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Iran, US raise stakes ahead of key talks in Oman

Washington and Tehran waged a war of words Thursday ahead of key talks in Oman after US President Donald Trump said military action was “absolutely” possible if the talks fail.A senior adviser to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned that Iran could expel UN nuclear watchdog inspectors over “threats” ahead of Saturday’s talks.Rear Admiral Ali Shamkhani’s comments came after US Trump Wednesday failed to rule out military action against Iran in the event the planned talks fail to produce a deal.”The continuation of external threats and Iran being in a state of military attack may lead to deterrent measures, including expulsion of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency and cessation of cooperation,” Shamkhani said on X.”Transfer of enriched materials to secure locations may also be considered,” he added, referring to the country’s uranium enrichment.In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce warned Iran against making a misstep.”The threat of that kind of action, of course, is inconsistent with Iran’s claims of a peaceful nuclear programme,” she told reporters.”Also, expelling IAEA inspectors from Iran would be an escalation and a miscalculation on Iran’s part.”Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is due to meet US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff in the Gulf sultanate on Saturday for the talks that Washington has presented as the last chance for a peaceful resolution of Western concerns about Iran’s nuclear programme.Iran has consistently denied seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.US Secretary of State Marco Rubio voiced hope Thursday that the US-Iran nuclear talks in Oman this weekend could lead to “peace”.”We hope that will lead to peace,” Rubio told a meeting of Trump’s cabinet. “We’re hopeful about that.”- New sanctions -Last month, Trump sent a letter to Khamenei, who has the final say in matters of state in Iran, calling for direct negotiations but warning of military action if the diplomacy fails.”If necessary, absolutely,” Trump told reporters Wednesday when asked if military action was an option.”If it requires military, we’re going to have military. Israel will obviously be very much involved in that, be the leader of that,” Trump said.On Wednesday, the United States announced new sanctions targeting Iran’s nuclear programme ahead of the talks between the longtime adversaries.In a mainly symbolic move, the US Treasury Department said it was imposing sanctions under additional authorities on five entities including the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran and one individual.On Thursday, the US State Department said it was imposing sanctions on Iran’s oil network under Trump’s policy of “maximum pressure” against the country.Washington already enforces sweeping sanctions on Iran, particularly its nuclear programme whose scientists have also been the target of an assassination campaign attributed to Israel.Iran maintains that it is against direct negotiations with its arch-enemy the United States, but has left the door open for indirect talks.In 2015, Iran reached a landmark nuclear deal with major powers that gave it relief from international sanctions in return for restrictions on its nuclear activities monitored by UN inspectors.But in 2018, during Trump’s first term in office, the United States withdrew from the agreement and reinstated biting sanctions on Iran.A year later, Iran began rolling back on its commitments under the agreement and accelerated its nuclear programme.burs-srm/kir

US-China confrontation overshadows Trump’s ‘beautiful’ trade war

President Donald Trump claimed victory over Europe in the US tariffs war but acknowledged a “cost” to his surging trade offensive against superpower rival China as markets plunged again Thursday.Trump sought a victory lap at a White House cabinet meeting, saying the European Union had backed off from imposing retaliatory tariffs because of his tough …

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Hamas says France plan to recognise Palestinian state ‘important step’

Hamas said on Thursday the announcement by President Emmanuel Macron that France could recognise a Palestinian state by June was an “important step”, after Israel’s foreign minister slammed the plan.”We welcome the statements made by French President Emmanuel Macron regarding his country’s readiness to recognise the State of Palestine,” Hamas official Mahmud Mardawi told AFP.He called the announcement “an important step that, if implemented, would constitute a positive shift in the international position towards the legitimate national rights of our Palestinian people”.On Wednesday, Macron said France plans to recognise a Palestinian state within months and could make the move at a UN conference in New York in June.”We must move towards recognition, and we will do so in the coming months,” Macron, who this week visited Egypt, told France 5 television.Mardawi said France’s move was important because it is a veto-wielding permanent member of the UN Security Council.”France, as a country with political weight and a permanent member of the (UN) Security Council, has the ability to influence the course of fair solutions and push towards ending the occupation and achieving the aspirations of the Palestinian people,” Mardawi said.He said those aspirations were “freedom, independence and the establishment of their state on their land, with Jerusalem as its capital”.Gaza City resident Ibrahim Musa told AFP he “felt very relieved” when he heard the news.”We are a suffering people and we are still suffering, and we hope that the Western world will take positive steps to stop this war with all the strength it can,” he said.But for fellow Gaza City resident Salwa Al-Shandaghli, “this pressure is not enough”.”We need other countries and stronger backing… in order to exert greater pressure on the Israeli occupation,” she said.Palestinian minister of state for foreign affairs Varsen Aghabekian Shahin, who is based in the West Bank city of Ramallah, told AFP France’s recognition of Palestinian statehood “would be a step in the right direction in line with safeguarding the rights of the Palestinian people and the two-state solution”. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar denounced Macron’s announcement as a “prize for terror and a boost for Hamas”.”These kind of actions will not bring peace, security and stability in our region closer — but the opposite: they only push them further away,” he said on X late on Wednesday.Nearly 150 countries recognise a Palestinian state.In May 2024, Ireland, Norway and Spain announced recognition, followed by Slovenia in June.Their moves were partly fuelled by anger at the high civilian death toll in Israel’s devastating offensive in Gaza which was triggered by Hamas’s October 2023 attack on southern Israel.

Iran hands directors suspended jail terms over acclaimed film

An Iranian court has handed two Iranian film directors suspended jail terms over a film that angered authorities in the Islamic republic but was acclaimed in Europe and the United States, rights groups said on Thursday.Maryam Moghadam and Behtash Sanaeeha were convicted earlier this week by a Revolutionary Court for the film “My Favourite Cake”, the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) and Dadban legal monitor said in separate statements.The film, which competed at the 2024 Berlin Film Festival and won prizes in Europe and the United States, shows the voyage of discovery of an elderly woman in Tehran who notably appears in the film without the headscarf that is obligatory for women in Iran.The pair were sentenced to 14 months in prison, suspended for five years, and a fine on charges of “spreading lies with the intention of disturbing public opinion”, Dadban said.In addition, they were sentenced to one year in prison, also suspended for five years, and all equipment ordered confiscated for the charge of “participating in the production of vulgar content”. Another fine was ordered on the charge of “showing a film without a screening licence”, it added.”Artists in Iran endure significant hardships, including increasing censorship, arbitrary detentions, and the constant threat of legal repercussions for expressing dissent through their work,” said the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran, commenting on the verdict.Even before their conviction, Moghadam and Sanaeeha were banned from leaving Iran to attend the Berlin film festival and then promote the film when it was released in Europe.”We wanted to tell the story of the reality of our lives, which is about those forbidden things like singing, dancing, not wearing hijab at home, which no one does at home,” Moghadam told AFP in an interview earlier this year.News of the verdict came as the Cannes Film Festival announced that the latest movie by another leading director banned from leaving Iran, the prize-winning Jafar Panahi, would be screened at its 2025 edition.Another recent Iranian film, Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig”, which explicitly deals with the 2022-2023 protest movement, resulted in the director and several of its actors fleeing the country, and those who remained unable to leave and subject to prosecution.

Sudan tells top court UAE ‘driving force’ behind ‘genocide’

Sudan told the International Court of Justice Thursday that the United Arab Emirates was the “driving force” behind what it called a genocide in Darfur, a charge the UAE said “couldn’t be further from the truth”.Khartoum has dragged the UAE before the ICJ, accusing it of complicity in genocide against the Masalit community by backing the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) battling the Sudanese army since 2023.The UAE denies supporting the rebels and has dismissed Sudan’s case as “political theatre” distracting from efforts to end the war that has killed tens of thousands.As robed lawyers wrestled over legal interpretations of jurisdiction in the panelled hall of the Peace Palace, the human cost of the conflict has continued to mount.The army and local activists said a paramilitary strike on the El-Fasher city in Darfur on Wednesday killed at least 12 people and wounded 17.Opening the case at the ICJ, Muawia Osman, Sudan’s acting justice minister, told the court that the “ongoing genocide would not be possible without the complicity of the UAE, including the shipment of arms to the RSF.”The direct logistical and other support that the UAE has provided and continues to provide to the RSF has been and continues to be the primary driving force behind the genocide now taking place, including killing, rape, forced displacement and looting,” said Osman.Sudan wants ICJ judges to force the UAE to stop its alleged support for the RSF and make “full reparations”, including compensation to victims of the war.Responding for the UAE, Reem Ketait, a top foreign ministry official, told the court: “The idea that the UAE is somehow the driver of this reprehensible conflict in Sudan could not be further from the truth.”This case is the most recent iteration of the applicant’s misuse of our international institutions as a stage from which to attack the UAE,” added Ketait.Sudan’s allegations were “at best misleading and at worst pure fabrications”, she said.The case comes a day after the United States and Saudi Arabia called on the Sudanese army and paramilitary forces to resume peace talks in the country’s conflict.- ‘Very clear case’ -Legal experts say Sudan’s case may founder on jurisdictional issues.When the UAE signed up to the Genocide Convention, it entered a “reservation” to a key clause enabling countries to drag each other before the ICJ over disputes.Sudan’s claims raise “important questions”, Michael Becker, international law expert from Trinity College Dublin, wrote in a recent piece for the Opinio Juris specialist website.”Because the UAE made a reservation to Article IX when it acceded to the Genocide Convention in 2005, the ICJ can be expected to conclude that it lacks jurisdiction over the dispute,” wrote Becker.”There is clearly no basis for the court’s jurisdiction in this case,” the UAE’s Ketait told the judges.The UAE called for the case to be thrown out and removed from the court’s list.Sudan argued in its application that the UAE’s reservation was “incompatible” with the purpose of the Genocide Convention, which emphasises global collective responsibility to prevent the world’s worst crimes.The rulings of the ICJ, which hears disputes between states, are final and binding but the court has no means to ensure compliance.Judges ordered Russia to halt its invasion of Ukraine to no avail, for example.”We have put before the court a very, very clear case,” Sudanese minister Osman told reporters outside the Peace Palace in The Hague, where the ICJ sits.”In our belief, if there were no support from the UAE, all these violations (of the Genocide Convention) would not be able to happen,” Osman said. 

Lebanon’s civil war fighters working for reconciliation, 50 years on

Near front lines where they once battled each other, former fighters in Lebanon’s civil war now gather to bear the same message, half a century after the devastating conflict erupted: never again.The war killed 150,000 people, destroyed the country and left an indelible mark on the Lebanese psyche.Years after it ended in 1990, some buildings in the freewheeling capital remain riddled with bullet holes, and 17,000 people who went missing were never found.”It was a useless war,” said Georges Mazraani, a Christian who took up arms in Beirut’s working-class neighbourhood of Ain al-Remmaneh, where the conflict started.The Christian district is separated from the Muslim neighbourhood of Shiyah by just one street that went on to become a key front line.On April 13, 1975, members of the right-wing Christian Phalange militia machine-gunned a bus of Palestinians, leaving 27 dead, hours after assailants opened fire outside a nearby church, killing one of theirs.The incident that ignited the war remains seared in Lebanon’s memory.- ‘Reconciliation’ -The country had been on a knife-edge, with Palestinian fighters, and their Lebanese leftist and Muslim allies preparing for a confrontation against Christian groups, who were doing the same.For 15 years, a country once known as “the Switzerland of the Middle East” was ravaged by war along sectarian lines, with alliances shifting year after year with warlords building and breaking loyalties.And while the civil war ended in 1990, Lebanon has never recovered its former glory, remaining until 2005 under Syrian control, and with part of the country under Israeli occupation for two decades.Now grey, Mazraani was just 21 when he and other young men in his neighbourhood took up arms. He later went on to command hundreds of fighters.”I lost 17 years of my life and 14 family members,” he said, now 71 and ill.Near him plaques commemorating the “martyrs” of the Christian “resistance” adorn street corners.Today, “some people are encouraging civil war in Lebanon”, Mazraani said.”They should be quiet and open up to reconciliation, so we can be finished with this problem.” – ‘Ask for forgiveness’ -With Mazraani is Nassim Assaad, who fought for the Lebanese Communist Party, a onetime foe.”It’s the poor” on both sides “who paid the price”, not the militia leaders, said Assaad, who was 18 when the war began.He and Mazraani are now part of Fighters for Peace, which brings together former enemies for peace-building activities including community outreach and awareness-raising at schools and universities.Assaad said many people were worried about a possible return to civil war in the country still reeling from a recent conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.”Today, the circumstances are even more conducive for it than in 1975,” he said.The key issue dividing Lebanon today is the arsenal of Hezbollah, the only group which refused to surrender its weapons to the state after the civil war ended.In Shiyah, the fighters of old have disappeared.Israel’s 1982 invasion and siege of Beirut dislodged Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and his fighters, while the leftist presence was replaced by Hezbollah, created with Iranian backing that year to fight the Israeli troops.The civil war ended with the Saudi-brokered Taif agreement, which established a new power-sharing system between Lebanon’s religious sects.An amnesty for war crimes left victims and their families without justice, and the country has chosen collective amnesia in order to move on.”We must go back over our experience of war and ask for forgiveness in order to reach a real reconciliation,” said Ziad Saab, president of Fighters for Peace. The power-sharing system was meant to be temporary, but in practice has enshrined the control of some former warlords, who swapped their military fatigues for suits, or their family members.Still today, periodic violence shakes the fragile balance.- ‘Lessons of the past’ -In the town of Souk al-Gharb, overlooking Beirut, former fighters from different backgrounds walk through grass covering the old front line to an abandoned bunker.The strategic town saw ferocious battles during the Mountain War between Christians and Druze that began in the wake of the Israeli invasion.”When I walk here, I’m afraid — not of mines, but because the ground is stained with the blood of my comrades,” said Soud Bou Shebl, 60, who fought with Christian militia the Lebanese Forces.Karam al-Aridi, 63, who led Druze fighters from the Progressive Socialist Party, said “war only causes death and problems”, saying his village of Baysur alone lost 140 men.”We must learn the lessons of the past,” he said. “No party must feel stronger than another, otherwise our country will be lost.”