Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says cooperation between Iran and South Africa can play a leading role in promoting peace and stability across the world.

“Iran and South Africa can make valuable efforts for [improving] international peace and stability and [serving] the interests of developing countries through joint cooperation in international circles,” Rouhani said in a meeting with South Africa’s Speaker of the National Assembly Baleka Mbete in Tehran on Saturday.

He added that the two countries share a stance on many regional and international issues and have “good and effective” cooperation in international organizations.

The Iranian chief executive praised growing relations between Tehran and Pretoria, saying, “The Islamic Republic of Iran’s will is to strengthen all-out relations with African countries, particularly South Africa.”

Rouhani also threw his country’s weight behind bolstering cooperation with South Africa in various economic fields, including mine, energy, tourism and banking sectors, expressing Tehran’s readiness to export technical and engineering services to Pretoria.

Need for enhanced international cooperation

For her part, the speaker of South Africa’s National Assembly said her country shares views with Iran on many international issues and stressed the importance of developing cooperation with the purpose of promoting global peace and friendship.

Mbete said Pretoria is determined to strengthen cooperation with Tehran in all areas.

Iran-South Africa cooperation on anti-terror fight

Meanwhile, Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said the Islamic Republic and South Africa are cooperating with each other in the fight against terrorism.

Speaking to reporters after a meeting with Mbete, Larijani added that the two countries could boost cooperation in the fields of oil, gas, petrochemistry, transportation and investment.

The top Iranian parliamentarian expressed hope that Mbete’s visit to Tehran would pave the way for boosting mutual ties, particularly in trade.

Iran’s membership to BRICS

The speaker of the South African parliament said her country is willing to make all efforts to help Iran join BRICS, the association of five major emerging national economies, namely Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

Mbete praised Iran’s achievements in the field of education, adding that Tehran can play an influential role in a forum like BRICS.

Culled from Presstv

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has urged China to be more active diplomatically to resolve the ongoing crisis on the Korean Peninsula. Le Drian said on Friday that he and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi had held a telephone conversation to review the Korean Peninsula situation a day earlier.

During their talk, Le Drian and Wang agreed that another round of United Nations sanctions needed to be implemented. Le Drian said he called on Wang to advise Beijing, which is Pyongyang’s main trade partner, to do its utmost to enforce the sanctions.

The French foreign minister said, “We must anticipate, there is a United Nations resolution that France voted for, to put in place sanctions on North Korea.” He warned that North Korea would, in a few months, have the capability to send long-range ballistic missiles anywhere across the globe. “In a few months that will be a reality,” he warned.

Le Drian said France supported intensifying efforts by the international community to push forward the denuclearization process on the Korean Peninsula. He said Pyongyang needed to resolve its issues through negotiations. “North Korea must find the path to negotiations.”

Wang, for his part, said his country “always strictly carries out related United Nations Security Council resolutions.” Beijing is “playing a positive role in seeking a peaceful solution to the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula,” he said. Wang added that other parties involved needed to jointly work to ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

North Korea has repeatedly asked the United States and South Korea to stop military drills in the region. Pyongyang sees the annual drills as a prelude for future invasion. North Korea says it needs its missiles and nuclear weapons as a deterrent against the US and its regional allies’ hostility, aggression and expansionist policy in the region.

Culled from Presstv

A new poll shows that a majority of American voters disapprove of US President Donald Trump’s performance and believe he is “tearing the country apart.” The survey, released on Wednesday by Fox News, found that 55 percent of registered voters said they disapprove of Trump’s time in office and 56 percent said they feel he is “tearing the country apart.”

Just 33 percent of voters said Trump is “drawing the country together,” and 41 percent approved of his performance.
According to the survey, Trump has lost the most support from Republican men and whites without a college degree (a nine-point decline for each) and conservatives (a seven-point loss). All three groups are significant demographics in his voter base.

For most of the issues asked in the survey— including immigration, taxes, health care, Russia, North Korea and the environment — the majority of voters expressed disapproval of Trump. His worst ratings came in his handling with race relations. Only 33 percent approved of his performance there; 61 percent did not.

Fox News is reportedly Trump’s favorite news network and the only major news station he has publicly praised. Trump has described “Fox & Friends,” a morning show on Fox News, as the most “fair” news program.
Trump has scored all-time low approval ratings in most mainstream surveys, but in the past few months, even polls skewed in his favor have been reporting poor scores.

Trump’s approval this month hit an all-time low in a survey by Rasmussen Reports, a right-wing polling company that Trump dubiously called “one of the most accurate” in the 2016 presidential election.
Trump has already spent more time under 40 percent than any other first-year president, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.

Low approval ratings impede a president’s ability to push an agenda through Congress and make it more likely the president’s party will lose seats in Congress in the midterm elections.

US President Donald Trump has called on Saudi King Salman and “all the parties in the Qatar dispute” to find a diplomatic solution to the regional standoff, according to the White House.

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates cut their diplomatic ties with Qatar on June 5, accusing Doha of sponsoring terrorism and destabilizing the region.

The Saudi-led bloc has also imposed sanctions against the tiny Persian Gulf country, including restrictions on Qatari aircraft using their airspace. Qatar’s only land border with Saudi Arabia has only been blocked as a result.

In a phone conversation on Wednesday, Trump told the Saudi monarch that a diplomatic resolution was necessary in order to fulfill a commitment Washington and its regional allies had made to stay united while fighting terror, the White House said in statement.

Meanwhile, experts have touted the Qatar crisis as the fallout of Trump’s visit to Riyadh in early June. Even Trump himself pointed this out in a tweet during the conflict’s early days.

“During my recent trip to the Middle East I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology,” Trump wrote on June 6. “Leaders pointed to Qatar — look!”

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said before the visit that it was aimed at getting Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations in the region to stand in “unity” with Israel and confront Iran.

This might explain the sudden push to isolate Doha, under the pretext that it has close ties with Iran as well as the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas.

Trump’s siding with Saudis became more apparent on June 8, when the White House said he had talked to Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, asking him to help “prevent the financing of terrorist organizations and stop the promotion of extremist ideology.”

Now, however, it seems that the White House is running out of patience with Saudi Arabia over its refusal to resolve the crisis.

Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said Wednesday that Riyadh and its regional allies had ignored “on at least 12 different occasions” calls by Qatar for talks on resolving the impasse.

The immense pressure seems to have failed to bring Qatar to its knees, as the country has strengthened ties with Iran and other regional players like Turkey.

Culled from Presstv

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres has called for an end to the decade-long Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip, describing the situation in the coastal Palestinian enclave as one of the most “dramatic humanitarian crises.”

Guterres made the remarks during a visit on Wednesday to a school run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, also known as UNRWA, in northern Gaza.

The besieged Palestinian territory is undergoing an electricity and water crisis. “I am deeply moved to be in Gaza today, unfortunately to witness one of the most dramatic humanitarian crises that I’ve seen in many years working as a humanitarian in the United Nations,” Guterres stated.

He added that it was “important to open the closures,” in a reference to the Israeli siege of Gaza and Egypt’s closure of Rafah border crossing, the only passageway to the outside world for the impoverished coastal Palestinian sliver.

The UN secretary general wrapped up his three-day visit to the Palestinian territories on Wednesday. The trip was the first of its kind since Guterres took office. During the trip, Guterres met Israeli and Palestinian officials in Jerusalem al-Quds and Ramallah. The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas welcomed Guterres’ visit, urging him to work for the lifting of the Israeli blockade.

The European Union (EU) has once again thrown its weight firmly behind a multilateral nuclear deal with Iran, as the United States tries its hand at undermining the agreement.

Addressing the opening session of the 2017 EU Ambassadors Conference in Brussels on Monday, Federica Mogherini said the deal, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), represents “the European way to foreign policy.”

“This was not an agreement between two countries, I have repeated it time and again and I have the impression that we will need to repeat it time and again in the months to come,” she added, apparently referring to the stepped-up American rhetoric and action against the deal.

US President Donald Trump has called the JCPOA — which was negotiated under his predecessor, Barack Obama — “the worst deal ever” and repeatedly threatened to tear it up.

The deal was reached between Iran and the P5+1 countries — namely the US, Russia, China, France, Britain, and Germany — in July 2015 and took effect in January 2016.

Recent reports indicate that the Trump administration is actively seeking a pretext to potentially withdraw from the JCPOA. Among other things, the White House has reportedly been pressuring US intelligence officials to produce intelligence that could be used to declare Iran in violation of the nuclear agreement.

This is while the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is tasked with monitoring Iranian compliance with the deal, has consistently verified the Islamic Republic’s adherence to its obligations.

Last week, the Trump administration sent US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley to Vienna to lobby with the IAEA to request access to Iranian military sites as part of the deal, a move generally considered an attempt at undermining the JCPOA.

Mogherini said in her Monday’s comments that the JCPOA was “a commitment undertaken by the entire international community on one side and Iran on the other, supported by a resolution of the UN Security Council, and certified regularly by the International Atomic Energy Agency.”

She said “compliance with the deal is certified by the IAEA and by the Joint Commission I chair…, not by one single individual country,” in a thinly-veiled rejection of US attempts to claim an Iranian breach.

The EU’s top diplomat further hailed Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s “personal commitment to continue to implement their part of the deal. This is what is counting the most for us in this moment.” Iran has denounced Washington’s attempts to undermine the JCPOA.

Culled from Presstv

In yet another blow to the administration of US President Donald Trump, his deputy assistant, Sebastian Gorka, has resigned, media outlets report.

According to the Federalist newspaper, which cited multiple sources familiar with the situation, the national security and counterterrorism expert wrote a letter in which he announced his resignation over his dissatisfaction with the current state of the Trump administration.

“[G]iven recent events, it is clear to me that forces that do not support the MAGA promise are – for now – ascendant within the White House,” Gorka wrote, according to the Federalist. “As a result, the best and most effective way I can support you, Mr. President, is from outside the People’s House,” he added.

Gorka is another official who has resigned after Trump’s inflammatory remarks about a violent incident in Charlottesville, Virginia earlier this month. On August 12, a man linked to white supremacist groups ran over a group of counter-protesters during a gathering of white nationalists in Charlottesville, killing one woman and injuring some 20 others.

Trump stirred a firestorm by refusing to blame the violence on white supremacists and saying that both sides were at fault. His flip-flopping on Charlottesville prompted a wave of resignations on two high-profile White House advisory boards, leading Trump to officially disband both.

Every member of the White House arts committee also resigned over the issue. In the wake of Charlottesville, four in ten Americans support Trump’s impeachment and removal from office, according to a new poll. According to the new poll recently released by the Public Religion Research Institute, 40 percent of Americans back impeaching Trump, compared to 30 percent who said the same in February.

Source: Presstv

Thousands of protesters have flooded the streets of Phoenix, Arizona, where US President Donald Trump was addressing a rally, in which he repeated his inflammatory remarks about the racist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Trump said Tuesday that “the very dishonest media” mischaracterized his response to the violent protests in Charlottesville on August 12.

He said he “openly called for unity, healing and love” and denounced violence in the “strongest possible terms”, but the press did not report those comments and instead fabricated other stories with “no sources.”

“They don’t report the facts. Just like they don’t want to report that I spoke out forcefully against hatred, bigotry and violence and strongly condemned the Neo-Nazis, the white supremacists and the KKK,” he said.

“What happened in Charlottesville strikes at the core of America and tonight, this entire arena stands united in forceful condemnation of the thugs that perpetrated hatred and violence,” the president said. In the deadly protests last weekend, neo-Nazis and white supremacists took over the Virginia city’s streets and prompted thousands of others to demonstrate in a counter-rally, which led to violent clashes.

The president blamed the violence, which left one woman dead and several others injured, on both sides of the conflict. His reaction sparked a political firestorm and drew sharp rebukes from members of Congress, military leaders and major business executives. It also led to several protests in different cities across the country.

On Tuesday, hundreds of his supporters and opponents gathered in Phoenix, with protesters shouting, “Shame, shame, shame” and “No Trump, No KKK, No fascist USA.”

“Trump saying people on both sides are to blame was the last straw,” Eva Spivey, 25, of Avondale, Arizona, told CNN. “Racism is a one-sided thing.” Trump tried to diminish the number of protesters outside the venue, by saying, “Just so you know from the Secret Service, there aren’t too many people outside protesting.”

His supporters chanted, “build the wall,” a reference to Trump’s promise to build a wall on the US border with Mexico, while some others were saying, “Make America great again.”

Some other people shouted “CNN sucks” “Shame on you” and “Tell the truth,” after Trump said the media were not honest. Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton, a Democrat, had asked the president to postpone the rally.

In the wake of Charlottesville, four in ten Americans support Trump’s impeachment and removal from office, according to a new poll.

The poll released Thursday by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 40 percent of Americans back impeaching Trump, compared to 30 percent who said the same in February.

Source: Presstv

A writer who has known Donald Trump for three decades believes the US president will resign from office before the end of the year. Tony Schwartz, the ghostwriter of Trump’s 1987 Art of the Deal memoir, took to Twitter on Thursday to make his prediction about Trump’s political future.

“The circle is closing at blinding speed. Trump is going to resign and declare victory before Mueller and Congress leave him no choice,” Tony Schwartz said Thursday. The circle is closing at blinding speed. Trump is going to resign and declare victory before Mueller and congress leave him no choice.

“Trump must be isolated. Resistance every day. The end is near but must keep pressure high,” he added. “Trump’s presidency is effectively over. Would be amazed if he survives till end of the year. More likely resigns by fall, if not sooner,” he continued.

US Special Counsel Robert Mueller along with several congressional committees are investigating whether the Russian government coordinated with Trump’s associates during the 2016 campaign and transition, accusations both Trump and Moscow have denied. Mueller has also impaneled a grand jury, meaning he is allowed to subpoena officials and get sworn testimony which may lead to criminal indictments.

Mueller is reportedly seeking to interview current and former administration officials as part of his investigation into Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 presidential election. Trump has condemned the investigation into possible collusion between his election campaign and Russia as the “greatest witch hunt” in the US history.

Schwartz made a similar prediction in May. “There is no right and wrong for Trump. There’s winning and losing. And that’s very different from right and wrong. Right now he’s in pure terror that he is going to lose,” Schwartz said. “And by the way, he is going to lose.”

Mueller was appointed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to lead the probe which will also look into “related matters.” He was at the helm of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for 12 years, between 2001 and 2013.

Source: Presstv

US President Donald Trump has thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for kicking out hundreds of American diplomats, because the United States is “trying to cut down [its] payroll.” “I want to thank him because we’re trying to cut down our payroll … I’m very thankful that he let go of a large number of people because now we have a smaller payroll,” Trump told reporters at his New Jersey golf club on Thursday.

“There’s no real reason for them to go back,” he added. “I greatly appreciate the fact that we’ve been able to cut our payroll of the United States. We’re going to save a lot of money.” It is however unclear how President Putin’s booting out American diplomats would remove them from the US payroll.

The Republican-controlled Congress approved the new sanctions package last month against Russia, Iran and North Korea. The bill was passed with overwhelming margins, eliminating the prospect of a presidential veto. The legislation is particularly aimed at punishing Moscow for its alleged meddling in the 2016 US presidential election and the reunion of Crimea with Russia.

Russia responded by saying the sanctions amounted to a full-scale trade war and an end to hopes for better ties with the Trump administration. President Putin ordered 755 US diplomats to leave the country after Congress passed the sanctions bill.

The Trump administration, which had sought better relations with Russia, described the Russian move as another setback. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that “this had created serious mistrust,” adding that the United States would respond to Moscow’s decision.

Trump’s desire for better ties with Moscow has been hampered by accusations from US intelligence agencies that Russia operated a series of high-profile cyber attacks to change the outcome of the November 8 presidential election in favor of Trump.

A special counsel, former FBI director Robert Mueller, as well as several congressional committees are investigating whether the Russian government coordinated with Trump’s associates during the 2016 campaign and transition. Trump denies any collusion by his campaign and Moscow denies any meddling.

Trump has voiced his criticism about that the probe, but he he said on Thursday he will not fire Mueller. “I want them to get on with the task,” Trump said, despite the fact that Mueller is investigating “something that never happened.”

Trump said Democrats are the ones who should be investigated for collusion, not him. “There was no collusion between us and Russia. In fact, the opposite,” Trump said. “Russia spent a lot of money on fighting me, and if you think about it, I want a strong military — you see our budget is up by — it will be hundreds of billions of dollars soon. Our military budget. Russia doesn’t like that. Hillary was going to cut the budget substantially — the military budget. Russia — is very important for Russia — oil. Oil and gas. We are now an exporter because of an incredible six months that — an exporter of oil and gas. That’s bad for Russia.”

“I don’t think Russia wants me because I want a strong military and I want low energy prices. Energy is a disaster, low energy prices is a disaster for Russia,” he added. Trump has previously said Russia would have preferred a weak American leader, like his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

Source: Presstv