operation by Iran with the International Atomic Energy Agency to clear up the open questions surrounding the Iranian nuclear programme would be an important and at the same time overdue step in the right direction," he said in a statement.
On the Baghdad talks, "the aim is to make progress not just atmospherically but also on substance," he said, reflecting Western views that the feel-good effect achieved at a previous round in Istanbul last month must now be built upon with concrete steps aimed at reducing international concerns over Tehran's nuclear agenda.For the six powers - the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany - a main concern is Iran's production of uranium enriched to 20%, which is far higher than needed for regular energy-producing reactors but used for one Iran says it needs for medical research.The US and its allies fear the higher-enriched uranium could be quickly boosted to warhead-grade material.Israel against concessionsUS officials have said Washington will not backpedal from its stance that Iran must fully halt uranium enrichment. But speculation is increasing that the priorities have shifted to block the 20% enrichment and perhaps allow Iran to maintain lower-level nuclear fuel production - at least for now.Iranian officials could package such a scenario as a victory for their domestic audience. In Israel, it would likely be greeted with dismay and widen rifts between President Barack Obama's US administration and Israeli officials who keep open the threat of military action against Iran's nuclear sites.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned against concessions, saying world powers should make "clear and unequivocal demands" that Iran stop all of its nuclear enrichment activity.
"Iran wants to destroy Israel and it is developing nuclear weapons to fulfil that goal," Netanyahu said at a conference in Jerusalem. "Against this malicious intention, leading world powers need to display determination and not weakness. They should not make any concessions to Iran."Jalili, Iran's top nuclear negotiator who met with Amano and will also be the lead envoy at the Baghdad talks, said his country hopes for a new beginning when the talks start on Wednesday."We hope that the talks in Baghdad will be a kind of dialogue that will give shape to ... co-operation," Jalili said after arriving in Baghdad late on Monday.More inspections As part of any agreement, Amano and his agency are focused on getting Iran to let agency experts to probe various high-profile Iranian sites, including the Parchin military complex southeast of Tehran, where the agency believes Iran in 2003 ran explosive tests needed to set off a nuclear charge. The suspected blasts took place inside a pressure chamber.
Iran has never said whether the chamber existed, but describes Parchin as a conventional military site. Iran, however, has blocked IAEA requests for access to sites, scientists and documents needed for its investigation for more than four years.Amano's talks included Jalili as well as Iran's foreign minister and other officials including the head of Iran's nuclear agency, Fereidoun Abbasi.Iranian lawmaker Heshmatollah Falahtpisheh saids on Monday that Tehran will likely accept more inspections of Parchin "if it feels there is good will within the [IAEA]".But Falahtpisheh warned that this new openness will likely come with expectations that the West would in return ease international sanctions on Iran.Flexibility"In opening up to more inspections, Iran aims at lowering the crisis over its nuclear case," he said. "But if the sanctions continue, Iran would stop this."A political analyst in Tehran, Hamid Reza Shokouhi, said Iran is carefully watching to see if the West shows more "flexibility and pays attention to Iranian demands" during Amano's trip."Then Iran will show flexibility, too," Shokouhi said.
But some Iranian media was critical of Amano and the IAEA, possibly reflecting internal divisions on how far to go compromise on nuclear issues.In a sign of ebbing market worries, oil prices have steadily fallen since Iran and world powers resumed talks in April in Istanbul. Fears of supply disruptions because of military conflict or Iranian shipping blockades helped drive prices above $106 a barrel earlier this year. Oil rose to slightly above $92 per barrel on Monday in New York.