The singer, who is in Tehran now, has published photos of himself in an Iranian restaurant, which has captured the attention of Korean media.
Russian economic delegation heading for Tehran: Iran ambassador
The team comprises between 160 to 170 executives and experts from Russian ministries and state organizations as well as some institutes from the country’s private sector, Kazem Jalali told IRNA.
“The meetings of the joint commission are to be held on Monday and Tuesday,” he noted.
“Committees will present their proposals to a meeting of the chairpeople and members of the joint commission next Wednesday,” Jalali explained.
“Almost all issues but one have been finalized in the executive agreement for a project to construct the Rasht-Astara railroad,” added the Iranian ambassador.
“We hope this remaining issue will be resolved by the time the meeting of the two countries’ joint commission will be held and [we hope] this executive agreement will be signed in Tehran,” he said.
New Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories ‘inconsistent’ with international law: US
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said an announcement by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich that more than 3,300 new Israeli settlements are to be built in the occupied West Bank was “disappointing”.
“It has been a longstanding policy of both Democratic and Republican administrations that new settlements are counterproductive to achieving enduring peace. They are also inconsistent with international law,” Blinken said at a news conference late on Friday in Buenos Aires.
“Our administration maintains firm opposition to settlement expansion. In our judgement it only weakens, not strengthens Israel’s security,” he added, without making any mention of tangible consequences Israel could face for settlement expansion.
This negates the so-called Pompeo Doctrine, which referred to an announcement in November 2019 by then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that Washington supports Israeli settlements in the West Bank, Golan Heights and East Jerusalem as legal.
The majority of the global community views these settlements as illegal and an extension of Israeli occupation.
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters that Blinken’s position “has been consistent over a range of Republican and Democratic administrations”.
“If there’s an administration that is being inconsistent, it was the previous one,” Kirby stated.
The Pompeo Doctrine itself had overturned a legal position held by the US Department of State since 1978 when the administration of former President Jimmy Carter had evaluated Israeli settlements to be in violation of international law.
Israel’s Smotrich had announced the new settlement plans were a supposed response to what he called a “terrorist” attack on Thursday, when three Palestinians opened fire near a checkpoint between Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank city of Ma’ale Adumim, killing one Israeli and wounding several others.
Smotrich now plans to build 2,350 new housing units on Palestinian land in Ma’ale Adumim, 300 in Kedar and 694 in Efrat, with backing from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh on Saturday called the announcement a “blatant challenge to the international community” and an obstacle to establishing an independent Palestinian state.
Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now said that “Israel’s 2024 budget shows an addition of over $100m to settlements”.
“In 2024, coalition funds for settlements will amount to over $203m [instead of the originally allocated $76m in the government decision from May 2023],” it added.
Ministers in the most far-right administration in the history of Israel have also called for increased curbs on Palestinians, including heavy restrictions on movement, after the attack.
Over decades, Israel has advanced plans to build new illegal settlements regardless of any attacks. The US and its allies have historically done little to pressure Israel to halt or roll back settlement expansion.
Raids across Palestinian territories occupied by Israel had become an almost daily occurrence even before the war on Gaza started on October 7, and they have only significantly intensified since, growing deadlier as well.
In the Gaza Strip, more than 29,600 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli attacks since the start of the war, most of them children and women.
3 more Hezbollah members killed in clashes with Israel, death toll tops 210
In a statement, the group identified one fighter as Muhammad Hassan Tarraf and two medics as Hussein Muhammad Khalil and Muhammad Yaqoub Ismail.
The three members were killed in an Israeli aggression targeting the Civil Defense Center in Bleyda, southern Lebanon, the statement added.
The death toll of Hezbollah fighters killed by Israeli forces since Oct. 8 has risen to 211.
Against the backdrop of the destructive Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, which led Israel to face charges of genocide before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, the Israeli-Lebanese border has witnessed exchanges of fire since Oct. 8 last year between the Israeli army on one side and Hezbollah and Palestinian factions on the other, resulting in fatalities and injuries on both sides of the border.
Recently, there have been escalating threats from Israeli officials to expand the attacks on Lebanese territory unless Hezbollah fighters withdraw from the border areas with northern Israel.
Hezbollah officials have stressed they will stop attacking Israeli military posts when Israel’s assault on Gaza ends.
US admits use of force against Yemen’s Houthis not working: Report
Even though the US military has significantly increased the frequency of its strikes on Houthi bases since January, the results of the strikes have failed to advance beyond the psychological effect and have only made Yemeni rebels dig in deeper and hide better, the report said on Friday.
American strikes have also made the Houthis extremely concerned about their senior leaders, making them increasingly paranoid about their safety, the report added.
There is also a belief among some US senior officials that the Houthis would stop their attacks in the Red Sea the moment Israel stops its war in Gaza, according to the report.
The Houthi movement, which controls large parts of northern and western Yemen, vowed in November 2023 to attack any ships associated with Israel until it halts military actions in the Gaza Strip.
This led US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to announce the creation of a multinational operation to secure navigation in the Red Sea. US and UK forces later launched major strikes against Houthi positions in a bid to degrade the rebels’ ability to target commercial vessels.
UN experts urge countries to immediately halt weapons exports to Israel amid Gaza war
The statement is one of the most sharply defined calls for international actors to cease weapons shipments to Israel amid its ongoing war in Gaza, where Israeli forces have killed more than 29,000 Palestinians.
The experts said weapons exports to Israel could be used in Gaza, where there is a “clear risk” that they would be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law.
“All States must ‘ensure respect’ for international humanitarian law by parties to an armed conflict, as required by 1949 Geneva Conventions and customary international law,” the experts stated.
“States must accordingly refrain from transferring any weapon or ammunition – or parts for them – if it is expected, given the facts or past patterns of behaviour, that they would be used to violate international law.”
The experts added that the transfers of weapons are still “prohibited even if the exporting State does not intend the arms to be used in violation of the law – or does not know with certainty that they would be used in such a way”.
The statement also lauded the decision made by a Dutch appeals court on 12 February, in which it ordered the Netherlands to halt the export of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel.
The court found that there was a “clear risk” that the parts would be used to commit violations of international humanitarian law, as “there are many indications that Israel has violated the humanitarian law of war in a not insignificant number of cases”.
Several other countries also announced they would be suspending arms to Israel, including Belgium, Italy, and Spain. The European Union has also discouraged arms sales to Israel.
Still, the main weapons supplier of Israel continues to be the US, which shows no signs of halting or even decreasing its weapons shipments to the country.
The amount of arms Washington gives to Israel even led to criticism from Josep Borrell, the foreign policy chief for the EU.
After US President Joe Biden called Israel’s conduct in Gaza “over the top”, Borrell suggested that the American leader do something about it.
“Well, if you believe that too many people are being killed, maybe you should provide less arms in order to prevent so many people being killed,” Borrell told reporters earlier this month.
Persian leopard spotted in Iran’s Qazvin province
Commander of the Environmental Protection Unit of Iran’s Qazvin province Mehdi Taheri told Tasnim news agency that the sighting happened on Friday morning.
A clip posted online shows the leopard sitting atop a rock in a mountainous area. The film was apparently shot by an environmental guard.
Another leopard was spotted on January 4 in eastern Alamut.
Environmental protection authorities say the leopard is among endangered species whose protection is now more important than ever. Previously, officials said that 500 to 800 Persian leopards are scattered in three Iranian northern provinces of Mazandaran, Gilan and Golestan and also in Razavi Khorasan, North Khorasan, Semnan, Yazd, Sistan-Baluchestan and Fars provinces.
Iranian snooker player crowned champ in 2024 Asian competitions
Ali Gharegozloo beat Awais Munir from Pakistan 5-2 in the final match to stand first in the competitions.
Defending champion Amir Sarkohosh, another Iranian player, settled for the third spot after losing to his Pakistani rival.
Qatar hosted the games from February 17-23.
Iranian movie “My Favorite Cake” wins FIPRESCI Prize at Berlin Film Festival
The feature movie, which drew praise from international critics and audience, was the second production by the two directors to be screened at the Berlin event.
“My Favorite Cake” produced by Gholamreza Mousavi has, so far, been at the top of the Screed Daily and Rotten Tomatoes tables.
Leili Farhadpour and Esma’il Mehrabi star in the “My Favorite Cake” movie, whose screenplay was jointly written by Sana’eeha and Moqaddam.
My Favorite Cake is a drama film first launched in 222. The film follows the story of a woman who decides to live out her desires in a country where women’s rights are heavily restricted.
German lawyers sue senior politicians, including Chancellor and FM, over complicity in Gaza ‘genocide’
The case against several members of the country’s Federal Security Council, which directs national security policy and authorises weapons exports, was announced on Friday.
In addition to Scholz, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, Economics Minister Robert Habeck, Finance Minister Christian Lindner and others stand accused.
The lawyers behind the case represent families of two Palestinians with roots in the Gaza Strip, including that of Palestinian-German migration scholar Nora Ragab.
“We, Palestinians in the diaspora, will not stand by and watch a genocide being committed against our families and our people,” Ragab said in a statement.
“We will use all means at our disposal. … Today we aim to hold the German government accountable for its complicity in the genocide in Gaza.”
The European Legal Support Center, the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy and the UK-based Law for Palestine are among the civil society organisations backing the case.
In a jointly written statement, they stated: “The German state is one of the countries that has shown some of the strongest political and material support to Israel in its assault on the Gaza Strip and the Palestinians.”
Alexander Gorski, one of the lawyers supporting the case, acknowledged that “from a legal point of view and given the political landscape in Germany, this case will be a difficult one”.
“But we believe it’s our responsibility as people working in the judicial sector to try to do something,” he told Al Jazeera, adding, “We are seeing a genocide being livestreamed around the world, and despite this, the Israeli government is still being supported by other countries and is still receiving weapons from them.”
After the October 7 attacks by Hamas, during which 1,140 people were killed in southern Israel, the Israeli government retaliated with a military campaign in Gaza that has to date killed more than 29,500 Palestinians, the majority of them women and children.
Israel has announced it wants to crush Hamas, which governs the densely populated strip, but after four months of war, the devastating civilian toll is causing alarm among world leaders.
In late January, the United Nations’ top court, the International Court of Justice, or ICJ, found it was “plausible” that Israel was committing acts in Gaza that violated the international Convention on Genocide.
Since the court’s decision, Germany and all other third-party states should have been trying to stop Israel from committing such acts, the lawyers behind Friday’s case said.
However since October, many German officials have “incited” genocide with their statements, they alleged.
The legal case will also focus on German weapons exports to Israel.
These increased significantly in 2023, compared with the previous year, and most of that increase was approved by the German government after October 7.
Despite the ICJ ruling, Germany has “already agreed in principle” to send more tank ammunition to Israel, they stressed.
