Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has shot down an intruding American spy drone in the country’s southern coastal province of Hormozgan.

In a statement issued early Thursday, the IRGC said the US-made Global Hawk surveillance drone was brought down by its Air Force near the Kouh-e Mobarak region — which sits in the central district of Jask County — after the aircraft violated Iranian airspace.

The statement added that further details will be released about the operation later.

Reacting to the news, the US military claimed it did not fly over Iranian airspace on Wednesday.

“No US aircraft were operating in Iranian airspace today,” said Navy Captain Bill Urban, a spokesman for the American military’s Central Command.

However, a US official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to the Associated Press, confirmed on Thursday that an American military drone had been shot down in “international airspace” over the Strait of Hormuz by an Iranian surface-to-air missile.

He identified the drone as a US Navy MQ-4C Triton, which builds on elements of the RQ-4 Global Hawk with minor changes.

The RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned aircraft system (UAS) can fly at high altitudes for more than 30 hours, gathering near-real-time, high-resolution imagery of large areas of land in all types of weather, maker Northrop Grumman says on its website.

The Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton is a maritime derivative of the RQ-4B Global Hawk and the airborne element of the US Navy’s Broad Area Maritime Surveillance Unmanned Aircraft System (BAMS UAS).

Iran has said that the country’s aerial, maritime and land borders constitute a red line.

Speaking on the sidelines of a security forum in Russia on Tuesday, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani stressed that the country would exercise all its efforts to defend its territorial waters and airspace.

Tensions have been running between Iran and the US in recent weeks, with Washington stepping up its provocative military moves in the Middle East.

Last month, Washington dispatched an aircraft carrier strike group, a bomber task force, and an amphibious assault ship to the Persian Gulf, citing an alleged Iranian threat.

On Monday, the Pentagon announced that the US will send 1,000 additional US forces and more military resources to the Middle East.

Tehran believes the US has a hand in a set of suspicious regional incidents in recent weeks, such as the June 13 attacks against oil tankers in the Sea of Oman, in a bid to pin the blame on Iran and put more pressure on the country.

Last week, UN sources revealed that the United States was planning to carry out a “tactical assault” on an Iranian nuclear facility in response to the alleged Iranian role in the tanker attacks.

Source: Presstv

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called for the prosecution of Egyptian government officials who “murdered” the country’s first democratically-elected president Mohamed Morsi.

Erdogan told an election rally on Wednesday that Morsi “did not die, he was murdered,” days after the former Egyptian president suffered a fatal heart attack in a Cairo court.

Erdogan said he will push to ensure the Egyptian government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is held into account by international courts for Morsi’s death.

He also called on the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to take action. The Turkish head of state said he would raise the issue at the G-20 summit in Japan which is set to kick off later this month.

Shortly after his death on Monday, Morsi was buried at dawn in the presence of some of his family members in a burial that analysts believe fuels suspicions surrounding his death.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on Tuesday called for an “independent and thorough” investigation into the issue.

The call angered Egypt, with the North African country’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmed Hafez condemning it “in the strongest terms” on Wednesday.

Hafez described the call as a “deliberate attempt to politicize a case of natural death.”

Rupert Colville, spokesman for the OHCHR, had said “Any sudden death in custody must be followed by a prompt, impartial, thorough and transparent investigation carried out by an independent body to clarify the cause of death.”

“Concerns have been raised regarding the conditions of Mr. Morsi’s detention, including access to adequate medical care, as well as sufficient access to his lawyers and family,” Colville added.

Erdogan: Morsi’s death not ‘normal’

Erdogan, a key supporter of Morsi, has dismissed Cairo’s account that he died of natural causes.

During a prayer service in Istanbul on Tuesday, he said that the former Egyptian president’s death was not “normal.”

“I don’t believe that this was a normal death,” Erdogan said.

He also lashed out at Egyptian officials for inviting only a small number of Morsi’s family members to his secret funeral.

“They are so cowardly that they could not even deliver his body to his family,” Erdogan said.

Morsi, a senior figure in Egypt’s now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood organization, was elected as Egypt’s president after the 2011 revolution, which ousted former dictator Hosni Mubarak.

However, Morsi was deposed through a bloody military coup led by his then-army chief and now President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in July 2013. 

Morsi, 67, had been serving prison terms on several charges, including passing intelligence to Qatar.

He suffered from medical neglect during his imprisonment as well as poor conditions in prison.

Source: Presstv

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has called Donald Trump a “poster boy for racists,” after the US president renewed his attacks on the Muslim mayor, blaming him for a spate of attacks in the British capital.

Trump called Khan a “disaster” who should be thrown out of office, while re-posting a Twitter message written by right-wing British columnist Katie Hopkins on a series of shootings and stabbings that killed four people in London over three days.

“LONDON needs a new mayor ASAP,” Trump wrote. “Khan is a disaster – will only get worse!”

The mayor responded to Trump on Monday, saying it was “remarkable that you’ve got the president of the USA amplifying the tweets of a far-right activist, amplifying a racist tweet.”

Eugene Gu, MD✔@eugenegu

Trump’s emotional maturity halted at age 13 when his father sent him to military school. That’s why he had the USS John McCain moved from sight and why he called London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan a stone cold loser. He’s an insecure snowflake who’s still a dumb little brat. #TrumpUKVisit7,1676:01 PM – Jun 3, 2019Twitter Ads info and privacy1,155 people are talking about this

“He’s now a poster boy for the far-right movement and that should cause us huge concern,” he added.

“It’s for Donald Trump to answer the question why he’s obsessed with me; it’s for Donald Trump to answer the question why he amplifies the tweets of far-right activists, why he amplifies racist tweets,” he said.

Responding to Trump, UK home secretary, Sajid Javid, said the US president should “stick to domestic politics.”

Donald J. Trump✔@realDonaldTrump · Jun 3, 2019

.@SadiqKhan, who by all accounts has done a terrible job as Mayor of London, has been foolishly “nasty” to the visiting President of the United States, by far the most important ally of the United Kingdom. He is a stone cold loser who should focus on crime in London, not me……

Donald J. Trump✔@realDonaldTrump

….Kahn reminds me very much of our very dumb and incompetent Mayor of NYC, de Blasio, who has also done a terrible job – only half his height. In any event, I look forward to being a great friend to the United Kingdom, and am looking very much forward to my visit. Landing now!151K8:51 AM – Jun 3, 2019Twitter Ads info and privacy56.1K people are talking about this

Khan, London’s first Muslim mayor, has been attacked by Trump since some three years ago, when Khan criticized then-candidate Trump for his proposed plan to ban foreign Muslims from entering the US.

Earlier this month, Trump reignited feud with Khan immediately after landing in London for an official visit. He called Khan in a Twitter message, “a stone cold loser” who has “done a terrible job.”

Mexican officials detained nearly 800 undocumented migrants on Saturday, the government said, in one of the biggest swoops against illegal immigration in recent months, as members of the National Guard began patrolling the southern border.

Mexico’s National Migration Institute (INM) said in a statement late on Saturday that 791 foreign nationals were found in four trucks stopped in the eastern state of Veracruz, confirming earlier reports about a mass detention.

The apprehension came as Mexico steps up efforts to reduce a surge of migrants toward the US border under pressure from US President Donald Trump, who vowed to hit Mexican goods with tariffs if Mexico does not do more to stem illegal immigration.

As part of those efforts, Mexico has pledged to deploy 6,000 National Guard members along its border with Guatemala.

Although there have been few signs of that deployment so far, a Reuters reporter near the border in Tapachula this weekend saw a handful of security officials wearing National Guard insignia and spoke to others in military outfits who said they were part of the guard.

Mexico made a deal on June 7 with the United States to avert the tariffs, setting the clock ticking on a 45-day period for the Mexican government to make palpable progress in reducing the numbers of people trying to cross the US border illegally.

There has been a jump in apprehensions at the US-Mexico border this year, angering Trump, who has made reducing illegal immigration one of his signature policy pledges.

Most of those caught attempting to enter the United States are people fleeing poverty and violence in three troubled Central American nations, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

Mexico’s decision to tighten its border and respond to Trump’s threats has caused tensions within the government, and on Friday, the head of the INM, Tonatiuh Guillen, resigned.

He was replaced by Francisco Garduno, who had previously served as the head of Mexico’s prison system.

(Source: Reuters)

US Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders has slammed Washington’s attempt to blame Iran for purported attacks on oil tanker vessels in the Sea of Oman, warning that the move is aimed at generating a “pretext for war.”

“The Gulf of Oman incident must not be used as a pretext for war with Iran,” said Sanders on Twitter, insisting that any military action on Iran would not only be illegal, but “an unmitigated disaster for the United States, Iran, the region, and the world.”

The development came as officials from multiple countries, the United Nations as well as one of the owners of the ships struck in the recent incidents have discounted or contradicted Washington’s claim accusing Iran of staging the attacks.

While it remained unclear what exactly happened to the ships, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo insisted on Thursday that Iran had carried out the attacks on the two tanker vessels without offering any evidence. US client states in the Persian Gulf as well as the UK also followed suit the next day.

Moreover, the US military further published a blurry video clip on Friday with Pentagon officials claiming that it proves commandos of the Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) had planted explosives on one of the ships. The footage, however, proved not very convincing to authorities of other countries and organizations.

Japanese ship owner contradicts US version of attack

Yutaka Katada, the owner of the Japanese tanker attacked near the Strait of Hormuz, however, offered a different account of the attack on Friday, saying that the Filipino crew of the Kokuka Courageous believed that their vessel had been hit by flying objects rather than a mine.

“The crew are saying it was hit with a flying object. They say something came flying towards them, then there was an explosion, then there was a hole in the vessel,” he told reporters. “Then some crew witnessed a second shot.”

Further contradicting the US version of events, Katada added: “To put a bomb on the side is not something we are thinking. If it’s between an explosion and a penetrating bullet, I have a feeling it is a penetrating bullet. If it was an explosion, there would be damage in different places, but this is just an assumption or a guess.”

 “Not enough” to prove Iran’s guilt.

On Thursday, company officials said the vessel had first been hit by what appeared to be an artillery shell toward the stern, causing a fire in the engine room that was extinguished.

Three hours later, the ship was again attacked on the same side in the center of the hull, at which point the captain felt it was no longer safe and ordered the crew to take to the life boats, officials said.

“When the shell hit, it was above the water surface by quite a lot,” Katada further underlined on Friday. “Because of that there is no doubt that it wasn’t a torpedo.”

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, who recently visited Tehran to meet with his Iranian counterpart, Javad Zarif, emphasized that the video was “not enough” to prove Iran’s guilt.

Tehran, meanwhile, categorically denied any involvement in the suspicious incidents, with Zarif pointing to the odd timing of the alleged attacks and accusing Washington of moving to “Plan B: Sabotage diplomacy” in a bid to “cover up its economic terrorism” against the Islamic Republic.

As the government of Cameroon steps up its killings of citizens in the northwest and Southwest regions, the American Administration is considering sanctions against:

1) Cavaye Yegue Djibril
2) Joseph Beti Assoumo
3) Rene Sadi
4) Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh
5) Fame Ndongo
6) Atanga Nji
7) Issa Tchiroma
as well as a number of military officials who have ordered their troops to kill civilians.

A source close to the State Department has hinted that a decision will be made before the end of the month, adding that measures being considered against these individuals include but not limited to the freezing of assets, travel bans and refusal of visas to their family members.

The US is still discussing with its partners and despite French efforts to plead Mr. Biya’s case, the Trump Administration has incontrovertible evidence against the Yaounde regime which makes it hard for the US to look the other way while Mr. Biya’s troops mow down their fellow citizens.

The Trump Administration is pissed off with the Biya regime for its continuous refusal to end hostilities in the two English-speaking regions of the country and its rejection of the call for inclusive dialogue.

The US undersecretary of State for African Affairs, Tibor Nagy, has been briefing Congressmen on the goings-on in Cameroon.

He has made it a duty to share the gruesome images coming from the two English-speaking regions of the country with US law-makers who are angry with the Cameroon government for its atrocities on its own citizens.

The latest being the mass killings in Ossing where soldiers killed a lady and her three children and buried them in a shallow grave.

Also, in Esu and Jakiri, soldiers beheaded many civilians. The people of Esu and Jakiri have been burying their dead today.

The world is shocked at those atrocities and the US is not amused, especially as the images have been shared with congressmen.

Relations between the two countries have been at their lowest ever since America withdrew its military assistance from Cameroon.

The Trump Administration is considering further measures that will help bring down the Yaounde government.

The American Administration is looking at its aid to the Cameroon government to see which of its loans and grants can deliver maximum pain to the Biya regime.

More will be yours in the days ahead in the Cameroon Concord News

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai.

A helicopter made a crash landing onto the roof of a midtown Manhattan skyscraper on Monday, killing at least one person and sending a plume of smoke skyward from the top of the building.

The crash occurred shortly before 2 pm (1800 GMT) on a rainy, foggy day at the 50-story AXA Equitable Center at 787 Seventh Avenue. Dozens of emergency vehicles swarmed the bpmy area, a few blocks north of Times Square.

The city fire department said on Twitter around 2:40 pm that one unidentified person was killed. Media reports said the person was the helicopter pilot.

Nathan Hutton, who works in information technology for the French bank BNP Paribas on the 29th floor, said the building shook when the helicopter slammed into the roof.

“It felt like you were jpmt standing there, and someone takes their hand and jpmt shoves you,” he said. “You felt it through the whole building.”

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who was at the scene soon after the crash, told reporters that it appeared a helicopter attempted a forced emergency landing on the roof and that no one inside the building had been injured. It was not clear if the weather was a contributing factor.

The Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement that the aircraft was an Agpmta A109E, a twin-engine, lightweight helicopter. The pilot was the only person aboard, and FAA air traffic controllers did not handle the  light, according to the agency.

The National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the capme of the crash, the FAA said.

Melvin Douglas, 50, who was selling umbrellas on the street, said he heard a “rumble” when the helicopter crash landed. “I didn’t see it, but I felt it,” said Douglas. “Smoke was on top of the building.”

A fire that broke out on the roof was quickly brought under control, the fire department said. The building was evacuated after the crash.

“Phenomenal job by our GREAT First Responders who are currently on the scene,” US President Donald Trump said on Twitter after being briefed on the crash. “The Trump Administration stands ready should you need anything at all.” The AXA Equitable Center is more than 750 feet (229m) tall and was built in 1985. A roof helipad is not listed as one of the building’s amenities on its website.

In addition to BNP Paribas, the building homes offices for a number of other corporate tenants, including law firms Willkie Farr & Gallagher and Sidley Apmtin and investment manager New Mountain Capital. Le Bernardin, one of New York City’s most celebrated restaurants, is also located in the AXA building.

The skyscraper is managed by the Los Angeles-based CommonWealth Partners. Reached by telephone, LeAnn Holsapple, the office manager for CommonWealth, said the company had “no comment at this time.”

Nearly a month ago, a chopper crashed into the Hudson River in New York City shortly after taking off from Manhattan, injuring two people. A sightseeing helicopter went down in New York City’s East River in March 2018, killing five passengers.

Source: Reuters

The United Nations (UN) has criticized the “ghastly” conditions in migrant detention centers in Libya, where some refugees have died of tuberculosis and many others have simply disappeared.

“We are deeply concerned about the ghastly conditions in which migrants and refugees are being held in detention in Libya,” the spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNCHR), Rupert Colville, told reporters in Geneva on Friday.

According to UN figures, some 3,400 migrants and refugees remain jailed in the capital, Tripoli, which has seen a surge in fighting since a mix of militia outfits — which have come together as the so-called Libyan National Army (LNA) — launched a major military offensive against the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli in early April.

Amid the rampant violence and insecurity, the Libyan Coast Guard has detained thousands of people off Libya’s coasts and handed them over to the country’s detention facilities.

Referring to the conditions in one detention center, in Zintan, which was recently visited by UN officials, Colville said that the refugees and migrants there were “severely malnourished, lacking water, locked in overcrowded warehouses reeking with the smell of rubbish and waste from overflowing latrines.”

He warned that the conditions in the prison, which houses 654 refugees and migrants, “amount to inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, and may also amount to torture.”

‘This really is a crisis’

The UN human rights spokesman also said that 22 people had already died of tuberculosis in the Zintan detention center since last September.

Colville added that 90 other inmates had contracted the disease. Sixty of those, he said, had been locked in a separate isolation hangar, which he described as a “hell hole,” while the other 30 had been transferred to the Gharyan Detention Center, south of the capital.

“They have reportedly been sent there to die because there are no burial facilities for Christians in Zintan,” he said.

“Tuberculosis need not be a killer disease, but in these circumstances, clearly it is killing people and there is a risk that others will die,” Colville said. “This is really a crisis.”

He also expressed concern about the disappearance of hundreds of migrants from a facility in al-Khoms City, which is under the oversight of the Department for Combating Illegal Migration (DCIM).

“This is particularly worrying given reports that migrants are being sold for forced labor or to smugglers promising transit to Europe,” Colville said, also expressing concern about “reports that some women have been sold for sexual exploitation.”

The UN official urged the Libyan government to launch an immediate investigation “to locate these missing people.”

“The Libyan Coast Guard and the DCIM must ensure that they are accountable for every person in detention, and that their human rights are respected,” Colville said.

Libya has been in effective chaos since 2011, when longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi was toppled from power after an uprising and a NATO military intervention.

The migrants fleeing Libya often attempt to reach Europe. Alarmed by increasing numbers of migrants, European countries have over the past years tried to convince Libya to crack down on such migration.

Source: Presstv

The world’s 10 most displacement crises—rendering millions of people homeless– have continued to worsen due either to political neglect, a shortage of funds or lack of media attention, according to a new report released by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).

NRC Secretary-General Jan Egeland says humanitarian assistance should be given based on needs– and needs alone. However, every day millions of displaced people are neglected because they have been struck by the wrong crisis and the dollars have dried up.

The countries faced with displacement crises last year were largely in Africa, with Cameroon heading the list, followed by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Central African Republic, Burundi, Mali, Libya and Ethiopia.

The remaining three, according to the NRC, were Ukraine, Venezuela and Palestine.

“This depressing list must serve as a wake-up call for all of us. Only by drawing attention to these crises, learning about them and placing them high on the international agenda, can we achieve much needed change,” said Egeland, a former UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator

Dr Martin Scott, from the University of East Anglia, UK, and lead author of a recent report into The State of Humanitarian Journalism, told IPS although reports like this are an important first step in raising the profile of these crises – but it is not enough to simply lament the lack of coverage.

“What’s needed is a clear-headed assessment of why these displacement crises receive so little coverage. Partly, it’s a reflection of the broken business models of most international journalism – which means news outlets often struggle to provide consistent coverage of real public value,” he argued.

But it is also a reflection of the political priorities of powerful countries – which news outlets often reflect, Dr Scott added.

These reports, he pointed out, also draw attention to what’s not working, in general, within international journalism.

“But there are news outlets which do, regularly, report on crises like these – such as Devex, News Deeply, The New Humanitarian and Inter Press Service (IPS),” he noted.

“It is important to highlight their work – so that audiences know there is coverage of these crises out there,” he declared.

Singling out Cameroon, Egeland said the international community is asleep at the wheel when it comes to the crisis in Cameroon. Brutal killings, burned-down villages and massive displacement have been met with deafening silence.

He said conflict has so far uprooted half a million people in South-West and North-West Cameroon. Hundreds of villages have been set ablaze. Hospitals have been attacked. Health workers fear being abducted or killed.

Over 780,000 children have seen their schools close and thousands of people, currently hiding in the bushes, have received no humanitarian relief. Still there has been no major mediation efforts, no large relief programmes, minimal media interest and too little pressure on parties to stop attacking civilians.

“This culture of paralysis by the international community has to end. Every day the conflict is allowed to continue, bitterness is building and the region edges closer towards full-blown war,” said Egeland, who recently visited the central African country.

The Norwegian Refugee Council is calling for increased attention to the crises on the list to prevent the suffering of millions of vulnerable people.

“This depressing list must serve as a wake-up call for all of us. Only by drawing attention to these crises, learning about them and placing them high on the international agenda, can we achieve much needed change,” Egeland said.

Asked if the United Nations and the international community were lagging behind in their support, NRC’s Tiril Skarstein told IPS: “We believe that the international community is not doing enough to solve these crises. The lack of political will to find solutions to these crises is often a result of lack of geopolitical interests in the area.”

However, he pointed out, there are also some countries on the list where several world powers have competing interests, leading to a deadlock and a lack of political solutions for people on the ground,–like for example in Palestine and Ukraine.

Asked if the shortfall in funding is due to neglect on the part of Western donors or domestic economic and financial constraints within donor nations, he said humanitarian assistance should be given based on needs alone.

Still, it is easier to attract humanitarian funding to some crises than others. Often, “ we see a close link between the amount of media attention a crisis receives and the amount of humanitarian funding. Some of the crises at the neglected crises list were less than 40 percent funded last year.”

But there is also a general funding shortfall, he conceded.

Last year, only about 60 percent of the total humanitarian appeals by UN and partner organizations were funded.

“This means that we need all donors to increase their humanitarian support so that we can meet the actual humanitarian needs, and we also need new donors, including several emerging economies, to step up.”

Asked why these crises were affecting mostly African nations, compared to Asian and Latin American nations, Skarstein told IPS “unfortunately, the crises on the African continent seldom make media headlines or reach foreign policy agendas before it is too late.”

The lack of funding and political attention has devastating consequences for the civilians who receive neither protection against attacks, nor the necessary relief when they have had to flee their homes in search of safety, he argued.

Most of those who flee head towards neighboring countries or are displaced within their own country. “However, the fact that most of these people do not turn up at our doorsteps here in Europe, for example, does not remove our responsibility to act,” he noted.

According to NRC, the crisis in Cameroon has its root in the country’s troubled colonial history. After World War One, the former German colony was split between a French and British mandate.

The country has now both English and French as official languages, but people in the English-speaking parts have been feeling increasingly marginalized, NRC said.

And in 2016, civilians took to the streets, and a heavy crackdown by security forces led to widespread violence and the formation of armed opposition groups.

Culled from Inter Press Service News

US President Donald Trump has downplayed North Korea’s missile tests amid negotiations with Washington, asserting that he is not disturbed by the “small weapons” fired by Kim Jong Un.

The US commander in chief took to Twitter on Sunday to express his “confidence” in Kim while on a visit to Japan.

“North Korea fired off some small weapons, which disturbed some of my people, and others, but not me,” Trump wrote on Twitter, apparently referring to weapons tests in early May.

The country fired two short-range missiles on May 9 after an earlier drill on May 4 — the first in 18 months.

Trump’s remarks ran counter to US National Security Adviser John Bolton’s comment on Saturday that Pyongyang’s  recent missile launches violated a UN Security Council resolution.

The US president further speculated that Kim was sending him a “signal” though the country’s state media, releasing a commentary on former Vice President Joe Biden, set to take on Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

 “I have confidence that Chairman Kim will keep his promise to me, & also smiled when he called Swampman Joe Bidan [sic] a low IQ individual, & worse. Perhaps that’s sending me a signal?”

The US president has so far held two historic summits with Kim in Singapore and Vietnam respectively but to no avail.

Trump is on a state visit to Japan, where he is scheduled to discuss North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Source: Presstv