News Archive - 5 April 2014

>"The meetings were useful, raised mutual insight into our differing positions," Iranian negotiator Hamid Baeedinejad told the official IRNA news agency at the end of the three-day talks in Vienna. "Everyone came well-prepared ... addressing issues in minute technical details can facilitate hard political decisions."He said the results would be...

>* Fears further tensions over former Soviet republics' allegiance* Future energy policy, trade links at stakeBy Justyna PawlakATHENS, April 5 (Reuters) - European Union foreign ministers tried to map out a new strategy towards Russia at talks in Athens on Saturday, pledging to keep a tough stance over its tensions...

Tehran, April 6 (IANS) A Pakistani fleet of warships docked in southern Iran is to hold a joint drill with the Iranian navy in the strategic strait of Hormuz, a senior Iranian commander said Saturday. The flotilla arrived Saturday in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas where it will...

F.H. Buckley’s new book “The Once and Future King: The Rise of Crown Government in America” (Encounter Books, available Tuesday) should resonate with readers who’ve ...

Foreign Policy magazine reports that “a person familiar with” John Kerry is disputing the relevance of a letter signed by the secretary of State 15 ...

Maryam Namazie: Why did you do the nude action in Egypt? Aliaa Magda Elmahdy: In Egypt, a woman is like a lifeless body, a corpse. This body is owned by other people. They think if she doesn’t follow the rules, it is okay to beat her, to harass her; it...

Two former top advisors to the Obama administration on Iran are calling for the White House and Congress to increase the threat of using military force against Tehran if talks aimed at curbing its nuclear program fail, or if Iran is caught cheating on the terms of an agreement.

IT is no more a secret that our government has decided to ‘help’ Saudi Arabia in the Syrian conflict. Also that Pakistan seems ready to support Saudi-backed regimes in the Middle East to counter Iran-backed Shia uprisings.

WASHINGTON: A Chinese man, an Iranian and two Iranian firms were charged in the United States with conspiring to export devices to Iran that can serve to enrich uranium, an indictment unsealed on Friday said.

President Barack Obama announced on Friday that he would strike down provisions of the federal “No Child Left Behind Act” as part of a “flexibility package” intended to give states more leeway in reforming education.

"When I shot these images, it was a dark time in Iran's history," says Newsha Tavakolian. "It was a time of extreme pressure on the public, especially on the youth, who were all struggling under the imposed restrictions." Curious about the isolated lives of the middle-class youth in Tehran,...

Tehran says certain negative remarks by some US lobbies about the ongoing nuclear talks are unproductive.

What makes Sheldon Adelson, a casino oligarch, so special as a political benefactor is his directness in stating what he wants in return, writes syndicated columnist

RUSSIA'S invasion of Ukraine has brought to the fore an important debate about what kind of world we live in.

World News Update, what you need to know        

Being successful in trading has a lot to do with finding the developing “story” behind the price structure of a market.

The society section of the Sunday, June 20, 1954, Springfield News-Sun described a simple, single-ring ceremony in the home of Flenner and Janet Mellinger on Fairfield Pike.

The interruption of the peace negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians this week happened when Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas — frustrated with the non-release of a last group of Palestinian prisoners by Israel — signed the accession papers asking that the state of Palestine be admitted to 15 UN...

José Padilha's heavy-handed remake of Paul Verhoeven's black-comic film quickly degenerates into a boring action pile-up Paul Verhoeven's black-comic gem from 1987 has been remade – which is to say, all the wit has been removed and it's been turned into a dumbed-down shoot-em-up frontloaded with elaborate but perfunctory new...

Iran's Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani has censured the European Parliament (EP) for a resolution against the Islamic Republic, saying the move shows that Europe has a wrong understanding of the human rights situation in the country.

STAFF REPORTS

Besides the misleading simplicity of Official Washington’s narrative on Ukraine, the ”good guy/bad guy” storyline ignores important lessons of world history and human nature, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar explains.

Mohammad Jenatian, president of the Greater Charlotte Hospitality & Tourism Alliance, has been making introductions in Charlotte for 20 years. He brought together former Charlotte Mayor Patrick Cannon and an FBI undercover agent.

Morning Express is a live news blog produced each weekday from 6am-9am, covering the latest headlines, weather and transport.        

Poet and leading member of banned cultural organisation run by Ahwazi Arab minority reported hanged after public confession International human rights activists have strongly condemned the execution of an Iranian poet who was a prominent member of a banned cultural organisation run by the country's Arab ethnic minority. Hashem Shaabani,...

ANKARA: Four Iranian border guards have been freed in Pakistan two months after being seized by Al-Qaeda-linked militants on the countries’ lawless frontier, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency reported.

As polls opened amid threats of violence and lingering memories of fraud, Afghan voters turned out on Saturday morning to choose a president who will lead them into the post-American era in Afghanistan.

Justin Trudeau doesn’t talk much about foreign policy, which is wise. But occasionally he can’t avoid it.

THE Philippine national team, better known as Gilas Pilipinas, starts its preparation for the 2014 FIBA World Cup when it battles PBA All-Stars Sunday at 5 p.m. at the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City. Multi-titled coach Tim Cone, who will call the shots for the PBA selection,...

Though Hillary Clinton demurred Thursday about any chance she'll run for president in 2016, she seemed every bit the candidate during an evening appearance.

John Kerry's high-stakes gamble that he could finally achieve the dream of generations and bring peace to the Middle East seems to be collapsing as easily as a house of cards. Despite a dozen visits to Israel and the West Bank since he became US secretary of state 14 months...

Though Hillary Clinton demurred Thursday about any chance she'll run for president in 2016, she seemed every bit the candidate during an evening appearance.

From Editor Robert Parry: Since our founding in 1995, Consortiumnews.com has provided our readers with truly independent journalism – and we have relied on donations from our readers to do so. We’ve never had some billionaire “oligarch” paying our bills and pulling our strings.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- World powers and Iran will start drafting a final nuclear agreement next month, a U.S. official said Friday in a surprisingly optimistic assessment that expressed hope that a comprehensive pact could be reached in July.

Secretary of State John F. Kerry signaled Friday that he may scale back his intense effort to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace in view of the two sides’ “unhelpful actions” in recent days.

Finding that program funded by USAid could be damaging to groups working to increase access to technology, say analysts The revelation that a US government-funded program set up a cellphone-based social network in Cuba is likely to pose new challenges for independent bloggers and exile groups that work to increase...

Nuclear talks between technical experts from Iran and world powers prepare for third round of talks next week on lasting deal. How serious is Iran about long-term nuclear deal?

The West pressured Iran on Wednesday to tackle suspicions that I may have begun designing an atomic bomb.        

Boeing Co, the world's biggest airplane maker, and engine maker General Electric Co said on Friday they had received licenses from the U.S. Treasury Department to export certain spare parts for commercial aircraft to Iran under a temporary sanctions relief deal that began in January.

signed on 24 November 2013, by the U.S., Russia, China, France, Britain, Germany and Iran, which provides for an easing of sanctions on Tehran in exchange for a freeze on uranium enrichment and a greater UN control of the nuclear sites.

Chinese national faces charges in US of supplying US-made pressure transducers to Iran        

Iran and the P5+1 group started the third and final day of expert-level talks on Tehran’s nuclear energy program in the Austrian capital of Vienna.

Altoona — Postmaster Dale Sikes said dogs running loose in violation of city ordinance endangered letter carriers.

TEHRAN, April 5 (Bernama) - Austrian President Heinz Fischer has accepted an invitation to visit Iran in what will be the first visit by a western head of state in many years.