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TOP STORIES
Many survivors in Iran were still awaiting badly needed
aid on Wednesday, three days after a powerful earthquake along the Iraq
border killed more than 530 people and left thousands injured.
Desperate, some families tried to set up temporary shelters, using
straw collected from nearby farms. The delay in getting help to the
needy came as public order broke down in many instances where aid was
being delivered in the Iranian Kurdish region.
Russia and Iran must do all they can to stop air strikes
targeting civilians in Syria and reach a definitive cessation of
hostilities, France said on Tuesday after at least 61 people were
killed in the bombing of an outdoor market.
After helping Iraq stifle a Kurdish push for
independence, Iran is now positioning itself to take control of oil
exports from the region's giant Kirkuk field, with the first
deliveries expected within days, officials and trading sources
said.
IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL
As Congress moves to ratchet up pressure on Iran, a key
House panel today approved a bill that could run afoul of the 2015
nuclear deal. The Strengthening Oversight of Iran's Access to Finance
Act would make it much more difficult for Iran to purchase commercial
aircraft from firms that do business in the United States.
SANCTIONS RELIEF
In the early 2000s, as Iran drafted
ambitious plans to exploit its huge gas potential, allocating some of
the gas for the production of liquefied natural gas (LNG) was firmly
on its agenda.
HUMAN RIGHTS
Britain's foreign secretary says he will meet with the
husband of a British woman imprisoned in Iran to discuss offering her
a special status to help secure her freedom. Boris Johnson has
apologized for suggesting that 38-year-old Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe
was training journalists when she was arrested last year... Johnson
told the House of Commons that he would discuss on Wednesday the
possibility of giving Zaghari-Ratcliffe "diplomatic
protection," which would elevate her case to a legal dispute
between Britain and Iran.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
A top Iranian official and Lebanon's Saad al-Hariri gave
conflicting accounts on Tuesday of a key meeting they had held right
before Hariri quit as prime minister, a move he attributed to
regional meddling by Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has offered
aid to the victims of the weekend's deadly earthquake in Iran insisting
enmity between the two governments does not prevent humanitarian
sympathy... Iran does not recognize the Jewish state and Israeli
media reported that the offer was swiftly turned down through the
International Committee of the Red Cross. But it comes as many of the
tens of thousands left homeless by the quake have vented anger at the
Islamic regime for what they say has been the slow response of the
charitable foundations set up after the revolution of 1979.
SYRIA CONFLICT
The UN General Assembly has passed a resolution against
serious human rights violations in Syria, most notably is their call
on Iranian militias to leave Syria.
IRANIAN DOMESTIC ISSUES
The ease with which some state-built homes collapsed in
Sunday's earthquake in western Iran showed corrupt practices when
they were constructed, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on
Wednesday in a sentiment shared by many ordinary Iranians. Some of
the houses which collapsed in an earthquake that killed at least 530
people and injured thousands of others were built under an affordable
housing scheme initiated in 2011 by Rouhani's predecessor, Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad.
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