Daily News Channel
An Australian employee of Rio Tinto, the world’s second-largest mining company, is being held in China on suspicion of espionage and stealing state secrets, the Australian foreign minister said Wednesday. The man, identified by the Australian government as Stern Hu, has been held along with three Chinese co-workers since Sunday, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said. He said the reason for Hu’s detention “came as a surprise” to the Australian government
Eight local staff members of the British embassy in Tehran have been arrested in connection with the country’s post-election unrest, Iran’s government-funded Press TV reported Sunday. Asked about the arrests of the local staffers, an official at the embassy would only say, “They couldn’t come to the office today.” The person asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. The embassy’s official response was that it had seen the reports and were following up on them, a spokesman said
Iranian lawmakers are calling for a review of the country’s ties with Britain because of its "interference in Iran’s recent post-election unrest," government-funded Press TV reported Monday. Iran’s influential parliamentary speaker, Ali Larijani, submitted the request Monday to the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission which called on the Foreign Ministry to review the relationship, the report said. “The Islamic Republic of Iran favors the expansion of relations with all countries, but will never accept interference of other states in its internal affairs,” commission spokesman Kazem Jalali said, according to Press TV
This weekend Iran is roiled by the greatest turmoil since the 1979 revolution, while there is an ongoing debate inside the Obama Administration. One camp has argued that the Iranian political order could be fundamentally shaken in the days ahead, as in Poland in 1989 and Ukraine in 2004.
Britain’s Foreign Office is summoning Iran’s ambassador over the comments made Friday by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a Foreign Office spokesman said. The ambassador is expected to meet with the Foreign Office’s political director sometime Friday afternoon, said the spokesman, who would not be named in line with policy. Khamenei addressed a crowd at Tehran University in a sermon during Friday prayers
Germany is summoning the Iranian ambassador Monday to explain the disputed presidential election in the Middle Eastern nation, particularly the "brutal handling" of protesters, the German foreign minister said. The move is noteworthy because global reaction to the Iranian election has been guarded.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband has appealed for the release of five British hostages in Iraq as the second anniversary of their capture approaches.
Indians were voting Thursday in the fourth phase of a marathon general election to choose a new federal government. Officials at the meeting are expected to sign a prisoner transfer agreement that would allow Samantha Orobator to serve out a sentence in Britain, if she is convicted at her forthcoming trial, according to an official Laotian source who spoke to CNN.
A British diplomat and a doctor have been able to visit a pregnant British woman being held in a Laos jail, a spokesman for the British Embassy in Bangkok said Wednesday. A British vice-consul was allowed to see Samantha Orobator in jail on Tuesday, the spokesman told CNN.
A pregnant British woman facing possible execution in Laos will go on trial this week, the country’s foreign affairs ministry said Monday. Samantha Orobator “is facing death by firing squad for drug trafficking,” said Clare Algar, executive director of Reprieve, a London-based human rights group