MOSCOW - U.S Flexing muscle in the South China Sea

MOSCOW, October 27. /TASS/. Guided missile destroyer USS Lassen’s arrival in the South China Sea is another show of muscle by the "world policeman" and Washington’s clear message to its allies in the Asia-Pacific Region the "big brother" is ready to take care of their interests, polled experts have told TASS. The ship’s visit to the region was timed for US President Barack Obama’s forthcoming visit to the Philippines and Malaysia.

The USS Lassen on Monday started patrolling the 12-mile zone of artificial islands China has built in the South China Sea, the Pentagon said. Maritime reconnaissance planes P-8A and P3 will escort the destroyer. Washington earlier said it would frustrate Beijing’s attempts to declare the area around the artificial islands as its territorial waters. The Chinese foreign minister on Tuesday cautioned the United States against taking reckless steps and creating incidents out of nowhere. In turn, Tokyo said the Japanese government was in tight coordination with the US Administration in connection with the latter’s decision to dispatch the USS Lassen to the South China Sea.

© AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, File

Chinese vice FM summons US ambassador over USS Lassen’s passage near disputed islands

Earlier, Beijing declared it would soon be through with earthmoving work at several reefs of the Spratly (Nansha) Archipelago. Some countries in the region, including Vietnam and the Philippines, have been asserting their own sovereignty over these territories. Also, they criticize China for pushing ahead with construction work, which, in their opinion, pursues the aim of creating military infrastructures there.

The deputy chairman of the international affairs committee of Russia’s Federation Council (upper house of parliament), Andrei Klimov, likened the USS Lassen’s visit to the South China Sea to "playing with fire." "Russia objects in principle to any display of military initiatives in areas of high tensions, in particular, without consent from the specific country these initiatives are addressed to. This by no means helps ease the tensions, but sends them to new highs," Klimov told TASS.

"US sabre rattling near the borders of China - a permanent member of the UN Security Council - is likely to draw questions from another UN SC member, Russia. Nobody should feel free to make voyages there without an invitation," Klimov said.

The deputy director of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of US and Canada Studies, Viktor Kremenyuk, is somewhat ironic about the White House’s demarche. "A destroyer is not an aircraft carrier. The Pentagon might have dispatched to China’s shores some of its torpedo boats or a fishing ship just as easily. The issue isn’t worth a dime. It is not in the United States’ interests to foment the risk of an armed confrontation with its largest trading and economic partner. A war with China? Such a scenario is absolutely ruled out, in particular, in the wake of the Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s successful visit to Washington in September and the multi-billion contract signed," Kremenyuk told TASS.

He believes that by sending the USS Lassen to the 12-mile zone around the disputed islands Washington demonstrates support for its allies in the Asia-Pacific Region. "Washington makes it pretty clear to its allies in the Asia-Pacific Region that the White House is by no means flirting with China for the sake of beneficial cooperation and that it remains a firm safeguard of their interests. The US 7th Fleet, based in the Pacific and Indian oceans, will remain a guarantee of that," Kremenyuk said.

"Surely, China is not going to suspend its reclamation work at the controversial islands, whether some may like it or not. Beijing will thereby demonstrate its firmness and independent position. The United States is perfectly aware of that. There is no way of forcing Beijing to backtrack without triggering an internal political crisis in China, accusations against Xi he has surrendered to Washington and an upsurge in anti-American sentiment. The White House is by no means interested in all that," he said.

"The United States is deliberately pouring fuel onto the conflict in the South China Sea in accordance with the old-time crisis management theory. Washington is provoking China into a certain response. It would like to see in what way China might react. In the end the United States and China will sooner or later come to terms to defuse the crisis. After all, they will surely not dare put at risk a plethora of their trading and economic interests. That’s how the complex modern world is arranged. Rationalism prevails," Kremenyuk stated.

And the head of the Centre for International Security under the Russian Academy of Sciences, Aleksei Arbatov, believes that the US naval ship’s visit to the South China Sea is a warning gesture addressed to Beijing, expected to dissuade it from declaring a 12-mile zone around the artificial islands as a zone closed to free shipping.

"But a gesture will remain a gesture, as long as the ships' guns stay quiet. There still remains the possibility Beijing will send its naval force to the disputed area. Neither the United States nor China will go as far as full-scale military confrontation. After some muscle flexing they will turn away and leave for home," Arbatov said.

NCRI- Iran regime on track to execute more than 1000 people this year - UN

Iran's regime could be on track to execute more than 1,000 people this year, a U.N. investigator said on Monday.

U.N. special rapporteur on Iran, Ahmed Shaheed, suggested that human rights violators in Iran should be named and shamed and targeted with sanctions such as a travel ban.

Shaheed said "there have been rising executions" in Iran and that women are still treated as second-class citizens, Reuters reported.

Some 700 people have already been executed in Iran in 2015 and the regime is "possibly on track to exceed a 1,000 by the end of the year," Shaheed said. He has reported that at least 753 people were executed in Iran in 2014.

He also criticized Tehran for jailing some 40 journalists during the year for vague charges.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a report in August that promises by the Iranian regime's President Hassan Rouhani of greater freedoms for the country have not resulted in any major improvements in human rights and freedom of expression.

Shaheed is due to brief a General Assembly human rights committee this week.

Girl taken out of class by police Video ( You call it ) ?

Mothers of Iran’s murdered dissidents speak out

Two Die in Prison Fire, Riot in Peru

LIMA – Two inmates were killed and 49 others injured in a fire that was intentionally started and subsequent riot at the prison in the Peruvian city of Chiclayo, located 780 kilometers (about 485 miles) north of Lima, the Ombudsman’s Office said.

The fire started around 2:30 a.m. on Saturday during a dispute involving two groups of prisoners, National Bureau of Prisons director Julio Cesar Magan told Radio Programas del Peru, or RPP.

One prisoner doused another inmate, identified as Frank Sanchez, with liquid glue and set him on fire.

Sanchez died from his injuries while being transported to Las Mercedes Hospital, Magan said.

An investigation is being conducted to determine how the inmate obtained the glue used to start the fire, the National Bureau of Prisons chief said.

Fourteen inmates were injured in the blaze and three of them are listed in serious condition, the Ombudsman’s Office’s representative in Lambayeque, Julio Hidalgo, said in a statement.

One of the injured inmates, identified as Jaime Gil, died while being treated at Lambayeque Regional Hospital, media reports said.

The fire triggered a fight that ended in a riot, the Ombudsman’s Office said.

A total of 35 people, including 20 inmates wounded by rubber bullets fired by prison guards and 15 corrections officers, were injured in the incident, the Ombudsman’s Office said.

Guards and police managed to regain control of the prison after a protest that lasted more than five hours, Magan said.

Shock in Argentina over Murders of 9 Women in a Week

BUENOS AIRES – The shock over the murders of nine women in Argentina over the past week on Tuesday came to a head with renewed urgent calls for the government to act to avoid new victims and guarantee the protection within the family home.

“The figure for a week is very high,” said Ada Rico, director of the Marisel Zambrano Femicide Observatory, which is part of the non-governmental organization Casa del Encuentro.

“We’re concerned. They must take urgent measures to prevent more women from dying from sexist violence,” added Rico, who recalled that on June 3 tens of thousands of people shouted “Not one more” in marches organized nationwide to protest violence against women.

In eight of the nine murders this past week, the suspects are partners or former partners of the victims who – in at least two cases – had gotten restraining orders against them resulting from previous violent episodes.

In the ninth murder, the 18-year-old victim was found dead in a field and the initial investigation has found that she engaged in prostitution. Authorities are searching for one of her customers as the presumed killer.

Five of the crimes were committed in Buenos Aires province, two in Salta and one each in Rio Negro and Mendoza.

“They have to implement protective mechanisms,” said Rico, who added that the current budget for that is insufficient and the next government should increase the number of women’s shelters and guarantee access to the court system for women who find themselves threatened.

In addition, she called for protection for the children of the victims with the approval of two new laws, one removing parental responsibilities from husbands or partners convicted of femicide and the other providing economic reparations for the children.

Between 2008 and 2014, 1,808 women were killed in domestic or sexual violence in Argentina, according to figures compiled by the Femicide Observatory. As a result of those murders, 2,196 children were left without mothers.

Young people seek change in Iran – Baroness Betty Boothroyd

NCRI - Young Iranians who are fed up with the theocratic dictatorship in power in Iran are yearning for change, Baroness Betty Boothroyd, the former Speaker of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom has said.

“The nuclear agreement with Iran does nothing to improve its appalling civil and human rights record. There's nothing in it that seeks to persuade the regressive regime to change, to look at itself, to improve its approach to the democratic process, the rule of law and to human rights. Nothing at all,” Baroness Boothroyd said at a conference on human rights in Iran at the Houses of Parliament on October 19.

"I happen to believe, and I have some evidence of it, that Iran's secular middle class want democracy, they have a yearning for some change, and they want to see progress, prosperity and be a properly accepted member of the international community. And I believe too that young people want to see change."

Baroness Boothroyd said the Iranian regime is denying the people of Iran their basic human rights.

“Forty years ago, I wore the black sash of the anti-apartheid movement, when most people had no human rights under South Africa's racist regime. And while I was parading outside South Africa House, with my black sash on and the policeman keeping an eye on me, I never expected to in my wildest dreams, to welcome Nelson Mandela to my country, as democratic leader of South Africa, when I was speaker of the Commons”, Baroness Boothroyd said.

“This only happened because defiant, determined and dedicated people in South Africa and elsewhere proved to the White supremacists that they were not immune to the forces of change. And I think it's in that spirit of defiance, I believe that Iran's theocracy is not immune to them now,” she added.

Former UK House of Commons speaker Baroness Boothroyd and a delegation of British lawmakers on January 27, 2014 met and held talks with the President-elect of the Iranian Resistance Maryam Rajavi during their visit to the headquarters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) in Auvers-sur-Oise, north of Paris.

The high-level delegation of British lawmakers called for a full United Nations investigation into the September 1, 2013 Camp Ashraf massacre and urgent UN protection for thousands of members of the main Iranian opposition group People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI, or MEK) in Camp Liberty, Iraq.

The British lawmakers described the Iranian regime’s interference in the region, especially in Iraq and Syria, as 'dangerous' and backed Mrs Rajavi’s proposal that a complete halt to the Iranian regime’s meddling in Syria is the sole solution to this crisis.

They expressed full support for Mrs Rajavi's 10-point plan for the future of Iran as the best guarantee for democracy and human rights as well as peace and tranquility in the region and the world.