News Archive - 12 August 2011

> * US Treasury says was not consulted on conduit via Turkey * HPCL hopes to clear $1 billion in debts by next month (Adds U.S. Treasury comment) By Nidhi Verma NEW DELHI, Aug 12 (Reuters) - Indian companies have paid the first installment of their Iran oil debts,...

Iran and Saudi Arabia are equally adept at taking jabs at each other in an effort to establish definitive political dominance in the Middle East; the jostling has now reached a critical point given the fragile regional landscape.

>LONDON (Reuters) - If history is any guide, another oil-induced recession may be just around the corner, at least for the United States and some of the other developed economies. Every time that the cost of oil relative to global economic output has hit current levels -- and that's even...

>HAVANA (Reuters) - Revolutionary legend Fidel Castro turns 85 on Saturday, still an important figure in his communist-ruled Cuba, but increasingly a fading presence in the life of the country he ran for 49 years. He gave up his last leadership post this year when he stepped down as head...

> * Hopes to clear all outstanding debts by next month * HPCL did not get Iran oil in August (Recasts,) By Nidhi Verma NEW DELHI, Aug 12 (Reuters) - Indian refiner HPCL said it hopes crude deliveries from Iran will resume in September after a gap of a month,...

ORSAM said that instability in the region benefits Iran, which regards the developments in Syria as a threat to its own regime.

Obama and Erdogan grant Assad 15 days to finish uprising. Call-up in Turkey DEBKA file Exclusive Report August 13, 2011, 9:43 AM (GMT+02:00)

Republican presidential candidates take the stage for a debate in the Stephens Auditorium at Iowa State University August 11, 2011 in Ames, Iowa.

Left jobless after the ophthalmic manufacturer he worked for relocated from Redding, Wayne Cook decided to start his own business in the same field.

A contestant from Iran (front) plays taichi at the Third Emei International Kungfu Festival in Emeishan City, southwest China's Sichuan Province, August 12, 2011. Some 108 teams from countries including China, Singapore, Iran, Sweden etc. competed in the festival.

Just a few months ago, oil prices were all about supply. Not anymore.

As the Iraqi and Iranian economies grow closer, officials in Basra say they believe that Iraqi leaders are allowing Iran to take the lead in extracting oil from border reservoirs that are accessible to both countries.

Qatar Airways has announced it will launch flights to a fifth gateway to China through the western city of Chongqing from November 28. Operating three-times-a-week, the non-stop service from the airline’s hub in Doha, will take the carrier’s capacity to China up to 28 flights a week.

A day after the Republican presidential candidates gathered in Iowa for what was unquestionably the most combative debate of the campaign season, Rachel Maddow examined particular claims made by the candidates to determine if they were true or false.

Saba, Esteqlal, and Foulad have defeated their rivals in the third week of Iran's Premier League (IPL) to stand atop the table all with seven points.

Former Massachusetts Gov. and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney spoke to a reactive crowd Thursday during a campaign stop at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, Iowa.

By Joe Tuscano sports@vindy.com WASHINGTON, PA. The center fielder normally plays first base.

New York, Aug 12 : One million registered Afghan and Iraqi refugees in Iran can now benefit from expanded health insurance under a new United Nations-backed initiative that subsidizes the cost.

Peter Cornacchio knows most of Sault Ste. Marie isn't quite sure what exactly Hap Ki Do is. After all, there's never been a related event in Canada. But he's hoping plenty of locals will flock to the Essar Centre this weekend and find out exactly what the dynamic Korean martial...

Usually content to follow the U.S., Saudi rulers are surprisingly strong in condemning Assad's actions.

This editorial appeared in Thursday’s Kansas City Star:

BAGHDAD -- As leaders in the Arab world and other countries condemn President Bashar al-Assad's violent crackdown on demonstrators in Syria, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq has struck a far friendlier tone, urging the protesters not to "sabotage" the state and hosting an official Syrian delegation.

CAIRO -- After decades of hearing the West bemoan the lawlessness of Arab societies, Egyptians watched this week with a mix of empathy, disgust and perhaps a measure of satisfaction as the British authorities struggled for four days to rein in arson and looting in London and other major cities.

TRULY, we live in strange times. Of late, a spate of odd, purportedly Islamic injunctions have landed in my inbox. Let me start with the oddest: in Somalia, the group of jihadi terrorists calling themselves al-Shabab have banned the humble samosa.

Tehran, August 11 (KCNA) -- Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps commander, speaking at a ceremony on August 7, referred to the mission of the RGC.

U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, may not get the neoconservative vote, but one thing is clear after Thursday night’s fractious presidential debate: he’s on the fringe, but his unconventional views are turning many conservatives’ heads.

Pyongyang, August 12 (KCNA) -- Iran and Benin signed four Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) on boosting bilateral cooperation in the diplomatic and economic fields on Saturday.

Tehran, August 11 (KCNA) -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaking at a ceremony on Tuesday, called for completing oil industry's nationalization in the country.

Tehran, August 11 (KCNA) -- Avaz Heidarpour, a member of the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission of Iran's Majlis (parliament), clarified the stand of the country to counter the U.S. and Israeli cyber attacks. He said this in an interview with a TV radio on August 8.

Tehran, August 11 (KCNA) -- The Iranian vice-president scathingly ridiculed the West's sanctions against his country. The sanctions have touched off complaint among companies in the Western countries, he said, adding they will end up in losing such a vast market as Iran.

ON July 27 in New York, the vice foreign minister of North Korea, Kim Kye-gwan, called for a peace treaty with the US to formally end the Korean War (1950-53). With North Korea and Iran, the US has concentrated on their nuclear programmes while they sought assurances of security.

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum almost certainly prompted many LGBT people watching Thursday night's Republican presidential debate to hit the rewind button when he criticized Iran because it "tramples the rights of gays."

The Iranian squad has attended the inauguration ceremony of the 26th world student games, also known as the 2011 Summer Universiade, in China.

US Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul has criticized Washington's policy toward Iran, particularly the sanctions imposed on Tehran over its nuclear program.

There's something out of kilter with media photos of Egypt's deposed President Hosni Mubarak staring from behind a meshed cage at his trial for killing protesters, while in Syria President Bashar al-Assad continues a daily exercise in killing his own people.

A HUMAN river of anarchy flowed through London. It swelled from a blood-stained taxi in Tottenham and surged into a torrent which tore through the inner city, burst into affluent outer suburbs and briefly threatened to smash across the West End.

Franco Banfi of Cadro, Switzerland took photographs of an underwater maze inside a glacier at Sassolo Lake, Switzerland, several international news sites reported on Thursday, August 11, 2011. The photographs, which are shown below, were said to be extraordinary underwater caves and passages created on glaciers due to temperature changes...

This week, EFF has seen censorship stories move closer and closer to home — first Iran , then the UK , and now San Francisco, an early locus of the modern free speech movement.

There's something out of kilter with media photos of Egypt's deposed President Hosni Mubarak staring from behind a meshed cage at his trial for killing protesters, while in Syria President Bashar al-Assad continues a daily exercise in killing his own people.

KUALA LUMPUR: The local rubber gloves, tyres and tubes and rubber thread industries remained the largest consumer of domestic natural rubber (NR), taking up 26,439 tonnes in June, said the Statistics Department.

Clair E. George, a widely respected veteran of the CIA’s clandestine service who oversaw all global espionage activities for the agency in the mid-1980s and was later convicted of lying to Congress during investigations into the Iran-contra scandal, died Aug. 11 at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda. He was 81 and...

Bahrain’s Al-Wefaq, the country’s main Shiite Muslim opposition group, said it will boycott a special parliamentary election scheduled for next month, a representative for the group said today.

MIRI: The staff of Bank Islam Malaysia Bhd (Bank Islam) from Kuala Lumpur and Miri brought Ramadan cheer [...]

Both ‘Britannia’ and the Western alliance are losing the means to perpetuate military-political hegemony worldwide.

Iran has agreed to fund a new military base in Syria intended to facilitate arms shipments between the two nations, The (London) Daily Telegraph reported late Friday, citing information from intelligence reports.

The agency that runs the commuter trains that rumble beneath San Francisco each day hit the panic button Thursday night, cutting off mobile-phone service to hundreds of thousands of commuters in an effort to thwart a protest that was expected to snarl up the evening commute. read more

There's an inevitable "Gilligan's Island" aspect to presidential debates, writes Ruth Marcus — a motley crew of offbeat personalities stuck together for what can seem like an interminable period. Thursday's Republican debate in Iowa was "Gilligan's Island, Family Edition."

The Republican presidential hopefuls plunged with wide smiles and barbecue aprons into the melee of the Iowa State Fair here yesterday hours after squaring off in a tumultuous televised debate that at times was more undignified playground brawl than polite policy discourse.

Iranian Ambassador to Lebanon Ghadanfar Rukn Abadi discussed Friday during his visit to Prime Minister Najib Mikati the need to start with the implementation of the 26 agreements signed between the two countries in the year 2010.

At 53, Ehsan Yarshater embarked on his magnum opus, a definitive encyclopedia of Iranian history and culture. He’s 91 now, and he’s still toiling away.

Five years ago, a blast tore through Iraq’s golden-domed Shiite Askari shrine in the mainly Sunni city of Samarra, helping ignite two years of sectarian strife that drove Iraq to the brink of civil war.

Pushing against an India-led initiative in the UN Security Council, the US has asked India and China to help put sanctions against Syria.

In Iran, young people seeking to blow off steam with mass water gun fights, have faced arrest and been forced to confess to wrongdoing on state television.

A political analyst says that Turkish government must adopt a wise and careful policy towards the ongoing unrest in Syria.

WASHINGTON _ Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's personal wealth _ up to $250 million _ survived the nation's economic crisis, according to figures released Friday. But his pledge to sell off interests that conflict with his GOP stances did not extend to some investments in a family charity.

Parsua Bashi, Mary Horlock and more

Iran's Foreign Ministry has summoned the British Charge d'affaires Jane Marriott over the persistence of the use of violence to by police to crackdown on protesters.

Iran Blood Transfusion Organization (IBTO) announced remarkable progress in producing blood-derived products and that European countries are eying Iranian plasma imports.

Blindness and vision impairment are growing rampant among the children of the famine-hit Somalia, Head of the Iranian Red Crescent Society's Relief and Rescue Organization says.

Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee says New Delhi has resolved the payment problem with regards to the purchase of crude oil from Iran and is now paying off its debt.

United Nations health officials have warned of serious cholera outbreaks in various regions of the already famine-stricken Somalia.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has urged Russia to stop supplying arms to Syria. "We want to see Russia cease selling arms to the Assad regime," she said in a recent interview with the television network CBS.

A senior Iranian lawmaker has called on the UN Security Council to condemn the British prime minister for the brutal repression of protesters in the UK as a 'war criminal.'

So we now have a new Culture Minister. But our campaign remains the same: end censorship, end the official paranoia, allow taboos and values to be tested, and permit the horizons to be shifted according to the currents of society.

If someone told the 5-year-old me -- who had just immigrated from Iran to Vancouver -- that one day, I would have this palm-sized tool...

Throughout the course of the two years since the 2009 elections in Iran, despite mounting pressures and intimidation, the families of the regime's victims have broken their silence and repeatedly reported their painful cases.

Things at Fukushima are about as interesting as they've ever been. We want to talk about specific problems at the reactor site, with radioactive material, cooling systems, etc. but first a few words about things happening more broadly, beginning with the largest and work towards the smallest scale. Everything we...

Many are forecasting higher oil prices next year, due to increased global consumption and decreased output from oil-producing nations. That could threaten global economic recovery.

To forestall a planned protest, Bay Area Rapid Transit turned off cellphone service, angering passengers and raising questions about First Amendment rights in an age of social media protests.

Judged simply on style, Mitt Romney won Thursday night's Republican presidential candidates debate in Iowa. Judged on substance, the victor clearly was Ron Paul. But who came out on top really didn't matter because all eyes for the moment are on Texas Gov. Rick Perry , who's likely to...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi Arabia is getting bolder in its strategy for dealing with the Middle East's uprisings. No longer waiting for Washington's cue, the kingdom is aggressively trying to influence the regional turmoil and boost its two goals — protect fellow royal houses and isolate its...

BRIAN MURPHY Associated Press DUBAI, United Arab Emirates Saudi Arabia is getting bolder in its strategy for dealing with the Middle East's uprisings. No longer waiting for Washington's cue, the kingdom is aggressively trying to influence the regional turmoil and boost its two goals — protect fellow royal houses and...

TEL AVIV, Israel, Aug. 12 (UPI) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu is under growing pressure to slash defense spending because of a mushrooming domestic protests against the high cost of living at a time when the military seeks hefty increases to counter a host of security threats.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday called on world powers to stop doing business with Syria amid its escalating crackdown on protesters that has left thousands dead in recent months.

A veteran Texas politician could shake up the Republican presidential landscape in Iowa this weekend. But it's not necessarily the you you think.

Trading blows with Santorum, Ron Paul comes out in front of the talking points to lead the pack in Ames with clarity and solutions. (PRWeb August 12, 2011) Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/8/prweb8715306.htm

Fighting for support in Utah.

Filled with glee, Iran has condemned Britain’s handling of the UK riots and other regimes battling uprisings have chimed in. Annasofie Flamand Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has leapt at the opportunity to chide the British government over its handling of recent riots in major UK cities which pitched police against...

Hillary Clinton warns even some of America's closest allies that they must ‘get on the right side of history’

The Republicans are our nationalist party. One way to stir them up is to accuse an opponent of wanting to apologize for America

Editor's Note: This countdown was originally compiled by TheStreet Staff and published as a multi-part series in May 1999. The original, unedited text is reproduced below -- republished in a single-page format for your convenience. NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The American Century has become the Business Century. Two World Wars...

A federal appeals court rejected the National Organization for Marriage's effort to keep secret how much money they spent to support political candidates.

The Islamic Republic’s two-prong strategy of chaos to remain in power involves destruction of Iranian heritage and culture while using Iranian people’s national funds to support projects in troubled countries beset by corrupt regimes or extreme poverty.

The future of the heavyweight division will not be gloving up on Saturday night in Oklahoma.No, Kimbo Slice, we can safely say, at age 37, taking part in his first amateur or professional boxing match, is not the future of the heavyweight division.But that doesn't mean I don't...

London street thuggery in stark contrast to Churchillian world This has been a week of singular disconnect.I've spent my days ploughing through Mary S. Lovell's new book, The Churchills , which begins with the heroic military...

Our family is from another place. Our ethos and aesthetic are of another time.

AMES, Iowa (AP) — Minnesota rivals Tim Pawlenty and Michele Bachmann sparred bitterly Thursday night during an eight-candidate Republican debate, trying to break out of the GOP presidential pack ahead of an Iowa test vote with huge consequences.

Struggling to counter widening violence and repression in Syria, the Obama administration stepped up calls Friday for a global trade embargo on oil and gas from the Middle East nation, warning even some of America's closest allies that they must "get on the right side of history" and cut links...

On December 26, 2003, the Citadel was almost completely destroyed by an earthquake, along with much of the rest of Bam and its environs. A few days after the earthquake, the then Iranian President Mohammad Khatami announced that the Citadel would be rebuilt. However, this architecture jewel has been ignored...

The hard-line daily newspapers "Kayhan" and "Resalat" have called for a new round of "media purification" in Iran. The two dailies were responding to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's characterization of the "cultural invasion" of the country's media by the West as the "key threat" to the Islamic republic.

An expert panel convened today (August 4) to discuss the potential repercussions of an pending decision by the State Department regarding the terrorist designation of the Iranian Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) organization. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected to issue her decision on the group's designation imminently.

Iranian political prisoner Ghassem Sholeh Saadi is in critically poor health and is being denied medical care, opposition media report. The Kaleme website reports that Evin Prison physicians have declared that Sholeh Saadi is not fit to serve out his sentence, but prison authorities refuse to attend to his case.

The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned about a rise in the number of imprisoned journalists in Iran and the continuing deterioration of their health. In recent days, Iranian authorities increased a prominent journalist's prison term by two years and arrested a critical journalist who had just finished serving a...

One of the directors of the Grand Theft Auto series is working on a hard-hitting new game that explores Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Iran finished at sixth place in the FIVB Men's Junior World Championship after being beaten 3-2 (25-22, 20-25, 19-25, 25-22, 15-10) by host Brazil at Maracanazinho Gymnasium.

DUBAI, Aug 12 (Reuters) - Bahrain's largest Shi'ite opposition group said on Friday it would boycott parliamentary elections to fill seats vacated when its deputies resigned over the Sunni-led kingdom's crackdown on anti-government protests.

Public hearing to be held Sept. 12 Members of a commission charged with recommending ways to create a more diverse school board met for the first time Wednesday, discussing voter engagement, ways to attract candidates and measures that have worked in other counties.

Google rolls out Google+ Games; Minecraft getting XBLA beta; 1979: The Game set to stoke controversy

More old and new delights from the little shop of horrors that is the New Zealand Company Registry

This week's debut of the Sand cat kitten born in an Israeli zoo has Twitter users expressing everything from their love of cats to how much they hope the species is safe.