by admin | May 25, 2021 | Muslim World
Baghdad : Iraq’s Foreign Ministry has said it was “astonished” by a report that Iran had moved ballistic missiles to armed groups in Iraq.
The Ministry confirmed on Sunday that all Iraqi state institutions were committed to the Constitution that states that its territory should not be used as a base or passage for any operation targeting the security of any other state, Xinhua news agency reported.
The western media reported earlier that Iran had given ballistic missiles to allied Shiite militias in Iraq and was developing the capacity to build more there.
The Ministry’s statement came a day after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called up Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.
According to a statement by Abadi’s office, Pompeo renewed his country’s support for a strong, stable and prosperous Iraq in accordance with the Strategic Framework Agreement which was signed (in 2008) by the two countries.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Corporate, Corporate Governance, Economy, Interviews, Large Enterprise, News, Politics
By Vishav and Manish Gupta,
New Delhi : India is fully prepared to deal with any fallout of the US sanctions on Iran and has made necessary provisions for every possible scenario, says a top government adviser.
However, he said, it was better to wait till the actual events happen and react quickly to them, rather than pre-commit to a certain sequence of actions.
Sanjeev Sanyal, the Finance Ministry’s Principal Economic Adviser, told IANS in an interview that while the economy was gathering pace, there were several external factors which were a concern — including the US-China trade war, tightening of US monetary policy and rising oil prices, apart from the trade sanctions on Iran.
“We have already weighed our options… various scenarios have been thought about and in each one, certain series of sequences have been planned. Provisions have somewhat been made where necessary. In many cases, you just have to do it when it happens. The key is to react fast.
“So rather than predispose ourselves to a particular line of response, what we can do is have a whole bunch of options and then as things evolve, we know which option to take. The point is to maintain optionality rather than pre-commit to a certain sequence,” Sanyal said.
Last month, the Trump administration reimposed the first batch of Iran sanctions since Washington withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal, with sanctions on oil sales coming into force from November.
Sanctions against Iran are not the only external factor which is a concern for the Indian economy. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, in his first address after resuming office after a long absence due to his kidney transplant, had also said that the challenges to the Indian economy were mainly from external factors such as rising oil prices and the US-China trade war.
Sanyal agreed and said: “There is the trade war looming. We have oil prices which we need to look out for. And the US is tightening its monetary policy. These are not new concerns; they have been building up for some weeks now, if not months. But these are concerns that will have an impact on us.”
He said while the impact of these events is “non-quantifiable”, the best option for India is to “watch carefully what happens, how systems evolve and to respond quickly to protect national interests”.
“The point is that since we don’t know how the trade war and many of these things will pan out, or oil prices for that matter, so we will have to wait,” Sanyal said.
On domestic concerns, the economist said while all evidence showed that the economy was gathering pace, it was important to maintain that momentum. He said the government’s focus was to clean up the banking system, ensure credit flow to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and simplify the GST.
(Vishav and Manish can be contacted at vishav@ians.in and manish.g@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Muslim World
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
Tehran : Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday warned that Iran will quit the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal if the interests of his country are not secured.
Iran and six world powers, namely China, Germany, France, Russia, the UK, and the US had struck a landmark agreement over Iran’s nuclear programme in 2015, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Xinhua news agency reported.
However, US President Donald Trump decided to withdraw from the deal on May 8 and reimposed sanctions, including an oil embargo, on Iran.
“If we come to the conclusion that JCPOA cannot serve the national interests, we will leave it,” Khamenei said during a meeting with President Hassan Rouhani and his administration.
Through his official website, the Iranian leader also expressed dismay over the EU, saying the Islamic republic “pins no hope on Europeans over JCPOA and economic issues”.
Iran has incessantly urged Europe to take “practical and tangible measures” to protect Iranian interests since the US pullout.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Networking, Online Marketing, Social Media, Technology, World
San Francisco : After suspending 284 accounts originating in Iran and Russia, Twitter on Tuesday announced it has cracked down on additional 486 such accounts that were designed to mislead people in the Middle East, Latin America, Britain and the US.
“Since our initial suspensions last week, we have continued our investigation, further building our understanding of these networks.
“In addition, we have suspended an additional 486 accounts for violating the policies outlined last week. This brings the total to 770,” Twitter said in a statement.
Fewer than 100 of the 770 suspended accounts claimed to be located in the US and many of these were sharing divisive social commentary.
“On average, these 100 Tweeted 867 times, were followed by 1,268 accounts, and were less than a year old,” said Twitter Safety in a tweet.
Last week, Facebook and Twitter removed hundreds of accounts that were originated in Iran and Russia.
Facebook removed 652 pages, groups and accounts for “coordinated inauthentic behaviour”.
Facebook acted on these accounts after FireEye, a global cybersecurity firm, gave it information in July about “Liberty Front Press”, a network of Facebook Pages as well as accounts on other online services.
Based on FireEye’s tip, Facebook started an investigation into “Liberty Front Press” and identified additional accounts and Pages from their network.
“We are able to link this network to Iranian state media through publicly available website registration information, as well as the use of related IP addresses and Facebook Pages sharing the same admins,” Facebook informed.
Twitter suspended more than 70 million fake accounts in May and June in a massive drive to clear out bots and trolls on the platform.
Facebook recently deleted 32 Pages and accounts attempting to influence the US mid-term elections.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Interviews, Muslim World
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif
Tehran : The US is addicted to applying sanctions on Iran, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told CNN in an exclusive interview.
“I believe there is a disease in the US and that is the addiction to sanctions,” he told CNN on Sunday from Tehran.
“Even during the (former President Barack) Obama administration, the US put more emphasis on keeping the sanctions it had not lifted rather than implementing its obligation on the sanctions it lifted.”
The interview is the first Zarif, the key architect of the complex nuclear deal between Iran and the West, gave to Western media since some of the US sanctions against Tehran were renewed last week.
The US-educated minister gave the interview in English on the 65th anniversary of a Washington-backed coup that overthrew democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh.
Zarif retained a clear belief during the hour-long interview that the nuclear deal could be revived regardless of President Donald Trump’s administration’s denunciation of it.
In May, Trump withdrew from the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and intended to limit Iran’s nuclear ambitions in exchange for sanctions relief, calling it a “horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made”.
The first wave of sanctions that were to “snap back” under the administration’s move hit the import of car parts and precious metals on August 6.
Zarif expressed his dismay that the US has not learned that sanctions were ineffective in changing the political climate in Iran.
“We felt that the US had learned that at least as far as Iran is concerned, sanctions do produce economic hardship but do not produce the political outcomes that they intended them to produce, and I thought that the Americans had learned that lesson. Unfortunately I was wrong,” the Minister told CNN.
He said that the same ’50s thinking embodied the current US approach.
“I think the US administration still believes that it is working with the government it installed in Iran after the 1953 coup,” he said, adding “As they say, they have to wake up and smell the coffee.”
For much of the interview, Zarif appeared to dismiss the possibility of future talks with the Trump administration and maintain the hope the deal can be revived.
“We do not want to revisit that nuclear deal… We want the US to implement that nuclear deal. Today the closest US allies are resisting those sanctions. The US basically arm-twisting — its attempt to put pressure. I don’t want to use the term bullying … (but) that’s what it amounts to.”
Additional sanctions are due to hit Tehran in November against the Iranian oil industry, which accounts for a fifth of the country’s GDP.
—IANS
