News Archive - 19 August 2012

1st Half   2nd Half

>* IEA, Japan, South Korea question need to release reserves* North Sea supply shortfall may ease after maintenance ends* Winter demand, low product inventories to support pricesBy Ramya VenugopalSINGAPORE, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Brent crude futures inched up on Monday to more than $114 a barrel after the United States...

>HANOI (Reuters) - Farmer Le Dung and his fellow villagers stockpiled rocks and petrol bombs to battle police trying to take over their land for a luxury property development near Vietnam's capital city. But their most powerful weapon turned out to be the equipment they had set up with the...

>Iran, penalized by tough Western sanctions, faces the threat of an Israeli or U.S. military strike on its disputed nuclear facilities. With popular uprisings reshaping the region, the Islamic Republic is also trying to prevent the overthrow of its closest Arab ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad."You want a...

>ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Prosecutors in Turkey are investigating an impromptu roadside meeting at which pro-Kurdish MPs smiled and embraced separatist militants in the southeast of the country, an act which drew strong criticism from senior political leaders on Sunday. The incident happened on Friday when Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels...

>Afghanistan's spy agency, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), killed two alleged insurgents and detained three more this week for what they said was their involvement in the bombings this week in Afghanistan's Nimroz province.The NDS said the five were Iranian citizens, and that they had trained for suicide...

New York, Aug 15 2012 - The members of the Security Council strongly condemned the attack that killed a United Nations peacekeeper and injured another while they were protecting civilians in Nyala, South Darfur.

New York, Aug 15 2012 - The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) carried out the first in a series of airdrops to replenish rapidly diminishing food stocks for more than 100,000 families in South Sudan who have fled fighting in Sudan.

With signs of a world economic slump mounting, external pressures from the Euro crisis and the inherent internal contradictions of the U.S. economic model threaten to rot the American Empire from the inside out.

What's on

Media groups including the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, Philippine Press Institute, Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster sa Pilipinas, Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism and ABS-CBN and GMA7 networks marked the 1000th day since the Ampatuan Massacre on Sunday, August 19, with a vigil at the Bantayog ng mga...

Domestic demand for gasoline in Iran was driving growth in the energy sector for the year. OPEC, in its latest report, said retail gasoline consumption in Iran was up more than 20 percent for the first five months of the year, though overall oil demand was relatively flat.

Pyongyang, August 18 (KCNA) -- The dear respected Kim Jong Un received congratulatory messages and letters from different countries upon receiving the title of DPRK Marshal.

Israel’s deployment of an Iron Dome anti-missile battery in Eilat Sunday, Aug. 19, came five days after two Grad missiles were launched against its southernmost town. They exploded harmlessly.

>VOLKSWAGENVolkswagen labour representatives would not back any further acquisitions by the carmaker, especially of Malaysian firm Proton, the works council chief told a German newspaper.Related newsDEUTSCHE BANKU.S. prosecutors are investigating Deutsche Bank and several other global banks over business linked to Iran, Sudan and other nations currently under...

Muslims in China celebrated the end of Ramadan, the month of fasting, yesterday. Thousands of people crowded the Niujie Mosque in Beijing's Muslim quarter for Eid ul-Fitr, or the Fast-Breaking Festiv .....

TA-25 index of blue chips finishes 0.6% higher to a closing of 1,106.47 while the TA-100 adds 0.5% to 986.52.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard yesterday defended her decision to send asylum-seekers arriving by boat to Pacific islands, saying it was a “tough” policy but could save lives.

Author Hamid Zaher announces the release of his new memoirNORTH YORK, Ontario (PRWEB) August 20, 2012 In his memoir “It Is Your Enemy Who Is Dock-Tailed: A Memoir” (published by iUniverse), now released in an English translation, Hamid Zaher takes readers into his home country of Afghanistan, sharing the hardships...

Supervising News Editor Ed Payne -- 404-827-1401 UPCOMING China-Gu-Kailai-Verdict (will update) A Chinese court on Monday found Gu Kailai, the wife of a disgraced Communist Party leader, guilty of murder in the death of a British businessman last year, a family source said. Gu was sentenced to death, though that...

The jobs-and-economy election suddenly seems all about Medicare _ for now, at least.

Persepolis has suffered a shocking defeat from Damash in the fifth week of Iran's Premier League, one week ahead of Tehran derby, as its archrival Esteqlal tied with Malavan 1-1.

With an array of crack shooters around him, naturalized Marcus Douthit likes his role better now than before.

In 1967, after a two-year absence from painting and at the age of 54, one of America's leading abstract expressionists, Philip Guston, shocked the art world and disgusted his fans by an abrupt return to figuration.

Iranian politics snarls a man's bid to learn his partner's native tongue

With the Non-Aligned Movement meeting this week in Tehran, Veterans For Peace is urging the organization of 120 nations not formally allied with any major power bloc to take steps to deter the Israeli-American threats of war against Iran over its nuclear enrichment program.

A drastic change in the public’s perception of cosmetic surgery over the past 10 years has created a huge demand among Thai consumers, who contribute most of the 20 billion baht (US$634 million) in income that surgery clinics enjoy each year.

>Daniel Pirron, 57, was found dead of a gunshot to the head on August 13 after a passerby noticed the body in a Fairfield, Connecticut parking lot, a Fairfield Police spokeswoman said Sunday. A .38-caliber handgun, found near his body, was registered to Pirron.Pirron worked as an accountant in...

Dear UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, In a matter of days, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit will take place in Tehran, where Iran will assume the rotating, three-year presidency of the group. Iran attaches great importance to your presence. Indeed, the regime has already announced your participation. That should...

CAIRO, Aug 18 (Reuters) Egypt's Islamist President Mohamed Mursi will visit Iran to attend the Non-Aligned Movement meetings on August 30, Egyptian state news agency MENA said, the first such visit by an Egyptian head of state to Tehran since the Islamic revolution.

BRUSSELS, Aug 18 (Reuters) The EU foreign policy chief said today that comments by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who called Israel a 'cancerous tumour' with no place in a future West Asia, were 'outrageous and hateful'.

IRAN DEALT the Energen Pilipinas their first loss in the ongoing FIBA Asia Under-18 Championships, 72-93, in their final preliminary round game yesterday in UlaanBaatar, Mongolia.

India plans to enter into a long-term contract with Kuwait to source crude as part of its strategy to diversify imports amid growing international pressure on Iran.... |

به گزارش خدمت؛ آیت‌الله سیداحمد خاتمی امام‌جمعه موقت تهران و منتخب مردم کرمان، در پنجمین دوره مجلس خبرگان رهبری، درباره فرقه ضاله بهائیت و دیدار یک چهره سیاسی با اعضای این فرقه، گفت: در حقیقت بهائیت یک دین نیست، بلکه یک حزب جاسوسی است. همواره دنیای استکبار از این فرقه...

New Delhi, Aug. 19: India plans to enter into a long-term contract with Kuwait to source crude as part of its strategy to diversify imports amid growing international pressure on Iran.

The cost of insuring Israeli government bonds against default - credit default swaps, better known by their initials, CDS - has soared 22% in the past week as the markets grow increasingly nervous about veiled Israeli threatS to attack Iran.

"Israel’s existence is threatened” by Iran’s nuclear weapons program, Avi Dichter said upon taking over as Israel's home front defense minister.

The Israeli president has spoken out against any possible attack on Iran, saying the prospect of a unilateral attack on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear energy facilities keeps him awake at night.

Israel's opposition leader says any unilateral attack by his country on Iran would not stop nuclear arms.

The United States and Israel have different interpretations of the same intelligence reports on Iran's nuclear programme, the US military's top general said.

Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky said the fear of a war with Iran has caused Jews in the Diaspora to delay their aliyah plans. Click here for the rest of the article...

As in so many international disputes, the key to the resolution of the Julian Assange asylum case is the United States.

'Blown Covers: New Yorker Covers You Were Never Meant to See' allows art director Francoise Mouly to show some of the works she most treasures. Long known for being genteel and charmingly indifferent to headline news, the New Yorker in recent years has earned a reputation of skewering political and...

U.S. prosecutors are investigating Deutsche Bank and several other global banks over business linked to Iran, Sudan and other nations currently under international sanctions, a report says.

South Dakota police say a 14-year-old boy who was driving drunk has been arrested, along with his father, who sat intoxicated in the passenger seat.

The department of financial services in the State of New York has drawn blood. In a rather sharply-worded publicly-issued show cause notice, the agency declared that Standard Chartered Bank had left the United States “vulnerable to terrorists, weapons dealers, drug kingpins and corrupt regimes” by adopting “willful and egregious violations...

For one family, an exotic summer getaway means living on Mars.

A rocket carrying an Intelsat satellite has successfully lifted off from the oceangoing Sea Launch platform on the equator.

Laws written long before the dawn of the Internet age have authorities across the nation struggling to prosecute online prostitution rings because of huge loopholes and defense lawyers' claims that the websites are...

As the oil price touched 3-month highs last week, Moscow's stock markets were noticeable in their lukewarm response, highlighting an unprecedented breakdown in the symbiotic relationship between commodity prices and Russian equities.

LAGOS: It was the year the world became acquainted with Barack Obama, when "tweet" was labelled a buzzword by Time magazine -- and when legislation was introduced to overhaul Africa's biggest oil industry.

In the face of Western and Arab helplessness, Iran may become the country that will solve the Syria crisis.

Mexico's federal police have replaced all 348 officers assigned to security details at the Mexico City International Airport in the wake of the June 25 shooting deaths of three federal policemen killed by fellow officers...

President Barack Obama has attended a worship service at a historic church steps away from the White House.

In his latest Viewpoints note, he responded to people's concerns about an escalating Iran-Israel conflict and how it might cause oil prices to rise. O'Neill is pretty sanguine on the matter.

Nearly one year ago, the son of a Flint couple was arrested in Iran. Since then family and friends have been fighting for the safe release of Amir Hekmati.

Minnesota authorities say a lightning strike on a Lake Superior beach injured eight people, including a 9-year-old Wisconsin boy who later died.

As the stigma fades, cosmetic surgery becomes Bt20-billion business

A group of former U.S. military and intelligence officers, including retired Navy SEALs, appear in a 22-minute documentary that was released on Wednesday asserting that the Obama administration has leaked considerable classified intelligence about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden for political gain.

Fire officials say that a wildfire in California is threatening small communities in the far northern part of the state.

For decades after Hafez al-Assad came to power in 1970 Syria's political and economic system seemed to guarantee the country's stability and independence.

Why US Energy Independence is seriously bad news for American global status...

The Israeli narrative of launching an attack on Iran's nuclear plants has been so overpoweringly hyped up and taken for granted by Israeli media that one achieves certitude that such an attack will happen and that Iran will sit idly in the manner of a befuddled, thunderstruck and petrified nation.

Somalia has a new parliament in place that has enough members to hold a vote for president on Monday.

Bulgaria can find the perpetrator of the July 18 Burgas terrorist attack only if it relies on its own resources, argues former CIA agent Robert Baer. Baer, who worked for the CIA 1976-97 concentrating on the Middle East, stated that Bulgaria should not rely too much on the US or...

Inside the community center for this slum where children shiver in the winter chill, dozens of kids in a cardboard plane are dreaming of flying away. Their pilot is 9-year-old Benjamin Ortega, who tips his hat and calls for...

A top Israeli immigration official says tensions with Iran are causing some Jews to postpone plans to move to Israel.

How much noise does Israel's leadership have to make to get the Obama administration to say what it wants to hear about Iran? And how much noise is too much and risks precipitating a crisis between Jerusalem and its closest ally?

New York financial regulator Benjamin Lawsky is earning both praise and criticism for getting a record $340 million settlement from a major British bank accused of money-laundering for Iran.

Bajaj Auto is one auto company that consistently turns in a high profit on every rupee of sales it makes, no matter whether input costs rise or competition escalates. Its operating profit margins have stayed put at 19-20 per cent over the past many quarters.

Nabigo ang Energen Pilipinas na makuha ang unang puwesto sa Group D nang lasapin ang 72-93 pagkatalo sa Iran sa pagta­tapos kahapon ng 22nd FIBA Asia U-18 Championship group elimination sa Buyant-Ukhaa Arena sa Ulan Bator, Mongolia.

I have noticed before that seeing a memorial to the Jews within the context of being with non-Jews, has given me an increasing sense of humanity as opposed to any exclusive importance to the Jewish experience of my own. It was so in Auschwitz where I went with my...

Jerusalem (dpa) - Israeli President Shimon Peres has spoken out against the idea of a unilateral attack on Iranian nuclear sites, telling the country‘s biggest-selling daily that the prospect keeps him awake at night."I can‘t sleep from sheer worry about what could happen if there would be a unilateral...

WASHINGTON [MENL] -- The U.S. intelligence community envisions an attack by Iran. Officials and congressional sources said the 16-member intelligence community has warned of the prospect that Teheran would strike the United States in wake of any attempt to harm Iran's nuclear infrastructure.

The old apple farmer sits upright on his lounge, photographs of the Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, and his father, Hafez, proudly displayed on the wall behind him. His daughter quietly fusses to one side, leaning two large Syrian flags against the wall.

Al Jazeera showcases Eid al-Fitr, a religious holiday that marks the end of Ramadan, Islam's holiest month.

The new U.N. special envoy to Syria admitted on Sunday that he faces a difficult job trying to broker peace in Syria and said his first task is overcoming divisions within the Security Council that stymied the efforts of his predecessor.

Time was running out for Julian Assange. If the WikiLeaks frontman was going to make a move it would be soon.

August 19, 2012: Iran denied accusations that it is supplying the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) with weapons.

Natan Sharansky reports last-minute cancellations by dozens of would-be immigrants.

The Energen U18 team struggled against a much taller Irianian contingent, absorbing its first loss in three outings, 93-72, at the 2012 FIBA Asia U18 Championship in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

ALREADY assured of a place in the next round, the Energen Pilipinas five absorbed a 93-72 loss to powerhouse Iran yesterday in the 22nd Fiba Asia Under-18 Championship at Buyant-Ukhaa Arena in Mongolia.

Spies from Britain and Germany are providing rebels in Syria with intelligence about the movements of Syrian troops, Iran's state-run Press TV reported Sunday.

Speaking to foreign dignitaries in Tehran, IRNA news agency cites Ali Khamenei as urging Muslim world to resist control by 'hegemonic powers.'

Julian Assange was back in the news on Thursday because, after nearly two months of holding out in Ecuador's London embassy to avoid being extradited to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning, he has been granted "political asylum" by the Ecuadorean government. The decision has set off a diplomatic...

AS Muslims in Malaysia celebrate Hari Raya Aidilfitri today, marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, spare a thought for Muslims elsewhere who are not as fortunate as us.

BioBox

MANILA, Philippines — Was the rice shipment smuggled or deposited?  That is the question being asked by concerned citizens surrounding the 420,000 sacks of rice worth about Php 450 million impounded by customs authorities at the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA). National Food Authority (NFA) Chief Lito Banayo says...

A man has been found dead in his tent at V Festival in Staffordshire.

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (Reuters) - A flurry of drone attacks pounded northern Pakistan at the weekend, killing 13 people in three separate attacks, officials and witnesses said on Sunday. Related Stories Iran rejects allegation of role in deadly Afghan bombings Two northeast Indians dead after being thrown from moving train -...

MANILA, Philippines — BILIBID OR NOT: ONLY IN PHL:  VIP inmates in Muntinlupa are given furlough… and kidnapped for ransom. After the horse has bolted, lock the barn:  security is now so tight that Secretary of Justice Leila de Lima was given the pat down when she inspected Muntinlupa.

At 1:32 a.m. officers reported a male at McDonalds on Route 1 North wearing a diaper. Officers reported he stated he belongs to a club of people with a diaper fetish who like to wear diapers in public. The male had his genitalia and buttocks covered. Officers had the...

HYSTERICAL rants from those in Iran about the destruction of Israel and the US are common and the West has to stop ignoring them.

One of Standard Chartered PLC's (STAN.LN) key U.K. investors has questioned the bank's decision to pay a $340 million fine for suspect Iranian dollar trades, despite insisting that the claims against it were flawed, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

Iran's reaction to any threat and aggression of Israel against its territory will be very swift and crushing, according to IRNA news agency.