| Iran cleric Montazeri dies | |||
Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, Iran's most senior dissident cleric, has died, official media has reported. Montazeri, 87, was an architect of the 1979 Islamic revolution who fell out with the present leadership. He had been held under house arrest for several years. "Hossein Ali Montazeri passed away in his home last night," the official IRNA news agency said on Sunday. He lived in the city of Qom, which lies south of Tehran, and was referred to as the spiritual leader of the opposition after the country's recent disputed election. Ghanbar Naderi, an Iran Daily journalist, told Al Jazeera: "This is huge blow to the reformist camp, because he is unreplaceable and nobody is happy to hear about his sad demise. "He used to say that religion should be separated from politics, because in this way, we can keep the integrity of religion intact." Non-conformist In August, Montazeri described the clerical establishment as a "dictatorship", saying that the authorities' handling of street unrest after the disputed election in June "could lead to the fall of the regime". "I hope the responsible authorities give up the deviant path they are pursuing and restore the trampled rights of the people," he wrote. "I hope authorities ... have the courage to announce that this ruling system is neither a republic nor Islamic and that nobody has the right to express opinion or criticism," Montazeri said in August this year. Alireza Ronaghi, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Tehran, said that Montazeri's statements were significant because he was once in line to succeed the late Ayatollah Khomeini as Iran's supreme leader. But Seyed Mohammad Marandi, a political analyst at the University of Tehran, told Al Jazeera in August that Montazeri has been "saying the same thing for around 25 years". "He is not a major player and has always been very critical," Marandi said. | |||
|
Sunday, 20 December 2009
Iran cleric Montazeri dies
Karzai defends cabinet choices
| Karzai defends cabinet choices | |||
Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, has rejected criticism of his choice of cabinet ministers, some of whom face allegegations of corruption. Karzai pledged on Sunday to take action against anyone accused of wrongdoing, following claims he has nominated politicians who have performed badly or who may have links to warlords. He said on Sunday: "If officials have been involved in embezzlement [and/or] bribery, I will wholeheartedly prosecute them. "But I don't have the right to do so. We have a legal system in place ... justice should not be provided in an unjust way. "We should prove if allegations are true and if they are false, then it is my duty to defend the dignity of the accused." Karzai's list of 23 ministers was read to parliament by Anwar Khan Jigdalik, the minister for parliamentary affairs, on Saturday after a session during which politicians questioned the legality of the process. Pressure on president Karzai, who in November was declared the winner of the country's disputed presidential election, has faced pressure from the international community to crack down on corruption in his government. The US and Nato member countires, who each have troops in Afghanistan, say that anger over corruption in the government has helped fuelled an insurgency by the Taliban. Hashem Ahelbarra, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Kabul, said Karzai is also under pressure from the Afghan people and his domestic political rivals. "You have the Afghan people and some members of the Afghan parliament saying that, by his choices, Karzai is betraying his commitments ... on ending the culture of corruption, which has been so pervasive in Afghanistan," he said. 'Endorsed by warlords' "It seems that this is going to be a government of appeasement because he is beholden to the warlords who endorsed him in the election. "At the same time, he has to answer some of the demands of the international community. Karzai knows that people want him to take action, and this is why he is now talking about the fight against corruption." Karzai's proposed government line-up does not include any figures from the opposition. The leaders of the three main security offices, including the head of the National Directorate of Security, which handles intelligence, will remain in the same position at a crucial time when thousands of new police and army recruits are being trained and deployed. Abdul Rahim Wardak, the national defence minister, who has been praised by Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, will remain in his position. The interior and finance ministers will also stay, as had been expected. | |||
|
Iran 'withdraws' from disputed well
| Iran 'withdraws' from disputed well | ||||||||
Iranian troops have withdrawn partially from a disputed oil well in the border region with Iraq, the Iraqi government has said. Ali al-Dabbagh, a government spokesman, said that a group of Iranian troops who had allegedly seized control of the well last week had pulled back in the early hours of Sunday morning. "The Iranian flag has been lowered," Dabbagh told Al Jazeera. "The Iranian troops have pulled back 50 metres, but they have not gone back to where they were before." Maysam Lafta, the provincial chief of security and defence, said: "The Iranian troops left overnight and the workers of the oil company returned to the well on Sunday." Iraq considers the well to be part of its al-Fauqa oil field. Iran's armed forces, however, issued a statement on Saturday saying that, in Tehran's view, there had been no incursion into Iraq as the oil well was within Iranian borders. "Our forces are on our own soil and, based on the known international borders, this well belongs to Iran," the statement said. 'Misunderstanding' Foreign ministers from both countries late on Saturday discussed a "misunderstanding" between the countries' border guards. Iraq's state-owned South Oil Company in the southeastern city of Amara said on Friday that an Iranian unit had taken control of the the well.
Baghdad demanded that Tehran pull back the soldiers who they said had "occupied" the disputed well, and condemned the incident as "a violation of Iraqi sovereignty". The al-Fauqa field is one of several oil rich areas that Iraq unsuccessfully put up for auction to oil companies in June. The field has estimated reserves of 1.55 million barrels. Muhammad al-Hajj Hamud, Iraq's deputy foreign minister, said it was the first time the well had been taken over during years of tension. "In the past, the Iranians would try to prevent our technicians from working on the well ... by firing in their direction," he said, adding that Iraq had dug the well in 1974. The well lies about 500 metres from an Iranian border fort and about one kilometre from an Iraqi border fort, US Colonel Peter Newell said. | ||||||||
|
UN 'takes note' of climate accord
| UN 'takes note' of climate accord | ||||||
United Nations member countries have stopped short of approving a climate accord during talks in Denmark, saying they would only agree to "take note" of it. The official recognition on Saturday of the non-binding pact agreed by the United States, China, India, Brazil and South Africa brought the 193-nation climate summit in Copenhagen to a close. "Finally we sealed a deal," Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, said. "The 'Copenhagen Accord' may not be everything everyone had hoped for, but this decision ... is an important beginning." Developing nations were strongly critical of the pact, saying that it was not enough to arrest climatic changes that would lead to floods and famine and kill millions. But David Doniger, policy director of the Climate Center at the US Natural Resources Defence Council, said that the UN ruling means it has adopted "the accord in such a way that those countries [who had been opposed to it] were persuaded not to object". 'Framework set' Barack Obama, the US president, had earlier hailed the agreement between the five nations as a success and said it would provide the framework for future talks.
"For the first time in history, all major economies have come together to accept their responsibility to take action to confront the threat of climate change. "This progress did not come easily and we know this progress alone is not enough ... We've come a long way but we have much further to go." But Lumumba Stanislas Dia-ping, Sudan's representative and chair of a Group of 77 developing nations, said the accord meant "incineration" for Africa and likened it to the Holocaust. The agreement "is a solution based on values, the very same values in our opinion that funnelled six million people in Europe into furnaces," Dia-ping said. No specifics Obama said the signatories to the deal had agreed to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius to help meet their new objective.
The agreement also includes a commitment by the countries to give developing nations $100bn dollars in assistance from 2020 to help them deal with climate change. The deal includes some progress in helping developing nations cope with climate change, but it falls short of committing any nation to pollution reductions. But many countries are angry they were excluded from the negotiations and have criticised the accord because it is non-binding and sets no overall target or time-scale for curbing greenhouse gas emissions. "You are going to endorse this coup d'etat against the United Nations," Claudia Salerno Caldera, Venezuela's representative, told Lars Loekke Rasmussen, the Danish prime minister and the conference chairman, in a speech from the floor. "Those of us who wish to speak have to make a point of order by cutting our hands and drawing blood," she said, opening a red-stained palm. Opposition to deal Tuvalu's Ian Fry, whose country is one of the most at risk from global warming, said the deal amounted to a betrayal. "It looks like we are being offered 30 pieces of silver to betray our people and our future," he said. Some European nations have accepted the deal, but Jose Manuel Barroso, the European Commission president, said that it was "clearly below" the goal of the European Union. "I will not hide my disappointment," he said. Jonah Hull, Al Jazeera's correspondent at the summit, said that many countries have criticised the lack of detail in the US-backed accord. "What is important about this deal is what is not in it. There are no verifiable emission cuts targets, no number or dates, and crucially no deadline for when world leaders must come back together and put the terms of this deal into a legally-binding treaty," Hull said. "The small island nations want to see a limit in temperature rises to 1.5C. They say that 2C just is not enough to save large areas of the planet from catastrophe." | ||||||
|
Macau gambles on diverse economy
| Macau gambles on diverse economy | ||
The Chinese region of Macau has gained worldwide fame as the Las Vegas of the East. But there is concern that it depends too heavily on the glitz and glamour of the gambling industry. Fernando Chui, Macau's new chief executive, is pledging to diversify the territory's economy beyond the gaming industry. He takes over 10 years after Beijing regained control of the region and turned around an economy left stagnant after 400 years of Portuguese rule. Melissa Chan reports. | ||
|
'US aided' deadly Yemen raids
| 'US aided' deadly Yemen raids | ||
The US provided firepower and intelligence to help the Yemeni government launch a series of deadly raids against suspected al-Qaeda bases in the country, the New York Times has reported. Barack Obama, the US president approved the military and intelligence support after receiving a request from the Yemeni government, the newspaper reported late on Friday, citing officials familiar with the operations. Yemeni security officials said that at least 34 suspected al-Qaeda fighters were killed on Thursday in the raids, which targeted sites in the southern province of Abyan and in the district of Arhab, which lies northeast of the capital Sanaa. Mohammed Albasha, a spokesman for the Yemeni embassy in Washington, denied that the US launched missiles during the raids. 'Many more killed' Those killed and arrested in Arhab "planned to strike at schools as well as interests at home and abroad," Yemen's interior ministry said on Thursday, without elaborating. However, residents of Abyan said that there was no al-Qaeda training camp in the area and that the raids had destroyed several homes. Abbas al-Assal, a local human rights activist who was at the scene, said 64 people were killed, including 23 children and 17 women. "The government wants to show the world that it is serious in pursuing al-Qaeda elements and that the south of Yemen is a refuge for al-Qaeda. That is not true at all," al-Assal told the Associated Press by telephone. Mohammed Hazran, Abyan's deputy governor, said that 10 al-Qaeda suspects were killed in the attack, including Mohammed Saleh al-Kazemi, a Saudi who had resided in the country since fighting in Afghanistan. He was imprisoned in Yemen for two years before being released in 2005. A provincial security official said that "grave mistakes occurred in the operation due to failures of information, which led to a large number of civilian deaths". "If [al-Kazemi] was wanted, why didn't the authorities come and arrest him all this time?" he said. Al-Qaeda fighters are thought to be living among tribes that have raised concerns with the central government, especially in the northeast of the country. "Ideologically they are very different, however, in a very Machiavellian way they have decided that joining forces would definitely increase the effectiveness of the military campaign against the Yemeni govenment," he said from Beirut. Yemen’s government has in recent months ordered a series of deadly raids against Houthi fighters in the north of the country, as well as a growing separatist campaign in the south of the country. | ||
|
Hariri urges 'real' ties with Syria
| Hariri urges 'real' ties with Syria | |||||
Saad al-Hariri, the Lebanese prime minister, has stressed the need to establish "real and strategic" relations with Syria during the first day of his landmark two-day visit to the country. Al-Hariri held "constructive" talks with Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, on Saturday after arriving in the capital Damascus for a visit aimed at rebuilding ties between the two countries, officials said. Relations have been tense since the 2005 assassination of al-Hariri's father and former prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri, and the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon that followed. In the past, al-Hariri has implicated Damascus in his father's killing in a Beirut bombing in February 2005. He has never had any official contact with al-Assad's government. But Buthaina Shaaban, an adviser to al-Assad, said talks between the two leaders on Saturday were "frank" and "succeeded in overcoming difficulties that marred relations in the past five years". "The guarantee to that is the will of both President Assad and Hariri to build a positive and constructive relationship," she said. 'Personal beliefs aside' Al Jazeera's Rula Amin, reporting from Damascus, said the visit indicates that the political landscape in the region has changed. "Syria has reasserted itself as a regional indispensible player. And as [al-Hariri] assumed power of Lebanon he said he feels that there is a need to improve relations with Syria and that is why he is here," she said. "His personal beliefs on who killed his father are put aside and he is here as a politician. "For many Lebanese who are shocked by this, they feel that, on this visit, Saad al-Hariri has been baptised as a politician. "For many, it's a disappointment. Other people feel that the stability and security of Lebanon requires and warrants such a visit and by doing so, he is proving to be a good politician." The international community has largely pinned the blame for the assassination of al-Hariri's father on Syria. Syria pulled its troops and security officials out of Lebanon in April 2005, after thousands of Lebanese held street protests to charge that Damascus had a hand in the killing. But Damascus has consistently denied involvement in the assassination. While a UN inquiry has said it has evidence that Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services were linked to the killing, no charges have ever been brought. Earlier this month, a Syrian court asked 25 prominent Lebanese figures, including individuals close to al-Hariri himself, to appear for questioning over the murder.
The list also included Ashraf Rifi, a former Lebanese police chief and the prosecutor general, Saeed Mirza, as well as several MPs and journalists. The initiative to improve relations between Lebanon and Syria began in 2008 with an exchange of ambassadors. Syria opened its first embassy in Lebanon just under a year ago, and Lebanon sent an ambassador to Damascus in March. It was the two countries' first diplomatic exchange since gaining independence from France more than 60 years ago. The Syrian president also welcomed the Lebanese president, Michel Sleiman, to Syria on Friday. | |||||
|
Nigeria rebels 'attack pipeline'
| Nigeria rebels 'attack pipeline' | |||||
Nigerian rebel fighters say they have attacked an oil pipeline operated by international oil giants Shell and Chevron in the south of the country. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) said in a statement the "warning strike [was] carried out by five boats involving 35 ... fighters armed with assault rifles, rocket launchers and heavy calibre machine guns." "The military has received information of an attack and have deployed its men to Abonema to verify the truth of the claim and we can not sustain it at the moment," Timothy Aneigha, the spokesman for the military joint task force that operates in the Niger delta, said.
"While the Nigerian government has conveniently tied the advancement of talks on the demands of this group to a sick president, it has not tied the repair of pipelines, exploitation of oil and gas as well as the deployment and retooling of troops in the region to the president's ill health," it said. "While wishing the president a speedy recovery, a situation where the future of the Niger Delta is tied to the health and well being of one man is unacceptable," it said. "They realise that the solution to the Niger delta problem can only be through dialogue," he told Al Jazeera from Lagos. "If they say they are going to tear the amnesty agreement into shreds, that is just a bargaining position." But since the amnesty deal, Nigeria's oil output has risen to around 1.98 million barrels per day, according to latest report from the International Energy Agency. | |||||
|
Iran to try jail staff over deaths
| Iran to try jail staff over deaths | |||||||
Iran's military prosecutor has charged three state employees with killing inmates at a prison used to hold demonstrators arrested during protests over the disputed results of the presidential election. According to the ISNA news agency on Saturday, the prosecution asked a court to try the members of staff from the Kahrizak detention centre for "taking part in beatings which caused the intentional deaths of three people". The victims were named as Mohsen Ruholamini, Amir Javadi and Mohammad Kamrani. They were among more than 150 demonstrators taken to the centre, south of Tehran, in the aftermath of demonstrations protesting the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, in June. Officials had earlier said Ruholamini and Kamrani died of meningitis. "The coroner rejected that these people died of meningitis and confirmed there were bruises on their bodies from beatings and that the cause of death was a series of beatings," the prosecution office's said. 'Abnormal' punishments Neither the names of the three defendants nor the posts they held at Kahrizak were cited in the report. However, the statement said that another nine members of staff will also face prosecution in the Kahrizak case and that all have now been indicted, adding that trial dates and charges would be announced in due course.
"Because of space limitations ... many of the arrested people ... were held together with some thugs. The prosecution statement explained that the Kahrizak lawsuit was based on 98 complaints, of which 51 were withdrawn on the basis of compensation. It also said that 168 protesters were taken to the detention centre between June 25 and July 10. Iranian officials have put the number of people killed during the protests at 36, but opposition groups say at least 72 people have died in post-election incidents. More than 4,000 arrests were made in Tehran and Iran's major cities. Most have since been released but some 140, among them well-known figures, have been put on trial and some of them have received heavy sentences. Hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered in Tehran following the Islamic republic's June 12 presidential election to protest against the result, alleging the poll was rigged. In an unprecedented crackdown on opposition supporters, scores of senior reformist politicians and journalists were rounded up, in addition to thousands of protesters. | |||||||
|
