News Archive - 21 July 2012

Tehran giants Esteghlal have unveiled Iran international Javad Nekounam as the club's newest signing on a one-year deal. The 31-year-old midfielder joins Esteghlal after six years with Spanish La Liga outfit Osasuna.

1st Half – Highlights 2nd Half – Highlights

>LONDON, July 21 (Reuters) - Russia's dominant Olympic wrestlers must overcome a youthful Iranian team, Japan's powerful women and a resurgent United States if they are to protect their traditional grip on the medals in London. Russia topped the medals table four years ago in Beijing with six golds --...

>LONDON, July 21 (Reuters) - Striking a delicate balance between explosive power, speed and fluid technique, Iran's top super heavyweight weightlifter is expected to lift the equivalent of two baby elephants' worth of steel above his head to claim gold at the London Olympics. Continuing Iran's legacy of heavyweight lifters,...

>The Iranian rial has lost nearly half its value in the last year, after the West tightened sanctions against Iran over its disputed nuclear program.Iran's oil sales, its chief source of hard currency earnings, have plummeted this year due to the measures, and it has had trouble repatriating currency...

>The bombing in the compound, used by a local militia and containing residential units and an office, occurred near the village of Spin Tal in the Orakzai tribal region. The Pakistan military has been conducting operations against militant groups in the area for months."We are not sure if a...

There has been considerable conjecture recently about the shift of power from the West to Asia. Is this happening? The answer is not simple. The power calculus of the 21st century is more complex than at any other time in history.

For a certain kind of tourist, carpet shopping in Turkey is still about as close to heaven as you can get.

Voterama in Congress WASHINGTON — Here’s how area members of Congress voted on major issues in the week ending July 20.

LONDON: A scandal erupting at Europe's biggest bank HSBC has added to concerns over the state of Britain's financial sector amid the Barclays rate-rigging affair and as the industry faces a major shake-up.

Anyone listening to the sharp words between the West and the Russians and Chinese at the UN last week must wonder if both sides are blowing Syria out of all proportion, writes Mark Almond.

Israel has bolstered its security presence for the London Olympics amid fears that an Iranian terror squad in Europe may be planning an attack on its athletes, according to a press report Sunday.

Tehran giants Esteghlal have unveiled Iran international Javad Nekounam as the club's newest signing on a one-year deal.

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WASHINGTON - Mitt Romney auditions on the international stage this week as he travels to England, Israel and Poland looking to establish credibility as a potential commander in chief in his challenge to President Obama.

Luis Figo is set to become the next superstar to set foot in India, as he is penciled in for a visit to Goa on November 1, to lend his presence to the Youth Champions League (YCL).

For the third straight week, motorists and consumers may have to brace for another big fuel price hike, a Department of Energy official said over the weekend.

The Russian ambassador’s recent statement in Paris deserves only derision. He said Bashar Assad is ready to step down in a “civilized” manner despite the savagery his forces have been committing.

Now that Iran is beginning to sense defeat in Syria, it has begun to feel that the Arab Spring is nothing but a curse against it, after it previously viewed this as a “gift from God”. This is also what Hezbollah in Lebanon is sensing, as revealed by Hassan Nasrallah’s...

Iran would increase its level of uranium enrichment if world powers continue to pressure the country.

Bulgarian police have circulated a photo in an effort to identify the suicide bomber who killed six people in the Black Sea airport of Burgas on Wednesday.

LONDON: Any athlete found to have deliberately boycotted competing against an Israeli opponent at the London Olympics will be punished, said International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge on Saturday.

Iran would increase its level of uranium enrichment if world powers continue to pressure the country.

For the first time, a team from the Russian Federation has entered the annual RoboSub competition, co-sponsored by the Pentagon's Office of Naval Research. For the engineering-minded, it's the Super Bowl of underwater contests. SAN DIEGO — In a huge tank at a once-secret Navy base on Point Loma, students...

Despite reports that suspected terrorist had accomplice, Bulgarians say they don't yet know whether he acted alone.

Singapore transforms itself into a garden city.

The money laundering scandal at HSBC signals that it is time to crack down hard on our financial guardians This week evidence emerged that HSBC abetted massive money laundering by Iran, terrorist organisations, drug cartels and organised criminals. By this point, should this surprise us? Selling defective mortgage securities during...

JERUSALEM (AP) – Devastated mourners grasped at dirt atop fresh graves and screamed in agony Friday as they buried the five Israeli victims of a bombing in Bulgaria – an attack that Israel has blamed on Iran and its proxy group Hezbollah.

LONDON (AP) -- IOC President Jacques Rogge won't budge: There will be no minute's silence for the Israeli victims of the 1972 Munich massacre at the opening ceremony of the London Olympics.

Jerusalem blames Shiite group for Burgas attack, says Syrian chemical weapons could end up in Lebanon.

This week’s killing of several Syrian government insiders may represent a turning point in the conflict.

New York Times columnist David Brooks lauds Obama and his team for its flexible approach to dealing with foreign countries.

No hostile activity was suspected in crash.

Turn on a television set these days, and the chances are that within a short space of time you will see images of terrified Americans fleeing in panic from a building where some lunatic has run amok with a weapon, massacring people at random in a mindless act of mass...

RBI could look at the books of HSBC, as reports from the US senate, accusing the global lender of engaging in money laundering activities like lending to terror entities came to the fore.

U.S. government officials, citing new intelligence, have claimed that Iran has developed plans to disrupt international oil trade, including attacks on oil platforms and tankers, the Wall Street Journal reported.

TEHRAN, July 21 (MNA) – Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says the West’s silence over the massacre of Muslims in Myanmar proves the emptiness of the Westerner’s claims about being defenders of human rights.

TEHRAN, July 21 (MNA) - Amid an escalation of the terrorist attacks on citizens and government buildings in the Syrian capital Damascus, the extremist Wahhabi clerics in Saudi Arabia have called for the destruction of holy shrine of Lady Zaynab.

TEHRAN, July 21 (MNA) - In a telephone conversation earlier this month President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad personally invited his Egyptian counterpart Mohamed Morsi to attend the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Tehran in late August, the aharam online said on its website on Saturday.

TEHRAN, July 21 (MNA) -- The recent political and military turmoil in the region is following a predictable pattern, which starts with so-called activism and ends with military intervention to topple sovereign governments.

TEHRAN, July 21 (MNA) – Transport and Urban Development Minister Ali Nikzad has announced that according to a census conducted in last Iranian calendar year, 1.67 million houses in Iran are empty.

Weekends on All Things Considered continues its "Why Music Matters" series with Aria Saadi, an actor and musician originally from Iran. Saadi now lives and works in Vancouver, Canada, where he escaped after running afoul of the Iranian government. Saadi says he remembers well one of his first encounters with...

The Department of Defense announced Saturday the deaths of two Norfolk-based sailors who died in a helicopter crash July 19 in Oman.  

Iran, like other parts of the globe, is suffering from severe droughts. But Iran has a ready explanation: It's all our fault.

Syria’s civil war has created a tide of suffering that has swamped the United Nations’ resources.

WASHINGTON – Mitt Romney auditions on the international stage next week as he travels to England, Israel and Poland looking to establish credibility as a potential commander in chief in ...

JERUSALEM (AP) — In a story July 20 that noted Bulgarian authorities had ruled out former Guantanamo detainee Mehdi Ghezali as the bomber in an attack against Israelis, The Associated Press erroneously reported that authorities had earlier identified him as a suspect. Ghezali had been named in media reports, not...

Happening now at Syria events directed against Iran, and after “the Syrian Affairs” every effort will be made directly to Tehran. Such an opinion expressed at a press conference on 21 July, the Armenian arabisty Sargis Grigoryan and Armen Petrosyan , correspondent BakuToday .

The husband of jailed human rights activist Nargess Mohammadi has expressed grave concern for his wife's health, now that she has been held incommunicado in hospital for more than 11 days.

Avoiding pressure from the United States, Pakistan and Iran have committed to press ahead with the gas pipeline project and constituted a joint working committee to finalize a deal for laying Pakistan's portion of the pipeline by Tehran.

By most accounts, sanctions have severely affected Iranian oil output. But that's not the case if you ask one of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's most senior advisers. -Zach Peterson, RFE

Washington, DC - In a demonstration of the Obama Administration's eagerness to build and sustain relations with the Iranian-American community, top officials yesterday hosted the first ever Iranian-American Community Leader's Roundtable at the White House. -Nobar Elmi, NIAC

Three years after three political prisoners were killed under torture at Kahrizak Prison, friends and families of the victims held a memorial service at Tehran's Nour Mosque, Iranian media reports.

Fierce fighting has erupted in Syria's historic northern city of Aleppo, with thousands of residents forced to flee amid bloody clashes between resurgent Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters and government troops.

Yadollah Javani, a senior Revolutionary Guards official, says some of the Islamic Republic establishment and prominent figures are calling for compromise with world powers and the re-establishment of relations with the United States.

If she is elected, she will be the first Iranian American to ever serve in the state's legislature: "I am running for this seat because I believe we need new energy, fresh ideas, and more diverse representation in the state legislature to solve the challenges we face today."

  Syria appears to be reaching a boiling point. A series of significant events and trends have emerged in the past month. Heavy fighting has erupted in Damascus, the capital, and Aleppo, the largest city—both places of privilege and, until now, stability in Bashar al-Assad’s Syria. High-level officials have begun...

"Base of Jihad," the organization that assumed responsibility for the terrorist blast in Burgas, Bulgaria, is possibly a branch of the global Al Qaeda network. The organization's name in Arabic is "Qaedat / Qaidat al-Jihad." This is the full name of Al-Qaeda. ...

The American Syrian Coalition (ASC) today thanked Congressman Jim Moran for introducing a measure to end the Department of Defense's (DoD) arms contract with Rosoboronexport, a major Russian state-owned arms manufacturer supplying weapons to Syria's Assad regime. The House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to end the contract. (PRWeb July 21,...

[The Star]The government effort to embark on a pilot needle exchange programme in Mombasa hit a snag again yesterday as Muslim clerics from the Coast region rejected it. The Imams and Sheikhs from Kilifi, Lamu, Mombasa and Malindi said the move is against their religious teachings. "While we appreciate government...

Bashar al-Assad's order to turn the army's guns on Damascus has changed everything in the Syrian capital.

In 1998, at a Q&A session at a university in Tehran, a student stood up and addressed Mohammad Khatami, the reformist cleric who had recently been elected president in a landslide. We are your army, she told him; just say the word, and we will pour into the streets for...

The U.S. Defense Department said today a plan to track leaks of classified information isn’t intended to eavesdrop on reporters or persecute media organizations gathering news.

We're in for a "constant state of asymmetric warfare" that goes beyond traditional notions of war nation-states.

OCEANSIDE ---- There was a time, in the mid-2000s, when Jim Ryan dreaded going out for a walk around the sprawling Oceana retirement community off El Camino Road where he has lived for 12 years.

Russia and China savoured significant diplomatic success after the U.N. Security Council agreed to their proposal not to threaten Syria with economic sanctions if it failed to live by a peace plan...

Gas prices jumped 7 cents a gallon over the past week amid escalating tensions in the Middle East. The average price of regular unleaded gas was $3.33 a gallon Friday compared with $3.26 a gallon a week ago, according to AAA's Daily Fuel Gauge Report.

  BOSTON — An impending overseas trip lasting six days provides Mitt Romney with the opportunity to highlight his foreign policy bonafides, but is also brought with challenges for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, reflecting the delicate nature of  …

Iran's deputy oil minister says demand for the country’s petrochemical products is on the rise despite Western sanctions against the Iranian energy sector.

An Iranian lawmaker has criticized international organizations for their silence on the violence against the Muslim community in Myanmar as an instance of human rights double standards.

Osasuna's Iranian international Javad Nekounam has joined Esteghlal on a one-year contract.

WASHINGTON — The Navy is rushing dozens of unmanned underwater craft to the Persian Gulf to help detect and destroy mines in a major military buildup aimed at preventing Iran from closing the strategic Strait of Hormuz in the event of a crisis, U.S. officials said. Some U.S.

Last night’s coverage of LIBOR left The Daily Show viewers hungry for a new, simpler financial scandal. And thankfully for Jon Stewart, a money laundering scandal involving HSBC fit the bill. read more

WORLD oil prices have rebounded as traders hoped the Chinese government will implement more stimulus measures.

GUNMEN have killed 18 people in an attack on an Iran-bound passenger bus in south-western Pakistan.

Conrad Black: Most of us in relatively free countries are placatory and seek peace; but if we are pacifists, we will be endlessly assaulted and ultimately enslaved

Russia says although Iran is entitled to take legal action against Moscow for its refusal to ship S-300 air defense systems to Tehran, Moscow believes this is not the best way to resolve the issue.

Part two of our daily guide to the 2012 Olympics. Here's the shorthand version of all the moments that should not be missed.

The holy month may be more difficult than usual for Muslims because of the season, but uncertainty in the governments of some nations will likely add to the challenge.

KARACHI: Iran and Pakistan have agreed on barter trade and reached understanding on wheat export from Islamabad to Tehran.

As next round of nuclear talks set to begin this week, close aide to Ayatolla Ali Khamenei threatens Iran could enrich uranium at levels higher than 20%.

TEHRAN — An annual test of wills between Iran’s morality police and women who dress in ways that are deemed unacceptable has begun in cities across the Islamic republic. But this year, the stakes are unusually high. As Iranian leaders attempt to deflect the public’s attention away from economic woes...

Bulgarian police have been alerted to the possibility of a second suspect in a bomb attack that killed five Israeli tourists in Burgas, a high-level source within Bulgaria's Interior Ministry told CNN.

The ultra-Orthodox population's exemption from military service threatens the underpinnings of Israeli's economy and its capability as a U.S. military ally.

» Pentagon joins Israel. The attacker wore a wig, had a Middle Eastern accent, and probably enjoyed logistical support from one or two people. Three kg of TNT were used.

Bulgarian police have been alerted to the possibility of a second suspect in a bomb attack that killed five Israeli tourists in Burgas, a high-level source within Bulgaria's Interior Ministry told CNN.

(MENAFN - Arab Times) US President Barack Obama has responded positively to Iraq's concerns about Exxon Mobil's oil deal with Kurdistan, and emphasised his country's respect for Iraq's constitution ...

Indian fishermen who survived a hail of gunfire from a U.S. navy boat off the coast of the United Arab Emirates disputed U.S. claims that their boat drew fire after ignoring warnings to steer clear of the American vessel.

New York police believe Iranian Revolutionary Guards or their proxies have been involved so far this year in nine plots against Israeli or Jewish targets around the world, according to restricted police documents obtained by Reuters.

(MENAFN) A proposed bill to block the Strait of Hormuz was approved by over half the Iranian parliament, threatening to close the Gulf to oil tankers in retaliation against European oil embargo, ...

As funerals were held across Israel for five of the victims of the Bulgaria bus blast, Washington on Friday firmly sided with its key ally in blaming…

To meet the high demand of numerous people traveling to Italy, Smile Travel Vietnam offers a wide range of services providing Italy visa information . Customers can apply a visa online by filling in the application form. Otherwise, they can go directly to the Italy embassy in their country to make...

BANGKOK (AP) — Communal violence is grinding on in western Burma six weeks after the government declared a state of emergency there, and Muslim Rohingyas are increasingly being hit with targeted attacks that have included killings, rape and physical abuse, Amnesty International said. A government spokesman for coastal Rakhine state,...

Can Turkey strike a balance between the country's modern, secular aspirations and its deep-rooted Islamic identity?

Israel, under the auspices of its global media assets, orchestrates “false flag” operations to spur the US to carry out an attack on Iran, says an American military analyst.