Gazette - 091913

Thursday September 19th 2013

-------------------------------------

Hassan Rouhani: Iran Government Will Never Develop Nuclear Weapons

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani vowed on Wednesday that his government will never develop nuclear weapons, his strongest signal yet that he may be seeking a diplomatic thaw with the West after decades of acrimony.

In an interview with NBC News days before he travels to New York for a U.N. appearance, the new Iranian president also insisted that he has "complete authority" to negotiate a nuclear deal with the United States and other Western powers.

"We have time and again said that under no circumstances would we seek any weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, nor will we ever," Rouhani said when asked whether he would forswear nuclear arms.

Rouhani's conciliatory comments appeared to be another sign of his willingness to work toward a diplomatic solution in Iran's bitter nuclear standoff with the West. Washington and its allies are intrigued but still wary, making clear they hope to see tangible steps to back up his words.

Speaking to the U.S. network at his presidential compound in Tehran, Rouhani said the tone of a letter he had received from President Barack Obama, part of a recent exchange of messages between the leaders, was "positive and constructive."

"It could be subtle and tiny steps for a very important future," Rouhani said six days before he is due to address the U.N. General Assembly, a speech that will be closely watched for fresh diplomatic overtures.

Asked on Israel, Iran's Rouhani says we seek 'peace and friendship' in the region 

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, in a television interview, said his country is not seeking war and that Iran wants the Middle East to have "rule by the will of the people."

His comments came during the second part of an interview with NBC News that aired on Thursday, just days before he travels to New York for an appearance at the United Nations.
Rouhani, asked about Israel, said: "What we wish for in this region is rule by the will of the people. We believe in the ballot box. We do not seek war with any country. We seek peace and friendship among the nations of the region."
In an earlier part of the interview that aired on Wednesday, Rouhani said Iran would never develop nuclear weapons and that he had "complete authority" to negotiate a nuclear deal with the United States and other Western powers.
The interview may signal Rouhani's efforts to improve relations with the West after years of hostility. He also appeared to support the growing wave of pro-democracy uprisings sweeping across the region.
But some questions, especially about Iran's stance toward Israel, remained unanswered.

Egypt's military raids Islamist stronghold to drive off suspected militants 

Egyptian security forces backed by helicopters raided a town on the outskirts of Cairo known to be an Islamist stronghold on Thursday, exchanging fire with suspected militants who killed a senior police officer.

The Interior Ministry, which is in charge of police, said Gen. Nabil Farrag, an aide to the security chief of Cairo's twin city of Giza, was shot dead when militants opened fire on security forces approaching the town of Kerdasa to drive off suspected Islamic militants. Egypt's official news agency blamed "terrorists and criminal elements" for his death.
A photographer from The Associated Press captured the dramatic scene as security forces carried Farrag's limp body toward an armored personnel carrier.
Police arrested 32 suspects in house-to-house raids in Kerdasa, according to a security official speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters. The interior ministry said Farrag was killed by gunmen firing from the rooftops of several schools and mosques they had taken over.

Assad: 'One year to destroy weapons'

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said he is committed to a plan to destroy his country's chemical weapons, but warned it could take about a year.

Speaking to Fox News, Mr Assad again denied claims that his forces were responsible for a deadly chemical attack near Damascus on 21 August.
The Syria disarmament plan was unveiled by the US and Russia last weekend.
The West wants the deal enshrined in a UN resolution backed by the threat of military force, but Russia objects.
Damascus - backed by Moscow - has insisted that rebel forces carried out last month's attack in the Ghouta area.
In separate developments, a roadside bomb attack in central Homs province caused multiple deaths and fierce fighting was reported between two rebel groups in the north of Syria.
The bomb detonated in the village of Jbourin as a convoy of minibuses was driving past. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least nine people were killed. Another report put the toll at 19.
In the town of Azaz, near the Turkish border, jihadists from the al-Qaeda-linked group, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (Isis), reportedly clashed with fighters from the Western-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA).
Activists said on Thursday morning that Isis fighters had overrun the town in what is believed to be one of the biggest confrontations so far between the jihadists and the FSA.

Two more arrested in Britain over Syria terror links 

British police said Thursday they had arrested two more people over alleged involvement in terrorism in Syria following the discovery of ammunition at the port of Dover.

A man aged 27 and a woman aged 26 were detained at a house in Essex on Wednesday following a search and are still being questioned, the Metropolitan Police said.
They were held "on suspicion of being involved in the commission, preparation and instigation of acts of terrorism", it said.
Their arrests came after two men aged 29 and 22, both British citizens, were held on Monday in Dover after arriving from Calais in France and a quantity of ammunition was seized.
"The arrests relate to suspected terrorism in Syria," the force said.
Police were carrying out searches at premises in London and in Lancashire, it said. 

Bangladesh protests against Islamist leader's death sentence turn violent

Supporters of Bangladesh's largest Islamist party have clashed with police amid a nationwide strike called to protest against a court's ruling that one of the opposition party's leaders should be executed for war crimes.
One man was killed when he was hit by a stone thrown by opposition supporters outside the capital, police said.
Bangladesh's supreme court on Tuesday sentenced to death Abdul Quader Mollah, a senior member of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, for committing crimes against humanity during the nation's 1971 independence war against Pakistan.
A five-member panel headed by the chief justice, M Muzammel Hossain, found him guilty of ordering the killing of a family of four during a Pakistani army crackdown in the capital, Dhaka, in March 1971. Mollah and his supporters say the case against him is politically motivated.
Hours after the verdict, Mollah's party said it was calling a 48-hour general strike across the country beginning on Wednesday to denounce the ruling.
TV stations showed clashes on Tuesday between Jamaat-e-Islami activists and police in Dhaka and in several other towns, leaving scores of people injured.
In Dhaka, police detained at least five activists from the party when they clashed with security officials, Bangla Vision TV station said.
On Wednesday, schools and businesses were closed as the strike was enforced. Police fired teargas to disperse opposition supporters who exploded homemade bombs, barricaded roads and threw stones at security officials.

Greece crippled by fresh strikes

Thousands of striking Greek public sector workers have taken to the streets, closing hospitals, schools and transport links, bringing many parts of the country to a standstill.
In the latest round of strikes, civil servants marched through the capital on Wednesday against a job redeployment scheme demanded by Greece's EU-IMF creditors in return for access to bailout loans, and likely to bring additional layoffs in the recession-hit country.

Block the fascists in every quarter 

Banners were held aloft by protesters reading, "No to layoffs" and "No to the dissolution of public services".

-
Tony Blair's daughter held at gunpoint in London robbery


LONDON: Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's barrister daughter Kathryn escaped unhurt after being held at gunpoint by robbers on a central London street.

The 29-year-old came face to face with two muggers as she and her boyfriend were walking their dog on Monday night. The two men, one armed with a gun, demanded cash and jewellery before suddenly fleeing empty-handed.

Scotland Yard confirmed that an incident involving two male suspects with a gun took place in Ivor Place, Marylebone, which is near Kathryn's townhouse.

"We were alerted at around 8.30pm to two robberies in the street in the Marylebone area...We believe both robberies were carried out by the same male suspect though on the second occasion he was accompanied by another individual," a spokesperson said.

"Neither of the two victims were injured. A firearm was shown on each occasion though no shots were discharged. Officers are investigating both robberies. There have been no arrests at this stage. We believe nothing was stolen in one of the robberies. We are still investigating the details of the other," he added. The former prime minister's daughter and her partner were said to be shocked but unhurt.

12 Are Killed in Raid by Security Forces in Western China

BEIJING — Security forces in China’s far western Xinjiang region last month shot and killed at least 12 men and wounded 20 others during a raid on what the authorities described as a terrorist facility, Radio Free Asia reported Wednesday. 

The killings took place more than three weeks ago in a small village near the city of Kashgar, but details emerged only in recent days. Local officials told Radio Free Asia that the men had been building and testing explosives at a desert encampment in the village, Jigdejay; local police officers, reached by telephone Wednesday, declined to comment or said they knew nothing about the raid.

The raid comes at a time of escalating tension between the Chinese authorities and the region’s ethnic Uighurs, a Muslim, Turkic-speaking people who have long complained of restrictive policies they say are aimed at curtailing their language and religious practices. Since June, at least 100 people have been killed during clashes in the oasis towns and cities that hug the vast Taklamakan Desert in southern Xinjiang, home to the majority of China’s nine million Uighurs.

Russia’s Growing Ties with Vietnam

Recent deals leave Beijing disgruntled and represent an additional layer of complexity in the regional security web.

Russia’s policies in Southeast Asia often pass without a great deal of remark. But missing the latest twists and turns in Russia’s relationship with Vietnam risks a failure to grasp key elements of the way in which these two important Asian actors are responding to China’s rising power and to trends in Asian security. Although Sino-Russian ties are deepening, at least in the context of the United States, in Southeast Asia Russia has in fact quietly but openly resisted Chinese encroachments and is forging a deeper military-political relationship with Vietnam.
Beijing has repeatedly demanded that Moscow terminate energy explorations in the South China Sea, clearly responding to Russia’s visibly enhanced interests in the region. In 2012, Russia announced its interest in regaining a naval base at Cam Ranh Bay, a step probably connected to joint Russo-Vietnamese energy projects off Vietnam’s coast, and a potential means of checking China. Gazprom also signed a deal to explore two licensed blocks in Vietnam’s continental shelf in the South China Sea, taking a 49% stake in the offshore blocks, which hold an estimated 1.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and more than 25 million tons of gas condensate. Those actions precipitated Beijing’s demand that Moscow leave the area. Yet despite its silence, presumably to avoid antagonizing China, Moscow stayed put. Since then it has stepped up support for Vietnam involving energy exploration in the South China Sea and, perhaps more ominously from China’s standpoint, arms sales and defense cooperation.
-

JP Morgan pays $920m to regulators

US bank JP Morgan Chase has agreed to pay four regulators $920m (£572m) relating to a $6.2bn loss incurred as a result of the "London Whale" trades.

Under the settlement, $200m will go to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and £138m to the UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
As part of the deal JP Morgan admitted violating US federal securities laws.
Traders at JP Morgan's London office built up huge losses in derivatives trades at the beginning of last year.
Two former JP Morgan traders face criminal charges in the US relating to the case.
They deny charges of lying about the size of their trades in order to hide their mounting losses.
In a statement, the SEC said there had been failings in JP Morgan's internal controls and in senior management.

Rules that could 'kill'? Safety, cost concerns over EPA's new coal regs

New clean-energy rules pushed through by the Obama administration are raising concerns that they could cripple the coal industry -- and may require power plants to use technology so risky that even the president's former top energy official once warned it could "kill."

The EPA, by Friday, is expected to release a new proposal to set the first-ever carbon dioxide limits for new power plants. To meet those emissions caps, power plants would likely have to use what is known as "carbon-capture technology," which involves burying the carbon underground.

The technology, which is still under development, remains expensive and not commercially available. But there are lingering safety risks.

Steven Chu, who served until recently as President Obama's energy secretary, cautioned in a 2007 talk sponsored by the Berkeley Lab in California that the process could be dangerous and bring legal challenges -- as well as additional costs -- for the companies involved.

Though he said the carbon would be stable in the long-term, the chief concern would be that in its initial state "as a big bubble of gas," it might leak to the surface. He seemed to describe those concerns as legitimate.

White House Issues Threat Over Obamacare Scheme

WASHINGTON, Sept 19 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama would veto a stop-gap government funding plan from Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives that defunds Obamacare health reforms, the White House said on Thursday.

In a brief statement, the White House Office of Management and Budget said Obama would veto the bill "because it advances a narrow ideological agenda that threatens our economy and the interests of the middle class."

House to vote on deep cuts to food-stamp program

The years-long fight over federal funding for food stamps is set for another showdown Thursday when House Republicans plan to vote on a proposal to dramatically curtail aid to needy Americans. Every Democrat is expected to vote against the proposal.

The GOP measure would slash about $39 billion over the next decade for food stamps, formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which is providing an average of $133 in monthly aid to more than 47 million Americans, according to a recent government report. The proposal differs sharply from a Senate plan passed this summer that would cut roughly $4.5 billion in SNAP money mostly by reducing administrative expenses.

McCain Sharply Criticizes Putin

MOSCOW — In a combative essay published on Thursday in the online newspaper Pravda, Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, declared himself to be “pro-Russia” but delivered a blistering attack on President Vladimir V. Putin, describing him as presiding over a failed petro-state, a quasi-dictator who rules “by corruption, repression and violence.” 

Mr. McCain’s article was intended to answer an opinion column by Mr. Putin that was published in The New York Times making the case against President Obama’s threatened military strike on Syria. The article on Sept. 12, in which Mr. Putin presented Russia’s position as defending international law and respect for state sovereignty, generated fierce debate, including both praise and accusations of hypocrisy.

While Mr. Putin’s article focused more generally on American foreign policy, Mr. McCain, who has long been a sharp critic of the Kremlin, focused squarely on the Russian president. In his introduction, though, he first made an effort to dispel the idea that he is anti-Russia, a perception that is widespread here.

“I am not anti-Russian,” Mr. McCain wrote. “I am pro-Russian, more pro-Russian than the regime that misrules you today.” 

-