Netanyahu: Western powers ‘collapsed’ in nuclear talks

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem on July 05, 2015. (Flash 90/Emil Salman/POOL)

PM says emerging Iran deal is worse than the agreement with North Korea, which went on to produce verboten weapons

Iran agrees with world powers to four-month nuclear deadline extension

Catherine Ashton with Javad Zarif and the Iranian ambassador to Austria Hassan Tajik during the talks Photo: AFP

Iran and world powers strike deal to extend their Sunday deadline to strike a nuclear accord easing fears Tehran will get the bomb

Iran warns of new sandstorm in Tehran

A picture taken with a smartphone shows a sandstorm engulfing the Iranian capital Tehran on June 02, 2014. (photo credit: AFP PHOTO/STR)

Alert comes one day after highest winds in 50 years ravage capital, leaving five dead

Iranians will ‘cut your throat,’ ex-US official warns negotiators

Former US secretary of state George Shultz (screen capture: BBC News)

They’re ‘known as great rug merchants, not for nothing,’ Reagan-era secretary of state George Shultz tells BBC as talks in Geneva kick off

Iranian-American charged with trying to buy surface-to-air missiles for Tehran

Ognen Teofilovski / Reuters
Macedonian soldiers fire a Russian-made IGLA ground-to-air missile during a live fire exercise in 2008.

Netanyahu said it must be “the full dismantling of Iran’s military nuclear program.”

credit: mondoweiss.net

Clashes as Iranian President Returns to Tehran

President Hassan Rouhani of Iran was protected by bodyguards as he left the airport in Tehran on Saturday.        Atta Kenare/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

SOURCE

TEHRAN — Hard-line protesters hurled eggs and a shoe at President Hassan Rouhani of Iran as he returned to Tehran on Saturday after supporters cheered him for reaching out to President Obama.

Mr. Rouhani was standing in his car, waving through the sunroof as he passed supporters at the airport. But moments later, security guards tried to shield the president with an umbrella as protesters threw eggs and a shoe at his car while others blocked the road by praying on the pavement.

“Long live Rouhani, man of change” the president’s supporters shouted, as a small contingent of police struggled to control the crowd.

The hard-liners responded by shouting “our people are awake and hate America.”

Rouhani calls on Israel to give up nuclear arms

Speaking at UN meeting on disarmament, Iranian president says the only way to prevent use of nukes is to eliminate them entirely

SOURCE

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Thursday cast the world’s attention away from his country’s unsanctioned nuclear program and called on Israel to join the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and put its suspected nukes under international control.

Speaking at a UN General Assembly meeting on nuclear disarmament, Rouhani said, “Almost four decades of international efforts to establish a nuclear weapon-free zone in the Middle East have regrettably failed.”

 “No nation should possess nuclear weapons,” he said, adding ”As long as nuclear weapons exist, the risk of their use, threat of use and proliferation persist. The only absolute guarantee is their total elimination.”

Rouhani urged Israel to become a signatory to the treaty which attempts to rein in the production and proliferation of nuclear weapons.

“Israel, the only non-party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty in this region, should join thereto without any further delay,” Rouhani said.

Skeptical Netanyahu knows he’s ‘spoiling the party’ on Iran

PM doesn’t want anyone easing the pressure until there’s real change in Tehran’s nuclear program. But it’s a stance that isolating Israel, while Rouhani leads his country in from the cold

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a meeting with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius at the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem, August 25, 2013 (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem/Pool/Flash90)

SOURCE

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ministers aren’t alone in their skepticism of Tehran’s newly friendly face. But Jerusalem’s refusal to consider giving the Iranians a chance to prove their sincerity, and to do as little as possible to acknowledge the ostensible goodwill gestures — as underlined by the Israeli delegation solo boycott of President Hasan Rouhani’s UN speech on Tuesday — threatens to isolate Israel rather than the Islamist foe it so mistrusts.

Jerusalem is well aware of this. Netanyahu knows he’s “spoiling the party,” an official told The Times of Israel with striking candor. But the prime minister, said the official, sees a “moral obligation” in insisting that Iran be measured by deeds not speeches, in urging the world not to be misled by empty rhetoric.

 

Deadly Bus Crash in The Middle East

At least 44 dead in Iran bus collision

SOURCE

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s state TV says at least 44 people died when two intercity buses collided on a road south of the country’s capital, Tehran.

The accident happened late on Monday when one of the buses swerved into the opposite lane due to a flat tire, colliding head-on with the other bus. Both buses caught fire.

The TV says 44 people were injured in the accident. They were taken to hospital in the city of Qom, about 130 kilometers (80 miles) south of Tehran.

Iran has one of the worst road safety records in the world. Statistics say that more than 20,000 people lose their lives in road accidents every year in the country.

The high toll is blamed on disregard of traffic rules, unsafe roads and poor emergency services.