The commander of NATO's naval forces says Iranian threats to close a strategic Persian Gulf waterway are imaginary.
Vice Admiral Maurizio Gemignani of the Italian Navy is visiting the oil-rich Gulf state of Kuwait.
He said Tuesday that he considers the threats Iran has made to close the Strait of Hormuz a "fantasy" and the international passages cannot be blocked.
Iran has warned that it would close the strait if the United States attacks it over Tehran's disputed nuclear program.
About 40 percent of the world's oil passes through the strait.
Three NATO ships arrived in Kuwait on Tuesday to promote military cooperation.
Continued on Page 47
#7
Again, while the World remembers the "BISMARCK versus HOOD" + the German U-BOAT threat ala BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC, it was in the Mediterranean agz the smaller Italian Navy which proved to be the Royal Navy's "Ironbottom Sound" for its surface warfare fleet, espec for its destroyers and cruisers. PM Churchill fired several top Brit Air-Naval Commanders over their failure to stop Brit losses and defeat the Italian threat to North Africa + Gilbraltar + Suez. ALTHOUGH ITALY FINALLY LOST IN THE MED, THEY CAN CERTAINLY CLAIM TO HAD SCARED/INTIMIDATED THE BRITS AND CAUSED BRIT POLITICOS-ADMIRALS TO BITE THEIR NAILS A FEW TIMES, EAT THEIR NECKTIES, ETC.
A move to impeach an Iranian minister, slated for Tuesday, has flared into a full-blown political scandal after an attempt to bribe lawmakers over the matter led to a fistfight between supporters of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who, in turn, says parliament is out to sabotage his cabinet ahead of elections in June.
Speaking on state television Monday, the president called the impeachment bid "not legal" and "unfair." Ahmadinejad is firmly backing Interior Minister Ali Kordan, who has been accused of dishonesty for falsely claiming to hold an honorary law degree from Oxford University. Kordan says Oxford's representative in Tehran lied to him.
An impeachment of Kordan would push Ahmadinejad close to having to submit his entire cabinet for review by parliament, which is led by one of his chief political opponents. Iran's constitution requires that step if more than half the cabinet ministers are replaced, and Ahmadinejad has replaced nine of 21.
The dispute over Kordan's fake degree triggered a fistfight last week when the director of the presidential liaison office in parliament, Mohammad Abbasi, handed out checks for $5,000 to lawmakers who signed a letter stating that they would not vote for the impeachment.
When lawmaker Ali Asghar Zarei confronted Abbasi, a fight broke out in which the presidential liaison was injured. Zarei is regarded as one of Ahmadinejad's most loyal supporters in parliament.
"Collecting these signatures was against morality," Zarei said later, according to the semiofficial Fars News Agency. "I confronted him to prevent violations and wrongdoings that are contrary to the policy of the government."
On Sunday, Ahmadinejad fired Abbasi, and the speaker of Iran's parliament, Ali Larijani, banned him permanently from the parliament building. Ahmadinejad said on state television that his aide had acted "emotionally."
"The bribing is even worse than the whole affair of Kordan's fake degree," lawmaker Ali Akbar Owlia wrote Sunday in the Tehran newspaper Ettemaad.
The public disputes over Kordan's impeachment highlighted the rift developing here between supporters and former supporters of Ahmadinejad as the campaign for the June 12 presidential elections starts shaping up.
"The impeachment of Ali Kordan will be the splitting point between the government and its supporters in parliament," the Web site Aftabnews, which is critical of the president, said Monday.
More than half of parliament's 290 members must vote in favor of impeachment for the interior minister to be removed.
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Posted by: tipper ||
11/04/2008 06:42 ||
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#1
Almost like Taiwan's parliament. Maybe democracy is creeping in, little by little.
(AKI) - The United States Embassy in Damascus reopened on Sunday following massive protests against an alleged air raid by the US on a village near the Iraqi border last weekend. The embassy had been closed on Thursday after Syrian riot police were deployed to protect it as tens of thousands of students, unions, religious and civic leaders protested.
Syrian sources exclude the possibility of a permanent closure of the US Embassy or any move to recall Syria's Ambassador in the United States.
A top Syrian militant, Budran Hisham also known as Abu Ghadiya died in the alleged US raid on a village near the Iraqi border on 26 October. He was reportedly among eight people killed in the controversial attack.
US officials said he was a suspected Al-Qaeda leader responsible for a series of attacks and murders in Iraq, including the killings of 12 Iraqi policemen in May.
However, SANA reported on Thursday that the alleged raid claimed the lives of "eight defenceless civilians....which targeted peaceful building workers in a farm in Abu Kamal."
Thousands of young Iranians marked the 1979 seizure of the U.S. embassy on Monday, a day before Americans elect a new president, with some demonstrators indifferent to the U.S. vote and a few wondering if it could help rebuild ties.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
