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☆ Saudi foreign minister: 'All bets off' if Iran gets nuclear weapon
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-11 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

DUBAI, Dec 11 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's foreign minister said on Sunday that Iran's Gulf Arab neighbours would act to shore up their security if Tehran were to obtain nuclear weapons. Indirect U.S.-Iranian talks to salvage a 2015 nuclear pact between global powers and Iran, which Washington exited in 2018, stalled in September. "If Iran gets an operational nuclear weapon, all bets are off," Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said in an on-stage interview at the World Policy Conference in Abu Dhabi when asked about such a scenario. "The signs right now are not very positive unfortunately," Prince Faisal said. "We hear from the Iranians that they have no interest in a nuclear weapons programme, it would be very comforting to be able to believe that.

☆ Iran's Raisi promises to pursue crackdown on protesters; cleric critical of execution
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-09 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Molavi Abdolhamid, a Sunni cleric in the Shi'ite-ruled Islamic Republic, criticized the death sentence, according to his website. Human rights groups said Shekari was tortured and forced to confess. In Geneva, U.N. Human Rights High Commissioner Volker Turk called the execution “very troubling and clearly designed to send a chilling effect to the rest of the protesters." Britain announced sanctions on Friday against 30 people worldwide, including officials from Russia, Iran and Myanmar it deems responsible for human rights abuses or corruption. Molavi Abdolhamid made his critical comments from Zahedan, the capital of restive Sistan-Baluchistan province, home to Iran's Baluch minority who have faced discrimination and repression for decades, according to human rights groups.

☆ Iran executes protester for injuring guard with knife - Tasnim
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-08 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

DUBAI, Dec 8 (Reuters) - Iran executed a protester on Thursday who was convicted of injuring a security guard with a knife and closing off a street in the capital, Tehran, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported, part of a clampdown on nationwide unrest. The Tasnim news agency identified the person who was executed as Mohsen Shekari but gave no more details. Amnesty International has said the Iranian authorities are seeking the death penalty for at least 21 people in what it called "sham trials designed to intimidate those participating in the popular uprising that has rocked Iran". Iran has blamed the unrest on its foreign foes including the United States. Reporting by Dubai Newsroom; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Michael GeorgyOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ TSMC's customers are willing to support the firm's investments, says analyst
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailTSMC's customers are willing to support the firm's investments, says analystCharles Shi of Needham & Company says TSMC may be moving toward a "dual-hub operation" in the future, but the timing is uncertain.

☆ An assassination, a feud and the fight for power in Iraq's Kurdistan
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-05 | by ( Amina Ismail | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +10 min

TENSE STANDOFFAfter Rasoul's death, the KDP-dominated Regional Security Council accused a PUK security agency of the killing. It detained six men it identified as operatives involved and issued arrest warrants for another four senior PUK security officials, according to security council statement a week after the attack. Long-simmering mistrust between the two sides had already deepened this year due to a wave of defections from PUK security agencies. The senior PUK official told Reuters there had been eight. "It could've easily turned ugly," the senior PUK official said.

☆ UAE president visits Qatar in sign of warming ties
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-05 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

DOHA, Dec 5 (Reuters) - The United Arab Emirates (UAE) president arrived in Qatar on Monday on the first such visit since Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies ended a boycott of Doha nearly two years ago. Qatar is currently hosting soccer's World Cup,The visit "is another step towards strengthening Gulf solidarity and joint action," Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the UAE president, said on Twitter. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt early last year ended a 3-1/2 year embargo of Qatar, but ties between Doha and Abu Dhabi have not warmed at the same pace as those with Riyadh and Cairo, which re-established diplomatic ties with Doha. UAE National Security Adviser Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al-Nahyan visited Doha twice as part of Abu Dhabi's push to manage regional differences. Abu Dhabi, like Manama, has not appointed an envoy to Doha, but restored travel and trade links between the UAE and Qatar.

WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERSWASHINGTON, Dec 2 (Reuters) - The United States on Friday designated China, Iran and Russia, among others, as countries of particular concern under the Religious Freedom Act over severe violations, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said. Blinken in a statement said those designated as countries of particular concern - which also include North Korea and Myanmar - engaged in or tolerated severe violations of religious freedom. The United States has expressed grave concerns about human rights in the western Chinese region of Xinjiang, which is home to 10 million Uyghurs. The other countries designated as countries of particular concern were Cuba, Eritrea, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. Religious Freedom Act of 1998 requires the president – who assigns the function to the secretary of State – to designate as countries of particular concern states that are deemed to violate religious freedom on a systematic and ongoing basis.

☆ Iran rejects U.N. investigation into protests - spokesperson
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-28 | by ( Elwely Elwelly | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

DUBAI, Nov 28 (Reuters) - Iran will reject a newly-appointed independent U.N. investigation into the country's repression of anti-government protests, the foreign ministry said on Monday, as demonstrations showed no sign of abating. "Iran will have no cooperation with the political committee formed by the U.N. Rights Council," ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said. The U.N. Rights Council voted on Thursday to appoint a probe into Iran's deadly crackdown on protests. Iran has proof that Western nations were involved in protests that have swept the country, Kanaani said on Monday. He did not say whether that figure also included deaths among other security forces such as the Revolutionary Guards.

But among critics, their appearance has evoked parallels with the civil war when the state collapsed, militias controlled the streets and Beirut split into cantons. Such criticisms are rejected by Gemayel, a lawmaker in the Kataeb Party whose father, Bashir, led the main Christian militia in the civil war until he was assassinated in 1982 after being elected president. Lebanon's sectarian parties disarmed at the end of the war, bar Hezbollah, which kept its arsenal to fight Israel. Their pervasive influence is never far from the surface and tensions are common in a country awash with guns. Supporters of different groups fought deadly clashes in Beirut as recently as last year.

☆ Niece of Iran's Supreme Leader urges world to cut ties with Tehran over unrest -online video
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-27 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

"O free people, be with us and tell your governments to stop supporting this murderous and child-killing regime," Moradkhani said in the video. "This regime is not loyal to any of its religious principles and does not know any rules except force and maintaining power." HRANA said 450 protesters had been killed in more than two months of nationwide unrest as of Nov. 26, including 63 minors. On Nov. 23, Mahmoud Moradkhani reported her sister's arrest as she was heeding a court order to appear at the Tehran prosecutor's office. Criticism of the Islamic Republic by relatives of top officials is not unprecedented.

In 2019, Martin Scorsese said that Marvel movies were “not cinema” and worried cinema was being “invaded” by them. As it happens, I’m not a fan of Marvel films either. For almost the entire history of movies, women haven’t had access to the capital required to make them. There were at least 15 women directors in the commercial film industry during that time. That’s dismal but more than twice as high as the number of female film directors of the same era.

☆ U.N. rights council votes to probe Iran's ongoing crackdown
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-24 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERSGENEVA/DUBAI, Nov 24 (Reuters) - The U.N. Rights Council voted on Thursday to appoint an independent investigation into Iran's deadly repression of protests, passing the motion to cheers of activists amid an intensifying crackdown in Kurdish areas over recent days. Tehran's representative at the Geneva meeting Khadijeh Karimi earlier accused Western states of using the council to target Iran, a move she called "appalling and disgraceful". CRACKDOWNThe crackdown has been particularly intense in Kurdish areas, located in western Iran, with the U.N. rights monitor this week noting reports of 40 deaths there over the past week. Iranian authorities have arrested a number of soccer players for expressing their support for protests. Asked on Thursday about the unrest at home Iran national team striker Mehdi Taremi said they were in Qatar to play soccer.

☆ Iran official says 50 police killed in protests
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-24 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

DUBAI, Nov 24 (Reuters) - Around 50 police have been killed in the protests shaking Iran since September, the deputy foreign minister said on Thursday, giving a first official death toll amid an intensified crackdown on Kurdish areas in recent days. U.N. rights chief Volker Turk said on Thursday Iran faced a "full fledged human rights crisis" with 14,000 people arrested so far, including children. "Around 50 police officers were killed during the protests and hundreds were injured," said Iran's deputy foreign minister Ali Bagheri Kani, who is also Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, in an interview on Indian television. He gave no figure for the number of protesters killed but said the Interior Ministry had formed a panel to investigate the deaths. Iranian state media reported last month that 46 security forces had been killed but without citing officials.

Now, with mass protests, many would prefer it withdrew from the World Cup being held just across the Gulf from their homeland. Some Iranian fans who went to Qatar for the World Cup made no secret of their solidarity with the unrest. In the Iranian capital Tehran, some banners of the national team have been burned by angry protesters. Pejman Zarji, a 38-year-old sports coach who was in Qatar for the World Cup, said the Iranian team belonged to the people not the government. There’s something really important to understand (now) - 'Team Melli' is what we call the Iran team, it's the team of the people before being the team of the government," he said.

☆ Iran intensifies crackdown in Kurdish area; rights group says four killed
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-20 | by ( Parisa Hafezi | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

The Norway-based human rights group Hengaw said military helicopters carried members of the widely feared Revolutionary Guards to quell the protests in the Sunni-dominated Kurdish city of Mahabad. The widely-followed activist account 1500Tasvir said a 16-year-old student and a school teacher were killed in the Kurdish city of Javanrud. Iran's state media said calm had been restored in the area. "In (the Kurdish city of) Marivan repressive forces have opened fire at people," Hengaw said. Some 54 members of the security forces were also killed, it said, adding that more than 17,251 people have been arrested.

☆ Key takeaways from the G20 summit in Bali
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-16 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

Here are key takeaways from the meeting:CONDEMNING RUSSIAN AGGRESSIONMeetings of G20 ministers earlier this year ended without joint declarations because of Russian opposition to references to the war in Ukraine. With the Ukraine war, as well as massive pandemic-era spending packages blamed for fuelling red-hot inflation, the G20 countries said further fiscal stimulus measures should be "temporary and targeted". Besides the meeting with Biden, Xi held talks with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and French President Emmanuel Macron. A meeting with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was cancelled due to scheduling issues, Downing Street said. Xi is set to meet Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida later this week.

Voters in Arizona have approved a ballot initiative to extend in-state college tuition to qualifying students regardless of immigration status, the Associated Press has reported. Proposition 308 will allow students, including those who are undocumented, to pay in-state college rates if they've attended Arizona high schools for at least two years. Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema to Republicans like Arizona state House Speaker Rusty Bowers and former Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Karrin Taylor Robson. The outcome signals a stark contrast and shift from Arizona's 2006 Proposition 300, which prohibited undocumented people from receiving in-state tuition and state financial assistance. More than 71% of Arizona voters at the time voted in favor of the proposition.

☆ EU piles pressure on Iran's leaders with more sanctions
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-14 | by ( Parisa Hafezi | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Macron said the crackdown by Iranian leaders would make it harder to reach agreement on reviving the 2015 nuclear deal, which would give Iran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear programme. "I don't think there will be new proposals which can be made right now to save the nuclear deal." Speaking after he met four Iranian women activists in Paris over the weekend, Macron said that more European Union sanctions would be adopted in reaction to Tehran's actions. Iranian leaders blame foreign enemies including the United States for what they call riots. In a letter published by Emtedad news website, some 2,300 graduated students of Amirkabir University in Tehran urged authorities to release students detained.

☆ Bahrain holds parliament polls; rights groups slam 'repressive' climate
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-12 | by ( Ghaida Ghantous | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

MANAMA, Nov 12 (Reuters) - Bahrainis on Saturday voted in parliamentary elections held in an environment rights groups described as "political repression" since the Gulf Arab state has dissolved the main opposition groups and cracked down on dissent. Ahead of the vote, which includes municipal polls, rights group Amnesty International criticised "highly restrictive measures" that bar members of banned opposition groups and those who have served jail terms longer than six months. "Holding this general election will not address the atmosphere of repression and the denial of human rights that has gripped Bahrain for years," Amnesty said in a statement. The government said 344,713 voters were eligible to vote, down from 365,467 in the last polls in 2018. London-based Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, describing the vote as a "sham", said legislation on voter inclusion appeared to target individuals who boycotted earlier polls.

☆ Iranians protest nationwide, mark 'Bloody Friday'
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-11 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

Summary Prominent Sunni cleric criticises security forcesUnrest in minority areasGeneral tells clerics to restore calmDUBAI, Nov 11 (Reuters) - Iranians protested in the restive southeast on Friday to mark a Sept. 30 crackdown by security forces known as "Bloody Friday", as the country's clerical rulers battled nationwide unrest. The region is one of the country’s poorest and has been a hotbed of tension where Iranian security forces have been attacked by Baluch militants. Thirty-nine members of the security forces had also been killed, while nearly 15,100 people have been arrested, it said. They were accused of acts of sabotage, assaulting or killing members of the security forces or setting fire to public property. Several social media videos showed a gathering at Tehran's Behesht-e Zahra cemetery to honour Amir Mehdi Farrokhipour, a 17-year-old allegedly killed by security forces 40 days ago.

☆ Analysis: Iran's unrest sounds death knell for once vibrant reformists
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-10 | by ( Parisa Hafezi | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

It highlighted the main problem facing reformists in a system where Khamenei, 83 and in power since 1989, wields ultimate power. "People feel reformists helped hardliners by promising reforms that were impossible with hardliners in power," a former official who served in the Khatami administration told Reuters. The reform movement is dead." That view has been echoed in the streets where protesters have grouped reformists with hardliners as part of the problem. The fact is that the reform movement is dead, its has been dead for some time," he said.

☆ Pope ends Bahrain trip with visit to Gulf's oldest church
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-06 | by ( Philip Pullella | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

REUTERS/Yara NardiMANAMA, Bahrain, Nov 6 (Reuters) - Pope Francis departed from Bahrain on Sunday after a four-day trip that culminated with a visit to the Gulf's oldest Catholic church, where he told bishops, priests and nuns to remain united as they ministered to the faithful in the majority Muslim area. Many Catholics also visit from neighbouring Saudi Arabia, which bars public worship by non-Muslims. At the end of the church service, Pope Francis thanked King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa for Bahrain's "exquisite hospitality". Pope Francis' visit, where he closed an East-West dialogue hosted by Bahrain, continues his policy of improving ties with the Islamic world following a historic visit to the United Arab Emirates in 2019. Thousands of Catholics in Bahrain and from around the Gulf poured into a stadium to hear the Pope say Mass on Saturday.

☆ President Raisi says Iran thwarted U.S. destabilisation
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-05 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

As Iranian authorities marked the anniversary this week of the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran by radical students, President Joe Biden backed the protesters, saying: "We're gonna free Iran. In Syria, mass demonstrations against Iran's ally President Bashar al-Assad were confronted with force and the country spiralled into conflict which continues 11 years on. By contrast, Iranian cities were now "safe and sound", Raisi said, promising retribution for the unrest the country had seen. At least 14,170 people have been arrested, including 392 students, in protests in 136 cities and towns, and 134 universities, it said. The crisis has dragged Iran's currency to new historic lows.

☆ Prisoners' families hold small protest in Bahrain during pope visit
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-05 | by ( Philip Pullella | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

ISA TOWN, Bahrain, Nov 5 (Reuters) - Relatives of death row and life inmates in Bahrain held a small protest along Pope Francis' motorcade route on Saturday calling for freedom of political prisoners in the Gulf Arab state. A video of the protest, which included several women and children, was posted online by London-based Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD) and by Bahrain's dissolved opposition al-Wefaq group. #Free Hassan Mushaima #Free Political Prisoners #End Sectarianism". Before the pope arrived in Bahrain on Thursday, families of death row inmates asked him to speak out against capital punishment and defend political prisoners during the trip. Last year, Bahrain conditionally released tens of prisoners under new rules allowing electronic monitoring and home detention instead.

BEIJING, Nov 4 (Reuters) - German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and a delegation of business leaders landed in Beijing on Friday morning, kicking off the first visit by a leader of a G7 nation to China in three years. China's strict zero-COVID policy and growing tensions with the West have made it unfeasible for leaders of major western powers to visit China, while Chinese President Xi Jinping has only just resumed foreign trips. Amid historic inflation and looming recession in Germany, Scholz will be looking to emphasise the need for continued cooperation with China, analysts say. In the run-up to the visit, there had been criticism of the visit within the EU and the German government coalition, mainly from the Green Party and the Liberals. Scholz has changed his tune even faster, but he does not have as solid of a domestic political standing as Merkel," said Wang.

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