TEHRAN ( Iran starts implementing nuclear deal )

TEHRAN: Iran halted its most sensitive uranium enrichment work on Monday as part of a landmark deal struck with world powers, easing concerns over the country’s nuclear program and clearing the way for a partial lifting of sanctions, Tehran and the UN said.
An Iranian state TV broadcast said authorities halted enrichment of uranium to 20 percent, just steps away from bomb-making materials, by disconnecting the cascades of centrifuges enriching uranium in Natanz.


“Production of 20 percent enriched uranium has been halted by cutting the links feeding cascades in this facility,” it said. A report by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear agency, confirmed that the centrifuges were disconnected.
The broadcast said international inspectors were present Monday when Iran began implementing its obligations under the historic deal reached in Geneva Nov. 24. They left to monitor the suspension at Fordo, another uranium enrichment site in central Iran.
The official IRNA news agency said Iran also started Monday to convert part of its stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium to oxide to produce nuclear fuel.
The landmark measures ease Western fears over Iran’s contested nuclear program, and are expected to lead to the lifting of some sanctions in return. Senior officials in US President Barack Obama’s administration have put the total relief figure at some $7 billion of an estimated $100 billion in Iranian assets in foreign banks. Iran is to receive the first $550 million installment of $4.2 billion of its assets blocked overseas on Feb. 1.
In Brussels, foreign ministers from the 28 European Union members, gathered for one of their periodic consultations, were poised to suspend some sanctions for six months if UN inspectors report that Iran’s uranium enrichment efforts have halted.
The ministers will hear a report from EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who chaired the Geneva negotiations that led to the agreement with Tehran. Miroslav Lajcak, the Slovak foreign minister, told reporters as the meeting opened that “we are moving in a good direction. That means we are ready to lift sanctions.”
Under the historic deal, Iran agreed to halt its 20 percent enrichment program but will continue enrichment up to 5 percent. It also agreed to convert half of its stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium to oxide and dilute the remaining half to 5 percent over a period of six months.
In addition to the enrichment measures, the six-month interim deal also commits Iran to opening its nuclear program to greater UN inspections and providing more details on its nuclear activities and facilities. Iran will also refrain from commissioning its under-construction 40 megawatt heavy water reactor in Arak, central Iran.
In return, it receives a halt to new sanctions and easing of existing sanctions. Measures targeting petrochemical products, gold and other precious metals, the auto industry, passenger plane parts and services will be lifted immediately.
The Geneva deal allows Iran to continue exporting crude oil in its current level, which is reported to be about 1 million barrels a day.
Iran’s hard-liners have called the deal a “poisoned chalice,” highlighting the difficult task President Hasan Rouhani faces in selling the accord to skeptics.
Hard-line media denounced the planned halt. The Vatan-e-Emrooz daily printed in black Monday instead of its usual colors, a sign of sorrow and mourning. It declared the deal a “nuclear holocaust” and called it a gift to Israel’s Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu.
“Today, Netanyahu is the happiest person in the world,” it said. However, the Israeli prime minister has made the opposite argument as the hard-liners: He says the deal gives Iran too much for too few concessions.
The interim Geneva accord will last for six months as Iran and the world powers negotiate a final deal. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told reporters Saturday that Tehran is ready to enter talks for a permanent accord as soon as the interim deal goes into force.
The USand some of its allies fear that Iran may finally be able to build an atomic weapon. Iran has denied the charges, saying its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes such as electricity and producing medical isotopes to treat cancer patients.

Hong Kong ( Thousands rally for Indonesian maid ill-treated in Hong Kong ) Video

Yemen ( Yemen Army kills " pregnant woman and her daughters " )

ADEN: Army shelling killed a pregnant woman and her daughters, three and five, in the same Yemeni town where a bombardment killed 19 mourners last month, medics said on Saturday.
The girls’ father, Yassin Said, was seriously wounded when the shell slammed into their home in Daleh, 300 km south of the capital, on Friday evening, the medics added.


 The town, where support runs deep for renewed independence for the formerly independent south, has seen repeated violence between the army and secessionists since the deadly Dec. 27 bombardment of a funeral for one of their number killed in a clash with troops.
Earlier Friday, two soldiers and two activists of the Southern Movement were killed in the town.
Southern Movement activist Abderrahim Al-Naqib said the army had shelled residential areas and a hospital in the town.
Human Rights Watch called on the Yemeni government on Thursday to publish the results of its inquiry into last month’s deadly shelling.
The army said it had targeted militants but witnesses said the shelling hit a schoolyard where some 30 children were among around 150 mourners gathered for the funeral. After British colonial rule ended in 1967, southern Yemen was independent until union with the north in 1990

Pakistan ( Taliban claimed responsibility " For attack on TV station " killing 3 employee's )

KARACHI: The Pakistani Taleban claimed responsibility on Saturday for a deadly attack on a private television channel in the southern city of Karachi and threatened further violence against media outlets.
A spokesman said in a statement that militants had attacked an Express News van on Friday night, killing three employees, because the station had acted as a “propagandist.”
“We claim the responsibility... The reason of the attack is that in the war of ideologies all media channels including Express News are acting as propagandist and as rival party” Ehsanullah Ehsan said.
“We will attack all the media houses that are involved in carrying out propaganda against us” he said.
A technician, driver and security guard were killed when gunmen attacked a van belonging to the paper in the western part of the port city late Friday.

Saudi Arabia ( Six women have drowned in a pond in Ramah )

There was an outpouring of grief and sorrow on the social media over the deaths of six women, aged between 18 and 25, from a single family as they drowned in a pond in Ramah, 112km northeast of Riyadh on Saturday.
Civil Defense officers recovered four bodies and are looking for the remaining two, a department spokesman said.


 Preliminary information showed that one of the six women fell in the pond while picnicking in Ramah valley and her five sisters succumbed to death while trying to rescue her. The six were cousins and daughters of two brothers.
Hearing the shocking news, one of the two fathers collapsed and was taken to hospital. The bodies have been kept in the hospital’s morgue.
Maj. Muhammad Al-Hammadi of Riyadh Civil Defense said the department dispatched a team of rescuers and divers to the scene soon after receiving news of the mishap. “Unfortunately, when our team reached the site we came to know all the six women had died,” he added.
Al-Hammadi expressed deep sorrow over the death of the six women and urged the public to be cautious about their safety and keep away from flooded valleys.
Maj. Gen. Jameel Arbaeen, director of Makkah Civil Defense, also called on parents to keep a close watch on children while picnicking in flooded areas.
“I plead to my brothers and sisters to be vigilant and watch their children when outdoors. When you go for a picnic, choose safe places and keep away from stagnant water pools and flooded valleys,” he said.
He added: “We should not risk our lives by swimming in these places. No matter how beautiful these water pools are and no matter how skillful or capable a person is, the beds of these pools have shifting sand where even a good swimmer can be trapped and die, let alone children and those who cannot swim.”
The general said: “You have to follow safety instructions and Civil Defense’s messages.”
Last year the Civil Defense recovered bodies of 45 people drowned in flood waters across the Kingdom

Uganda ( Ugandan officials have previously denied that their troops were in Sudan )

Ugandan officials have previously denied that their troops have joined the fight, saying their forces were deployed in South Sudan mainly to aid civilian evacuations.

The involvement of a foreign army in South Sudan's conflict could escalate a crisis set off by a power struggle between President Salva Kiir and Riek Machar, the fugitive former deputy president who commands rebel forces.

It comes a day after Uganda's president, Yoweri Museveni, admitted for the first time to helping his South Sudanese counterpart fend off the rebellion.

Uganda's troop involvement in combat in South Sudan could raise concerns that other regional countries could be sucked into the conflict, fighting their own proxy wars as has happened elsewhere on the continent, such as Congo.

 

A spokesman for the prime minister of Ethiopia, where peace talks are taking place, said earlier this month having Ugandan troops engaged in combat would be "absolutely unwarranted".

"Only the other day, Jan. 13, the SPLA and elements of our army had a big battle with these rebel troops at a point about 90km from Juba," Museveni said. 

"We inflicted a big defeat on them. Unfortunately, many lives were lost on the side of the rebels. We also took casualties and also had some dead."

Kuol Manyang, South Sudan's defence minister, said the Ugandan forces in his country numbered "a battalion", and that they were there to help quell the rebellion by Machar

- See more at: http://www.sudan.net/completenews.php?nsid=4888&cid=1#sthash.y3lnQDmY.dpuf

SUDAN ( South Sudan Rebels Claim Recapture of Malakal )

South Sudan former rebel army soldiers patrol in the streets of Malakal, the capital of the biggest oil producing state in the Upper Nile, on January 12, 2014. South Sudan Rebels Claim Recapture of Malakal
VOA -  January 14

Lucy Poni

Last updated on: January 14, 2014 2:14 PM

Rebel forces loyal to former South Sudanese Vice President Riek Machar recaptured the town of Malakal Tuesday, a spokesman for Machar announced to delegates at talks aimed at ending the violence in the world's newest nation.

 

“I have just received confirmation from our field commander that the SPLM/SPLA forces under the direct command of Major-General Gathoth Gathkuoth have recaptured the strategic town of Malakal, the capital of oil-rich Upper Nile state," Brigadier-General Lul Ruai Koang, Machar's military spokesman, said.  

"Our forces are still pursuing Salva Kiir’s forces,” Ruai said in Addis Ababa, where the two sides in the month-old conflict are holding peace talks.

Fighting has been raging in and around Malakal since Sunday. Ruai said government troops were likely among some 200 people who drowned when a crowded boat sank as it carried people fleeing the fighting across the White Nile River.

“Government forces were chased, some towards Akoka. Our forces are still pursuing them. Some of them crossed the river. So the people who are said to have drowned in the river, I am sure some of them are government forces,” he said.

Ruai said the general in charge of government troops in Malakal, Johnson Gony Beliu, abandoned his soldiers and fled to Juba with Upper Nile state Governor Simon Kun Pouch.

 

It was impossible to confirm Ruai's claims with independent sources or with the army.

 

Rebels vow to keep oil flowing

The capital of Upper Nile state, which produces the bulk of South Sudan's oil, has already changed hands twice since South Sudan was engulfed in unrest last month when an attack by renegade soldiers on an army headquarters in Juba  quickly spread around the country.

Heavy fighting was reported in Malakal on Tuesday morning as the rebel forces launched a final assault on government positions.

Ruai said that recapturing Malakal has given the rebels control of South Sudan’s oil,  which could give them a better bargaining tool at the peace talks in Addis Ababa.

 

But that was not the reason they launched their offensive on the strategic town, he said.

“We are not doing this so as to strengthen our position at the negotiations.  We are doing this because we have been attacked several times,” he said.

Ruai said the rebel forces will ensure that oil production continues in Upper Nile, which produces around 85 percent of South Sudan's oil, the backbone of the young country's economy.

Before a disagreement with Khartoum led to a production shutdown in January 2012, South Sudan produced half a million barrels of crude a day, accounting for 98 percent of government revenues and about 80 percent of gross domestic product, according to the Revenue Watch Institute.

Reports that Malakal was again in the hands of rebel forces came days after government troops snatched control of  Bentiu, the capital of oil-producing Unity state, from Machar loyalists.

The two sides are also fighting for control of Bor,  the capital of Jonglei state, which government forces vowed last week to recapture from rebels, who took control of the town early on in the conflict.

The United Nations says well in excess of a thousand people have been killed and hundreds of thousands have been displaced in four weeks of violence in South Sudan.

- See more at: http://www.sudan.net/completenews.php?nsid=4885&cid=1#sthash.cUb21nA5.dpuf