No US embassy in Iran for now, says Barack Obama

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama said Washington was not ready to open an embassy in Iran due to differences over nuclear policy, a position that contrasts with his new approach to Cuba.

"I never say never, but I think these things have to go in steps," Obama said in an interview with National Public Radio that aired Monday, regarding re-opening the long-shuttered US mission in Tehran.

Iran: Pressure continues on political prisoner Ali Moezi

NCRI – The authorities in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison continue to pressure and threaten political prisoner Ali Moezi.

Critically ill Ali Moezi, 63, a former prisoner of the 80’s, arrested in 2008 for visiting his two daughters in Camp Ashraf and spent 2 years in prison.

Mr Moezi was arrested once again in June 2011 for attending the funeral of a political prisoner supporter of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) who had died in prison due to being denied access to medical care.

The authorities have told Ali Moezi that they intend to bring new bogus charges against him to prevent his release after the end of his sentence period.

On numerous occasions, agents of Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) have told Mr. Moezi: “We will torture you to death in prison and you should not get out of prison alive.”

Mr. Moezi has refused to attend the regime’s courts that he considers unjust and all the past sentences have been issued without him being present.

Iranian Resistance repeatedly has called on human right organizations, particularly the UN High Commissioner for Human Right to take urgent measures to save Mr. Moezi.

UPDATE : U.S Doctor released from prison in East Timor

PORTLAND, Ore. -- It was the end of a nightmare.

A Portland woman, imprisoned in Timor Leste for months, is finally free, just in time for the holidays.

The simple snapshot, captured Christmas day outside the prison walls, is a declaration of freedom, one Bernadette Kero worried she would never see.

"My first reaction was to cry. Yeah, I couldn't believe it, I just was sobbing," she said via phone from her home in Klamath Falls.

It's been two months since Kero's daughter, Portland veterinarian Stacey Addison, was arrested and imprisoned in Timor Leste.

A painful journey has been documented on the Facebook page, "Help Stacey".

Her crime? Getting into a shared cab where another passenger was allegedly transporting meth.

It was an innocent mistake, but in this small, impoverished east Asian country, it was more than enough to place Addison's fate into question.

"When I read the story on Stacey, I thought how easily that could have been me," said Mary Wald.

Wald is president and founder of The Community, a group that works to solve international human rights disputes.

She said, based upon her experience, Addison is very lucky.

"I mean, I know a woman who ended up in jail in Singapore for losing her temper in an airport when they wouldn't let her on the plane," she said. "There are just some things you don't do in Asia."

Wald help bring Addison's story to the attention of Jose Ramos-Horta.

Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize winner and former president of Timor Leste, Ramos-Horta was instrumental in negotiating Addison's release.

Now he and other policy makers are rejoicing, including Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley, who called Addison's release "great Christmas news".

For Kero, that's putting it lightly.

"This is just, you know, the best Christmas present I could have had, other than her actually getting her passport and getting on the plane. This was second best," she said.

Addison is staying at the home of Ramos-Horta, but her ordeal is not finished. Her passport has not been returned.

You can share a petition to help make that happen and learn more by heading to the Facebook page.

ISIS claims killing of Iranian military adviser in Iraq

Monday, 29 December 2014

ISIS has claimed the killing of a senior Iranian officer advising Iraqi forces in their fight against the jihadists, in posts on jihadist Internet forums on Monday.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on Sunday announced the death of Brigadier General Hamid Taghavi, who had been training the army and Iraqi volunteers in the city of Samarra, north of Baghdad.

One jihadist forum posted an image of the officer standing next to three others, with a red circle around his head and the caption: “A photo of the miscreant Hamid Taghavi who was killed by the men of ISIS in the region of Samarra.”

Another image on the forum purportedly showed the body of the Iranian officer. 

ISIS has not said how Taghavi died, but his funeral was held in Tehran on Monday in the presence of several senior officials.

“If people like the martyr Taghavi were not engaged in Syria and Iraq against the terrorists, the enemy would surely look to create insecurity in our country,” Supreme National Security Council secretary Ali Shamkhani told mourners, the official Fars news agency reported. 

Shiite Iran has sent military advisers to Iraq to help train and equip troops and allied militias in their counter-offensive against ISIS, which seized large areas of the country in a lightning June assault.

It has also armed Kurdish forces in northern Iraq and Iranian media have reported the deaths of several military personnel in both Iraq and Syria this year.

Iranian Defense Minister General Hossein Dehgan on Monday underscored his country’s support for Iraq, during talks in Tehran with his Iraqi counterpart Khaled al-Obeidi.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran’s support for the army and military forces of Iraq is a strategic policy,” he said, according to the official IRNA news agency.

Tehran is “ready to develop military cooperation with Iraq in order to boost its defensive capacity,” he added.

IRNA said Obeidi also insisted on the “strategic” cooperation between the two neighbors and urged Iran to step up its assistance to Baghdad to fight “terrorism and corruption.”

Iran did not join a U.S.-led coalition conducting air strikes against IS positions in Iraq and neighboring Syria.

Samarra, 110 kilometers (70 miles) north of Baghdad, is a mainly Sunni city but also home to the Askari shrine, one of the holiest sites in Shiite Islam.

Several Iranian officials, including President Hassan Rouhani, have declared the preservation of Iraqi Shiite sites a “red line.”

Last Update: Monday, 29 December 2014 KSA 19:30 - GMT 16:30

RAW Video: Palestinian stabs 2 Israeli policemen in Jerusalem

"Palestinian" How to stab someone video ???

Senator Graham: U.S. Senate will vote on Iran sanction bill next month

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham who is expected to take over as chairman of the Foreign Appropriations Subcommittee when the Republicans take control of the Senate in January, said that the Senate will vote on an Iran sanctions bill next month.

Graham said on Saturday in a press conference in Jerusalem: “In January of next year, there will be a vote on the Kirk-Menendez bill, bipartisan sanction legislation that says, if Iran walks away from the table, sanctions will be reimposed. If Iran cheats regarding any deal that we enter to the Iranians, sanctions will be reimposed.”

U.S. sanctions currently in place target energy and banking sectors in Iran, as well as any trade that might benefit its nuclear enterprise.

“The last time the international community tried to control a rogue regime’s nuclear ambitions, it resulted in a nuclear armed North Korea. What started as a small enrichment capability to be monitored by the United Nations, resulted in multiple nuclear weapons being procured by one of the most dangerous regimes in the world — North Korea.”

Senator Graham said he fears that “if a deal was done between the P5+1 that allows an enrichment capability to be given to the Ayatollahs in Iran, that we will suffer the same fate.”

In an interview with CNN aired on Sunday he said: “I would like to end the nuclear ambitions of the Iranians peacefully, but the deal needs to be looked at and approved by Congress. They have been trying to develop a nuclear weapon, not a peaceful nuclear power program. And of all of the things that could throw the world into more chaos than exists today, it would be a bad deal regarding the Iranian nuclear ambitions.”