Peace and Justice Post

Senior Iranian official Ali Larijani called on Monday for a more powerful global body free of big-power domination.

Speaking to an audience including U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, Larijani said the new body should comprise “the elites” of the United Nations and the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and ensure more fairness in the global system.

“The current prevailing structure of power has not only been unable to secure international peace and security, but has also led to the emergence of such new phenomena as terrorism in a very dangerous and organised framework,” he declared.

“No doubt this inability is due to the double standards and unilateral policies exercised by the big powers, including the USA,” Larijani added.

Now speaker of parliament but formerly Iran’s chief disarmament negotiator, he was speaking to a gathering of parliamentary speakers from IPU member countries on increasing global democratic accountability.

The U.N. Security Council imposed new sanctions on Iran in June over its nuclear programme, Russia and China supporting U.S. proposals aimed at putting increased pressure on Tehran.

Iran says the programme is only for peaceful purposes, but Western powers believe it is trying to produce nuclear weapons.

Ban earlier met Larijani and told reporters they had discussed how the Iranian nuclear issue could be resolved harmoniously.

“I emphasised the importance of the Iranian government working together with the international community to resolve this issue through dialogue and negotiations,” he said.

Reuters

Photo by: AP [illustrative]

Have Israel’s efforts to convince the US to threaten Iran with a credible military option paid off? According to recent media reports, the answer might be yes.

Since the US pushed a fourth round of sanctions against Iran through the UN Security Council last month, Jerusalem has increased diplomatic efforts to convince the White House that for the sanctions to work, a credible military option needs to be on the table to scare Iran to reconsider its pursuit of a nuclear weapon.

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There were demands last night for the release from prison of the man known as the Israeli nuclear whistleblower after it emerged he was being held in solitary confinement in the same section of prison as some of Israel’s most notorious criminals.

Mordechai Vanunu, who spent 18 years in jail for revealing details of Israel’s nuclear arsenal in 1986, was sent back to prison for three months in May after being found guilty of unauthorised meetings with foreign nationals. Vanunu, who became a cause celebre for human rights activists around the world and was elected rector of the University of Glasgow in absentia, is being held in Ayalon Prison in central Israel.Amnesty International is calling for Vanunu’s immediate release and his brother, Meir, contacted the Sunday Herald to express fears over Vanunu’s wellbeing after being the first person to visit him in seven weeks.

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Mumia Abu-Jamal

THE CAMPAIGN to End the Death Penalty (CEDP) is appalled by the news that several individuals of leading anti-death penalty organizations have signed a confidential memorandum stating that the “involvement of Mumia Abu-Jamal endangers the U.S. coalition for abolition of the death penalty.” The memo further argues that the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty should not highlight Mumia’s case because doing so “unnecessarily attracts our strongest opponents and alienates coalition partners at a time when we need to build alliances, not foster hatred and enmity.”

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Tony Blair was aware of the ­existence of a secret interrogation policy which ­effectively led to British citizens, and others, being ­tortured during ­counter-terrorism investigations, the Guardian can reveal.

The policy, devised in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, offered ­guidance to MI5 and MI6 officers ­questioning detainees in Afghanistan who they knew were being mistreated by the US military.

British intelligence officers were given written instructions that they could not “be seen to condone” torture and that they must not “engage in any activity yourself that involves inhumane or degrading treatment of prisoners”.

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