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MEAN STREETS MEDIA
Saturday, April 25, 2015
Friday, April 24, 2015
Iranian ship convoy turned back from Yemen
A convoy of Iranian ships in the Arabian Sea, believed to be carrying arms to Houthi rebels in Yemen are moving away from that country, a U.S. military official said on Friday.
The official, speaking anonymously, calls this a "promising sign" adding that the Pentagon will continue to watch the ships carefully.
The White House has said it has seen evidence that the Iranian regime supplied arms to the Houthis in Yemen.
The Pentagon has deployed a number of U.S. warships to Yemeni waters to ensure that key Gulf shipping channels stay open.
Senior U.S. defense officials said the incident occurred sometime after Monday, when U.S. warships capable of intercepting the Iranian ships arrived in the Arabian Sea.
The action could also have been undertaken by the navies of Saudi Arabia, Egypt or the United Arab Emirates, who are also patrolling the area, NBC News reported Thursday.
A U.N. Security Council resolution, earlier this week, approved an arms embargo of Yemen
Gunmen Kill Chinese Businessman in Bolivia
LA PAZ – A Chinese man was gunned down outside his restaurant in the eastern Bolivian city of Santa Cruz over the weekend, media reports said Monday.
Luping Lin, who owned a chicken restaurant in Santa Cruz, was murdered on Saturday, the El Deber newspaper reported on its Web site.
The 47-year-old Luping was shot by two suspected gunmen, who also wounded a passerby before fleeing on a motorcycle.
A gang had been trying to extort money from the businessman, whose son was kidnapped and later released by the criminal organization, El Deber said.
Santa Cruz, Bolivia’s most populous city, has the highest crime rate in the country, official figures show.
Russia and Argentina Sign Several Cooperation Agreements
MOSCOW – Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Argentinean counterpart Cristina Fernandez convened on Thursday to sign ten cooperation agreements, including a plan of strategic partnership, during their official meeting in the Kremlin.
One of the agreements signed was a memorandum of understanding, or MOU, between Russian gas company Gazprom and Argentinian oil company YPF, which was signed by their respective officials, Alexei Miller and Miguel Galuccio.
Another agreement for the development of the Neuquen province 637-megawatt Chihuido I hydroelectric dam for a total of 1.84 billion euros (nearly $2 billion), was also signed.
Similarly, an MOU to build a nuclear plant in the South American country was signed by Russian Rosatom agency representative Sergei Kiriienko and Argentinian Planning Minister Julio de Vido.
Also during the Russia and Argentina meeting, respective foreign ministers Sergey Lavrov and Hector Timerman signed a comprehensive strategic partnership plan, while defense ministers Sergei Shoigu and Agustin Rossi signed an agreement on military cooperation.
In the end, Putin and Fernandez personally signed a joint declaration for the establishment of the comprehensive strategic partnership between the two countries.
Thursday, April 23, 2015
Argentine Jewish Community Denies Nisman Links to Hedge Funds
BUENOS AIRES – The top Argentine Jewish association, known as DAIA, on Monday denied that there was any relationship linking the Jewish community with deceased prosecutor Alberto Nisman and hedge funds involved in a U.S. court case in response to accusations made on the weekend by President Cristina Fernandez.
“It’s part of a campaign that is not coincidental, it’s part of ‘lie, lie and something will stick,’” said DAIA vice president Waldo Wolff on Monday in remarks to Mitre radio.
Wolff called the article published on the weekend by the government daily Pagina 12 “nonsense,” an article that Fernandez mentioned on Sunday in a text published on her Web page.
Fernandez claimed online that Nisman offered Argentina’s Jewish community assistance from U.S. tycoon Paul Singer, owner of the NML Capital Limited hedge fund, in its effort to prevent Argentina from implementing a memorandum with Iran over an attack on the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association, AMIA, in Buenos Aires in 1994.
Singer is one of those behind the lawsuit to collect on Argentina’s debt, in arrears since 2001, which obtained a favorable ruling in New York courts.
“It’s based on an article by a former employee who today is employed by this government and is telling lies. Lies that are impossible to prove ... because it’s impossible to prove something that one did not do,” Wolff answered on Monday.
The DAIA VP said that Jewish organizations appealed the memo through “constitutional channels,” adding that “if that bothers someone and if that transforms us into international conspirators, it seems to me that Argentina is (moving backwards).”
“Never has a president grasped onto an article of doubtful origin ... We don’t have to give a response; regrettably we’re the victims,” he added.
Fernandez had linked Nisman to the hedge funds trial Argentina faces in U.S. courts, and has raised the specter of a global political operation interfering in Argentina’s affairs.
The president cited paragraphs from the article which reports meetings in 2013 between Nisman, then the special prosecutor investigating the AMIA attack, and leaders of the Jewish community, in which they planned to stall the memorandum.
“If necessary, Paul Singer would be willing to help,” Nisman said in one those meetings, according to the article’s author, Jorge Elbaum, a former DAIA director.
Fernandez accused AMIA and DAIA leaders, along with Nisman, of taking judicial recourse to prevent the application of the memorandum by attempting to have it ruled unconstitutional.
“We are against a global modus operandi that not only damages sovereign nations, interfering and coercing different branches of government, but is also behind several kinds of international political operations,” Fernandez said.
Nisman was found dead of a bullet to the head on Jan. 18, four days after he charged Fernandez with covering up Iran’s involvement in the 1994 terrorist attack on the AMIA Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires which claimed 85 lives.
Nisman’s charges against Fernandez and several of her alleged collaborators have been dismissed by two judicial authorities for lack of evidence, though the prosecutor in charge of the case has yet to make a final decision on the matter.
Mexican Authorities Recover Stolen Radioactive Material
MEXICO CITY – A container of highly radioactive material stolen last week in the southeastern state of Tabasco was recovered intact and unopened Wednesday, Mexican authorities said.
The industrial X-ray machine containing iridium-192 was found abandoned beneath a highway overpass about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from where it was stolen, the state government said.
“In the interest of everyone’s peace of mind, I inform you that the stolen capsule of iridium-192 has been recovered,” Tabasco Gov. Arturo Nuñez said on Twitter.
The capsule was not tampered with, according to the state government.
Experts from Mexico’s CNSNS nuclear safety commission were on hand to verify “the identity and safety status of the radioactive source,” the Nuñez administration said in a statement.
The radioactive material was inside a truck stolen on April 13.
Authorities immediately issued an alert for Tabasco and the neighboring states of Campeche, Chiapas, Oaxaca and Veracruz, warning that even brief exposure to the iridium-192 could cause serious harm.
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