Delegates from the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China met in Brussels to turn up the heat on Iran.

Tehran says its uranium enrichment program is for peaceful purposes, but other countries worry that it gives Iran the ability to make an atomic bomb.

Trita Parsi, the co-founder and president of the National Iranian American Council, joins Daljit Dhaliwal to discuss the possibility of new sanctions.

Do you think Iran can ever be trusted to come clean about its nuclear program?

Tell us what you think in the comments section below. Please remember to be respectful and on-point in your comments. Malicious or offensive comments will be deleted and repeat offenders will be banned.

Daljit Dhaliwal speaks with prominent Israeli scholar on Iran, Professor David Menashri. He is director of the Center for Iranian Studies and dean of special programs at Tel Aviv University.

Menashri explains whether or not Israel and other countries think the perceived threat by Iran can be eliminated without using military force. He also discusses Israeli public opinion on the Iranian nuclear program.

A Yemeni government tank used against Houthi rebels in the north. Photo: Al Jazeera video

For the past 15 years, Dwight Bashir has worked on international conflict, human rights and religious freedom issues. He is a senior advisor for an independent U.S. commission focusing on international religious freedom. The views expressed here are his own personal views.

A war of words is heating up between Iran and Saudi Arabia over an ongoing armed conflict in northern Yemen between Shi’a Houthi rebels and Yemeni security forces. This week, Iran accused Saudi Arabia of state-sponsored “Wahhabi terrorism” in Yemen, while the most senior Saudi cleric accused Houthi rebels of being backed by Iran to spread Shi’a Islam in “Sunni Islam’s heartland.”

Both Yemen and Saudi Arabia accuse Iran of providing financial and/or military support to the rebels. Iran denies any kind of support for the rebels.

The conflict in Yemen is complex — with numerous interlocking factors, such as underdevelopment, limited resources, tribal tensions, political exclusion and security concerns. Some have posited that the conflict is exacerbated by the fact that Iran and Saudi Arabia are engaging in a proxy war on Yemeni soil.

The truth is that for 30 years both Iran and Saudi Arabia have spent billions of dollars exporting competing religio-political ideologies in the region and globally, while committing egregious human rights violations at home to defend and bolster their respective ideologies.

Ever since Saudi Arabia entered the conflict two weeks ago after Houthi rebels crossed into Saudi territory from northern Yemen and allegedly killed two Saudi border guards, tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia have risen almost daily.

UN officials have estimated that, since 2004, as many as 175,000 people have been displaced in northern Yemen. And at least 240 villages in Saudi Arabia have been evacuated in recent weeks.

To better understand the conflict, it is important to understand religious demographics in Yemen. Between 40-45% of the Yemeni population of 23 million are Shi’a Muslims, mostly from the Zaydi school of Shi’a Islam founded more than 1,000 years ago.

Although Yemen’s majority is Sunni, Zaydi Muslims make up a majority of the population in the north where the fighting is taking place. In general, there are few societal tensions between Yemen’s Shi’a and Sunni Muslims.

The Yemeni government claims that Houthi rebels — considered a Zaydi militant group — have sought to develop a political faction modeled on Hezbollah in Lebanon, in order to undermine the government and impose Shi’a Islamic law. This is similar to how the Iranian government’s interpretation of Twelver Shi’a Islam is the law of the land in Iran.

The rebels follow the late Zaydi cleric, Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi (hence “Houthi rebels”). Al-Houthi is a former Yemeni parliamentarian who was killed during a 10-week rebellion in 2004 against the Yemeni government in the northern province of Saada, where the fighting started more than five years ago. The rebels claim they are fighting against government repression, although they have never articulated clear objectives, political or otherwise.

Despite both the Yemeni government and the Houthi rebels insisting that the conflict is not sectarian in nature, the Iranian government is doing everything it can to portray the conflict as two predominantly Sunni Muslim states, Yemen and Saudi Arabia, cooperating to massacre Shi’a civilians in Yemen. Despite the complexities, these Iranian claims are exaggerated, at best, and downright contrived at worst.

Some Zaydi Muslims in Yemen have been subject to discrimination and harassment for perceived or actual sympathy toward Houthi rebels. According to human rights groups in the region, some Zaydi Muslims not connected to the rebels have been inadvertently targeted by the Yemeni government.

Because Iran and Saudi Arabia have long been promoting competing religio-political ideologies, it is not surprising that both countries would fan the flames of sectarian warfare. Yemen is a fragile state with an active al-Qaeda presence that threatens regional security, and its government is fighting for economic and political stability.

To date, the international community has not played an active role in the conflict. With the spillover into Saudi Arabia, the international community must engage and help broker an end to the current crisis. If not, the conflict could quickly escalate and the region may be facing a new security reality that would likely have wider implications.

- Dwight Bashir

CHINA: U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao pledged cooperation between the two countries on a range of issues including the climate change and nuclear safety in the Korean peninsula and in Iran. However, both leaders have not refrained from pointing out remaining differences between the two nations.

SOUTH KOREA: South Korea has promised to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent below expected levels in 2020. The announcement is expected to put pressure on other developed nations to fight global warming more aggressively.

GUINEA: Recruits for Guinea’s military junta are being trained by South African and Israeli military officials according to the news agency AFP. Witnesses claim to have seen the training exercises in a town south of the capital Conkary.

Man using a vuvuzela at a soccer game

SOMALIA: Somalia is once again the world’s most corrupt country. In Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perception Index which measures perceived levels of public sector corruption, Somalia took the lowest spot with a score of 1.1 out of 10.

SOUTH AFRICA: The noisy South African vuvuzela trumpet is under attack again, this time by Japan. The Japanese Football Association President has requested the trumpet be banned from next years World Cup saying its loud noise limits communication with players, coaches, broadcasters, etc. The vuvuzela is a common instrument used by South African soccer fans.

GERMANY: A 90-year-old former Nazi SS member was charged Tuesday with 58 counts of murder in the deaths of forced Jewish laborers in Austria.

SPAIN: Pirates have released a Spanish vessel with 36 crew members which they had held for 6 weeks, according to Spain’s prime minister.

FRANCE: A Frenchwoman who was kept in Iranian prison after allegedly “provoking rioters” during Iran’s post-election protests appeared in Iranian court on Tuesday, and then returned to the French Embassy, where she has been permitted to remain since August.

CZECH REPUBLIC: Czechs mark the 20th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution today, which lend to the end of Communist rule in the former Czechoskovakia. Thousands of people in the capital Prague are celebrating with with reenactment of a student protest.

RUSSIA AND CIS:

A British security software firm says Russian criminals are making millions off the H1N1 flu epidemic by selling fake flu drugs over the Internet. The firm, Sophos, intercepted web sites and hundreds of millions of fake pharmaceutical span adverts, many of which are based in Russia.

A Russian human rights campaigner has been killed with a bullet shot to his head, as he entered his apartment building. The 26-year-old, Ivan Khutorsky, reportedly campaigned actively against neo-Nazi groups.

Vladimir Nabokov’s last unfinished novel “The Original of Laura” goes on sale today in London and New York. Nabokov had made his wife promise to burn the manuscript after his death, but she refrained from doing so, leaving it to their son Dmitri to decide its fate.

The Russian Orthodox Church is considering severing ties with the Evangelic Church in Germany, after the latter elected its first female leader last month. The Orthodox Archbishop reportedly said the church could not maintain a dialogue with a church headed by a woman.

The Wall Street Journal reports on the death in a Russian prison of a lawyer for the investment fund Hermitage Capital. The lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was jailed a year ago on tax evasion charges. At a court hearing this past September, he complained of inhumane conditions at the prison and of being denied medical treatment.

EL SALVADOR: The Yaqui indigenous group in Mexico has finally won the battle to get back the remains of some of their lost heroes, held in the storage of New York’s American Museum of Natural History for more than a century.

ARGENTINA: Argentina has granted its first marriage license to a gay couple, both men HIV positive.

GUATEMALA: Forty percent of Guatemala’s elderly are living in a state of poverty.

PALESTINE: The European Union said that it is “premature” for the Palestinians to try to have the UN recognize an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza.

ISRAEL/SYRIA: French president Nicolas Sarkozy says his country is ready to mediate between Syria and Israel and warns that extremists could benefit from a continued deadlock in the Mideast peace process.

SAUDI ARABIA: Saudi Arabia’s government has said that all military activities have ceased on its southern borders with Yemen.

EGYPT: Amnesty International warned in a report out today that Egypt must take immediate steps to ensure there is no repeat of a 2008 rockslide that killed more than 100 residents of a Cairo shantytown.

IRAN: Iran’s nuclear envoy denied that the IAEA tour of its recently revealed uranium enrichment site has turned up any evidence that the Iran is seeking nuclear weapons.

ISRAEL: Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned today that Iran’s nuclear program posed a threat not just to Israel, but to the entire world.

In a country where a woman is confined to her home, Joya is breaking all kinds of cultural, social and religious stereotypes. In May 2007, she was suspended after referring to the parliament as a stable, she said at least in “in a stable we have animals like a cow which is useful in that it provides milk and a donkey that carry a load.”

She speaks candidly about the challenges facing Afghanistan. She says that the low turnout in the presidential election is proof that the Afghan people are dissatisfied with the current government. She attributes the rise of Taliban to the failed policy of the U.S. in Afghanistan. She is also a staunch opponent of increasing U.S. troop levels in her country. Joya wants the U.S. and NATO to keep in mind that no foreign military has ever succeeded in controlling Afghanistan.

For her, the status of women now is no different than under the Taliban. She says that it may even be worse because the rate of suicide and abduction is high, and many rapists go untouched.

Because she is unabashedly outspoken, her life is under constant threat and she must be accompanied by bodyguards. But nothing so far seems to succeed in slowing her down. For sure not the many failed assassination attempts on her life, or the awful treatment she gets from her male colleagues in parliament.

Joya spent her childhood at a refugee camp in Iran and Pakistan, and returned to the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan in the late 1990s and worked for an underground organization helping women. She is now on a book tour in the U.S.  promoting her memoir, A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Woman Who Dared to Speak Out, co-written by Derrick O’Keefe.

- Mohammad Al Kassim

On the sidelines, anti-government protesters have clashed with security forces, resulting in widespread chaos throughout the Iranian capital city.

Geneive Abdo, who runs the insideIRAN project for The Century Foundation, discusses the day’s events in Tehran with Daljit Dhaliwal.

Al Jazeera English reports on the protests from Tehran.

JAPAN: A Japanese navy ship intercepted a medium-ranged ballistic missile in a test off the coast of Hawaii. Japan has been investing in U.S.-developed ballistic missile defense systems since North Korea test fired a long ranged ballistic missile over northern Japan in 1998.

MALAYSIA: Malaysia’s Islamic party has called Muslim men in the country to marry single mothers as their additional wives instead of “young, virgin girls.” Men in Malaysia are allowed to marry up to four women under the approval of the Islamic courts. Government officials said this will “ease the burden” on the single mothers as they need support to take care of their kids.

INDONESIA: Authorities in Indonesia said they might expel the 78 Sri Lankan asylum-seekers if they fail to cooperate with them over identity checks. The ethnic Tamil refugees were intercepted in international waters near Indonesia 11 days ago while trying to reach Australia.

ZIMBABWE: Al Jazeera English is reporting that  UN special rapporteur on torture Manfred Nowak was denied entry to Zimbabwe.

SUDAN: African Union leaders are discussing various proposals to resolve the ongoing crisis in Darfur, reports Al-Arabiya.

IRAN: Iran’s Islamic Students News Agency is reporting that Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA Ali Asghar Soltanieh has delivered his country’s response to the IAEA. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said  the West is moving from confrontation to cooperation on the issue, and the United Nations watchdog agency says it is hopeful an agreement can be reached.

According to the Middle East online news site, more than 60 Iraqi security force members have been arrested following the two bombings in Baghdad that killed more than 150 people. The New York Times is reporting on corruption on Iraq.

PAKISTAN: Pakistan Dawn TV reported on US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s town hall meeting where she told a Pakistani audience that Pakistan was not alone in its fight against militants and reiterated strong U.S. support for its ally.

ISRAEL: In Israel today, Haaretz is covering that country’s observation of the 14th year anniversary — according to the Jewish calendar — of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

PALESTINE: Palestinian Ma’an news agency said that Hamas’s Prime Minister in Gaza Ismail Haniyeh has told an American delegates on a medical mission in Gaza that he welcomes the U.S. change of language on the Middle East conflict.

In Ahmadinejad’s most positive comments to date, the leader said, “We welcome cooperation on nuclear fuel, power plants and technology, and we are ready to cooperate.”

To analyze today’s events in Iran, Daljit Dhaliwal spoke with Flynt Leverett, director of the Iran Project at the New America Foundation and a professor at Pennsylvania State.

Leverett examines the details of the Iranian and United States’ proposals for enriching uranium. He also discusses his belief that Iran intends to keep developing its fuel cycle infrastructure.

Even if Iran complies with the UN proposal to ship its uranium overseas, do you think it will still secretly try to develop nuclear weapons?

Tell us what you think in the comments section below. Please remember to be respectful and on-point in your comments. Malicious or offensive comments will be deleted and repeat offenders will be banned.

Joseph Cirincione, the president of Ploughshares Fund and an expert on nuclear weapons policy, speaks with  Dalijt Dhaliwal about the probability of Iran backing way from a deal to send enriched uranium abroad, the likelihood of a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities and whether Iran will curb its nuclear ambitions.

As nuclear talks began today, a suicide bomber struck in Tehran. Al Jazeera English’s Nazanine Moshiri reports on the aftermath of the suicide bombing.

Remittances of 2.5 billion dollars make up Afghanistan’s entire national budget.

Richard O’Regan reports from Tehran.

A young Iranian woman. Photo: Flickr user mailo

Iran faces stiffer economic sanctions if it fails to follow through on a tentative plan to move most of its enriched uranium out of the country. This relocation could placate key Western nations by delaying Iran’s ability to make a nuclear bomb. Yet, Iran continues to issue veiled threats that it could back away from talks if unhappy with the results.

Do you think that Iran can be trusted to make good on its promise to take concrete steps aimed at reducing tensions over its nuclear program?

Tell us what you think in the comments section below. Please remember to be respectful and on-point in your comments. Malicious or offensive comments will be deleted and repeat offenders will be banned.

According to Iran’s state-run Press TV, Amiri worked as a researcher at Tehran’s Malek Ashtar University.

Many in Iran assume that Amiri defected, but the U.S. denies any involvement.

Nazanine Moshiri of Worldfocus partner Al Jazeera English reports from Tehran.

Ambassador Azmat Hassan

Azmat Hassan is a career diplomat and former ambassador of Pakistan, where his postings have included Ambassador of Pakistan to Malaysia, Syria and Morocco, and Deputy Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations in New York. He currently serves as an adjunct professor at Seton Hall University.

The outcome of the recent Geneva talks between the P5+1 and Iran is good news. The international community is rightly concerned at the ambiguity surrounding Iran’s nuclear program. Iran’s agreement to turn over the enriched uranium fuel from its reactors to Russia represents a significant concession. But more significantly, it is a victory for diplomacy. It staves off, at least temporarily, the hawkish option of preemptive attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities by either Israel or the United States.

The latter course would be disastrous as it almost certainly would unleash more bloodshed and uncertainty in the Middle East — and probably tilt Iran toward joining the nuclear club. Iran feels hemmed in by the only nuclear power in the Middle East, Israel; by the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan; and by nuclear-armed India and Pakistan. The Geneva talks open up the possibility of diplomatic engagement between the U.S. and Iran.

The U.S. and Iran have not spoken to each other for 30 years. They have to reengage to serve their mutual interests. Normalization would enable American diplomats on the ground in Tehran to better gauge the dynamics of Iranian politics. Ditto for Iranian diplomats in Washington. If matters proceed well, it might enable Obama to have a direct channel to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Pakistan helped the U.S. and China to reconcile forty years ago, and it would be a possible mediator between Washington and Tehran.

I vividly remember accompanying President Leghari of Pakistan in a meeting with Khamenei, when the former was on a state visit to Tehran in 1994. Khamenei sat on the floor, and so did the Pakistani delegation, on exquisite Persian carpets interspersed with cushions. Far from the West’s caricature of Iranian clergy as a bunch of scowling mullahs in black robes, Khamenei appeared both genial and worldly.

I did not detect any fire and brimstone in his remarks. Engagement almost always softens the rough edges of animosity and misperception among adversaries. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks of the U.K. said that a real hero is one who turns an enemy into a friend.

Diplomatic engagement between the U.S and Iran is imperative if we desire a more peaceful Middle East. This will be good for all actors. Iran is just too important and powerful to be intimidated or isolated. Nixon’s opening to China showed the enormous benefits of bringing China into the world’s mainstream. The same can happen with Iran. Diplomacy means putting oneself in the shoes of one’s antagonist. It means viewing intractable issues from a different prism. Ultimately, it means searching for accommodation. If the U.S. were to open up and normalize with Iran, it could open the way for a broad-based rapprochement between Israel, the Palestinians, the Arab countries and Iran. It could unlock the gridlock in Iraq and Afghanistan. It could thus be win-win all around — instead of the zero-sum game that the hawks want us to play.

- Azmat Hassan

For another perspective on the responsibilities of the P5+1, read contributor Dwight Bashir’s thoughts: Amid Iran nuclear talks, don’t forget human rights.

Should the P5+1 stand in solidarity with Iran’s reformers?

For the past 15 years, Dwight Bashir has worked on international conflict, human rights and religious freedom issues. He is a senior advisor for an independent U.S. commission focusing on international religious freedom. The views expressed here are his own personal views.

Now that the P5+1 (the United States, Britain, France, Russian, China + Germany) have embarked on multilateral negotiations with the Iranian government, it is time to look forward, not backward. The one-day talks in Geneva held last week will resume after an October 25 visit to Iran by representatives of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to assess Iran’s newly-declared nuclear facility.

As expected, international attention has focused on Iran’s apparent willingness to send most of its enriched uranium out of the country and to allow the IAEA to inspect its latest facility. What has not received adequate attention is what happened on the fringes of the formal talks –- separate discussions between American and Iranian diplomats on human rights.

Here’s how the U.S. State Department spokesman characterized these conversations: “In addition to the focus on the nuclear program, they also had a frank exchange on a number of other issues, including issues of human rights. And we also raised the issue of American citizens who are being held in Iran…”

Understandably, the United States government asked about American detainees in Iran, but what other human rights issues were discussed? Unfortunately, there has been no further explanation.

Did anyone inquire about the hundreds of Iranian citizens injured or killed while peacefully protesting the contested outcome of the June 12 elections? Or the scores of dissidents and reformers who have been beaten by Iranian security and militia forces and unlawfully detained for weeks? What about before the elections, and the thousands of brave women’s rights activists, journalists, bloggers, ethnic and religious minorities, human rights defenders and others who have been unjustly imprisoned?

For that matter, did anyone raise specific cases such as the seven Baha’i leaders, in jail since early last year, who could be sentenced to death on October 18 on baseless espionage charges? What about the status of two Christian women, Maryam and Marzieh, who reportedly have serious health concerns yet continue to languish in prison — now for more than six months — without charge and facing the death penalty for apostasy?

Let’s also not forget that just two weeks ago, President Ahmadinejad arrived in New York on very shaky international standing with internal turmoil alive and well in Iran. Nevertheless, he still felt confident enough to spew anti-Semitic rants and anti-Western vitriol during his address to the United Nations General Assembly.

All is not lost. There is a way forward.

In addition to holding the Iranian government to account for its nuclear ambitions, the P5+1 should use its new platform to raise substantive human rights issues, and not just behind closed doors. The Iranian government has already agreed to “embark on comprehensive, all-encompassing and constructive negotiations,” so human rights are fair game. In particular, the P5+1 should publicly express its genuine concern about the plight of Iranian citizens, as well as raising specific cases (a similar method was used successfully by the United States during the 1970s when it raised human rights effectively during arms talks with the Soviet Union). This message must emerge in future deliberations, otherwise the morale of Iran’s reformers and — of advocates of freedom and democracy globally — will have suffered a major blow.

The P5+1 can cite Iran’s obligations under international human rights law; in particular, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which Iran is a party. Not only would this present a unified front among P5+1 partners, but would also demonstrate solidarity with the Iranian people. If Russia and China balk, the four Western partners can still take a powerful stand. The Iranian people need to know that the international community cares about their fate and will not trade away 30 years of transgressions for potential nuclear concessions.

The U.S. Congress can also play its part. Both the Senate and House are moving forward on providing the Obama administration with a new set of targeted economic sanctions should Iran fail to produce tangible results in a timely fashion. Current legislation under debate identifies nuclear proliferation and support for international terrorism as justification for imposing new sanctions. Final legislation should add international human rights violations to the list. This inclusion would demonstrate that the Iranian government’s poor human rights record is on equal footing with other security concerns.

Even if symbolic, Congress should also consider triggering a targeted sanction under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (IRFA). Iran has been on the U.S. blacklist of religious freedom violators for 10 years, yet no new sanction has been imposed. In addition, the State Department has a statutory requirement under IRFA to identify foreign agencies and officials responsible for violations of religious freedom and can bar individuals from entry into the United States.

This requirement remains unfulfilled.

Ideally, the ultimate goal would be to get international agreement among the P5+1 on any new sanctions. Although this isn’t a must. Again, if Russian and/or China hold out, the four Western allies can still work together. Since late 2006, the U.N. Security Council has passed three rounds of sanctions penalizing Iran’s nuclear program and imposing travel bans on those individuals involved. Why not do the same for Iranian officials involved in human rights abuses? It’s high time to identify Iran’s human rights violations as a justification for tougher sanctions. This act alone would bolster Iran’s reformers to play their part inside Iran.

- Dwight Bashir

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Plug 1 under a Creative Commons license.

They discuss the debate over next steps in the war in Afghanistan, as U.S. President Barack Obama considers sending tens of thousands of additional troops, a move that some in his administration oppose. They also explore developments in regards to Iran’s nuclear program.

Iran has agreed to a deal that would move most of its declared stockpile of enriched uranium to Russia for further refinement, before it is delivered back to Iran for peaceful uses at a research reactor in Tehran.

From Russia’s perspective, it is now a key player in global nuclear politics.

Timothy Frye, the director of the Harriman Institute on Russian and Eastern European studies at Columbia University, joins Martin Savidge to discuss the significance of the new deal and Russia’s motivations.

In this extended interview — recorded in May, prior to the crackdown following the disputed election — Iranian students discuss how they bypass filters to find music and films, both online and in shops on the streets. They also share their ambivalence about the prevalence of Western popular culture in Iran.