Middle East

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei addressed a meeting with officials of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) and nuclear scientists in Tehran on February 22, 2011. He stated Iran’s position on the nuclear issues. That position has not changed. We reproduce here selected paragraphs from his speech.

Humanitarian aid agencies must be allowed immediate and unhindered access to Homs and other affected areas, Amnesty International said today.

The Bab ‘Amr district of the city has come under intensive shelling for more than 17 days, during which time Amnesty International has received the names of 465 people reported to have been killed in Homs.

The “Human Rights Network” (HRN) on Thursday denounced some countries’ attempts to confuse the public opinion about Syria, using newspaper articles and news on the reported death and injury of journalists who entered the country clandestinely, such as the U.S. reporter Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik.

The state system at its worst: trading insults and threats, sanctions, readiness to use extreme violence, forward deployment of US troops in Israel as hostages to guarantee US involvement, disregard for common people and the effects of warfare in the Middle East and the world.

The UN General Assembly strongly condemned the continued “widespread and systematic” human rights violations by the Syrian authorities and demanded that the Government immediately cease all violence and protect its people.

The present powers calling the shots in Israel want a Jewish State saying the Palestinians can live there freely. Given the state of affairs in Israel vis a vis the Palestinians which has Israel as an apartheid state, that claim does not generate any good vibrations. Here we have the other side’s offering of a secular Palestinian State.

New York – UN General Assembly (UNGA) President Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser is committed to convening an international conference directed at establishing a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East.

Israeli policies on Palestinian residency have arbitrarily denied thousands of Palestinians the ability to live in, and travel to and from, the West Bank and Gaza, Human Rights Watch said in a new report.

Finally, there is some argumentation in the West supportive of a nuclear free zone for the Middle East. Such thinking is still treated as politically marginal, and hardly audible above the beat of the war drums.

Dubai – Oil rich United Arab Emirates (UAE) harassed, arrested, and jailed activists, and disbanded the elected boards of two of the country’s most prominent civil society organizations, says [Human Rights Watch](http://www.hrw.org/) (HRW) report “[UAE: Free Speech Under Attack](http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/01/25/uae-free-speech-under-attack)”