Brent oil price falls after Iran deal

Brent crude oil price has slumped by more than two percent after Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany reached a deal over Tehran’s nuclear energy program.

Pakistan must act on Iranian guards: Foreign Ministry official

A senior Iranian official has called on Pakistan to fulfill its responsibility regarding the five Iranian border guards who were abducted and transferred to the country recently.

“Unfortunately, extremist and violent movements have significantly grown and strengthened in the Islamic world these days,” said Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Morteza Sarmadi on Sunday.

Iran FM stresses closer ties with European Union

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says there are numerous capacities for cooperation between Iran and the European Union (EU) countries, particularly Albania and Latvia.

In a meeting with newly accredited Albanian Ambassador to Tehran Genci Mucaj on Saturday, Zarif referred to the affinities as well as the long-standing and friendly ties between Iran and Albania, hoping for the further expansion of Tehran-Tirana ties.The top Iranian diplomat also met with Latvia’s new ambassador to Iran, Atis Sjanits, on Saturday.

Five ex-Guantanamo prisoners seek damages from US for abuse

Five former Guantanamo Bay prisoners are seeking damages from the US government for what they say were years of sexual, mental and physical abuse at the American prison.

The men, who are from Turkey, Uzbekistan and Algeria, filed the complaints in a US appeals court on Friday, alleging that they were subjected to forced nudity, sexual harassment and physical beatings, first in Afghanistan and then at Guantanamo.

Judge David Tatel, one of the justices hearing the case, said that Pentagon officials had failed in their duty. "Their job is to protect the detainees from abuse, they failed to do so."

UN says civilians main victims of South Sudan crisis

The United Nations says civilians in South Sudan have been subjected to human rights abuses such as rape, arbitrary arrest, and torture in the country’s ethnic violence.

The UN mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) said in a report prepared for the UN Security Council released on Friday that civilians have been the main target of deadly violence in the country since December 2013.

“It is clear that civilians bore the brunt of much of the fighting and that gross violations of human rights were committed,” the report said.

South Sudan’s four states of Jonglei, Central Equatoria, Unity and Upper Nile, where most of the clashes have taken place are the focus of the report.

Cmdr:No country can trespass on Iran waters

Commander of the Iranian Navy Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari says the country’s naval forces will never allow any country to violate Iranian territorial waters.

Transregional countries have a presence in open seas; but, we do not allow entrance into our territorial waters,” Sayyari told reporters in the northern Iranian port city of Bandar-e-Anzali on Thursday.

He went on to say that Iranian naval forces do not violate the territorial waters of other countries, stressing that world countries are entitled to have their forces sail on high seas.

February 20, 2014 in Kiev

    

South Sudanese

South Sudanese

South Sudanese internally displaced people walk in the Tongping UNMISS (United Nations Mission in South Sudan) base, where over 27,000 people seeked refuge, on February 19, 2014, in Juba.

Mortar attack against Iraqi town kills 22

Five mortar rounds are fired into a busy market, a residential building and a parking lot in a town south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, killing at least 22 people and wounding more than 50 others.

The attack took place at around 7 p.m. (1700 GMT) on Thursday against the town of Musayyib.

Police said it appeared the rounds came from the nearby town of Jurf al-Sakhar.

Nobody immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but Iraqi officials lay the blame on al-Qaeda-linked militants, who had carried out similar attacks in the past.

On Tuesday, a parked car bomb in the town killed five civilians and wounded 13 others, authorities said.

Also on Tuesday, several explosive-laden cars detonated across Baghdad, targeting the city's Shia districts.

One of the bombs ripped through a bus station in the capital's neighborhood of Baiyaa and another went off in a commercial area in the affluent district of Karrada.

US Congress mulls sanctions against Israel boycotters

A bill has been introduced in the US House of Representatives that would cut federal funding to American academic institutions that boycott Israel.

The bipartisan legislation was introduced by Representatives Peter Roskam (R-Illinois) and Dan Lipinski (D-Illinois) in early February and is US lawmakers’ first effort at federal level against higher learning institutions that choose to boycott Israel, Al Jazeera reported on Wednesday.

A similar bill was also introduced by lawmakers in the state of New York and passed the state’s Senate earlier this year but stalled in the New York Assembly when three committees did not discuss or vote on the legislation.