WASHINGTON/CAIRO: The US on Saturday accused Tehran of an “outrageous” effort to deflect blame for the impasse in Iran nuclear talks and denied that any agreement had been reached on a prisoner swap.
Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Abbas Araqchi, said earlier on Twitter that the next round of negotiations in Vienna must wait until the new Iranian administration takes office in August but insisted that a prisoner exchange could take place quickly if the United States and Britain would stop linking it with the nuclear issue.
Indirect US-Iranian talks on reviving the 2015 deal have been on hold since the last round ended on June 20, and Araqchi’s comments confirmed that Tehran will not return to the table before President-elect Ebrahim Raisi takes over.
“We’re in a transition period as a democratic transfer of power is under way in our capital. Vienna talks must thus obviously await our new administration,” he tweeted.
US State Department spokesman Ned Price said: “These comments are an outrageous effort to deflect blame for the current impasse.”
“We stand ready to return to Vienna to complete work on a mutual return to the JCPOA once Iran has made the necessary decisions,” Price said, referring to diplomatic efforts to get both countries back to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
That is the nuclear accord that former President Donald Trump abandoned and his successor, President Joe Biden, seeks to revive.
Araqchi also urged the United States and Britain to stop linking any exchange of prisoners with the nuclear deal. “Ten prisoners on all sides may be released tomorrow if US&UK fulfil their part of a deal,” he said.
In response, Price said: “With respect to the comments on the Americans whom Iran has unjustly held against their will, we see just another cruel effort to raise the hopes of their families … There is no agreed deal yet.”
“We had been engaged in indirect talks on the detainees in the context of the Vienna process, and the delay in restarting that process is not helping,” Price added. “While it would be more effective to make progress if we were meeting in Vienna, we are also prepared to continue with talks on detainees during this period.”
Iran, which is holding a handful of Iranian-Americans, has been accused by rights activists of arresting dual nationals to try to extract a concession from other countries. Iran has dismissed the charge.
Iran said earlier this week that it was holding talks on securing the release of Iranian prisoners in American jails and other countries over violations of US sanctions.
In May, Washington denied a report by Iranian state television that the countries had reached a prisoner swap deal in exchange for the release of $7 billion in frozen Iranian oil funds under US sanctions in other countries.
The hiatus in nuclear talks, which US and European officials attribute to hard-line Raisi’s election, has raised questions about next steps if the talks hit a dead end.
US accuses Iran of trying to deflect blame for nuclear talks impasse
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US accuses Iran of trying to deflect blame for nuclear talks impasse
- Denies that any agreement had been reached on a prisoner swap
- Iran earlier said next round of talks must wait until the new Iranian administration takes office next month
Palestinian appeals for blood donations unanswered in Gaza due to widespread hunger, malnutrition
- Nearly 2 million Palestinians face imminent risk of widespread hunger as Israel has mostly restricted access to sufficient humanitarian aid
- Hospitals across Gaza are experiencing a critical shortage of essential medications, surgical supplies, and diagnostic imaging equipment
LONDON: Palestinian medics are facing challenging conditions while treating patients and the injured in the Gaza Strip amid ongoing Israeli attacks in the coastal enclave.
Health and medical staff have reported to the Wafa news agency that their appeals for community blood donations have gone largely unanswered due to widespread hunger and malnutrition, while life-saving resources are rapidly depleting in many hospitals.
Nearly 2 million Palestinians face an imminent risk of widespread hunger as Israel has mostly restricted access to sufficient humanitarian aid since it resumed its military actions in March.
Hospitals across Gaza are experiencing a critical shortage of essential medications, surgical supplies, and diagnostic imaging equipment, hindering doctors from carrying out emergency procedures necessary to save lives, Wafa added.
Operating rooms, intensive care units, and emergency departments are struggling under the pressure of a growing number of critically injured patients, and fuel is running out to generate power.
On Monday, Palestinian medical sources in Gaza revealed that 41 percent of kidney failure patients have died since October 2023 amid ongoing Israeli attacks and restrictions on humanitarian and medical aid.
Israeli forces destroyed the Noura Al-Kaabi Dialysis Center in northern Gaza over the weekend, one of the few specialized facilities providing kidney dialysis to 160 patients.
UN chief urges Yemen’s Houthis to release aid workers
- “I renew my call for their immediate and unconditional release,” Guterres said
- “The UN and its humanitarian partners should never be targeted, arrested or detained while carrying out their mandates”
DUBAI: United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday demanded Yemen’s Houthi militants release dozens of aid workers, including UN staff, a year after their arrest.
The Iran-backed militants, who control much of the war-torn country, detained 13 UN personnel and more than 50 employees of aid groups last June.
“I renew my call for their immediate and unconditional release,” Guterres said in a statement issued by the office of his special envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg.
“The UN and its humanitarian partners should never be targeted, arrested or detained while carrying out their mandates for the benefit of the people they serve,” he added.
A decade of civil war has plunged Yemen into one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with more than half of the population relying on aid.
The arrests prompted the United Nations to limit its deployments and suspend activities in some regions of the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country.
The Houthis at the time claimed an “American-Israeli spy cell” was operating under the cover of aid groups — an accusation firmly rejected by the UN.
Guterres also lamented the “deplorable tragedy” of the death in detention of a World Food Programme staffer in February.
The Houthis have kidnapped, arbitrarily detained and tortured hundreds of civilians, including aid workers, during their war against a Saudi-led coalition supporting the beleaguered internationally recognized government.
Lebanon on bumpy road to public transport revival
- Public buses, now equipped with GPS tracking, have been slowly making a come back
BEIRUT: On Beirut’s chaotic, car-choked streets, Lebanese student Fatima Fakih rides a shiny purple bus to university, one of a fleet rolled out by authorities to revive public transport in a country struggling to deliver basic services.
The 19-year-old says the spacious public buses are “safer, better and more comfortable,” than the informal network of private buses and minivans that have long substituted for mass transport.
“I have my bus card — I don’t have to have money with me,” she added, a major innovation in Lebanon, where cash is king and many private buses and minivans have no tickets at all.
Lebanon’s public transport system never recovered from the devastating 1975-1990 civil war that left the country in ruins, and in the decades since, car culture has flourished.
Even before the economic crisis that began in 2019 — plunged much of the population into poverty and sent transport costs soaring — the country was running on empty, grappling with crumbling power, water and road infrastructure.
But public buses, now equipped with GPS tracking, have been slowly returning.
They operate along 11 routes — mostly in greater Beirut but also reaching north, south and east Lebanon — with a private company managing operations. Fares start at about 80 cents.
Passengers told AFP the buses were not only safer and more cost-effective, but more environmentally friendly.
They also offer a respite from driving on Lebanon’s largely lawless, potholed roads, where mopeds hurtle in all directions and traffic lights are scarce.
The system officially launched last July, during more than a year of hostilities between Israel and militant group Hezbollah that later slammed the brakes on some services.
Ali Daoud, 76, who remembers Lebanon’s long-defunct trains and trams, said the public bus was “orderly and organized” during his first ride.
The World Bank’s Beirut office told AFP that Lebanon’s “reliance on private vehicles is increasingly unsustainable,” noting rising poverty rates and vehicle operation costs.
Ziad Nasr, head of Lebanon’s public transport authority, said passenger numbers now averaged around 4,500 a day, up from just a few hundred at launch.
He said authorities hope to extend the network, including to Beirut airport, noting the need for more buses, and welcoming any international support.
France donated around half of the almost 100 buses now in circulation in 2022.
Consultant and transport expert Tammam Nakkash said he hoped the buses would be “a good start” but expressed concern at issues including the competition.
Private buses and minivans — many of them dilapidated and barrelling down the road at breakneck speed — cost similar to the public buses.
Shared taxis are also ubiquitous, with fares starting at around $2 for short trips.
Several incidents of violence targeted the new public buses around their launch last year.
Student and worker Daniel Imad, 19, said he welcomed the idea of public buses but had not tried them yet.
People “can go where they want for a low price” by taking shared taxis, he said before climbing into a one at a busy Beirut intersection.
Public transport could also have environmental benefits in Lebanon, where climate concerns often take a back seat to daily challenges like long power blackouts.
A World Bank climate and development report last year said the transport sector was Lebanon’s second-biggest contributor to greenhouse gas and air pollution, accounting for a quarter of emissions, only behind the energy sector.
Some smaller initiatives have also popped up, including four hybrid buses in east Lebanon’s Zahle.
Nabil Mneimne from the United Nations Development Programme said Lebanon’s first fully electric buses with a solar charging system were set to launch this year, running between Beirut and Jbeil (Byblos) further north.
In the capital, university student Fakih encouraged everyone to take public buses, “also to protect the environment.”
Beirut residents often complain of poor air quality due to heavy traffic and private, diesel-fueled electricity generators that operate during power outages.
“We don’t talk about this a lot but it’s very important,” she said, arguing that things could improve in the city “if we all took public transport.”
Israel’s actions ‘constitute elements of the most serious crimes under international law’: UN
- Volker Turk: Deadly attacks on civilians trying to access ‘paltry amounts’ of food aid ‘unconscionable’
- System meant to circumvent UN mechanism ‘endangers lives and violates international standards on aid distribution’
NEW YORK: Israel’s actions in Gaza “constitute elements of the most serious crimes under international law,” the UN human rights chief warned on Tuesday.
“The willful impediment of access to food and other life-sustaining relief supplies for civilians may constitute a war crime,” Volker Turk said.
“The threat of starvation, together with 20 months of killing of civilians and destruction on a massive scale, repeated forced displacements, intolerable, dehumanizing rhetoric and threats by Israel’s leadership to empty the strip of its population, also constitute elements of the most serious crimes under international law.”
For the past three days, scores of starved Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire as they were attempting to procure food at an aid point run by the controversial, US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
Deadly attacks on distraught civilians trying to access the “paltry amounts” of food aid in Gaza are “unconscionable,” said Turk, calling for a “prompt and impartial” investigation into each of these attacks, and for the perpetrators to be held to account.
“Attacks directed against civilians constitute a grave breach of international law, and a war crime,” he said, adding that Palestinians have been presented “the grimmest of choices: die from starvation or risk being killed while trying to access the meagre food that is being made available through Israel’s militarized humanitarian assistance mechanism.”
This militarized system to distribute aid, which is meant to circumvent the UN mechanism in Gaza, “endangers lives and violates international standards on aid distribution,” he said.
Turk recalled that in 2024, the International Court of Justice “issued binding orders on Israel to take all necessary and effective measures to ensure, without delay, in full cooperation with the United Nations, the unhindered provision at scale by all concerned of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance, including food, water, electricity, fuel, shelter, clothing, hygiene and sanitation requirements, as well as medical supplies and medical care to Palestinians throughout Gaza. There is no justification for failing to comply with these obligations.”
UN convoy attacked on the way to Sudan’s Al-Fashir, UNICEF says
- “We have received information about a convoy with WFP and UNICEF trucks being attacked,” UNICEF spokesperson Eva Hinds said
- She did not say who was responsible or elaborate on the reported casualties
GENEVA: A UN convoy delivering food into Sudan’s Al-Fashir in North Darfur came under attack overnight, a spokesperson for the UN children’s agency told Reuters on Tuesday, adding that initial reports indicated “multiple casualties.”
“We have received information about a convoy with WFP and UNICEF trucks being attacked last night while positioned in Al Koma, North Darfur, waiting for approval to proceed to Al-Fashir,” UNICEF spokesperson Eva Hinds said in response to questions.
She did not say who was responsible or elaborate on the reported casualties.
Aid has frequently come under the crossfire in the two-year-old war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which has left more than half the population facing crisis levels of hunger.
In a statement, the RSF’s aid commission blamed an airstrike by the army, as did local activists. The army did not respond to a request for comment.
Al Koma is controlled by the RSF, and earlier this week saw a drone strike that claimed several civilian lives, according to local activists.
Famine conditions have previously been reported in Al-Fashir, the capital of North Darfur. The fighting and barriers to the delivery of aid put in place by both sides have cut off supplies.
The attack is the latest of several assaults on aid in recent days. It follows the repeated shelling of UN World Food Programme premises in Al-Fashir by the RSF and an attack on El Obeid hospital in North Kordofan that killed several medics late last month.
