NOURNEWS- The following headlines appeared in English-language newspapers in the Iranian capital on Tuesday, August 29, 2023
IRAN DAILY:
-- Poland, Baltics will shut Belarus border if ‘critical incident’ occurs: Minister:
Poland and the Baltic States will close their borders with Belarus entirely if a “critical incident” involving Wagner mercenaries takes place, Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski said on Monday.
EU members Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, which share a border with Belarus, have been increasingly concerned about border security since hundreds of Russian battle-hardened Wagner mercenaries arrived Belarus at the invitation of President Alexander Lukashenko, Reuters reported.
They have called Lukashenko to expel Russian mercenaries from his country and agreed on a plan to potentially shut the border in response to escalating tension, AFP reported.
Poland has also seen an increase in the number of mainly Middle Eastern and African migrants trying to cross the border in recent months and has accused Belarus of facilitating them.
“We demand from the authorities in Minsk that the Wagner Group immediately leave the territory of Belarus and that illegal migrants immediately leave the border area and are sent back to their home countries,” Kaminski told a press conference.
“If there is a critical incident, regardless of whether it is at the Polish or Lithuanian border, we will retaliate immediately. All border crossings that have been opened so far will be closed,” he said.
-- HRW reveals spike in Israeli killings of Palestinian children:
Human Rights Watch called last year, 2022, the deadliest year for Palestinian children in the West Bank in 15 years.
The Israeli military and border police forces are killing Palestinian children with virtually no recourse for accountability, the report said.
Last year was the deadliest year for Palestinian children in the West Bank in 15 years, and 2023 is on track to meet or exceed 2022 levels.
Israeli forces had killed at least 34 Palestinian children in the West Bank as of August 22. Human Rights Watch investigated four fatal shootings of Palestinian children by Israeli forces between November 2022 and March 2023.
“Israeli forces are gunning down Palestinian children living under occupation with increasing frequency,” said Bill Van Esveld, associate children’s rights director at Human Rights Watch. “Unless Israel’s allies, particularly the US, pressure Israel to change course, more Palestinian children will be killed.”
Human Rights Watch researchers, in documenting the four killings, interviewed in person seven witnesses, nine family members, and other residents, lawyers, doctors, staff and fieldworkers at Palestinian and Israeli rights groups, and reviewed CCTV and videos posted on social media, statements by Israeli security agencies, medical records, and news reports.
Unlawful killings
In the other cases investigated, the security forces killed boys after they had joined other youths confronting Israeli forces with stones, Molotov cocktails, or fireworks. While these projectiles can seriously injure or kill, in these cases, Israeli forces fired repeatedly at chest-level, hitting multiple children, and killed children in situations where they do not appear to have been posing a threat of grievous injury or death, which is the standard for the use of lethal force by law enforcement officers under international norms. That would make these killings unlawful.
In all cases, Israeli forces shot the children’s upper bodies, without, according to witnesses, issuing warnings or using common, less-lethal measures such as tear gas, concussion grenades, or rubber-coated bullets.
In all cases, Israeli forces shot the children’s upper bodies, without, according to witnesses, issuing warnings or using common, less-lethal measures such as tear gas, concussion grenades, or rubber-coated bullets.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported in January that since “December 2021, soldiers are allowed to shoot at Palestinians who are fleeing if they had previously thrown stones or Molotov cocktails.”
Responding to Human Rights Watch, the police said their rules of engagement permit the use of firearms against persons who are throwing stones, Molotov cocktails or fireworks only if there is an “imminent risk to life or bodily integrity.”
Israeli authorities have used excessive force against Palestinians in policing situations for decades. The authorities have routinely failed to hold their forces accountable when security forces kill Palestinians, including children, in circumstances in which the use of lethal force was not justified under international norms.
From 2017 to 2021, fewer than one percent of complaints of violations by Israeli military forces against Palestinians, including killings and other abuses, resulted in indictments, the rights group Yesh Din reported.
Israeli forces killed at least 614 Palestinians whom the UN classified as civilians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank during this period. But only three soldiers were convicted for killing Palestinians, according to Yesh Din, and all received short sentences of military community service.
The killings take place in a context in which Israeli authorities are committing the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution against Palestinians, including children, as Human Rights Watch and other rights groups have documented. The then International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, opened a formal investigation in 2021 into serious crimes committed in Palestine.
The UN Secretary-General is mandated by the Security Council to annually list military forces and armed groups responsible for grave violations against children in armed conflict. Between 2015 and 2022, the UN attributed over 8,700 child casualties to Israeli forces, yet Israel has never been listed. The reports have repeatedly listed other forces that killed and injured far fewer children than Israel did.
-- Biden is ‘old,’ Trump is ‘corrupt’: Poll has ominous signs for both in possible 2024 rematch:
US President Joe Biden is “old” and “confused,” and former president Donald Trump is “corrupt” and “dishonest.” Those are among the top terms Americans use when they’re asked to describe the Democrat in the White House and the Republican best positioned to face him in next year’s election.
Unflattering portraits of Biden and Trump emerge clearly in a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, which asked an open-ended question about what comes to mind when people think of them, AP reported.
For Biden, the largest share of US adults – including both Democrats and Republicans – mentioned his age. At 80, Biden is just three years older than Trump, but many Americans expressed real concerns about his ability to continue as president.
-- Iran inaugurates last phase of SP gas field:
The Iranian President Ebrahim Raeisi on Monday inaugurated Phase 11 of South Pars gas field, the world’s largest, located in the Persian Gulf.
Iranian experts developed Phase 11, the last phase of the gas field, which French TOTAL ceased working on, due to sanctions imposed by the US on Iran.
Phase 11 is the farthest border section of South Pars, which Iran shares with Qatar.
Iran’s Oil Minister Javad Owji said the inauguration of Phase 11 of South Pars put an end to 20 years of waiting, and saved the country $800 million in development costs.
President Raeisi described the implementation of the project “a technically complex and unique operation,” saying its opening will secure a significant portion of the rights of the nation from common fields.
The phase will start production at 15 million cubic meters per day and reach an ultimate capacity of 56 million cubic meters per day, plus one million tons of ethane, on top of one million tons of LPG per year, which will generate an annual income of $5 billion, said Managing Director of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) Mohsen Khojasteh-Mehr.
To reach this capacity, 24 wells will be spudded in total. “So far, four wells have been put into operation, and the rest will gradually come on stream,” Khojasteh-Mehr said.
The French company, TOTAL, signed a contract, with a 20-year duration, in 2017, after Iran had concluded a nuclear agreement with the West. It was the operator of the $5.9 billion project with a 50.1% interest alongside the Chinese state-owned oil and gas company, CNPC (30%), and Petropars (19.9%), a wholly owned subsidiary of NIOC.
Both foreign companies pulled out of the project in 2018, shortly after then-US president Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and re-imposed sanctions.
The project was then awarded to local counterparts, which operated under the auspices of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC).
Raeisi said the implementation of the project was carried out by capable domestic experts, while the foreign companies that were parties to the contract abandoned their obligations due to sanctions.
According to official figures, Iran currently produces about one billion cubic meters per day of natural gas and plans to raise production capacity by another 500 million cubic meters per day by 2029.
Presently, Iran exports gas to Turkey and Iraq, and has swap deals with Turkmenistan and Armenia.
-- Iran awards $2.7b airport project to Chinese contractor:
Iran has awarded a contract to a Chinese company to develop its largest international airport, according to a senior transportation ministry official.
Saeid Chalandari, who serves as CEO of Imam Khomeini International Airport (IKA), said on Sunday that Iran will spend at least 2.5 billion euros ($2.7 billion) to build a second phase at the airport under the contract signed with the unidentified Chinese company.
Chalandari said the company had been selected to carry out the project after intensive negotiations with several domestic and international contractors, Press TV.
He said, however, that Iran will pay for the project using a barter mechanism that allows swapping crude oil for financial resources, equipment and technical services.
“The executive operation for the new terminal under the second phase development operation of the airport will probably begin until late September,” said the official while speaking to reporters in a news conference.
IKA is Iran’s largest airport and is located some 25 kilometers to the southwest of the capital Tehran. The airport offers services to 29 major international airlines with flights to 64 destinations around the world.
Iran has planned major expansion projects for IKA to turn it to a regional aviation hub although some of those projects have stalled in recent years mainly because of US sanctions on the country.
KAYHAN INTERNATIONAL:
-- Iran Invited to CSTO Drills in Belarus:
Iran has been invited as an observer county to the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) exercises in Belarus, Chief of the CSTO Joint Staff Colonel General Anatoly Sidorov said on Monday.
“Representatives of states that are not CSTO members — Saudi Arabia, Iran, China and Mongolia — are invited as observers to the CSTO drills in Belarus,” Colonel General Sidorov said. CSTO is an intergovernmental military coalition which comprises Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan.
-- Afghan Refugees Discussed With UN Envoy:
Iranian Ambassador to Kabul Hassan Kazemi Qomi and UN Resident Coordinator for the Islamic Republic of Iran Stefan Priesner in a meeting here discussed the trend of international support for Afghan refugees. “The development of diplomacy with the United Nations in the framework of the national development plan and the definition of a specific road map, in order to attract international support for Afghan refugees, is one of the important issues pursued by the special representative,” Kazemi Qomi wrote on X. “I sincerely appreciate my colleagues in making this road map operational.”
-- Zionist Trap for Libyan Foreign Minister:
Libyan Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah said Monday he has suspended the North African country’s top diplomat after the occupying regime of Israel’s foreign ministry said their foreign ministers had met the previous week.
Najla el-Mangoush has been “temporarily suspended” and will be subject to an “administrative investigation” by a commission chaired by the justice minister, Dbeibah said in an official decision posted on Facebook.
The Libyan foreign ministry sought to play down the matter, and described it as a “chance and unofficial encounter”, but news of the meeting had already led to street protests in several cities.
The political row broke out Sunday after the Zionist foreign ministry said the two top diplomats had met the previous week.
The ministry said Israeli foreign minister Eli Cohen and Mangoush, his Libyan counterpart in the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity, spoke at a meeting in Rome hosted by Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani.
“I spoke with the foreign minister about the great potential for the two sides from their relations,” Cohen asserted in a statement.
The Libyan foreign ministry, however, announced on Sunday evening that Mangoush had “refused to meet with any party” representing the Israeli regime.
“What happened in Rome was a chance and unofficial encounter, during a meeting with his Italian counterpart, which did not involve any discussion, agreement or consultation,” the ministry said in a statement.
In the encounter, the statement said, Mangoush had reiterated “in a clear and unambiguous manner Libya’s position regarding the Palestinian cause”.
The ministry also criticized the occupying regime of Israel for attempts to “present this incident” as a “meeting or talks”.
On the streets of Tripoli and its suburbs, protests erupted Sunday evening to condemn any normalization with Israel.
The protests spread to other cities where young people blocked roads, burned tires and waved the Palestinian flag.
The protesters set fire to the Israeli flag during demonstrations in the northwestern cities of al-Zawiya and Tajoura.
In Tajoura, demonstrators closed a major street in protest against the meeting. They threatened to escalate their actions, including blocking railway access to Tripoli.
Under the so-called Abraham Accords, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco signed U.S.-brokered normalization deals with the Israeli regime in late 2020. Palestinians have denounced the deals as a “betrayal” to their cause.
On Sunday, Palestinian resistance movement Islamic Jihad said the meeting between Mangoush and Cohen is “a dangerous step back from the principles of the Ummah (Islamic nation) and falling into the swamp of normalization of relations with the Zionist regime”.
“We are confident that the brotherly nation of Libya will not accept these concessionist talks, and as a free nation it will not surrender to ransom,” it added.
-- India, Iran Agree on Legal Terms for Deep Sea Port Deal:
India and Iran have agreed not to seek commercial foreign arbitration for disputes between users and operators at the deep sea Chabahar Port in southeast Iran, paving the way for a long-term deal to develop strategic hub, an Indian media outlet reported on Monday.
At the recent BRICS Summit in Johannesburg, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi discussed ways to strengthen bilateral cooperation in various fields including trade and investment, connectivity, energy, and counter-terrorism.
“Both sides agreed to fast track infrastructure cooperation, including the Chabahar project. The leaders also exchanged views on regional developments, including Afghanistan,” Modi’s office announced.
The countries have been working a long-term agreement allowing India to develop the Shahid Beheshti Terminal at the Chabahar Port for several years, and could seal the deal before the Global Maritime India Summit 2023, to be held in New Delhi in October.
In July, the financial newspaper Mint, citing a ports ministry official, reported that the agreement will likely be signed in September after the “contours of the long-term deal” are finalized in August, RT reported.
The reports suggest that a long-term contract was stuck due to differences of opinion over the arbitration clause, and now New Delhi and Tehran have agreed to pursue arbitration under rules framed by the UN Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL).
According to Mint, India and Iran have until now been signing one-year contract extensions for developing and running the terminal at the Chabahar Port, but New Delhi has been urging Tehran to commit to a longer-term pact to provide more confidence to investors. A team from India’s Ministry of Port and Shipping is expected to visit Iran in September to try and reach an agreement over the rules of engagement and mode of arbitration.
-- Ukraine Claims Settlement in Southeast ‘Liberated’:
Ukraine said on Monday its troops had liberated the southeastern settlement of Robotyne and were trying to push further south in their counteroffensive against Russian forces.
The Ukrainian military said last week that its forces had raised the national flag in the strategic settlement, but were still carrying out mopping-up operations.
Ukrainian forces believe they have broken through the most difficult line of Russian defenses in the south and that they will now start advancing more quickly, a commander who led troops into Robotyne told Reuters last week.
“Robotyne has been liberated,” Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar was quoted as saying by the military.
The settlement is 10 km (six miles) south of the frontline town of Orikhiv in the Zaporizhzhia region on an important road towards Tokmak, a Russian-occupied road and rail hub.
Tokmak’s capture would be a milestone as Ukrainian troops press southwards towards the Sea of Azov in a military drive that is intended to split Russian forces following Moscow’s full-scale onslaught in February 2022.
Maliar told Ukrainian television that Kyiv’s troops, who began their counteroffensive in early June, were now moving southeast of Robotyne and south of nearby Mala Tokmachka.
Ukraine’s alleged success in retaking Robotyne, which Russia has not confirmed, follows media reports of a meeting this month of senior NATO military chiefs and Ukraine’s top general on resetting Ukraine’s military strategy.
Ukrainian forces are also fighting Russian troops in eastern Ukraine, and progress has been slower than had been widely expected in the counteroffensive because they have encountered vast Russian minefields and trenches.
Maliar described the battlefield situation in the east as “very hot” in the past week. She said Russian troops were gathering new forces there and regrouping, and Moscow was aiming to deploy its best troops there.
TEHRAN TIMES:
-- What can enlarged BRICS achieve?:
“We are concerned that global financial and payment systems are increasingly being used as instruments of geopolitical contestation,” Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa’s president, told last week’s BRICS summit. “Global economic recovery relies on predictable global payment systems and the smooth operating of banking, supply chains, trade, tourism as well as financial flows,” Ramaphosa said as he hosted the summiteers in Johannesburg. The joint Johannesburg II declaration also encouraged the use of local currencies for trade between BRICS countries and other trading partners. “We task our Finance Ministers and/or Central Bank Governors, as appropriate, to consider the issue of local currencies, payment instruments and platforms and report back to us by the next Summit,” the statement said. Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called on member nations to create a common currency for trade and investment between each other.
-- Arbaeen pilgrimage extends Iran-Iraq cultural ties, social unity:
Over the past decade, the Arbaeen Walk has brought about numerous changes and advancements in the economic and cultural aspects of regional countries, however, its significance as a powerful force of civilization often goes unnoticed and receives little attention. The Arbaeen commemoration, which has been taking place since the martyrdom of Imam Hussain (AS), has gained global attention in the past decade due to the significant increase in the number of pilgrims attending the event, ISNA reported on Monday.
-- Measures taken to promote status of women, families:
The government’s positive attitude toward women and families in the past two years has led to the implementation of different projects that have improved women’s status in society. Providing thousands of job opportunities for women heads of households, approving a bill to prevent women from being physically or mentally harmed, improving their safety against violence, allocating one percent of the budget of organizations to women-related projects, setting up a national headquarters for women and family affairs, and increasing the annual budget of the vice presidency for women and family affairs by 50 percent are some of the actions taken so far.
-- U.S. should be held accountable for Jamshid Sharmahd: Foreign Ministry:
he spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry has said that the U.S. government must explain to the government and people of Iran what is its relationship with the well-known terrorist ringleader Jamshid Sharmahd, who has been found guilty in court. Speaking to reporters at a weekly press conference on Monday, Nasser Kanaani said that it is obvious that the inhumane and brutal terrorist bombing operation in Shiraz, which resulted in the deaths of 14 mourners, was planned and carried out by the Sharmahd terror group. “Iraq has agreed to disarm and relocate Kurdish insurgents” Kanaani also said that as a part of a deal between Tehran and Baghdad, terrorist separatist groups located in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region would be disarmed within the coming weeks. “Iran and Iraq have concluded an agreement, under which the Iraqi government takes on the commitment to disarm terrorist and separatist groups in the Kurdistan region, vacate military barracks set up there and transfer them to the camps established by the Iraqi government,” he explained. He said that the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has been informed of the terms of the memorandum of agreement by Iraqi officials.
NOURNEWS