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Biden to ask China’s president to advise Iran against further Middle East escalation: Report

By
IFP Media Wire
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Biden Xi

During his forthcoming one-on-one with Xi, Biden “will underscore our desire for China to make clear in its burgeoning relationship with Iran that it is essential that Iran not seek to escalate or spread violence in the Middle East”, a senior administration official was cited as telling ‘Politico’.

Furthermore, a warning is to be conveyed that any “provocative actions” on the part of Tehran will trigger an immediate US response, the official added.

The relationship between China and Iran will be the focus of “tough conversations” between Biden and Xi, another senior administration official was quoted as telling reporters.

The Biden administration is increasingly concerned that Iran’s ally – the Lebanon-based Hezbollah group – could wade into the continuing flare-up in the Middle East by opening a second front against Israel, the report stated citing Washington officials.

Beijing and Tehran have been enhancing their ties, having signed a long-term comprehensive strategic cooperation agreement in March 2021. For more than a decade, Beijing has been Tehran’s largest trading partner. In March, China facilitated an agreement normalizing relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Iran has warned of “far-reaching consequences” if Israel does not stop its attacks on Gaza.

“If the Israeli apartheid’s war crimes and genocide are not halted immediately, the situation could spiral out of control & ricochet far-reaching consequences,” Iran’s Mission to the United Nations cautioned.

Amid the conflict in the Gaza Strip between Israeli troops and Hamas, tension has flared along the border between the Israeli-occupied territories and Lebanon, with exchanges of fire between Israeli forces and Hezbollah.

Hezbollah and the Israeli regime have been exchanging sporadic fire since October 8, a day after the Zionist regime started bringing the Palestinian territory of the Gaza Strip under a relentless and indiscriminate war.

The Lebanese resistance movement has announced the group’s “guns and rockets” were with Palestinian fighters, and stressed that it will intensify its attacks against Israel if necessary.

Gallant has recently told senior Israeli officials that Hezbollah is “ten times stronger than Hamas”, Israel’s Kan public broadcaster has reported.

President Joe Biden and his aides have advised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to launch pre-emptive strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon, The New York Times daily newspaper has reported.

Hezbollah has already fought off two Israeli wars against Lebanon in 2000 and 2006, forcing a humiliating retreat upon the Tel Aviv regime’s military in both cases.

The resistance movement has vowed to resolutely defend Lebanon in case of any Israeli-imposed war.

Several EU states still buying Russian gas: Gazprom

By
IFP Media Wire
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Iraq Gas

The executive didn’t provide any details about the volumes of Russian gas that the EU nations are receiving, saying gas molecules running through a pipeline “do not have a national coloring.”

“But we know that Russian gas is supplied to many countries that have declared a refusal to consume it,” Miller said.

The CEO didn’t name which of the bloc’s 27 nations keep receiving natural gas from Russia despite claiming the opposite, but did say that “Russia is currently transiting its natural gas via Ukraine to the Austrian hub in Baumgarten”, which is one of the biggest in Europe.

“This is a very large European hub that supplies gas to other countries across the EU,” Miller added.

According to the executive, under existing contracts Russia continues to supply gas to countries in the south and southeast of Europe.

“Of course Russian gas still flows to the European market, and the volumes are not small,” he stated, again pointing out that the fuel is “consumed even by those states that declare that their national markets are free from it”.

In 2022, supplies of Russian gas to the EU market began to decline due to the destruction the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines, and to the refusal of a number of EU member states to pay for their fuel in rubles, including Netherlands, Denmark, Bulgaria and Finland.

In response to EU sanctions last year, Moscow demanded that countries that support the campaign of international restrictions on Russia pay for their Russian gas in rubles instead of dollars or euro.

Against the backdrop of reduced supplies from Russia, the bloc had to increase purchases of liquefied natural gas (LNG). At the end of 2022, the EU was ranked as the world’s largest buyer of the chilled fuel, having topped longstanding leaders like China, Japan and South Korea.

Last year, the US became the major exporter of LNG to the EU market, while Russia increased shipments of its LNG by 20%.

Earlier this year, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that the EU had managed to overcome its dependence on Russian oil and gas, adding that Moscow had reduced gas exports to the bloc by 80%. Similar claims were voiced by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

US playing key role in helping Israel survive: Iran president

By
IFP Media Wire
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Ebrahim Raisi

Raisi made the remarks while addressing reporters in Tehran early Sunday upon his return from an extraordinary joint summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Arab League in Saudi Arabia’s capital city of Riyadh.

The summit came as Israel continued its war of genocide in the besieged Gaza Strip despite growing calls to end the regime’s atrocities.

The regime waged the war on Gaza on October 7 after the territory’s resistance movements carried out the surprise Operation al-Aqsa Storm in response to Israel’s intensified crimes against the Palestinian people.

Since then, over 11,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, have been killed in Israel’s war of genocide in Gaza.

The Iranian president said during his address to the summit, he “introduced the United States as the main culprit in these crimes [that are being committed by Israel in Gaza].”

Raisi stressed that the United States “plays the most important role both in [helping] survival of the Zionist regime and in arming and supporting it in its massacre of Palestinian women and children”.

Noting that the Islamic Republic has solid views on the issue of Palestine, the Iranian president said, “During this trip, I tried to be the voice of the Iranian nation and those people who shout the right of Palestinians in streets.”

“Since the victory of the Islamic Revolution, Iran has had clear-cut views on the right of Palestinian people, while at the same time, considering the Zionist regime as a fake and usurping regime with no identity,” he continued.

He added that the Islamic Republic considers the liberation of the occupied city of al-Quds and restoration of the Palestinian nation’s rights as the top priority of the Muslim world and a criteria for evaluating true positions of countries on this issue.

Raisi noted that explaining Iran’s viewpoints on the issue of Palestine and expounding various aspects of “Zionists’ crimes against humanity as well as war crimes and genocide” in the besieged Gaza Strip were other important goals of his participation in the Riyadh summit.

He then touched on 10 proposals and solutions that Iran offered in the summit to show the way out of the current crisis in Gaza, stressing that supporting Palestinian resistance is the sole way that leads to the liberation of the Holy al-Quds.

“In this summit, in contrast to the two-state solution that some parties proposed on the future of Palestine, we offered a totally democratic solution based on having all Palestinians, including Muslims, Christians and Jews, vote [through a referendum] to determine their fate,” Iran’s president said.

He noted that passage of time, even if it is 75 years, does not “give a usurping and occupying regime legitimacy and the right of ownership” over Palestinian territories.

Politician censures barring MPs from next year’s election

By
IFP Editorial Staff
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Iran Parliament

Masih Mohajeri, the editor in chief of the Tehran-based Jomhouri Eslam Newspaper, wrote in an article that disqualification targeted the members of the parliament who hold critical views in order to “silence” any dissent prior to the upcoming elections due in March 2024.

“Take a look at the disqualification of those candidates who are currently in the 11th Parliament but criticize the government’s performance and those involved in the current government. This is the strangest kind of law enforcement,” Mohajeri wrote.

According to the initial results of the vetting process by the Guardian Council, eight members of Iran’s parliament, have been disqualified from running for reelection next year. Among them there are some MPs who have been critical of a Chastity and Hijab bill.

“This method means forcing the people to remain silent on the rulers’ actions; a force that even includes the representatives of the parliament, that is, those who have the right to monitor the actions of the rulers according to the Constitution,” Mohajeri further noted.

The Iranian politician stated that the move is “illegal”, explaining that in the Islamic Republic of Iran’s system, many articles of the Constitution emphasize on freedom of speech and words, gatherings, and expression of opinion.

Official says patients die in Iran due to mass migration of nurses, 3k nurses migrate

By
IFP Editorial Staff
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Iran Surgery Nurse Doctor

Mohammad Sharifi, the Secretary General of the Nursing House, wrote on X social media platform on Sunday, “The shortage of nurses is so serious that patients are dying because of the shortage.”

“If you don’t hear such things from patients or clients, it’s because they are either not aware or have come to terms with the shortages. I am confident that patients are dying due to lack of nurses,” he added.

He said Iranian nurses, dissatisfied with their low salaries and tough working conditions, mostly choose Germany, the United States, Australia, and Canada as the new destinations to pursue their career and dreams.

He put the number of annual migrant nurses at more than 3,000.

Iranian officials have warned the country’s healthcare system will suffer a huge blow as the medical staff is migrating to foreign countries in droves.

Although no official figures have been released on the migration of medical staff in Iran, World Health Organization reports on the employment of physicians have indicated that Iran ranks high in terms of the number of migrant nurses and doctors.

UAE planning to maintain ties with Israel despite Gaza war: Report

By
IFP Media Wire
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Pro-Palestine Rally

Abu Dhabi became the most prominent Arab nation to establish diplomatic ties with Israel in 30 years under the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords in 2020. That paved the way for other Arab states to forge their own ties with Israel by breaking a taboo on normalising relations without the creation of a Palestinian state.

The mounting death toll from Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip – launched in retaliation for cross-border attacks on Oct. 7 by the Hamas group that governs the enclave – have stirred outrage in Arab capitals.

UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan spoke last month with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. UAE officials have publicly condemned Israel’s actions and repeatedly called for an end to the violence.

In response to a request for comment for this story, an Emirati official said the UAE’s immediate priority was to secure a ceasefire and to open up humanitarian corridors.

The Persian Gulf Arab power, backed by its oil wealth, wields significant influence in regional affairs. It also serves as a security partner of the United States, hosting American forces.

As well as speaking to Israel, the UAE has worked to moderate public positions taken by Arab states so that once the war ends there is the possibility of a return to a broad dialogue, said the four sources, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Sheikh Mohamed met in Abu Dhabi on Thursday with Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani to discuss calls for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, amid Qatari-brokered talks for the release of a limited number of hostages in return for a break in the fighting.

“The UAE and Qatar stand firm in urging the need to advance de-escalation efforts and secure a just, lasting, and comprehensive peace in the region,” Sheikh Mohamed wrote on social media after their discussions.

Despite closer economic and security ties with Israel forged over the past three years, Abu Dhabi has had little apparent success in reining in the Gaza offensive, which has led to the death of more than 11,000 people, according to Palestinian officials. Hamas killed around 1,200 people in its surprise attack on Israel and some 240 hostages were taken, Israeli authorities have confirmed.

Amid the impasse, the UAE has grown increasingly frustrated with its most important security partner Washington, which it believes is not exerting enough pressure to end the war, the four sources added.

Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the UAE president, said this week that Washington needed to end the conflict swiftly and initiate a process to resolve the decades old Israeli-Palestinian issue by addressing refugees, borders and East Jerusalem.

The UAE has publicly expressed concern that the war now risks igniting regional tensions and a new wave of extremism in the Middle East.

Speaking on Oct. 18 at the UN Security Council, where the UAE holds a rotating seat, ambassador Lana Nusseibeh stated that Abu Dhabi had sought via the Abraham Accords with Israel and the United States to deliver prosperity and security in a new Middle East through cooperation and peaceful co-existence.

“The indiscriminate damage visited upon the people of Gaza in pursuit of Israel’s security risks extinguishing that hope,” she added.

A senior European official told Reuters that Arab states had recognised now that it was not possible to build ties with Israel without addressing the Palestinian issue. Israel’s foreign ministry declined to comment for this story.

The UAE continues to host an Israeli ambassador and there was no prospect of an end to diplomatic ties, which represented a longer-term strategic priority by Abu Dhabi, the sources continued.

The accord was motivated, in part, by shared concerns over the threat posed by Iran, as well as a broader economic-driven realignment of Abu Dhabi’s foreign policy. The UAE sees Iran as a threat to regional security, although in recent years it has taken diplomatic steps to de-escalate tensions.

Israel and the UAE have developed close economic and security ties in the three years since normalisation, including defence cooperation. Israel supplied the UAE with air defense systems after missile and drone attacks on Abu Dhabi in early 2022 by the Iran-aligned Houthi movement in Yemen.

Bilateral trade has exceeded $6 billion since 2020, according to Israeli government data. Israeli tourists have thronged hotels, beaches and shopping centres in the UAE, which is an OPEC oil power and a regional business hub.

“They (UAE) have gains that they don’t want to lose,” said one of the sources, a senior diplomat based in the Middle East.

Even prior to the Oct. 7 attack, however, Abu Dhabi was concerned by the failure of Israel’s right-wing government to curb expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and repeated visits by right-wing religious Israelis to the compound that houses the Al Aqsa mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam. The compound, revered by Jews as a vestige of their two ancient temples, has long been a flashpoint of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

None of four sources ruled out that the UAE could downgrade or sever its ties if the crisis escalated.

Sources added that the displacement of the Palestinian population from the Gaza Strip or the West Bank into Egypt or Jordan was a red line for Abu Dhabi.

James Dorsey, a senior fellow at the National University of Singapore, said the war in Gaza had discredited the notion that economic cooperation on its own could build a stable region.

“The new Middle East was being built on very fragile ground,” he told Reuters.

Israel has rejected international calls for an immediate ceasefire: Netanyahu has stated there would be no halt to its attack until hostages are returned. His government has pledged to destroy Hamas, which is classified as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union.

While criticising Israel’s conduct of the war, Abu Dhabi has also condemned Hamas for its attack. The UAE sees the Palestinian armed group as a threat to the stability of the Middle East and beyond.

“Hamas is not their favourite organisation,” one of the sources said, adding, “It is Muslim Brotherhood after all.”

The UAE has led the charge against Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, the oldest Islamist organisation in the Arab World.

It helped Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi topple Mohammed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood in a military takeover in 2013 that followed mass protests against his rule. The UAE provided Egypt with billions of dollars in support following Mursi’s ouster.

Abu Dhabi also abandoned Sudan’s former President Omar Hassan al-Bashir in 2019, ultimately leading to the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood’s grip on power there after it had dominated Sudanese politics for decades. The UAE had previously pumped billions of dollars into Sudan’s coffers.

Protesters in several countries rally in support of Palestine

By
IFP Media Wire
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Pro-Palestine Rally
Protesters holding placards and flags take part in the 'National March For Palestine' in central London on November 11, 2023.

Major cities, including New York, London, Paris, Baghdad, Karachi, Berlin and Edinburgh, witnessed large marches on Saturday.

Calls for a ceasefire to protect civilians in Gaza have grown more than a month into the war sparked when Palestinian group Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7.

Israeli authorities have put the fatalities at about 1,200, and say more than 240 people were taken captive.

Israel’s non-stop attacks in Gaza have killed more than 11,000 people in 34 days, including more than 4,500 children.

Palestinians say that no corner of the strip is safe from Israeli bombardment. More than 70 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have been displaced.

Israelis rally in Tel Aviv asking for release of Hamas-held hostages

By
IFP Media Wire
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Israel Hostages

Many of the protesters on Saturday were friends and family members of the captives and demanded their immediate return.

“Mr Prime Minister, cabinet members, do not talk to me about conquering, do not talk to me about flattening [Gaza]. Do not talk at all. Just take action … bring them home now,” Noam Perry, whose father was abducted from the town of Nir Oz, told the crowd at the protest.

“They ask us who our rage is directed at and it is all of humanity … but mainly, those who are responsible for us, those who have a contract with us,” said Jack Levy, another demonstrator.

More than 240 people, including Israeli soldiers and civilians as well as foreigners, were abducted during an attack on southern Israel on October 7 that authorities say killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians.

A few hundred Israeli left-wing activists, both Arab and Jewish, held a separate demonstration near the Ministry of Defence in Tel Aviv, calling for a ceasefire despite an ongoing crackdown on anti-war voices and protests.

Demands for a ceasefire have been growing from citizens around the world as well as world leaders.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the idea of any ceasefire “without the return of our hostages”. The United States has advocated instead for “humanitarian pauses” to allow civilians to flee and for aid delivery.

More than 11,000 Palestinians, including more than 4,500 children, have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched a campaign of air strikes on October 7, followed by a devastating ground offensive that has brought the fighting to some of Gaza City’s main hospitals.

In remarks on Saturday, Netanyahu ruled out a role for the Palestinian Authority (PA) government in Gaza once the war against Hamas is over.

“There will have to be something else there,” he stated when asked whether the PA, which has partial administrative control in the occupied West Bank, may govern Gaza after the war.

“There won’t be a civilian authority that educates their children to hate Israel, to kill Israelis, to wipe out the state of Israel,” Netanyahu added.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last month that the PA should retake control of the Gaza Strip from Hamas, with international players potentially filling a role in the interim.

EU says no Ukrainian victory against Russia in sight

By
IFP Media Wire
-
Russia Ukraine War

Delivering a video address to the Congress of the Party of European Socialists (PES) in Malaga, Spain, on Saturday, Borrell declared that the Ukraine conflict “is lasting much too long”, while admitting that Kiev would not be able to face the Russian military without Western support.

EU nations that have “the necessary means to help” should also have the political will to continue to support the bloc’s Ukraine aid policy, and potentially even expand it, Borrell stated. The diplomat also cautioned that the EU may even need to step in to replace US aid, should it diminish.

Although the EU and its members have spent almost twice as much as the US on total military, financial, and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, Washington remains Kiev’s single largest military sponsor by a wide margin, according to Germany’s Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

The US alone has spent around $45 billion on military aid for Ukraine, followed by Germany with $18.2 billion, data showed. However, the Pentagon warned earlier this week that it potentially had only $1 billion remaining for Ukraine military aid, and would have to ration arms packages from now on.

In his address on Saturday, Borrell insisted that “we must remain united and get ready for a longer conflict, longer than Russia thought.” He claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin had expected to end the conflict in “a few weeks,” but had been unsuccessful.

Moscow reacted to Borrell’s remarks by pointing to his apparent change in tone. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova noted in a Telegram post that the EU foreign policy chief had declared following a visit to Kiev in April 2022 that “this war will be won on the battlefield”. He now says Ukraine will not be able to defeat Russia in the near future, Zakharova added, wondering if the EU was leaning towards considering Moscow as the victor in the standoff.

Borrell himself, however, stated during the PES congress in Malaga that the conflict should be one “that Russia will never be able to win”.

Recent reports have indicated growing concern among Kiev’s Western backers about the outcome of the fighting. On Friday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg claimed that a Russian victory would be a “tragedy” that would leave the US-led bloc “vulnerable”. He also insisted it was in NATO’s interests to continue supporting Kiev.

Gazans being “choked” by bombardment and siege: UN

By
IFP Media Wire
-
Gaza War

Lazzarini said that the continuous bombardment of Gaza, “together with the siege, are choking Gaza and its people”.

He continued that more than 700,000 women, children, and men now live in UNRWA schools and shelters.

“Basic services are crumbling. Everything is running out – food, water, medicine, and fuel. “

He added UNRWA staff were still operating some 150 UNRWA shelters, stating,“They keep one-third of our health centers open and manage mobile clinics. They deliver medicines to hospitals.”

Lazzarini said that Gazans feel de-humanized and abandoned. He asked the summit to support efforts “to reach a humanitarian ceasefire, with strict adherence to international humanitarian law.”

He also added that a meaningful and continuous flow of humanitarian aid is essential, but claimed that “the logistics and the verification of trucks by Israel are extremely cumbersome. They only allow a limited number of trucks into Gaza.”

“We must increase the volume of aid and use other crossings, including those within Israel, like Kerem Abu Salem.”

A significant number of Arab leaders attended the emergency gathering in Riyadh on Saturday, titled the Joint Arab Islamic Extraordinary Summit in Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh.

The Arab-Islamic summit hosted by Saudi Arabia has called for an end to the war in Gaza and rejected justifying the war in the besieged strip as Israeli self-defence.

The summit on Saturday condemned “Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, war crimes and barbaric and inhumane massacres by the occupation government”, a final communique said.

It also called for an end to the siege on Gaza, allowing humanitarian aid into the enclave and halting arms exports to Israel, following the meeting in Riyadh.

The leaders demanded that the United Nations Security Council adopt “a decisive and binding resolution” to halt Israel’s “aggression” in Gaza.

Originally, only the 22 members of the Arab League were expected to participate, but the meeting was later expanded to include the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), a wider association of 57 mostly Muslim-majority states to which the Arab League countries belong.

In the opening remarks, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) called for an immediate cessation of military operations in Gaza and the release of all captives and prisoners.

“This is a humanitarian catastrophe that has proved the failure of the international community and the UN Security Council to put an end to Israel’s gross violations of international humanitarian laws, and prove the dual standards adopted by the world,” he stated.

“We are certain the only cause for peace is the end of the Israeli occupation and illegal settlements, and restoration of the established rights of the Palestinian people and the establishment of the state on 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital,” MBS added.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas highlighted that besides Gaza, Israeli forces’ raids in the occupied West Bank have also escalated and called on the United States to put an end to “Israel’s aggression, the occupation, violation and desecration of our holy sites”.

“No military and security solutions are acceptable as they have all failed. We categorically reject any efforts to displace our people from Gaza or the West Bank,” Abbas continued.

Israel has not relented in its attacks on the Gaza Strip despite increasing calls for an immediate ceasefire, especially from the Arab and Islamic worlds.

The non-stop air raids and ground assaults – which came in response to the October 7 attack by Hamas which killed about 1,200 Israelis – have killed more than 11,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians.

Israel has significantly ramped up its attacks on hospitals in recent days, and the UN has announced the lives of one million children in Gaza are “hanging on by a thread”.

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