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Not much was new in Zarif’s leaked voice file; but it sounded like a confession before the people.
In the Persian month of Ordibehesht (April-May), Tehran often sees hail and flood-like rains. Last Saturday and Sunday, Tehran saw severe lightning and unstoppable rain. The horizon of 42-year-old republic was also hit by lightnings caused by the leak of an audio interview with foreign minister, Javad Zarif.
In an interview with economist Sayeed Laylaz, Zarif said words that shook the Iranian people. Not because they didn’t know this but because they now heard it from an insider. In the very first days of the revolution, the republic jettisoned patriotism and love of Iran. Instead, Shiite Islam, the Supreme Leader and safeguarding the cause of the regime became, as Iranian clerics like to say, “the most prior of priorities.”
Saturday, 24 April, 2021 - 06:15
Rescue workers at the site of the Ukraine plane crash. (AP) London - Asharq Al-Awsat
Compelling evidence has surfaced that now suggests the shooting down of Ukrainian Flight 752 by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in January 2020 was in no way an error but a premeditated intentional act, reported the King Weekly Sentinel.
Since day one of the crash, Andre Milne with Unicorn Aerospace has been investigating and his evidence is now being used by the Ukrainian Anti-Terrorist prosecutor to determine if there are grounds to take Iran to the World Court for Crimes Against Humanity for shooting down PS752.
US Says Remains Committed to Helping Defend Saudi Arabia aawsat.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from aawsat.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel s diplomatic reporter
Left: US President Joe Biden speaks about Russia in the East Room of the White House, Thursday, April 15, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik); Right: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at a memorial ceremony for fallen soldiers at the Yad LeBanim House on the eve of Memorial Day, in Jerusalem, Tuesday, April 13, 2021. (Debbie Hill/Pool Photo via AP)
Optimistic notes albeit somewhat tempered are being sounded this week in Vienna as Iran and the United States try to reach an agreement on a return to the 2015 nuclear deal.
“After days of intensive talks,” tweeted Iran’s nuclear negotiator, Abbas Araghchi, “it appears that we are now on the right track. But difficult way to go.”
Daily Times
April 20, 2021
On April 14, US President Joe Biden announced that all his country’s troops would leave Afghanistan by September 11, 2021; and not by May 1, as pledged by the former White House administration. Indeed, Biden claimed that the US had achieved its objectives in Afghanistan, saying: “We went to Afghanistan in 2001 to root out Al Qaeda, to prevent future terrorist attacks against the United States planned from Afghanistan. We accomplished that objective”.
Yet ground realities in Afghanistan contradict Biden’s talk of success. After all, there are reports of a Taliban-Al Qaeda nexus. Back in October of last year, Edmund Fitton-Brown, co-ordinator of the UN’s Monitoring Team on the Islamic State, Al Qaeda and the Taliban, confirmed as much to the BBC, noting that Al Qaeda was “heavily embedded” within the Taliban in Afghanistan. In addition, that same month saw Afghan Special Forces kill top Al Qaeda chief Husam Abd al-Rauf (Abu Muhsin al-Masri) i