US President Barack Obama has expressed his deep disappointment after Iran sentenced a US-Iranian journalist to eight years in jail on charges of spying for the US.
The verdict handed down to 31-year-old Roxana Saberi, a former US beauty queen, is the harshest sentence ever meted out to a dual national on security charges in Iran and comes just weeks after Obama proposed better ties with Tehran.
Obama “is deeply disappointed at this news. His thoughts and prayers are with her and her family,” his spokesman Robert Gibbs said in Trinidad, where the president was attending the Summit of the Americas. “What we think is important is that the situation be remedied. We will continue to express the concerns that we have.”
The sentence handed down on Saturday came weeks after Obama issued a message to Iranians on the occasion of the Iranian New Year.
Saberi has been detained since January in Tehran’s Evin prison, initially reported to have been held for buying alcohol — an illegal act in the Islamic republic.
She was later charged with spying and put on trial last Monday. The espionage charges, which US State Department spokesman Robert Wood said last week were “baseless [and] without foundation,” could have brought the death penalty.
Saberi, who is also of Japanese descent, has reported for US-based National Public Radio (NPR), the BBC and Fox News, and had lived in Iran for six years.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi said last month that Saberi’s press card had been revoked in 2006 and that she had been working “illegally” since then.
Haddad said Saberi had entered Iran, which does not recognize dual nationality, as an Iranian citizen and “there is no evidence that she has another citizenship.”
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday called for fair treatment of Saberi, state news agency IRNA reported.
He said the Tehran prosecutor should examine the case against Saberi and also against Hossein Derakhshan, an Iranian-Canadian blogger who has been behind bars since November, IRNA said.
PROVOCATIVE: Chinese Deputy Ambassador to the UN Sun Lei accused Japan of sending military vessels to deliberately provoke tensions in the Taiwan Strait China denounced remarks by Japan and the EU about the South China Sea at a UN Security Council meeting on Monday, and accused Tokyo of provocative behavior in the Taiwan Strait and planning military expansion. Ayano Kunimitsu, a Japanese vice foreign minister, told the Council meeting on maritime security that Tokyo was seriously concerned about the situation in the East China and South China seas, and reiterated Japan’s opposition to any attempt to change the “status quo” by force, and obstruction of freedom of navigation and overflight. Stavros Lambrinidis, head of the EU delegation to the UN, also highlighted South China Sea
The final batch of 28 M1A2T Abrams tanks purchased from the US arrived at Taipei Port last night and were transported to the Armor Training Command in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), completing the military’s multi-year procurement of 108 of the tanks. Starting at 12:10am today, reporters observed more than a dozen civilian flatbed trailers departing from Taipei Port, each carrying an M1A2T tank covered with black waterproof tarps. Escorted by military vehicles, the convoy traveled via the West Coast Expressway to the Armor Training Command, with police implementing traffic control. The army operates about 1,000 tanks, including CM-11 Brave Tiger
China on Wednesday teased in a video an aircraft carrier that could be its fourth, and the first using nuclear power, while making an allusion to Taiwan and vowing to further build up its islands, as it looks to boost maritime power, secure resources and bolster territorial claims. The video, issued on the eve of the 77th founding anniversary of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy, featured fictional officers with names that are homophones of three commissioned aircraft carriers, the Liaoning (遼寧), Shandong (山東) and Fujian (福建). Titled Into the Deep, it showed a 19-year-old named “Hejian” (何劍) joining the group, sparking
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, said it expects its 2-nanometer (2nm) chip capacity to grow at a compound annual rate of 70 percent from this year to 2028. The projection comes as five fabs begin volume production of 2-nanometer chips this year — two in Hsinchu and three in Kaohsiung — TSMC senior vice president and deputy cochief operating officer Cliff Hou (侯永清) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Silicon Valley, California, last week. Output in the first year of 2-nanometer production, which began in the fourth quarter of last year, is expected to
RSS