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Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei says the US seeks to restore over Iran the hegemony and influence that Washington exerted during the reign of the regime that was toppled by the 1979 Iranian Revolution. “They (the Americans) are moving in this direction in a bid to be able to reinstate their previous hegemony,” Ayatollah Khamenei told a large crowd of pilgrims in the holy city of Mashhad on the first day of Persian New Year on Sunday.

The Leader said Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution liberated the nation of Washington's deep-rooted grip, adding that Iranians proved that it is possible to stand up to the US. He said the revolution handed the country back to the nation, its true owners. Before the revolution, Ayatollah Khamenei said, that US used to plunder Iran’s riches and the ousted Pahlavi regime was the main base of the UK and the US in the region. The Leader reiterated that the Iranian nation has no issues with the American people but the US administration is the enemy of Iran. 

Pointing to Iran's nuclear agreement with the P5+1 group of countries, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Ayatollah Khamenei said the other side, under various pretexts and through deception, is not fully implementing its side of the deal such as removing all obstacles to Iran's banking transactions or unfreezing the country's assets abroad. “In the agreement we reached with the Americans on the nuclear issue, the Americans did not deliver on their pledges… Today, all cross Western countries and those who are under their impact, our banking restrictions are still facing problem and repatriation of our assets are facing problem,” said Ayatollah Khamenei, adding that “they fear the Americans.”

Elsewhere, Ayatollah Khamenei said there is no guarantee that President Barack Obama’s successor would “fulfill these minimum obligations.” “The US presidential candidates are vying with each other in inveighing against Iran...These are [proof of] enmity,” said the Leader. Ayatollah Khamenei said the Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew is making ceaseless efforts in order to prevent Iran from benefiting from the JCPOA results. Regarding his choice of an economic motto for the New Year, namely “Resistance Economy; Plan and Action,” the Leader said that the West seeks to imply that Iranians have only one of two choices, namely either to come to terms with the US or suffer economic hardships.

The Leader said the West seeks to instill and propagate the notion that Iranians must either bow to the demands of the US or suffer the consequences. Ayatollah Khamenei warned that submission to the wishes of the US is tantamount to losing one's independence. Ayatollah Khamenei said the West would like the Iranians to back down from its demands such as on the issue of Palestine and turn into what the US would like it to be and like some regional states be reconciled with "the Zionist enemy." The Leader said the West, if not resisted, will gradually expand its demands to the point where it will question the very founding principles of the Islamic Republic. Ayatollah Khamenei called for an increase in the productivity level in Iran, particularly in the energy sector, adding this can save billions of dollars.

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Presstv

20.Mar.2016

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A Donald Trump presidency would be as big a global risk as the rising threat of jihadi terrorism, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit.

In a list released Thursday, the research team also suggested Trump's rhetoric toward the Middle East will in itself raise the jihadi menace.

"His militaristic tendencies towards the Middle East and ban on all Muslim travel to the US would be a potent recruitment tool for jihadi groups," the EIU said in its global risk assessment.

The research firm says Trump's hostile attitude toward free trade could also prove a worldwide issue.

"In the event of a Trump victory, his hostile attitude to free trade, and alienation of Mexico and China in particular, could escalate rapidly into a trade war," the report said.

The EIU ranking combines impact and probability on a scale rating of 1 to 25, with a Trump presidency scoring a rating of 12.

However, more dangerous events listed include China experiencing a hard landing and a breakdown of the European Union.

The research paper concludes that it doesn't expect Trump to defeat Hillary Clinton in the race to become the next president.

But it suggests a turn of events that could put Trump in the White House.

"There are risks to this forecast, especially in the event of a terrorist attack on US soil or a sudden economic downturn," the report reads.

Kremlin on Trump

Meanwhile the Kremlin hit out Thursday at a campaign video promoting Trump, suggesting the video demonized Russia's image.

The clip in question shows Clinton barking like a dog while Putin throws an opponent in a judo bout.

"I saw this clip. I do not know for sure if Vladimir Putin saw it. But our attitude is negative," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a teleconference, according to Reuters.

Peskov said negative comments from U.S. politicians were nothing new.

"It's an open secret for us that demonizing Russia and whatever is linked to Russia is unfortunately a mandatory hallmark of America's election campaign," he said

 

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Economist Intelligence Unit

19.Mar.2016

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A former United Nations official has criticized the world body for mismanagement, saying unnecessary bureaucracy is causing the organization to fail in reaching its objectives. “In terms of its overall mission, thanks to colossal mismanagement, the United Nations is failing,” said Anthony Banbury, former head of the UN mission to combat the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, in an op-ed column on the New York Times website published on Friday. The official, who has decades of experience in senior UN positions including the supervision of the establishment of the body’s mission to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons program, said the world body has hardly tried to eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy in its organizational hierarchy. 

Banbury added that it would take more than a year to hire a new talent in the UN under a new recruitment system, saying the “Orwellian admonitions and Carrollian logic” dominating the UN bureaucratic system makes it hard to speed things up. “Too often, the only way to speed things up is to break the rules,” he said, adding that he was once forced to pay a huge sum of money to hire an anthropologist in order to understand unsafe burial practices that caused half the Ebola cases in West Africa. Banbury also expressed regret over the “minimal accountability” at the UN, saying the body lacks the courage to expel incompetent officials. “In the past six years, I am not aware of a single international field staff member's being fired, or even sanctioned, for poor performance,” he said, citing as an example the “manifestly incompetent” chief-of-staff of a large peacekeeping mission. “Many have tried to get rid of him, but short of a serious crime, it is virtually impossible to fire someone in the United Nations,” Banbury said, presumably hinting at the chief of the UN peacekeeping mission in Sudan's war-torn Darfur region.

The former UN official also cited cases of alleged sexual abuses by international peacekeepers in Central African Republic as a major example of UN's failures in its missions. A spokesman of the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon responded to Banbury's allegations, saying Ban was committed to improving the organization's efficiency. “Reforming an organization ... whose rules were designed really for a talk shop in 1945 and transforming them into a much more field-oriented, service-oriented, action-oriented organization is a complicated process,” Stephane Dujarric said on Friday.

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Presstv

19.Mar.2016

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Belgian police have reportedly arrested Salah Abdeslam, the prime suspect in the November 13, 2015 attacks in France. The website of the Belgian paper Het Laatste Nieuws (HLN) said Friday that the fugitive Belgian national was arrested after a shootout south of the capital, Brussels. The daily said Abdeslam was wounded in the leg after police fired shots during the search operation that started in the suspect’s apartment earlier in the day in the Molenbeek neighborhood of Brussels. It said Abdeslam was taken to the hospital, adding that peace has returned to Molenbeek but police will continue its search. 

The RTBF, a French-language TV, reported earlier that two people had been wounded. It said Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel left a European Union summit to follow the very sensitive issue. French President Francois Hollande had said an important operation is underway in a Brussels neighborhood in connection with the November attacks in Paris which killed 130 people. The search operation comes three days after Belgian and French security forces carried out a raid in the Forest neighborhood of Brussels, claiming to have neutralized a suspect of Paris attacks.

Belgian prosecutors said Friday the man shot dead in the raid was believed to have been an accomplice to Abdeslam as fingerprints found inside indicate Abdeslam himself was there at some point too. Belgium has tried to play a significant role over the past four months in finding nationals who were the key figures behind the Paris attacks.

Abdeslam’s brother Brahim was one of the main attackers in Paris. Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected ringleader of the attacks, was also a Brussels resident while another attacker, Bilal Hadfi, was said to have lived for a time in Forest. The repeated raids in Brussels and elsewhere in Belgium, which have led to 19 arrests in connection to the Paris carnage, are meant to prevent attacks in the small Western European country as it has been prime recruiting ground in Europe for Daesh, a Takfiri group based in Iraq and Syria.

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Presstv

18.Mar.2016

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The United Nations (UN) Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says Europe cannot resolve its refugee crisis by building barriers and walls to keep asylum-seekers at bay. In an interview published Friday, Ban told the German daily, Bild, that “building walls, discriminating against people or sending them back is no answer to the problem.” 

His remarks were published on the same day that EU leaders were to meet with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to finalize an agreement, according to which Ankara would take back all the refugees that have reached Europe via Turkey. Some EU countries have moved to prevent the refugees from coming in by enforcing border restrictions and building fences.

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Presstv

18.Mar.2016

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Cameroon and Italy have agreed on the need for solidarity in the fight against terrorism and in development. President Biya and his Italian counterpart, Sergio Mattarella made public their views while proposing a toast at the Unity Palace during a State dinner offered by the Presidential couple in honor of the visiting President of Italy and his delegation. 

President Paul Biya praised the long standing relations between Cameroon and Italy and stressed on combating the terrorist group, Boko Haram. Biya saluted the support from foreign partners in the fight against terrorism and invited Italian businessmen to take advantage of the healthy business climate and enormous resources to invest in Cameroon.

For his part, H.E Sergio Mattarella thanked the Cameroonian people for the warm reception accorded him and his delegation and for the kind words addressed to him and his country. He revealed that Italy like Cameroon has fought terrorism and will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Cameroon government against the Nigerian Islamic sect, Boko Haram. The Italian chief executive also highlighted the need for solidarity between both nations to ensure sustainable development in Cameroon.

(CRTV)

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Elangwe Pauline

18.Mar.2016

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