Ukraine battles persist before cease-fire deadline; 25 dead

Fierce fighting surged Feb. 13 in eastern Ukraine as Russian-backed separatists mounted a major, sustained offensive to capture a strategic railway hub ahead of a weekend cease-fire deadline. At least 25 people were killed across the region, officials reported.

Egypt: Al Jazeera journalists released on bail ( Video )

Students of Tehran University Protested against the Prison-Like Situation

HRANA News Agency – Students of Tehran University attended a rally at students’ accommodation calling on the officials to address their demands.

According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency in Iran (HRANA), last Saturday, on 8th of February 2015, a large number of students at Tehran University dormitory gathered in protest against rising costs and reducing capacity of the accommodation, the time limitation of hours of silence at night for students, inappropriate Internet services, increasing the price of guests in dormitories and inappropriate behavior of dormitory’s security agents with students.

The gathering started with 50 students at 8 pm in the main square of the dormitory, and students asked for officials’ presence among them.

However, after doctor Hamzehloo, general director of the Tehran University dormitories, attended, when it was associated with an increase in the students’ population, the protests got more serious.

Because of lack of clear accountability by doctor Hamzehloo, students demanded the “Student Affairs” deputy to be present among them.

After some times, doctor Behnejad, presented among the protesters, when they were about 400, and students began to express their complaints, but doctor Behnejad did not give convincing answer and also his tone was disputed by students.

Then students got more fervent and stated that they want to meet the President of the Tehran University at the dormitory.

At this time, students began a demonstration on the campus to get the other classmates with them and invite others to join the rally.

Students’ rally got bigger up to 700-800 with students slogans such as “free education is our inalienable right”, “additional fees should be abolished”, “Our problem is our union problem, lawlessness should be ended”, “zealous student support”, “university president must be summoned” and finally, they gathered again in the main square of the university dormitory and announced that they won’t leave unless the President of the University would attend the gathering.

Finally, it was announced that doctor Khezri president and general manager of public relations field and Plenipotentiary Representative of doctor Neely, president of the university, will be in the gathering in a few minutes, the students sat in the same square and started writing their demands to obtain, at least, a written guarantee from the representative of the President of the University to pursue their demands.

Doctor Khezri attended the crowd and accepted the shortcomings and promised to follow the students’ demands, and a statement was read among the crowd which contained important topics including students’ demands for extradition additional costs especially upper pears students, canceling the time of silence and prohibition of traffic from 11 pm to 6 am, repeal the law allows security forces to enter the students’ rooms, preventing security guards of the dormitory to treat the students in an inappropriate manner,  improving dormitory’s Internet, stopping disciplinary action against the students at the rally, etc.

Then, this written statement was presented to doctor Khezri and he signed that statement promising to pursue the case and guaranteed to give a report in a week.

Finally, students stated that they give one week time to deal with their demands, and announced that on 14th February they will gather again to hear the officials’ explanations and then they ended their rally.

Iran news in biref, 12 February 2015

Kuwait court upholds death penalty on cop who raped Filipino maid

KUWAIT CITY: Kuwait’s appeals court on Wednesday upheld the death sentence of a policeman for “abducting, raping and attempting to murder” a Filipino woman.



The lower court condemned the policeman, identified only by the initials Y.M, to death last June. He can still challenge the ruling before the supreme court.
The policeman had arrested the woman after finding that her residence permit had expired, according to the court papers.
He took her to a deserted area where he stabbed her in the neck and raped her after she refused to have sex with him.
The policeman left her for dead in a pool of blood, but returned and stabbed her several more times when she moved.
The Filipino survived and crawled to a nearby road where a passerby took her to hospital.
About 180,000 Filipinos, many of them women employed as domestic helpers, work and live in oil-rich Kuwait, making up the fourth largest foreign community in the Gulf emirate.

Sen. Ted Cruz: Iranian regime is the ‘gravest threat’

The threat posed by Iran acquiring nuclear weapons, is the “gravest threat” facing the United States, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz said on Wednesday.

The Republican Senator from Texas warned “We are repeating the mistakes of the 1990s with regard to North Korea… but here the dangers are qualitatively greater.”

What makes Iran more dangerous is that their country, which is led by Khamenei and the mullahs, are not rational actors, explained Cruz.

“If Iran acquires a nuclear weapon, the odds are unacceptably high that they will use that weapon,” he added.

Even If Iran doesn’t use their nuclear weapon, “the inevitable result will be nuclear proliferation throughout the Middle East,” he concluded.

Meanwhile Sen. Marco Rubio accused President Obama of pushing for a deal on Iran's nuclear weapons to cement his own legacy back home.

"I think driving a lot of this is domestic politics — the ability to say at the end of his term that he was the one that got this deal done, that it was an achievement and that a future president was the one that lost that achievement," Rubio said in an interview Tuesday on Fox News's "Kelly File."

"There's no doubt that is part of the checklist as they look to build the legacy. Unfortunately, I think it leaves this country in a very dangerous position and our strongest ally in the Middle East, Israel, in an even more dangerous position," he added.

"He thinks that if he can get a deal that delays it by five years, that's a good thing," Rubio said on Fox. "I think that the Iranians believe that Barack Obama and John Kerry are desperate for a deal, and I think that they sense it."

New York Cop Charged with Manslaughter in Fatal Shooting

NEW YORK – New York Police Department rookie patrolman Peter Liang was arraigned Wednesday for the fatal shooting of an unarmed African-American man.

Liang, 27, appeared in a Brooklyn courtroom to listen to the charges, which include manslaughter – carrying a maximum sentence of 15 years – and official misconduct.

He was released without bail after entering a plea of not guilty.

Akai Gurley, 28, was killed Nov. 20 while leaving the Louis Pink Houses, a public housing complex in Brooklyn.

Liang and another rookie officer were in the stairwell when Gurley and his girlfriend, a building resident, entered on their way down to the lobby.

Both officers were using flashlights, as the lights in the stairwell were burned out, and Liang also had his gun drawn.

Liang accidentally shot Gurley at a distance of about 10 feet (3 meters), the NYPD said at the time.

Authorities announced Tuesday that a Brooklyn grand jury had voted to indict the officer.

Gurley’s death came four months after another African-American man, Eric Garner, died after a white NYPD officer applied a chokehold while trying to arrest him for allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes.

The 43-year-old Garner, who was asthmatic, died of asphyxiation. The medical examiner classified the July 17 death as a homicide and said the chokehold was a factor.

Even so, a grand jury in the New York borough of Staten Island declined to charge the officer.

The Staten Island decision was announced 11 days after a St. Louis County grand jury declined to indict white police officer Darren Wilson for the Aug. 9 fatal shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.