Iran warns US against seizing oil tanker - Aljazeera.com

Iran has warned the United States against attempting to seize an Iranian oil tanker that set sail from Gibraltar after being impounded for six weeks. 

The Adrian Darya 1, previously named Grace 1, headed east into the Mediterranean Sea on Monday hours after authorities in Gibraltar rejected a request from Washington to hold the ship.

Its destination was the Greek port of Kalamata, according to shipping data. 

Abbas Mousavi, spokesman for Iran's foreign ministry, told a news conference that any attempt at seizing the vessel, which has a cargo of 2.1 million barrels of crude oil, would have "grave consequences". 

"If such an action is taken or even if it is stated verbally and not done, it is considered a threat against the maritime security in international waters," said Mousavi.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran has given necessary warnings to the US officials through official channels, especially the Swiss embassy in Tehran, not to commit such a mistake because it would have grave consequences."

The British Royal Marines seized the ship on July on suspicion it was shipping oil to Syria in violation of European Unionsanctions. 

Iran tanker departs after Gibraltar rejects US demand (2:20)

Iran had denied the tanker was ever headed to Syria.

The British move triggered a sharp deterioration in relations between Iran and the United Kingdom, and Tehran subsequently detained a British-flagged tanker in what was seen as a tit-for-tat move. 

Gibraltar's Supreme Court ordered the release of the Iranian tanker last week after authorities in the British overseas territory said it had received written assurances from Iran that the ship would not be headed to countries subject to EU sanctions. 

Tehran denied it had made any promises about the ship's destination to secure the release.

'Blow to US unilateralism'

In a last-ditch effort to stop the release, the US unsealed a warrant on Friday to seize the Adrian Darya 1 and its cargo, citing violations of US sanctions as well as money laundering and "terrorism" statutes.

The unsealed court documents argued that Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which Washington has designated a "terrorist organisation", are the ship's true owners through a network of front companies.

But Gibraltar's government rejected the request, saying it could not seek a court order to detain the supertanker because US sanctions against Iran were not applicable in the EU.

The row comes amid a growing confrontation between Iran and the US after President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers over a year ago. The pact's remaining signatories - UK, France, Germany, Russia and China - oppose the US move and have pledged to protect Iran from sanctions reimposed by Washington.

Mousavi said the Gibraltar court order for the release of the oil tanker was a blow to US "unilateralism". 

He also denied any link between the seizure of the Iranian tanker off Gibraltar and the British-flagged tanker in the Gulf. 

"There have been two or three maritime violations made by that ship," he said, referring to the Stena Impero held off the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas.

"The court is looking into it. We hope the [investigation] is completed as soon as possible and the verdict is issued."

Separately, a senior Iranian legislator said the crisis in Iran's ties with Britain would not be over until the Adrian Darya 1 reached its destination. 

"Until the Iranian oil tanker arrives at its destination the British must help end the crisis," Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, a member of parliament's national security and foreign affairs committee, was quoted as saying by the semi-official ISNA news agency.

"This means that the crisis with Britain is not over. Britain has the primary responsibility for ending the oil tanker crisis," Falahatpisheh said.

The final destination of the supertanker remains unclear, with authorities in Greece yet to confirm that it is expected to dock there.

SOURCE: Al Jazeera and news agencies

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2019-08-19 14:22:00Z
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What a wedding massacre says about Trump's plan to leave Afghanistan - CNN

Officials say at least 63 died -- the bride and groom survived -- but relatives think the death toll may be higher. Violent death is an everyday occurrence in Kabul, but this attack shocked many with its sheer savagery. "Before the blast we were so happy, all our family, relatives and friends were at the hall and we were enjoying the wedding," Basir Jan, a brother of the groom, told CNN. "When the blast happened, I saw dead bodies of my relatives and friends. Eight of my close friends were killed in the blast. It was a scene I will always remember."

The devastation represents a personal tragedy the families who were targeted in Kabul at the weekend. But it also provided a bloody backdrop to the final stages of peace talks being held now between the Taliban and the United States.

The US top negotiator, Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad, tweeted shortly after the bomber walked into the celebration: "We must accelerate the #AfghanPeaceProcess including intra-Afghan negotiations. Success here will put Afghans in a much stronger position to defeat ISIS."

It's a tweet that manages to be both startlingly opportunistic, flawed but largely accurate at the same time. Accurate, since a peace deal between the US and Taliban would enable both to focus on ISIS -- a comparatively tiny, yet brutal part of the insurgency raging in Afghanistan now. Flawed, because a peace deal would not guarantee the Taliban didn't pursue its main enemy, the Afghan government first, before getting around to ISIS. Opportunistic, as the tweet also exposed the "deal at all costs" attitude behind the talks now: The massacre is a reflection of how badly Afghanistan has collapsed, not of how well the proposed peace deal might fix it. Trump wants out of Afghanistan, that much is clear, despite saying last year he would win. But how much of an inglorious an end to America's longest war is he prepared to countenance to make that happen?

To recap. Some months ago the United States made a key concession with the Taliban, agreeing to direct talks that excluded the Afghan government from the table -- something the insurgents always wanted.

Sources close to the talks say they are 99% resolved around a deal between the US and the Taliban that would involve a reduction in American troops, and more importantly a ceasefire between these two combatants.

That ceasefire would not necessarily bring an end to fighting between the Taliban and Afghan government forces -- only remove the US's airpower from the battlefield. The Taliban and Afghan government would then begin separate peace talks, the sources say. Afghan critics of the plan worry that as those peace talks inevitably stumble, Kabul government would begin to lose territory to the Taliban, abandoned by Washington and with American firepower sitting idly by.

The counter-narrative to this bleak assessment is threefold. First, the Taliban knows it must join forces with an internationally recognised government in order to qualify for foreign aid, so a return to the atavism of the 1990s is unlikely. Also, the US must eventually leave Afghanistan one way or another, or at least reduce its expenditure there. And finally that violence has rocketed these talks progress -- both sides trying to assert dominance on the battlefield -- and that peace and a reduction of violence has to be the only priority.

This conclusion is valid, yet misses one point -- the reason why the United States went into Afghanistan in the first place. Al-Qaeda hasn't vanished. In fact, when the longtime Taliban leader Mullah Omar died, his successor Mullah Habitullah made the ranking AQ leader in the Afghan insurgency, Sarraj Haqqani, the commander of his military operations. Habitullah's son reportedly also became a suicide bomber in Helmand in 2017. This does not represent a moderate dilution of the Taliban, as some of their speeches would like to suggest. And al-Qaeda may lying low right now, but are still very much in the picture. They were the guys behind 9-11, by the way.

The details of the deal are set to emerge in the next week or so. It looks likely that it will involve a reduction in US troop levels and limit what the US can do on the battlefield, while the Afghan government and those behind the insurgency come to their own accommodation. It will also run into presidential elections in Afghanistan, usually a compromised and scatty affair, which are due on September 28. Afghans will elect a president just as a wobbly peace agreement lurches into view.

President Trump may sell it as a historic deal. But only in the months ahead will we learn if it gives al-Qaeda more room to grow, and what it spells for the hundreds of thousands of Afghans who fought for the Americans and for the way of life America offered them.

For Afghans, it is a matter of life and death, a far more serious proposition than that which America risks: The possibility its longest war ends with a betrayal, and the possibility the enemy they sought to vanquish flourishes again.

"I want peace for my country," says Basir Jan, the brother of the wedding attack groom. "But we never get it."

Ehsan Popalzai contributing reporting from Kabul

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2019-08-19 14:21:00Z
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Prince Andrew 'appalled' by Jeffrey Epstein claims despite video of royal leaving Manhattan mansion in 2010 - Fox News

Britain's Prince Andrew on Monday tried to bat back renewed scrutiny of his longtime friendship with accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, despite new video showing the royal at the disgraced financier's Manhattan mansion in 2010 -- two years after Epstein pleaded guilty to solicitation of prostitution involving a minor and was forced to register as a sex offender.

Epstein, 66, hanged himself in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center on Aug. 10 while awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking and conspiracy, the New York City medical examiner said in a report released Friday. The official results followed a week of speculation about the shocking death at the federal facility in Lower Manhattan. Epstein had pleaded not guilty to the latest charges and was being held without bail at the time of his death.

In the wake of the suicide, concerning allegations about the Duke of York's relationship with Epstein have reemerged, including accusations made by Virginia Giuffre, who claims Epstein paid her to have sex with the prince nearly two decades ago, when she was 17.

EPSTEIN'S ATTORNEYS 'NOT SATISFIED' WITH AUTOPSY RESULTS THAT CONCLUDED FINANCIER DIED BY HANGING

In a statement released Monday, Buckingham Palace said Andrew was "appalled by the recent reports of Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged crimes."

“His Royal Highness deplores the exploitation of any human being and the suggestion he would condone, participate in or encourage any such behavior is abhorrent,” the Palace said.

The statement was released after the Mail on Sunday newspaper obtained a Dec. 6, 2010, video appearing to show Andrew inside Epstein's opulent Manhattan home as the prince waves goodbye to a young woman.

The video was recorded two years after Epstein's controversial deal in which he pleaded guilty to a Florida state felony charge of prostitution involving a minor. The terms of the deal included generous work release conditions for Epstein.

The duke was also photographed with Epstein in 2010 in New York's Central Park after Epstein had finished serving his 18-month prison sentence. The photos sparked controversy at the time and led Andrew to quit his role as a UK trade envoy in 2011, according to Sky News.

PAINTING OF BILL CLINTON IN BLUE DRESS AND HEELS WAS INSIDE JEFFREY EPSTEIN'S NYC MANSION: REPORT

A document dump on the Friday directly preceding Epstein's death came after a federal appeals court ordered the release of court papers in a defamation lawsuit Giuffre brought against Epstein’s former girlfriend and alleged "madam," Ghislaine Maxwell. The civil case was eventually settled.

Included in the documents, however, are portions of a deposition from Johanna Sjoberg, who said she was 21 years old in 2001 when Andrew grabbed her breast at Epstein’s mansion in New York.

Sjoberg testified the incident was sparked when "someone" suggested those gathered take a picture, at which point Sjoberg said she and Maxwell went to a closet and grabbed a puppet of Andrew.

"They told us to go get on the couch,” she said in the 2016 deposition. “And so Andrew and Virginia sat on the couch, and they put the puppet, the puppet on her lap. And so then I sat on Andrew’s lap, and, I believe on my own volition, and they took the puppet’s hands and put it on Virginia’s breast, and so Andrew put his on mine."

She added: “I knew it was Prince Andrew because I knew him as a person."

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The court papers also include a photograph that has been in circulation since 2015 showing Andrew with his arm around Giuffre's bare waist in London in 2001. Giuffre said she was 17 at the time the photo was taken.

Photo from 2001 that was included in court files released last week shows Prince Andrew with his arm around the waist of 17-year-old Virginia Giuffre who says Jeffrey Epstein paid her to have sex with the prince. Andrew has denied the charges. In the background is Epstein's girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell. (U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals)

Buckingham Palace has previously denied allegations the prince had sex with Giuffre, and told The Sun that Andrew was not a party to the U.S. proceedings in which his name had appeared and denied any illegality had occurred.

“Any suggestion of impropriety with underage minors is categorically untrue," the palace said in a statement at the time.

Epstein's death caused public and official outrage over how such a high-profile prisoner could have gone unmonitored.

Fox News' Tamara Gitt, Robert Gearty, Nicole Darrah and Samuel Chamberlain, and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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2019-08-19 13:22:01Z
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Seized Iranian Ship Steams From Gibraltar After U.S. Loses Legal Fight - NPR

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A view of the Grace 1 supertanker with its new name, Adrian Darya 1 on the transom, on Saturday in Gibraltar. Marcos Moreno/AP hide caption

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Marcos Moreno/AP

An Iranian tanker detained in Gibraltar last month is again underway after a court in the British territory rejected a request from Washington to formally seize the vessel for violating international sanctions.

The Grace 1, now renamed Adrian Darya 1, was intercepted by British Royal Marines on July 4, allegedly because it was carrying its cargo of 2.1 million barrels of light crude oil to Syria.

Iran has denied the ship was headed to Syria.

As of Monday afternoon in the Mediterranean, MarineTraffic, a site that tracks shipping by monitoring vessels' on-board beacons, showed the vessel steaming slowly on an easterly course.

As the tanker departed, Iran warned the U.S. not to stop the ship as it heads toward its next stop, reportedly at the Greek port of Kalamata.

"Such an action ... would endanger shipping safety in open seas," Abbas Mousavi, a spokesman for Iran's foreign ministry, told reporters. "We have issued a warning through official channels, especially the Swiss embassy."

On Thursday, a court in Gibraltar lifted a detention order, concluding that Iran's pledge that the cargo wouldn't be shipped to Syria satisfied the conditions of European Union sanctions.

However, a U.S. federal court quickly issued a warrant for the vessel and its cargo to be impounded for violating U.S. sanctions. The court in the British overseas territory said on Sunday that it was bound by EU, not U.S., law and ordered the ship to be released.

Two weeks after Grace 1 was detained, Iran retaliated by seizing a U.K.-flagged ship, the Stena Impero, which is still being held, reportedly at Bandar Abbas.

It wasn't clear whether the release of the Iranian ship would elicit a quid pro quo for the Stena Impero, but Mousavi, the foreign ministry spokesman, said Tehran had made "no commitment" in exchange for the Grace 1.

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2019-08-19 10:16:00Z
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Iran tanker departs after Gibraltar rejects US demand - Al Jazeera English

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2019-08-19 07:12:51Z
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ISIS claims attack that killed 63 at Kabul wedding reception - Fox News

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2019-08-18 17:17:01Z
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Hong Kong protests: Rival demonstrations spread across globe - BBC News

Protests over the Hong Kong democracy movement have spread across the globe, with rallies taking place in the UK, France, US, Canada and Australia.

In Vancouver, Toronto and London, demonstrators were confronted by pro-Beijing rallies.

Hundreds also protested in Sydney's Belmore Park on Sunday.

Some wore facemasks due to fears of alleged Chinese state surveillance of citizens who support Hong Kong from abroad.

On Sunday hundreds of thousands of people took part in pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong despite increasingly severe warnings from the Chinese central government.

All photos subject to copyright.

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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-49388822

2019-08-18 15:05:06Z
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