Concern Over US Interference in Tunisia

Tehran has expressed concern over American “interference” in the events in Tunisia that led to the ouster of staunchly pro-Western president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
Citing remarks by White House officials and a trip to Tunisia by a top US diplomat, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast on Tuesday voiced concern over what he described as Washington’s destabilizing “meddling” in the popular movement in the North African country, Presstv reported on Tuesday.
In a statement released by the Foreign Ministry, Mehmanparast urged the Tunisian people to be vigilant and united, expressing hope that their demands would be fulfilled with the establishment of a fair and democratic system based on Tunisian peoples “ideological beliefs and values.”
The West for decades has backed dictators and tyrants in the Middle East and North Africa. Ben Ali was one of them.
US assistant secretary of state Jeff Feltman arrived in Tunis on Monday and met officials including Foreign Minister Kamel Morjane to discuss plans for reforms and elections.
“The United States has heard the voices of the Tunisian people, heard them loud and clear,” Feltman told Tunisian state media.
“We are prepared to provide any support that would be appropriate or requested but we are mostly taking steps now to show our support for what the people of Tunisia themselves have said that they want.”
In an interview with Press TV, Sari Hanafi, the professor of sociology at the American University in Beirut, said Western powers as a matter of policy aided and abetted the dictatorial regimes in Tunisia because of concerns over emergence of Islamic rule in the North African country.
“The international community -- Western capitals -- keeps saying that they prefer the (dictatorial) regime,” which was ousted after Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia on January 14.
Their concerns are growing more so because Sheikh Rashed Ghannouchi, a former opposition leader and head of Tunisia’s Islamic Party al-Nahada, is set to return home from London after 20 years in exile.

Seeking
Interpol Help
Tunisia has asked Interpol to help arrest Ben Ali, his wife Leila Trabelsi and other members of the family who fled the country during an uprising, the justice minister said Wednesday.
Lazhar Karoui Chebbi told a news conference that Tunisia wanted to try Ben Ali and his clan for “possessing of (expropriated) property and transferring foreign currency abroad,” Reuters reported.
Chebbi also said that about 11,000 prisoners had escaped from the country’s prisons in the disorder that followed Ben Ali’s ouster. The number is far higher than previously believed.
Tunisia is still in the midst of upheaval and many schools and universities, shut down by Ben Ali in a failed bid to stop the protests widening, have remained closed despite orders to begin re-opening this week.
Ben Ali fled amid a wave of violent protests that began when a 26-year-old fruit vendor set fire himself to protest police abuse. Later on the day, the government declared a national state of emergency, imposing a ban on public gatherings and authorizing security forces to open fire on anyone who refused to comply with orders.
Before his ouster, Ben Ali and his generals tried to stem the flow of public outcry over the dire political and economic situation in the country by sacking his cabinet members, and called for parliamentary elections to be held within six months.
Rights group say more than 70 people died in nearly a month of protests over unemployment and rising prices.

Media Should Help Expose STL

Director of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) Ezatollah Zarqami said the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) offers an opportunity to the media to present to world public opinion a true insight into the “kangaroo court”.
In an interview with Mehr News Agency Wednesday, he said the US-backed STL -- which has been probing the February 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Premier Rafiq Hariri since 2007 – and Lebanese developments, are things about which the free peoples need to know the truth.
“The important point about this tribunal is its lack of credit in the eyes of the peoples of the world…The masses simply do not believe in such fake courts,” he said.
Such foreign schemes against the resistance in Lebanon are counterproductive, he stressed.
According to Hezbollah and many Lebanese officials and international analysts, the STL is a US-Israeli plot aimed at undermining unity in Lebanon and in favor of the narrow interests of the US and Israel. On January 15, Lebanese TV station Al-Jadeed published a leaked recording of a meeting between former prime minister Saad Al-Hariri and a false witnesses used in the international Hariri tribunal. Hariri had in the past rejected any such meetings.
The STL’s indictment, which was issued on January 17 but was only delivered to the tribunal’s Chief Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare and has not been publicly revealed yet, reportedly indicts some Hezbollah members in connection with the murder of the senior Hariri.
Hezbollah has publicly accused the STL of being part of a US-Israeli plot and its chief Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah has declared that the group will not accept the outcome of the court.

Jumblatt Denies Iranian Interference in Beirut

Leader of Lebanon’s Progressive Social Party (PSP) Walid Jumblatt said Wednesday reports that Najib Mikati was appointed prime minister due to Iran’s interference in Lebanese affairs are ridiculous and absurd.
Mikati had said earlier that some of his opponents like to claim that the new government emerging in Beirut is Iranian.
“Why should such a prejudgment be made about the future Lebanese government? This government should be established in an acceptable manner with the help of all people (of Lebanon),” Mikati said.
In an interview with the Lebanese daily As-Safir published Wednesday, Jumblatt referred to attempts by some quarters to distort the truth and said Mikati is committed to strong national principles and also to the Taif Agreement, IRNA reported.
The 1989 Taif Agreement (officially the Document of National Accord) ended the civil war in Lebanon.
The leader of Lebanon’s Druze community added that Mikati is a moderate and a renowned businessman who has very good ties at the Arab and international levels.
He referred to the naming of January 25 as the ‘Day of Rage’ by the Al-Mustaqbal Movement (Future Movement) led by former prime minister Saad Al-Hariri and said “There was no need for anger and today we all need to respect state institutions and the rule of law and accept democracy. Nobody can negate or revoke the other side…The end of every struggle is reaching an agreement.”
Regarding alleged pressure on him to support Mikati’s premiership, he said “I was neither pressured by Syria nor Hezbollah. My position is in line with respecting the political landscape (of the country). When I felt that the efforts made by Saudi Arabia and Syria and countries like Qatar and Turkey for resolving the crisis in Lebanon had reached a deadlock, I was obligated to make a choice.”

What Rage?
In a talk with the newspaper ‘Aliwaa’ Jumblatt said, “If Hariri wants to resort to legal measures for resolving the problem of premiership, so what is the reason behind the recent provocations and tumults in the streets and calling for the day of rage…Against who is the fury?”
The pro-Western Hariri administration collapsed following the resignation of several ministers close to Hezbollah.
The resignations came earlier this month when Hariri was in talks with President Barack Obama in the White House and after Hezbollah and its allies repeatedly warned the Hariri government to stop following US-Israeli recommendations.
It had specifically called on the embattled premier to disassociate himself from the controversial UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) which was launched in 2007 to investigate the February 14, 2005, assassination of Hariri’s father and former prime minister Rafiq Al-Hariri in Beirut.
According to Hezbollah and many other Lebanese officials and international analysts, the STL is a US-Israeli plot aimed at undermining unity in Lebanon and in favor of the narrow interests of the US and Israel. On January 15, Lebanese TV station Al-Jadeed published a leaked recording of a meeting between Hariri and false witnesses used in the international Hariri tribunal.
Hariri had in the past rejected any such meetings.
The STL’s indictment, which was issued on January 17 but was only delivered to the tribunal’s Chief Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare and has not been publicly revealed yet, reportedly indicts some Hezbollah members in connection with the murder of the senior Hariri.

US Seeking Talks With Iran Over Iraq

Spokesman of the US Embassy in Iraq David Ranz said America wants to hold talks with Iran over Iraq.
In an interview with the London-based newspaper ‘Asharq Al-Awsat’, Ranz said for the time being Washington’s talks with Iran are limited to the Group 5+1 about the nuclear program.
He said Washington was keen about negotiating with Iran about Iraq but Tehran was not interested, ISNA reported on Wednesday.
He emphasized that Iraq’s ties with its neighbors have improved and they had extended valuable support in the formation of the new government in Baghdad.
Ranz noted that ministers and senior officials from Jordan, Turkey and Iran plus the Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa had visited Iraq receently.
Iran’s former ambassador in Iraq Hassan Kazemi Qomi and former US ambassador to that country Ryan Crocker held several rounds of talks on Iraq’s security and stability that lasted from May 2007 to mid 2008.
The talks were held at the request of the Iraqi government.

Naval Group Leaves For Gulf of Aden

A naval group for training operations was dispatched to the Gulf of Aden on Wednesday.
This mission aims to offer practical training to some students of Imam Khomeini University and facilitate access to relevant regional information for the Navy, Fars News Agency reported.
Deputy commander of the Army’s naval wing Rear Admiral Gholam-Reza Khadem Bigham had announced last week that the group would enter the Red Sea and the Mediterranean waters.
Due to the long distance, the mission may last until the next Iranian year (starts March 21).
According to Bigham, the Navy is preparing to send a fleet of warships, including a home-made destroyer, to the piracy-infested region.
The Navy’s mission in the high seas was launched several years ago but gained momentum in 2008.
It dispatched its 10th warship to the Gulf of Aden to help protect Iran’s merchant shipping from the persistent threat of piracy in the strategic waterway.
Pirates have been operating off the coasts of crime-infested Somalia since late 2007, hijacking hundreds of ships and taking their crew hostage.

Egyptians Demand...

From Page 1
Egypt Stable!
Former director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Egyptian Mohammed ElBaradei told CNN on Tuesday night that he was stunned to hear Clinton say that “the Egyptian government is stable.”
ElBaradei, who is speculated to be mulling candidacy in elections for Egypt’s presidency, retorted that “stability is a democratic regime.” He said, “We have a parliament right now that has an opposition of three percent. You are insulting the intelligence of the people” by saying that is democracy.
Deflecting questions about his own political aspirations, ElBaradei said that his priority is “to shift Egypt into a democracy, to catch up to the 21st century,” where human rights are respected and the people have freedom.
Addressing the recent uprising in Tunisia that uprooted a decades-long dictatorship, he said that the Jasmine Revolution “sent a message to the Arab people that ‘yes we can’ ... be empowered by the people.” Egypt protests came as the Tunisia uprising that forced its president of 23 years to flee to Saudi Arabia.

Heads Roll After...

From Page 1
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has said that “retribution is inevitable”.
“This was an abominable crime in both its senselessness and its cruelty,” he said, offering government help to the families of those affected.
Speaking to security officers in televised remarks on Tuesday, Medvedev said terrorism was the most serious threat facing Russia today. He called for those responsible to be hunted down and their organizations “eliminated”.
Austrian traveler Johann Hammerer: “Injured people were lying on trolleys”

Criminal Negligence
In a hard-hitting verdict on the events at Domodedovo on Monday, Medvedev said “pure anarchy reigned” at the airport. “People were allowed to walk in from anywhere. The entrance restrictions were partial at best.”
He said an investigation by the prosecutor general would establish whether transport officials were guilty of criminal negligence.