Daily News Channel
One is a freelance journalist who intended to cover elections in Iraq’s Kurdistan region. Another also has been trying her hand at reporting, and the third is a friend who shared their love of travel. Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Joshua Fattal — three University of California-Berkeley graduates believed to have been arrested Friday after crossing from Iraq into Iran during a hike — are seasoned travelers with an appetite for interaction with other cultures, friends and associates said
The wife of Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Moussavi spoke publicly about her brother’s detention for the first time Thursday, accusing the Islamic government of fueling false allegations about him, according to media report. Zahra Rahnavard told the semi-official Iranian Labour News Agency that her brother, Shahpour Kazemi, 62, was arrested a month ago
A UK government minister on Wednesday reopened the dispute over support for troops in Afghanistan by insisting they had insufficient helicopters. Foreign Office minister Lord Malloch-Brown, who is resigning from the government later this week, said: “We definitely don’t have enough helicopters,” adding that “mobility” was vital for operations in southern Afghanistan, where British troops are battling a resurgent Taliban. Malloch-Brown also questioned Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s claim that the war was being fought to prevent Afghan terrorists carrying out attacks on Britain
A group of top Iranian reformists have called for a national vote on the country’s disputed presidential election in order to "exit this dead end and current crisis." The Association of Combatant Clergy issued a blistering statement saying the people’s trust had been lost after the opposition was “met with brutality, beatings, indecency and incarcerations.” Iran’s current leaders “betrayed the revolution, its values, the homeland and the people, in irreparable ways,” according to the statement, posted Sunday on Rouhanioon.com, the Association’s Web site. The group is linked to Mohammad Khatami, the former president who supports defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Moussavi.
An opposition candidate in Iran’s disputed presidential election blasted what he called the "thoughtless and clear lies" of the country’s security forces Sunday, while students mounted new demonstrations at a university in Shiraz. Former parliament speaker Mehdi Karrubi, who ran last in the June 12 election, compared government claims that it had not attacked his supporters to the statements that came out of the Iranian monarchy in the days before the 1979 revolution that established the Islamic republic, according to Iran’s Aftab news agency.
Negotiations to resolve Honduras’ political crisis failed Sunday after representatives of its interim government and ousted President Jose Manuel Zelaya were unable to reach a consensus. The interim Honduran government of Roberto Micheletti on Sunday rejected a proposal advanced by a mediator to resolve the crisis by reinstating Zelaya
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown defended the military mission in Afghanistan amid tough questions Wednesday from the opposition leader. Speaking the day after eight British soldiers killed in Afghanistan were laid to rest, Brown also defended the volume of equipment — specifically helicopters — supplied to troops in Afghanistan. Conservative Party leader David Cameron said the number of helicopters in Afghanistan is “simply insufficient” and is “the basic problem” facing British troops there.
The brother of powerful Iranian cleric Ali Akbar Hasehemi Rafsanjani hailed the latter’s upcoming Friday sermon as one that Iranians have highly anticipated and said that a "great turnout" is expected. Rafsanjani, a former president and normally a frequent speaker at the prayer service on Islam’s holy day, has not appeared at the weekly sermon since the disputed June 12 presidential vote, according to the semi-official Iranian Labor News Agency.
Since the earliest days of his Administration, President Barack Obama has sought to engage Iran’s leaders in the search for diplomatic solutions to the standoff over Tehran’s nuclear program and other points of conflict. But in the days since protests exploded in the streets following the re-election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, many U.S
Japan’s Prime Minister Taro Aso will dissolve the lower house of parliament this month and call for a general election in August, the government said Monday. The lower house of the Diet will be dissolved the week of July 21; elections for new lawmakers will be held on August 30, said Jun Matsumoto, the chief Cabinet spokesman