WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama says he believes supreme leader Ayatollah ali Khamenei has deep concerns about the civil unrest that has followed the hotly contested presidential election there.
Obama repeated Tuesday at a news conference his "deep concerns" about the disputed balloting. He said he believes the ayatollah's decision to order an investigation "indicates he understands the Iranian people have deep concerns."
But at the same time, Obama said it would not be helpful if the United States was seen by the world as "meddling" in the issue.
The president did say, however, that he worries "when I see violence directed at peaceful protesters, when I see peaceful protest being suppressed." (source)
CAIRO (AP) - Iranian authorities are restricting all journalists working for foreign media from firsthand reporting on the streets.
The rules cover all journalists, including Iranians working for foreign media. It blocks images and eyewitness descriptions of the protests and violence that has followed last week's disputed elections.
The order issued Tuesday limits journalists for foreign media to work only from their offices, conducting telephone interviews and monitoring official sources such as state television.
It comes as foreign reporters in Iran to cover the elections began leaving the country. Iranian officials say they will not extend their visas.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran's Islamic leadership is prepared to conduct a limited recount of disputed presidential elections, a spokesman said Tuesday, drawing the ruling clerics deeper into a showdown that began with street clashes and quickly moved to the highest levels of power.
The announcement comes after Iran's state radio reported earlier Tuesday that seven people were killed during clashes in the Iranian capital the previous day - the first official confirmation of deaths linked to the wave of protests and street battles following last week's disputed election.
The offer by the Guardian Council for a targeted tally - from specific voting sites where fraud has been alleged - is the first direct action by authorities to address claims of irregularities by opponents of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But it also offers further hints that the non-elected ruling clerics are seeking to calm the protest anger and keep the dissent from spreading into their rarified world.
It was not immediately clear when such a count could begin or how many voting sites would be included. The recount also falls short of calls by reformist challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi to completely annul Friday's vote, which he says was marred by fraud and robbed him of victory.
Hundreds of thousands of Mousavi's backers poured through Tehran on Monday in a massive show of unity - that ended in bloodshed when seven people were killed in a confrontation with pro-regime militiamen.
The Iranian state radio report said the deaths occurred during an "unauthorized gathering" at a mass rally after protesters "tried to attack a military location." It gave no further details, but it was a clear reference to crowds who came under gunfire Monday after trying to storm a compound for volunteer militia linked to Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard.
Any widening of protests by the opposition could begin to challenge the ruling clerics and the true centers of power in Iran.
Mousavi, who served as prime minister in the 1980s, has formally laid out his allegations in a letter to the Guardian Council and in talks with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in all critical matters and policies.
Unlike past student-led demonstrations against the Islamic establishment, Mousavi has the ability to press his case with the highest levels and could gain powerful allies. Some influential clerics have expressed concern about possible election irregularities and a fierce critic of Mousavi, former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, is part of the ruling establishment.
A spokesman for the Guardian Council, Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei, was quoted on state television as saying the recount would be limited to voting sites where candidates claim irregularities took place. There was no immediate word from Mousavi on the announcement, but he said Monday he was not hopeful that the council would address his charges because he believes they are not neutral and have already indicated support for Ahmadinejad.
The 12-member Guardian Council includes clerics and experts in Islamic law. Its role includes certifying election results. Kadkhodaei did not rule out the possibility of canceling the results, saying that is within the council's powers. However, nullifying an election would be an unprecedented step. The council is closely allied to Khamenei, who ordered an examination into the fraud allegations although he had initially welcomed Ahmadinejad's victory.
Claims of voting irregularities went to the council after Ahmadinejad's upset victory in 2005, but there was no official word on the outcome of the inquiry, and the vote stood.
The council must certify ballot results and also has the apparent authority to nullify an election. The council also serves as a constitutional watchdog and vets candidates running in elections.
The shootings came at the end of the rally by opponents of Ahmadinejad who defied an official ban to march through the city.
The deaths also raise the prospect of further defiance from crowds claiming that Mousavi was the rightful election winner. The protest movement has shown no signs of easing with Mousavi's backers reportedly planning to gather in a Tehran square later Tuesday where pro-Ahmadinejad crowd also have called a rally to demand punishment of "rioters."
In a message posted on his Web site, Mousavi said he will not attend the rally and asked his supporters to "not fall in the trap of street riots" and "exercise self-restraint."
The deaths Monday occurred on the edge of Tehran's Azadi Square. An Associated Press photographer saw gunmen, standing on a roof, opening fire on a group of demonstrators who tried to storm the militia compound.
Angry men showed their bloody palms after cradling the dead and wounded who had been part of a crowd that stretched more than five miles (nearly 10 kilometers).
The march also marked Mousavi's first public appearance since shortly after the election. He said he was willing to "pay any price" in his demands to overturn the election results.
Ahmadinejad, meanwhile, arrived in Russia on Tuesday to attend a summit.
A Web site run by Iran's former reformist vice president, Mohammad Ali Abtahi, said he had been arrested by security officers, but provided no further details. Abtahi's Web site, popular among the youth, has reported extensively on the alleged vote fraud.
Saeed Hajjarian, a prominent reformist, has also been detained, Hajjarian's wife, Vajiheh Masousi, told The AP Tuesday. Hajjarian is a close aide of former reformist President Mohammad Khatami.
The huge rally Monday - and smaller protests around the country - display the resolve of Mousavi's backers and have pushed Iran's Islamic establishment into attempts to cool the tensions after days of unrest.
The death toll reported Tuesday could be a further rallying point in a culture that venerates martyrs and often marks their death with memorials. One of Mousavi's Web sites said a student protester was killed early Monday in clashes in Shiraz in southern Iran but there was no independent confirmation of the report.(source)
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Protesters battled police and shouted their opposition from the rooftops Sunday, but President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed the unrest as little more than "passions after a soccer match" and brought huge crowds to a rally to defend his landslide re-election.
Just after sundown, cries of "death to the dictator" echoed through Tehran as thousands of backers for Ahmadinejad's rival, Mir Hossein Mousavi, heeded a call to bellow from the roofs and balconies. The deeply symbolic act recalled the shouts of "Allahu Akbar," or God is Great, to show opposition to the Western-backed monarchy before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The scenes summed up the showdown over the disputed elections: an outwardly confident Ahmadinejad exerted control, while Mousavi showed no sign of backing down and could be staking out a new role as powerful opposition voice.
His charges that Friday's vote was riddled by fraud brought sympathetic statements from Vice President Joe Biden and other leaders. Mousavi made a direct appeal with Iran's ruling clerics to annul the result, but the chances were considered remote.
With his wide network of young and middle-class backers, Mousavi could emerge as a leader for Iran's liberal ranks and bring internal pressure on Ahmadinejad and Iran's theocracy to take less confrontational policies toward the West.
But the struggle Sunday was on the streets in the worst unrest in Tehran since student-led protests 10 years ago.
Demonstrators were back on the streets with the same tactics: torching bank facades and trash bins, smashing store windows and hurling rocks at anti-riots squads in Tehran. Police responded with baton-wielding sweeps—sometimes targeting bystanders—and the regime shut down text messaging systems and pro-reform Internet sites.
There was no official word on casualties.
Authorities detained top Mousavi aides, including the head of his Web campaign, but many were released Sunday after being held overnight.
Iran's deputy police chief, Ahmad Reza Radan, told the official Islamic Republic News Agency that about 170 people have been arrested. It was not known how many remained in custody.
Mousavi has urged his supporters to channel their anger into peaceful acts of dissent. But the official clampdown on the Internet links blunted the reach of the message. At the same time, Mousavi went to the pinnacle of power to try to reverse the election decision.(source)
A high-level transatlantic row has broken out over the Obama administration's failure to consult Britain over the transfer of four Guantánamo Bay inmates to Bermuda.
David Miliband has telephoned Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State, to express the government's disappointment at the deal.
British officials were informed the four Chinese Uighurs were heading to the United Kingdom's oldest dependency only as they boarded their plane for Bermuda on Wednesday night.
A British diplomat said: "The Foreign Secretary registered his surprise. It was a regrettable mistake. Bermuda, the UK and the US now need to work together to fix it and make sure it doesn't happen again."
A senior State Department official said this diplomatic understatement masked a real anger over the Obama administration's oversight among British officials, telling ABC News: "They're pissed".
The State Department denied it had bypassed Britain but admitted that it dealt directly with Bermuda, a territory under the sovereignty of the UK, which is responsible for foreign policy and security.
Ian Kelly, State Department spokesman, said: "We understand that there are some concerns about some of the details of the resettlement, and we're confident that we can work these things through with the government of the UK."
Britain's anger is directed principally at Ewart Brown, the Bermudan premier. But the UK's responsibility for the security of Bermuda is well known to US diplomats and the decision to ignore this could be a sign of diminished British clout in Washington.
Mr Brown said that the Uighurs, a Muslim minority from China's Xinjiang province would be "provided with the opportunity to become naturalised citizens and thereafter afforded the right to travel and leave Bermuda, potentially settling elsewhere".
Adbul Nasser, one of the four freed Uighurs, hailed Bermuda's decision.
"Today you have let freedom ring," he said in a statement.(source)
A supporter of Iran's moderate presidential candidate Mirhossein Mousavi holds a piece of paper that reads "We write Mousavi, they read Ahmadinejad" during post-election unrest in Tehran June 13, 2009.
Several foreign news organisations complained Sunday that Iranian authorities were blocking their reporters from covering protests against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election. German public television channels ZDF and ARD said their reporters were not allowed to broadcast their reports, while the BBC said the signals of its Persian services were being jammed from Iran.
The Dubai-based Arab news channel Al-Arabiya in Tehran was forbidden from working for a week and Dutch broadcaster Nederland 2 said its journalist and cameraman were arrested and ordered to leave the country.
Foreign media converged in Iran to cover Friday's presidential election, whose official result sparked violent protests in Tehran after Ahmadinejad was declared the winner by a landslide.
Violence erupted for a second day on Sunday as supporters of Ahmadinejad's closest challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi clashed with riot police. Mousavi denounced the election as a fraud and called for the vote to be annulled.
The editors in chief of German public television channels ZDF and ARD sent a letter to the Iranian ambassador in Berlin accusing Iranian authorities of barring their reporters from doing their work.
ARD correspondent Peter Mezger can no longer leave his hotel while ZDF journalist Halim Hosny and his colleagues have not been allowed to report on the events, their chief editors wrote.
"We see a breach of freedom of the press and democratic principles," their editors said in their letter.
Iranian authorities had already barred the journalists from filming and broadcasting their images in recent days, the editors said.
ARD and ZDF insisted that they would "continue to report on the events in Iran" in a "critical, fair and independent" manner.
"We would have liked to broadcast the story of our correspondent Halim Hosny, but the Iranian authorities forbade journalists from working," ZDF said in its nightly news programme.
The British Broadcasting Corporation said the satellites it uses for its Persian television and radio services had been affected since Friday by "heavy electronic jamming" which had become "progressively worse."
Satellite technicians had traced the interference to Iran, the BBC said.
BBC Arabic television and other language services had also experienced transmission problems, the corporation said.
"Any attempt to block BBC Persian television is wrong and against international treaties on satellite communication. Whoever is attempting the blocking should stop it now," said BBC World Service director Peter Horrocks.
"It seems to be part of a pattern of behaviour by the Iranian authorities to limit the reporting of the aftermath of the disputed election.
"In Tehran, (BBC world affairs editor) John Simpson and his cameraman were briefly arrested after they had filmed material for a piece," he added.
Dutch public broadcaster Nederland 2 said NOVA journalist Jan Eikelboom and cameraman Dennis Hilgers, who had been in Iran for several days covering the election, were detained and ordered to leave the country.
They "were filming in front of the headquarters of Mousavi, Ahmadinejad's main rival, when they were arrested by police," the channel said in a statement.
"They were pushed against a wall and their tapes were seized. Their filming permits were withdrawn and they have to leave the country immediately," it said.
The Arab news channel Al-Arabiya said that its correspondent, who has been in Tehran for the past four months, had been "informed verbally" of the decision to shut down his office for a week.
"We are not allowed to do any coverage. No reason was given, and there was no earlier warning," executive editor Nabil al-Khateeb told AFP. "I believe it is due to the current state of unrest."
The correspondent of Spanish public channel TVE said during a live broadcast Saturday that police had confiscated a video of one the protests. (source)
As rioting escalated Sunday in the wake of Iran's disputed elections, an officer attacked aman near Tehran University.
TEHRAN -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday defended his weekend election victory while security forces cracked down on opposition leaders and demonstrators, who staged a second day of violent protests across the capital and in other Iranian cities.
The standoffs represent the biggest domestic unrest since authorities put down student riots at Tehran University a decade ago.
In some parts of town, black smoke, ash and shattered glass covered the main roads and sidewalks. Along several roads in both uptown and downtown Tehran, many banks -- all government-owned -- had been attacked the previous night, and their glass windows and doors smashed. Public property such as bus stops and street signs were vandalized. At Mohseni Square in north Tehran, three buildings were burned completely.
Mr. Ahmadinejad's defeated challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi, said in a statement he was under house arrest and banned from appearing in public. Neither statement has been confirmed by the government. In a post on his Web site, Mr. Mousavi called for a peaceful demonstration on Monday afternoon and asked the police to issue him a permit.
The Obama administration and its European allies openly questioned the results of Iran's presidential vote but also reaffirmed their commitment to pursue direct talks with Tehran over its nuclear program, irrespective of the electoral outcome.
Vice President Joe Biden said early Sunday he had doubts about whether the election was free and fair. But speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press," he said the U.S. and other countries need more time to analyze the vote and said the U.S. must accept "for the time being" Tehran's claim that Mr. Ahmadinejad won the contest.
The election result was "a matter for the Iranian authorities to address," British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Saturday. "Our priority is that Iran engages with the concerns of the world community, above all on the issue of nuclear proliferation."
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier condemned the Iranian government crackdown on opposition protesters as "unacceptable."
Arab Reaction
Across the Arab world and in Israel, reaction was mixed. The results dealt a blow to some Arab officials, who have grown increasingly alarmed by Iran's regional ambitions and hoped Mr. Ahmadinejad's ouster might rein in Tehran.
But others in the region said it could also speed up a key goal: international consensus for tough action against Iran's nuclear program.
"You're not going to waste months and months trying to understand where the new guy is coming from," said one Arab official.
Israeli analysts said that the messy vote validates Israel's perceived threat from Iran and increases Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's leverage with Washington. Mr. Netanyahu argues that Iran, not Israel-Arab peace talks, should be the focus of American Mideast policy.
Mr. Mousavi was considered by Western leaders as easier to negotiate with. He had a more pragmatic, moderate approach than Mr. Ahmadinejad and had said he would open Iran to foreign investments, reform the economy and pursue peaceful relations with the West and the U.S. Mr. Ahmadinejad hails from the ultraconservative camp, favoring populist economic policies and taking a more defiant stance abroad.
Even if security forces are able to contain protests in coming days, the chaotic election fallout still poses a significant challenge for the clerical establishment that rules the Islamic Republic.
Mr. Mousavi's allegations of widespread vote rigging are raising legitimacy questions at home and abroad, and threaten to haunt Mr. Ahmadinejad's next four years in office.
At his news conference Sunday, Mr. Ahmadinejad called his re-election "real and free."
Rajanews, a Web site affiliated with Mr. Ahmadinejad's campaign, carried a number of congratulatory articles and called the election "the victory of honesty over deception."
Iran's Interior Ministry, in a televised news conference late Saturday afternoon, said Mr. Ahmadinejad had won about 63% of the votes cast, to Mr. Mousavi's 34%, according to ministry figures. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei endorsed the results.
With few other details released about the results and no independent monitors at polling stations, it's difficult to gauge the allegations of fraud.
Preliminary results started rolling in just hours after polls closed, raising immediate skepticism because results don't legally have to be announced for 12 hours.
Mr. Mousavi said nearly five million voters were told stations had run out of ballots and couldn't vote. He also said thousands of his election-day monitors weren't given credentials by the Interior Ministry and were banned from entering polling stations.
Late Sunday, Mr. Mousavi released a copy of a letter he wrote to the Guardian Council -- an appointed body of clerics who supervise the government -- asking them to nullify the election results. Mohsen Rezaie, a conservative candidate, wrote a letter to the Interior Ministry demanding it release the breakdown of votes in each polling station across the country.
As of Sunday, the Guardian Council had yet to reply and it wasn't clear whether the Interior Ministry would comply with Mr. Rezaie's request.
Mr. Mousavi's supporters say they plan to fight until Mr. Ahmadinejad's government is toppled and new elections are called. The new administration is set to take office Aug. 11.
Mehdi Karroubi, another candidate and cleric reformist, took off his cleric's robe in protest of the results, according to one of his advisers. Removing one's robe was considered a highly political move by clerics during the revolution. In a statement, Mr. Karroubi told the public to keep protesting peacefully.
Battle With Police At Tehran University Sunday afternoon, following a celebratory rally and news conference by Mr. Ahmadinejad, protesters pelted riot police with stones.
Students were barricaded inside the campus screaming "death to the dictator," as special-forces units on motorcycles threw tear-gas canisters over the fence, and students threw big rocks back at the police. Gunshots were fired into the air.
Students dragged pieces of wood, desks and piles of paper from buildings and set them on fire. Students and protesters outside the campus clashed with antiriot police and paramilitary Basiji forces, trained volunteers in plainclothes who are unleashed during civil protests.
One 29-year-old, interviewed at the scene, rushed from his office nearby to look for his younger sister, a student at Tehran University. As he approached the fence, he said, a Basiji held a canister of pepper spray to his face and sprayed him directly in the eye.
"They have no shame, they have no dignity. How dare they do this to the people?" the man yelled.
"My shoulders are numb, they hit me with the electric baton," said another young man. As students exchanged stories, a group of policemen holding batons ran down the sidewalk toward them.
"They're coming, they're coming," some of the students shouted and ran up the road. A few stood there defiantly until the police caught up to them. They threw one man to the ground and began beating him as he screamed.
Less than a block away from the clashes at Tehran University, Mr. Ahmadinejad held a victory rally and spoke to supporters, who waved Iranian flags.
"We love him because he supports justice and Islam," said Zahra, a 23-year-old woman who had come from downtown Tehran with her husband to cheer the president. She called the protesters "sore losers" and said it was justified for the government to crack down on them.
At his news conference, Mr. Ahmadinejad defended the security services' response, comparing it to police fining rowdy soccer fans for rioting after a match.
"Someone is mad [about the results of the game] and crosses a red line," he said, adding: "I am not happy when people cross a red line and get fined. If only they hadn't crossed it."
Phone Service Cut Iranian security forces, deployed heavily across the city, have so far appeared to be capable of containing the flare-ups, often using a heavy hand. By late Sunday, there were no reports of fatalities, but sporadic phone and Internet service made passing information difficult.
Mobile-phone service was suspended by authorities on Saturday and Sunday night. SMS texting, a cheap and reliable way of communicating across Iran, was also out.
Meanwhile, the government appeared to intensify a broad crackdown on opposition leaders. Security forces on Saturday arrested up to 100 prominent reformists in a late-night raid on the headquarters of the country's main reformist political party.
The members had called an emergency meeting late at night. Authorities told the detainees they were being arrested for provoking and orchestrating civil disobedience and unrest in the country.
Mohammad Reza Khatami, brother of former President Mohammad Khatami, was also arrested near his house, according to a person familiar with the situation. He was questioned and released a few hours later.
Iranian universities -- in the middle of final exams -- suspended classes for a week as of Saturday, students said, while many shops remained closed.
It was Mother's Day in Iran Sunday, but the flower shops that were open said their sales were far less than what they normally sold. One florist in central Tehran, at a cross section where both sides clashed, said he had sheltered more protesters than catered to customers. He had had only six orders of bouquets and planned to close shop early.(source)
RAMAT GAN, Israel (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded on Sunday to uncommon pressure from Washington by finally giving his endorsement -- with conditions -- to the establishment of a Palestinian state.
But in a speech answering President Barack Obama's address to the Arab world 10 days ago, the right-wing leader's defense of Jewish settlement on occupied land may fail to dispel tension with the White House, as the two men try to set new terms for the Middle East peace process in their first months in office.
Obama called Netanyahu's shift in position on Palestinian statehood as an "important step forward," even as aides to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas were denouncing the speech as "sabotaging" negotiations by restating Israel's refusal to share the city of Jerusalem or accept Palestinian refugees.
Netanyahu, who has refused to back a state for Palestinians since he took office in March, said he would now endorse the establishment of a such a state -- but only if Israel received in advance international guarantees the new nation would have no army and Palestinians recognized Israel as a Jewish state.
"If we receive this guarantee regarding demilitarization and Israel's security needs, and if the Palestinians recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people, then we will be ready in a future peace agreement to reach a solution where a demilitarized Palestinian state exists alongside the Jewish state," Netanyahu said at Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv.
"If (Obama) looks at the glass as half-full, this should be sufficient," Israeli political scientist Eitan Gilboa said of the speech as a whole. "But if he is looking for confrontation with Israel, he would say the glass if half-empty."
A senior European diplomat in the Middle East questioned how far it changed the substance of Israel's approach. "It's goodwill and good words but I don't think it's going to appease the Americans," the diplomat said. "He's trying to gain time."
WHITE HOUSE WELCOME
"The president welcomes the important step forward in Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech," the White House said.
"The president is committed to two states, a Jewish state of Israel and an independent Palestine, in the historic homeland of both peoples."
Palestinian leaders have rarely made an issue of Israel's insistence that their future state should not have an army in a position to threaten its neighbor, but they have rejected the demand that they explicitly accept Israel as a Jewish state.
To do so, they have argued, weakens the position of the 20 percent of Israel's citizens who are Muslim and Christian Arabs, and undermine a key demand for a right of return to what is now Israel for millions of Palestinians classed as refugees since the flight of Arabs during Israel's creation in 1948.
The White House reference to Obama's support of "a Jewish state of Israel" may reassure Israelis, who will also hear in his reference to "the historic homeland of both peoples" an echo of Netanyahu's robust defense on Sunday of the Jews' 3,000-year-old claim to the land and to the city of Jerusalem.
Palestinian leaders voiced their opposition, especially to the Israeli premier's flat rejection of any right of return for refugees or of a division of Jerusalem, where Palestinians want to have the capital of their new state.
Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rdainah said: "Netanyahu's remarks have sabotaged all initiatives, paralyzed all efforts being made and challenges the Palestinian, Arab and American positions."
Saeb Erekat, who has negotiated interim peace accords, said: "The peace process has been moving at the speed of a tortoise. Tonight, Netanyahu has flipped it over on its back." He reiterated the Palestinian demand that Israel freeze all expansion of the settlements that are home to some half a million Jews in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
SETTLEMENTS DISPUTE
Obama, too, in what has been the frostiest spell in U.S. relations with Israel in a decade or more, has made a halt to settlements a personal demand. Netanyahu repeated his agreement not to build more settlements but indicated he still wanted to allow what is called "natural growth" of existing ones.
"We have no intention of building new settlements," he said. "But there is a need to enable the residents to live normal lives, to allow mothers and fathers to raise their children."
Netanyahu is conscious that a harder crackdown on settlers could fracture his right-leaning coalition government.
The White House did not comment on settlements but did say Obama would ensure all parties "fulfill their obligations." Under the 2003 "road map to peace," worked out under U.S. sponsorship, Israel committed to freezing settlement activity.
Netanyahu reiterated his readiness to meet all Arab leaders in the region and urged Palestinians to resume peace talks.
It was not immediately clear whether Abbas would accept Netanyahu's call to resume talks. Abbas has made a halt to settlement a condition for renewing negotiations.
With Gaza in the hands of Abbas's Islamist rivals Hamas, who reject interim peace deals and continue to attack Israel, there seems little immediate prospect of ending more than 60 years of conflict. However, diplomats say, engagement by Obama that puts pressure on all sides has raised hopes after years of stalemate.(source)
South Korean protesters burn North Korean national flags during a rally, denouncing the ninth anniversary of the June 2000 summit between former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in front of Kim Dae-jung's house in Seoul, South Korea, Sunday, June 14, 2009. North Korea's communist regime has warned of a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula while vowing to step up its atomic bomb-making program in defiance of new U.N. sanctions. Banner read: "Support U.N. sanctions."
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea's communist regime has warned of a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula while vowing to step up its atomic bomb-making program in defiance of new U.N. sanctions.
The North's defiance presents a growing diplomatic headache for President Barack Obama as he prepares for talks Tuesday with his South Korean counterpart on the North's missile and nuclear programs.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak told security-related ministers during an unscheduled meeting Sunday to "resolutely and squarely" cope with the North's latest threat, his office said. Lee is to leave for the U.S. on Monday morning.
A commentary Sunday in the North's main state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, claimed the U.S. has 1,000 nuclear weapons in South Korea. Another commentary published Saturday in the state-run Tongil Sinbo weekly claimed the U.S. has been deploying a vast amount of nuclear weapons in South Korea and Japan.
North Korea "is completely within the range of U.S. nuclear attack and the Korean peninsula is becoming an area where the chances of a nuclear war are the highest in the world," the Tongil Sinbo commentary said.
Kim Yong-kyu, a spokesman at the U.S. military command in Seoul, called the latest accusation "baseless," saying Washington has no nuclear bombs in South Korea. U.S. tactical nuclear weapons were removed from South Korea in 1991 as part of arms reductions following the Cold War.
South Korea's Unification Ministry issued a statement Sunday demanding the North stop stoking tension, abandon its nuclear weapons and return to dialogue with the South.
On Saturday, North Korea's Foreign Ministry threatened war on any country that dared to stop its ships on the high seas under the new sanctions approved by the U.N. Security Council on Friday as punishment for the North's latest nuclear test.
It is not clear if the statements are simply rhetorical. Still, they are a huge setback for international attempts to rein in North Korea's nuclear ambitions following its second nuclear test on May 25. It first tested a nuclear device in 2006.
In Saturday's statement, North Korea said it has been enriching uranium to provide fuel for its light-water reactor. It was the first public acknowledgment the North is running a uranium enrichment program in addition to its known plutonium-based program. The two radioactive materials are key ingredients in making atomic bombs.
On Sunday, Yonhap news agency reported South Korea and the U.S. have mobilized spy satellites, reconnaissance aircraft and human intelligence networks to obtain evidence that the North has been running a uranium enrichment program.
South Korea's Defense Ministry said it could not confirm the report. The National Intelligence Service - South Korea's main spy agency - was not available for comment.
North Korea said more than one-third of 8,000 spent fuel rods in its possession has been reprocessed and all the plutonium extracted would be used to make atomic bombs. The country could harvest 13-18 pounds (6-8 kilograms) of plutonium - enough to make at least one nuclear bomb - if all the rods are reprocessed.
In addition, North Korea is believed to have enough plutonium for at least half a dozen atomic bombs.
North Korea says its nuclear program is a deterrent against the U.S., which it routinely accuses of plotting to topple its regime. Washington, which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, has repeatedly said it has no such intention.
The new U.N. sanctions are aimed at depriving the North of the financing used to build its rogue nuclear program. The resolution also authorized searches of North Korean ships suspected of transporting illicit ballistic missile and nuclear materials.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the new U.N. penalties provide the necessary tools to help check North Korea's continued pursuit of nuclear weapons.
The sanctions show that "North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons and the capacity to deliver those weapons through missiles is not going to be accepted by the neighbors as well as the greater international community," Clinton said Saturday at a news conference in Canada. (source)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Gay rights groups expressed dismay with the Obama administration Friday over its championing of the Defense of Marriage Act, a law the president pledged to try to repeal while on the campaign trail.
The government filed a motion late Thursday to dismiss the case of Arthur Smelt and Christopher Hammer, who are challenging the 1996 federal act. The law prevents couples in states that recognize same-sex unions from securing Social Security spousal benefits, filing joint taxes and other federal rights of marriage.
U.S. Department of Justice lawyers argued that the act — known informally as DOMA — is constitutional and contended that awarding federal marriage benefits to gays would infringe on the rights of taxpayers in the 30 states that specifically prohibit same-sex marriages.
"The president made very explicit and emphatic campaign promises that he opposes DOMA and would provide leadership calling on Congress to repeal it," said Jennifer Pizer, marriage project director for Lambda Legal. "This brief is not consistent with that promise."
Justice spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said Friday that the department is abiding by its standard practice of defending existing law and that the filing doesn't mean Obama has changed his mind about wanting to see gay couples win federal recognition.
"Until Congress passes legislation repealing the law, the administration will continue to defend the statute when it is challenged in the justice system," Schmaler said.
More than four months into his first term, Obama has been under growing pressure from gay rights activists who supported his candidacy to move forward on repealing DOMA and the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that prevents gays from serving openly in the military.
Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights lobbying group based in Washington, called on Obama to reassure his supporters by sending Congress a bill to lift the federal marriage law.
"The Administration apparently determined that it had a duty to defend DOMA in the courts. The President has just as strong a duty to put his principles into action," Solmonese said in a statement.
In the papers, Justice Department lawyers said federal court was not the right venue to tackle legal questions raised by Hammer and Smelt, who got married in California last year during the five-month window in which the state sanctioned same-sex unions.
Lambda Legal's Pizer said the government's stance in some ways marks an improvement from Justice Department positions taken on the Defense of Marriage Act when George W. Bush was president.
The brief acknowledges that gay couples who tie the knot in the six states where same-sex marriages are permitted are legally married and does not cite the oft-used argument that children fare better in households headed by a married man and woman, Pizer said.
At the same time, it repeated several arguments made under Bush, including the argument that a union between a man and a woman is "the traditional, and universally recognized, version of marriage."
The Obama administration will have more opportunities in coming weeks to weigh in on the subject. Another challenge to DOMA brought on behalf of married couples in Massachusetts and a lawsuit seeking to overturn California's gay marriage ban under the U.S. Constitution are making their way through the courts. (source)
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Thousands of protesters clashed with police after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won an election which his reformist challenger called a "dangerous charade."
The protests were a rare direct challenge to Iranian authorities. The result and its violent aftermath raised fresh questions about the direction of Iranian policies at a time when U.S. President Barack Obama wants to improve relations with Iran.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told Iranians to respect Ahmadinejad's victory, which upset expectations that reformist candidate Mirhossein Mousavi might win the race.
Interior Minister Sadeq Mahsouli, an Ahmadinejad ally, declared the president had been re-elected with 62.6 percent of the vote, against 33.7 percent for Mousavi.
Mousavi complained of violations and vote-rigging -- allegations rejected by Interior Ministry officials.
"I'm warning I will not surrender to this dangerous charade. The result of such performance by some officials will jeopardize the pillars of the Islamic Republic and will establish tyranny," Mousavi said in a statement made available to Reuters.
After the result was announced, thousands of his supporters took to the streets, some chanting, "What happened to our vote?." Others shouted anti-Ahmadinejad slogans. "We are Iranians too," and "Mousavi is our president," they shouted.
Police beat protesters with batons as they spread out across the capital. Small fires burned at roadsides.
Though the protests were small compared to the mass demonstrations that led to the 1979 Islamic revolution, they were the most widespread in the city since then.
Khamenei, Iran's top authority, told defeated candidates and their supporters to avoid "provocative behavior."
"The chosen and respected president is the president of all the Iranian nation and everyone, including yesterday's competitors, must unanimously support and help him," Khamenei said in a statement read on state television.
Ahmadinejad, in a televised address to the nation, said the election had been "free and healthy."
Iranian and Western analysts said Ahmadinejad's re-election would disappoint Western powers aiming to convince Iran to halt a nuclear program they suspect is aimed at making bombs.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the United States was monitoring the outcome of the election closely and hoped the result reflected the will of the Iranian people.
On Friday night, before official results emerged, Mousavi had claimed to be the "definite winner." He said many people had been unable to vote and ballot papers were lacking.
Ahmadinejad draws most of his support from rural areas and poorer big city neighborhoods. Mousavi enjoys strong backing in wealthier urban centers, especially among women and the young.(source)
Just your average Zen Baptist, admitting upfront to being a (mostly) reconstructed hillbilly.
If you can't understand the attitude or perspective I come from, it's safe to say that we're from different realities.
If you can't start off the conversation with a respectful question about how/why I came to the particular perspective I did, and then find some way that you can relate to it, then I don't have any time to entertain your issues.
Give respect, get respect.
Hear Together: Roanoke Outside Foundation
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Joe Shields - Brooklyn Bridge
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Joe Shields - Brooklyn Bridge
Website - http://twoshacks.com.
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