News Archive - 30 July 2012

[Video] Gahar Zargos – Perspolis Tehran Gahar Zargos 1 – 1 Perspolis Tehran (W3) 16′ [0-1] Karim Ansarifard 81′ [1-1] Mojtaba Zarei Match Highlights First Half Second Half...

>* Ahmadinejad denies fraudsters linked to top officials* Four condemned to hang, others get jail, flogging (Adds context, further details)By Yeganeh TorbatiDUBAI, July 30 (Reuters) - An Iranian court has sentenced four people to death for a billion-dollar bank fraud that tainted the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, state media...

>* Says U.S. will not tolerate Iran developing nuclear armsBy Phil StewartTUNIS, July 30 (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Monday Western sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme were working even if the impact on decision-making in Tehran was not obvious at the moment.

>ANKARA, July 30 (Reuters) - Iran is expected to try to revive demand for its oil in Turkey, its biggest European customer, this week when, according to Turkish energy ministry officials, its oil minister is to meet with Turkish officials in Ankara.Iranian oil minister Rostam Qasemi is expected to...

>The failure of the talks to secure a breakthrough over Tehran's uranium enrichment, which the West fears is aimed at developing nuclear weapons, has raised international concerns that Israel may carry out a military strike."I can't say it with certainty but if everything proceeds normally then there should be...

GDANSK, Poland (AP) — On Romney's three country tour he's has the Mayor of London using his name as a rallying cry, the leaders in Palestine calling him a 'racist' and the ruling party of Poland distancing itself from him for his anti-union and anti-labor stances.

How is Mitt Romney's summer vacation going? Fine, except for frequent pauses to remove foot from mouth.

The threat of a war with Israel coincides with a failure by Syrian rebels to make serious gains on the ground. Australian journalist Antoun Issa reports from Beirut. Read more on the blog... Read more on the blog...

The news from Syria has become steadily more troubling and there are apprehensions of full-scale strife centred on the major city of Aleppo, the countryâs largest and its commercial centre. Both g .....

LAHORE: The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet, which is meeting in Islamabad on Tuesday (today), will also consider besides others the proposal regarding fixation of petroleum products’ prices on weekly basis instead of fortnightly basis, said Advisor to Prime Minister on Petroleum and Natural Resources, Dr Asim Hussain.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates While Irans military loudly trumpets every new project or purported advance in hopes of rattling the U.S. and its Gulf Arab allies, the U.S. is quietly answering with an array of proposed arms sales across the region as part of a wider effort to...

The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Spice Girls, Beyonce ... and Lin Dan. Wembley Arena has rocked out to them all.

House and Senate negotiators reached an agreement Monday night on a new round of sanctions against Iran, cracking down on energy, shipping and insurance sectors.

AT last somebody in an official position has said something. United Nations human rights chief Navi Pillay has called for an independent investigation into claims that Burmese security forces are systematically targeting the Rohingyas, a Muslim minority community living in the Arakan region.

US presidential hopeful Mitt Romney may be big with the Salt Lake City crowd but he’s clearly out of his depth away from his rah-rah followers. Tall, tanned and suited with the kind of finesse only money can buy, he certainly looks the part.

In a Monday interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer , Israeli Minister of Defense Ehud Barak praised President Barack Obama for doing “more than anything that I can remember in the past" in regards to Israeli security.

House and Senate negotiators reached agreement Monday on a new round of stifling sanctions on Iran, targeting energy, shipping and insurance sectors with punitive measures to derail Tehran's s…

The United States warned the world was sliding backwards on religious freedoms Monday, slamming China for cracking down on Tibetan Buddhists and hitting out at Pakistan and Afghanistan.

One of the effects of international sanctions on Iran has been to drive up prices in the country's domestic poultry industry. For a nation which loves its chicken, the situation has caused quite a flutter

Mitt Romney outraged Palestinians on Monday, telling Jewish donors that their culture is part of what has allowed them to be more economically successful than the Palestinians.

House and Senate negotiators pushed to finish a new round of stifling sanctions on Iran, targeting energy, shipping and insurance sectors with punitive measures to derail Tehran's suspected push for nuclear weapons. Lawmakers hoped to unveil a final bill late Monday, with a House vote as early as Wednesday. Congress ...

By Adam C. Smith, Times Political Editor Monday, July 30, 2012 As sure as the TV ads start blitzing the I-4 corridor every presidential election, so does the chatter that Democrats have a Jewish voter problem that could deliver Florida to the GOP. "The Jewish vote definitely is moving toward...

Romney meets Lech Walesa, visits Gdansk shipyard. 31 Jul 2012 10:00 AM

Great Britain face-off with Argentina just latest in long line of wars shifting to the sports arena.

An IRANIAN court has sentenced four people to death for a $2.6 billion-dollar bank fraud, described as the biggest financial scam in the country’s history, which has tainted the government of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

It’s amazing how quickly dreams of glory can change hands in the world of combative sport, and that is doubly true when it comes to the world of freestyle wrestling. To display any kind of consistency in the sport is to be known as a dedicated student with many teachers,...

WASHINGTON, July 30, 2012 / Christian Newswire / -- In response to the release of the State Department's annual International Religious Freedom Report , Rep. Chris Smith (NJ-04) expressed concern about the administration's failure to prioritize religious freedom in the face of extreme abuse, as well as its refusal to...

JERUSALEM - Mitt Romney on his trip to Israel has backed Tel Aviv's stance on Iran attaining nuclear capability with one of his aides hinting that the Republican US presidential hopeful would even "respect" a unilateral military action against the Islamic republic to thwart its ambitious atomic programme.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Mitt Romney outraged Palestinians on Monday, telling Jewish donors that their culture is part of what has allowed them to be more economically successful than the Palestinians. That fresh controversy on his visit to Israel came just days after insulting the British on...

VIENNA - Facing tough US and Western sanction over its suspected military atomic programme, Iran is hopeful that the stalled nuclear talks with world powers will resume soon, after similar round of negotiations in the past failed to achieve any breakthrough.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Religious freedom in Egypt appears to be "quite tenuous" and its government has failed to aggressively prosecute perpetrators of sectarian violence, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Monday.

Congressional aides say the rival party leaders on Capitol Hill are likely to soon announce an agreement that would avert any chance of a government shutdown this fall in advance of the elections.

North Korea face the United States in an Olympic women's soccer match on Tuesday that will pit the hermit state against the global superpower it has loathed since they fought a Cold War conflict six decades ago.

The Labor Department says federal contractors do not have to warn their employees about potential layoffs from across-the-board budget cuts Jan. 2.

>Iranian politicians and officials have often said that Iran could block the strait - the neck of the Gulf through which 40 percent of the world's seaborne oil exports passes - in response to sanctions or military action.Such a move would risk a military response from the United States...

On Monday, United Against Nuclear Iran called on the Warwick New York Hotel, and its new General Manager G. Paul LeBlanc, to not host Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Iranain del

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta acknowledged Monday that increasingly stiff international sanctions have yet to compel Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions. But he argued that more pressure eventually would lead Iran to "do what's right."

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — An Iranian court has sentenced four people to death and given two more life... - 2:32 pm

by Sebastian Rotella This story was co-published with Foreign Policy . After a decade in which al Qaeda dominated the world stage, the global terror threat from Iran has escalated sharply, generating a swarm of recent plots from Delhi to Mombasa to Washington and signaling an aggressive new strategy, counterterror officials...

By The Associated Press The cigar gave him away.

It's NASA's most ambitious and expensive Mars mission yet - and it begins with the red planet arrival late Sunday of the smartest interplanetary rover ever built. Also the most athletic.

Around 200,000 civilians have fled fighting in Syria’s most populous city Aleppo and many more were trapped, the UN said as a fierce government offensive against rebels entered a second day.

U.S. Defense Secretary stresses need for continued economic and diplomatic pressure on Tehran; Panetta due to arrive in Israel on Wednesday.

Four-time Olympian Venus Williams walked off Wimbledon's cozy Court 2 gleefully waving her fist as fans chanted, "U-S-A! U-S-A!"

On one of the highest points of London, surrounded by serene ponds and historical architecture, is a real estate alcove for wealthy, and often secretive, Russian buyers.

House and Senate negotiators are wrapping up a bill to impose a new round of sanctions on Iran, targeting shipping lines and adding other punitive measures to derail Tehran's suspected push for nuclear weapons.

TUNIS, Tunisia—U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta acknowledged Monday that increasingly stiff international sanctions have yet to compel Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions.

By The Associated Press Peter Waterfield says the dive that doomed Britain's chances of gold in the 10-meter platform was essentially his fault.

The Israel leg of Mitt Romney's trip abroad went much better than the London leg, and while he didn't offer much foreign policy details, we did learn something about how Romney sees the world. Romney gave a speech in Jerusalem and then held multiple fundraisers, one including mega-donor Sheldon Adelson.

LONDON: Gold medal favourite Zhang Jike scotched suggestions that new regulations would challenge China's dominance of the Olympic table tennis tournament on Monday with an emphatic opening win.

Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi says regional stability, security and development will serve the interests of all countries and people in the region.

Mitt Romney’s remarks at a fund-raiser suggesting cultural differences accounted for disparities between the per capita incomes of Israel and the Palestinians, have drawn criticism.

JERUSALEM -- An Israeli newspaper reported Sunday that the Obama administration's top security official has briefed Israel on U.S. plans for a possible attack on Iran, seeking to reassure it that Washington is prepared to act militarily should diplomacy and sanctions fail to pressure Tehran to abandon its nuclear...

One piece of conventional wisdom that's been taking shape for a while now is that there's not much…

Mitt Romney got in and out of Israel with what he’d hoped for: No gaffes, no real headlines — nothing so substantial as to risk a clear view of the image he had traveled halfway around the world to produce: footage of a U.S. presidential candidate and Israel’s Prime...

Gold medal favourite Zhang Jike scotched suggestions that new regulations would challenge China's dominance of the Olympic table tennis tournament on Monday with an emphatic opening win.

Two Indonesians accused of aggravated people smuggling face up to five years if convicted.

The dueling assertions of progress in Syria’s commercial capital came a day after the United Nations humanitarian chief said that almost of a tenth of its residents had fled over two days of fighting.

A United Nations human rights expert began a weeklong visit to Myanmar on Monday by focusing on deadly strife between Buddhists and Muslim Rohingya that shook a western area in June.

Today's news: Gabby Douglas, Ryan Lochte, and John Orozco are some of the big Olympic names. Obama in NYC, Romney in Israel. And possible leaked iPhone photos.

Indian police have concluded that members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards carried out an attack on an Israeli diplomat in New Delhi in February.

* Investors focus on central banks' meeting in US and Europe * Market seeks concrete plans from ECB after Draghi comments * Brent on track for biggest monthly gain since Feb * Coming Up: Germany July unemployment ...

The British bank has set aside $2 billion against fines, settlements and other expenses related to money-laundering accusations in the United States and claims against the inappropriate selling of financial products in Britain.

HSBC on Monday said its first-half profit fell after Europe's biggest bank took a $2.0 billion-hit to cover penalties from a money-laundering scandal in the United States and insurance mis-selling claims. ...

JERUSALEM (AP) — Mitt Romney told Jewish donors Monday that their culture is part of what has allowed them to be more economically successful than the Palestinians, outraging Palestinian leaders who called his comments racist and out of touch.

Republicans have been trying to use Israel to pick off one of the Democrats’ most loyal constituencies for years

White House hopeful Mitt Romney was to hold talks with Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk and the anti-communist icon Lech Walesa on Monday, as he makes his first venture beyond the old iron curtain.

A spokeswoman for a Northern California amusement park says a dozen people were stuck on a roller coaster for almost two hours after it stalled 150 feet in the air.

Having publicly pledged a “solemn duty and moral imperative” to protect Israel, Mitt Romney told Jewish donors Monday that their culture is part of what has allowed them to be more economically successful than the nearby Palestinians.

Today is the 212th day of 2012. There are 154 days left in the year. 1990: On his fourth day being held hostage, Prime Minister Arthur NR Robinson of Trinidad offers to resign, call elections and grant his captors amnesty.

I hate to burst your bubble, but if you believe that American Jews are going to vote for you in large numbers because they perceive you as more committed to Israel and more respectful of its current prime minister, you’re dead wrong.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -

The sky turns black before a heavy rain shower as Germany's Hannes Aigner competes in the heats of the K-1 men's canoe slalom at Lee Valley Whitewater Center, at the 2012 Summer Olympics, Sunday, July 29, 2012, in London.

The sky turns black before a heavy rain shower as Germany's Hannes Aigner competes in the heats of the K-1 men's canoe slalom at Lee Valley Whitewater Center, at the 2012 Summer Olympics, Sunday, July 29, 2012, in London.

>* President acknowledges Iran faces "difficult conditions"DUBAI, July 30 (Reuters) - Iran should wean itself off sales of its vast oil resources to power its economy, the country's clerical supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said, as its crude exports become increasingly hampered by Western sanctions.Revenues from crude oil sales...