Saudi Arabia is asking that the alleged Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the US be brought to the UN Security Council.
However, Saudi Ambassador to the UN Abdallah al-Mouallimi did not say what action, if any, his government wants the UN’s most powerful body to take.
The council has already imposed four rounds of sanctions against Iran over its disputed nuclear program. Russia and China, which have strong economic ties to the oil-rich Middle East nation, reacted cautiously to the new allegations.
In a letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon obtained on Monday, al-Mouallimi called the plot not only “a heinous crime,” but “a gross violation” of international treaties including those to protect diplomats.
“According to United States authorities, overwhelming evidence leads to the conclusion that this plot was planned, financed, and directed by elements working for or belonging to the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he said.
Two men, including a member of the Iranian special foreign actions unit known as the Quds Force, have been charged in a US federal court in New York with conspiring to kill Saudi ambassador to the US Adel al-Jubeir.
The alleged plot has raised calls in Washington for new sanctions and increased tensions between the Middle East’s Sunni power, Saudi Arabia, and the Shiite powerhouse, Iran.
Al-Mouallimi said the Saudi government expressed “deep concern and outrage at this plot” and asked the secretary-general “to bring this matter to the attention of the Security Council.”
Ban told reporters in Geneva earlier on Monday that he forwarded the Saudi letter, along with letters from the US and Iran, which were made public last week, to the Security Council. The UN chief sidestepped a question asking about new sanctions and whether Iran had broken a treaty, saying: “I will have to see what the discussions will be at the Security Council.”
Tehran has rejected the allegations of government involvement in the plot, a view reiterated on Monday by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He claimed the US was accusing Iran of involvement in a “terror plot” to strengthen international sanctions against Iran and divert attention from economic problems in the US.
In his letter to Ban, Iranian Ambassador to the UN Mohammad Khazee stressed Iran’s condemnation of terrorism and accused US authorities of carrying out “a well-thought evil plot in line with their anti-Iranian policy to divert attention from the current economic and social problems at home and the popular revolutions and protests against United States’ long-supported dictatorial regimes abroad.”
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
Kemal Ozdemir looked up at the bare peaks of Mount Cilo in Turkey’s Kurdish majority southeast. “There were glaciers 10 years ago,” he recalled under a cloudless sky. A mountain guide for 15 years, Ozdemir then turned toward the torrent carrying dozens of blocks of ice below a slope covered with grass and rocks — a sign of glacier loss being exacerbated by global warming. “You can see that there are quite a few pieces of glacier in the water right now ... the reason why the waterfalls flow lushly actually shows us how fast the ice is melting,” he said.
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RSS