Region

VIENNA — Six world powers and Iran strived at a second day of talks in Vienna on Wednesday to map out a broad agenda for reaching an ambitious final settlement to the decade-old standoff over Tehran’s nuclear programme.

The United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany want a long-term agreement on the permissible scope of Iran’s nuclear activities to lay to rest concerns that they could be put to developing atomic bombs. Tehran’s priority is a complete removal of damaging economic sanctions against it.

The negotiations will probably extend at least over several months, and could help defuse years of hostility between energy-exporting Iran and the West, ease the danger of a new war in the Middle East, transform the regional power balance and open up major business opportunities for Western firms.

“The talks are going surprisingly well. There haven’t been any real problems so far,” a senior Western diplomat said, dismissing rumours from the Iranian side that the discussions had run into snags already.

The opening session on Tuesday was “productive” and “substantive”, they said. “The focus was on the parameters and the process of negotiations, the timetable of what is going to be a medium- to long-term process,” one European diplomat said.

“We don’t expect instant results.”

A Wednesday morning session was chaired by a senior European Union diplomat, Helga Schmid, and Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, accompanied by senior diplomats from the six powers.

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who coordinates official contacts with Iran on behalf of the six, was scheduled to attend an extraordinary meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels on the Ukraine crisis on Thursday afternoon.

The current Iran talks had originally been expected to run for at least full three days but might be adjourned as early as Thursday morning due to the escalating situation in Ukraine, according to Western diplomats.

The six powers have yet to spell out their precise demands of Iran. But Western officials have signalled they want Iran to cap enrichment of uranium at a low fissile purity, limit research and development of new nuclear equipment and decommission a substantial portion of its centrifuges used to refine uranium.

Such steps, they believe, would help extend the time that Iran would need to produce enough fissile material for a bomb. Tehran says its programme is peaceful and has no military aims.

Highlighting wide differences over expectations in the talks, Araqchi was cited by Iran’s English-language Press TV state television on Tuesday as saying that any dismantling of Iranian nuclear installations would not be up for negotiation.

The talks could also stumble over the future of Iran’s facilities in Arak, an unfinished heavy water reactor that Western states worry could yield plutonium for bombs, and the Fordow uranium enrichment plant, which was built deep underground to ward off any threat of air strikes.

“Iran’s nuclear sites will continue their activities like before,” the official IRNA news agency quoted Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi saying.

Lengthy process ahead

During a decade of on-and-off dialogue with world powers, Iran has rejected Western allegations that it has been seeking a nuclear weapons capability. It says it is enriching uranium only for electricity generation and medical purposes.

As part of a final deal, Iran expects the United States, the European Union and the United Nations to lift painful economic sanctions on the oil-dependent economy. But Western governments will be wary of giving up their leverage too soon.

Ahead of the talks, a senior US official said getting to a deal would be a “complicated, difficult and lengthy process”.

“When the stakes are this high, and the devil is truly in the details, one has to take the time required to ensure the confidence of the international community in the result,” the official said. “That can’t be done in a day, a week, or even a month in this situation.”

On the eve of the Vienna round, both sides played down anticipation of early progress, with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei saying he was not optimistic.

The six powers hope to get a deal done by late July, when an interim accord struck in November expires.

That agreement, made possible by the election of relative moderate President Hassan Rouhani on a platform of relieving Iran’s international isolation by engaging constructively with its adversaries, obliged Tehran to suspend higher-level enrichment in return for some relief from economic sanctions.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, also quoted by Press TV on Tuesday, sounded an optimistic note. “It is really possible to make an agreement because of a simple overriding fact and that is that we have no other option.”

BEIRUT — Twin bomb blasts rocked a southern suburb of the Lebanese capital Beirut on Wednesday, killing at least three people and injuring dozens, security and medical sources told AFP.

The attacks appeared to target the Iranian cultural centre, and an AFP photographer at the scene said the blasts had occurred beyond a security checkpoint at the centre, close to the building.

A security source confirmed that the attack involved two blasts, but could not confirm if the attacks were car or suicide bombings.

Red Cross Secretary General George Kettaneh said three people had been killed and at least 70 wounded, some in serious condition.

The explosions sent a large plume of smoke over the area and Lebanese television showed scenes of widespread destruction.

Emergency teams carried wounded people away from a charred street strewn with rubble, as local residents armed with fire extinguishers helped firefighters put out blazes.

The arms of a wounded man hung limply off the sides of a yellow stretcher as he was carried from the scene.

The security official confirmed that the bombs had exploded near the Iranian cultural centre in the Bir Hassan district of the capital.

Bir Hassan is surrounded by neighbourhoods that are strongholds of the Lebanese Shiite movement Hizbollah and have been targeted in multiple bomb attacks killing civilians.

Lebanon has been rocked by a string of car and suicide bomb attacks in recent months, many targeting strongholds of the Hizbollah movement in apparent retribution for its role in Syria.

The group has admitted sending fighters to the neighbouring country to battle alongside Syria’s President Bashar Assad against an uprising.

Iran’s official news agency IRNA too reported that the blast took place near an Iranian cultural centre as well as close to the Beirut offices of IRNA and Iranian television IRIB.

Bir Hassan has been the scene of blasts before, including a powerful double bomb attack against the Iranian embassy there in November that killed 25 people.

Shiite Iran, which backs Hizbollah is a close ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

That attack was claimed by the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, an Al Qaeda inspired group.

Lebanon’s incoming prime minister Tammam Salam, who formed his government just last week, condemned the attack.

He said the bombings were a “message reflecting the determination of the forces of evil to harm Lebanon and its children and sow discord”.

“The message has been received and we will respond to it with solidarity and committment to civil accord and rallying around our army and our security forces,” he said in a statement.

CAIRO — Egypt’s interim president ordered a pay raise for police on Wednesday, after some of their forces joined factory workers, doctors and pharmacists increasingly on strike over the past month.

Adli Mansour said police will receive a 30 per cent salary increase as hazard pay starting in March.

Egyptian officials are struggling to deal with the labour strikes, which have dealt a blow to the country’s interim military-backed government and already flagging economy.

More than 22,000 workers in a northern city have been on strike for over 10 days, demanding the removal of the government-operated Textile Holding Company’s president, Fouad Abdel Aleem, and higher wages.

Doctors around the country have also been striking periodically for months now, demanding higher salaries.

Egyptians have dealt with rising prices and high unemployment for most of the country’s political transition, since Hosni Mubarak left power in 2011. Employment is upward of 13 per cent, and experts put youth unemployment at more than 25 per cent. The annual rate of inflation stood at 11.36 per cent as of January, according to the central bank.

Police also staged strikes in six provinces last week, asking for higher wages for their work amid increasingly dangerous conditions. Lower-ranking police officers are paid some 800 Egyptian pounds — around $115 — per month.

ISTANBUL/BEIRUT — Regional unit commanders of the main Western-backed Syrian rebel faction rejected the dismissal this week of their chief by the group’s foreign-based command council and pledged to keep fighting under his command.

Their repudiation of the decision was a further sign of deepening disarray within Syria’s fragmented opposition movement that has weakened the nearly three-year uprising against President Bashar Assad.

Jostling for influence between Saudi Arabia and Qatar, two major patrons of Assad’s civilian and military opponents, has compounded divisions within the opposition. Such factionalism also strengthened Assad in recent US- and Russian-sponsored peace talks between his government and the opposition National Coalition in Geneva that ended without any progress.

The Supreme Military Council of the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) dismissed Selim Idriss on Sunday after a tenure that saw numerous setbacks in the anti-Assad insurgency as well as what opposition sources said were rising tensions between him and the National Coalition’s Saudi-backed chief.

A statement by 22 members of the FSA’s 30-strong military council said the decision was prompted by incompetence in the rebel command and a need to improve battlefield leadership.

But Idriss was defiant, saying in a video where he was flanked by regional commanders that they would cut ties with the defence minister in the National Coalition-appointed “temporary government”.

In his video statement released on Wednesday, Idriss called for a reformation of the council to make use of a broader spectrum of rebel groups and urged “revolutionary and military forces on the ground” to present a united front against Assad.

In an online video posted late on Tuesday, unit commanders representing relatively secular rebels in Syria’s five main battle zones denounced the decision to fire Idriss and accused National Coalition leaders of exacerbating rebel divisions.

“[We] consider the dismissal of the head of the General Staff, General Selim Idriss, null and illegitimate,” Fateh Hassoun, FSA commander for central Syria, said in the video. He added Idriss’ backers would keep fighting under his command.

“No group that is not present on the country’s soil has the right to take a crucial decision that does not represent the views of the forces working on the ground,” he said, reading from a statement.

It was not immediately possible to identify all the men in the video, who referred to themselves as “leaders of the fronts and military councils... in Syria” and were dressed in military fatigues.

One of the men, Mohammed Al Aboud, the FSA commander for Syria’s eastern front, confirmed by phone that he opposed the decision, having not been consulted.

Internal disarray

Relations between Idriss and Saudi Arabia deteriorated after he opened channels with Qatar, opposition sources have said.

He was replaced this week by Abdelilah Al Bashir, head of FSA operations in Syria’s southwestern Quneitra province, which borders the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, in a meeting which sources said was attended by Asaad Mustafa, defence minister in a provisional government set up by the opposition last year.

Mustafa’s office could not be reached for comment.

Monzer Akbik, chief of staff in National Coalition President Ahmad Jarba’s office, denied that the decision to ditch Idriss was politically motivated and said it was made to put someone who was fighting inside Syria in charge.

“They need someone who is fighting on the ground instead of someone who was distant from operations; Bashir was good on the field and has fought several battles,” he said.

An FSA leader who did not want to be named said a lack of resources, not Idriss’ leadership, was to blame for setbacks under his command, such as an incident in December when the FSA lost a border crossing with Turkey to rival Islamist insurgents, which embarrassed the organisation and prompted the United States and Britain to suspend non-lethal aid.

“It’s not about the person. It’s about the resources,” he said. “The corruption is very bad and it’s destroyed the coalition.”

Regardless of its roots, the dispute compounded the disarray within the rebellion, which began as a peaceful protest movement in March 2011 before mushrooming into a civil war that has killed more than 140,000 people.

Many of Syria’s rebel groups had already repudiated the FSA high command, including the Islamic Front, an alliance of some of the most powerful insurgent units in the country.

The Islamic Front in turn has been caught up in weeks of bitter clashes with an Al Qaeda splinter group, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. More than 2,300 people have died this year in rebel infighting alone.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Suspected Jewish extremists slashed the tyres of some 30 Palestinian cars and sprayed racist slogans in Hebrew in a neighbourhood of annexed East Jerusalem, police said on Wednesday.

The attack took place in Sharafat, a Palestinian neighbourhood in the southern sector of East Jerusalem, with the attackers spraying “No coexistence” and “Arabs = thieves” on walls.

A similar attack took place on February 10 when suspected Jewish extremists punctured the tyres of 19 vehicles in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Ein Aluza just south of the Old City, and daubed the site with racist anti-Arab graffiti in Hebrew.

Both incidences of vandalism bore the hallmarks of a “price tag” attack, a euphemism for hate crimes that generally target Palestinians.

Initially carried out in retaliation for state moves to dismantle unauthorised settler outposts, the attacks have become a much broader phenomenon targeting non-Jews and anyone seen as hostile to the settlers.

Earlier this month, three settlers were indicted for a November arson attack on two Palestinian vehicles, but in the vast majority of cases, the authorities have failed to catch and prosecute those involved, who are largely understood to be young Jewish extremists.

DUBAI — A suspected arsonist managed to light multiple fires that set off smoke alarms onboard an Etihad Airways flight from Australia to the United Arab Emirates, including some after the plane was diverted and passengers were searched in Indonesia, witnesses said Wednesday.

Emirati authorities have detained 12 passengers as part of an investigation into the fires, though no formal arrests have been made, according to the Middle Eastern carrier.

“A comprehensive investigation into the incidents onboard ... is still under way,” it said in an e-mailed statement. “The aircraft was searched and released shortly after arrival at Abu Dhabi when it was confirmed it was safe to do so.”

Passengers who were on the Boeing 777-300ER jetliner told The Associated Press that it appeared that someone on the flight set as many as five separate fires in different toilets over the course of the journey from Melbourne to the Emirati capital Abu Dhabi the previous day.

They described smelling smoke a couple of hours into the flight but thinking at first that it was the in-flight meals being heated up or someone smoking illicitly in the lavatory.

Sarah Jeffery, a 37-year-old midwife from England, was sleeping in the back of the plane when an alarm startled her awake.

“Everything was dark and then the cabin crew all came running,” she said. “As they opened the toilet door, I saw flames coming out of the bin in the toilet. But they quickly extinguished it. They were very good,” she said.

Etihad said 254 passengers and crew were onboard when smoke was detected in two toilets, prompting the initial diversion to Indonesia.

Once on the ground, the plane, passengers and carry-on luggage were searched, and passenger movement was restricted on the captain’s orders, according to the carrier.

Caroline Martens, 27, a professional golfer from Norway who was seated in the middle of the plane, said lighters and matches were confiscated in Jakarta before passengers were let back on the flight.

“The fact that they let everyone board again, that was scary,” she said.

Jeffery was also troubled by the decision to have all the passengers re-board the plane to continue its journey, saying “we were all put at risk by being put back on that flight”. She said there did not appear to be any police around and no one was questioned specifically about the fires.

“Obviously we were quite aware at the time that there hadn’t been any suspects identified at that point. Whoever had lit the fires was back on the plane with the rest of us with obviously the potential for it to continue,” Jeffery said.

Gatot Priambodo, the air traffic control coordinator at Jakarta’s Sukarno-Hatta International Airport, said Australian controllers requested the diversion after smoke alarms went off but that Indonesian authorities did not launch an investigation because the pilot had said prior to landing that there was “no need for assistance on arrival”.

Ground crew said burned tissue paper in the toilets appeared to be the source of the smoke, he said.

The flight then departed again to its scheduled destination of Abu Dhabi. Two hours before arrival, another smoke alarm sounded.

The crew dealt with the smoke and the captain directed crew members to be stationed at each of the toilets to secure them for the rest of the flight, according to the airline.

“You’re like: ‘you’ve got to be kidding me!’” Martens said. She described the smoke from the last fire, which happened as the plane flew over the Indian Ocean, as some of the thickest.

“I freaked out when I looked at the map and we were in the middle of nowhere. ... That’s when we realised this could actually end badly. It’s not a joke anymore,” she said.

Jeffery said one of the crew members told her that the fires appeared to have been deliberately set in lavatory drawers where sanitary and sick bags were kept, with the arsonist lighting wax-coated bags because they burned longer.

Local authorities interviewed passengers and crew upon arrival, and the events on the flight are under investigation, the airline said.

No injuries were reported and no arrests have yet been made, the carrier confirmed. Officials at the Abu Dhabi police department, which is handling the investigation, could not be reached for comment.

Etihad is the UAE’s national carrier and is based in Abu Dhabi. It and Gulf competitors Emirates and Qatar Airways have been rapidly expanding their operations in recent years, turning their desert bases into major transcontinental transit hubs.

Etihad has 10 of the wide-body, twin-engine 777-300ER in its relatively young fleet, according to its website.

Australia is an increasingly important market for Etihad. The government-backed carrier flies to Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney, and in 2012 began buying a minority stake in Virgin Australia.

TRIPOLI — Two powerful militias that earlier demanded that Libya’s interim parliament step down or face arrest now say the country’s political factions have 72 hours to resolve their crisis, while the United Nations urged Wednesday that the deadlock be resolved by holding new elections.

The demands issued Tuesday by Al Qaeqa and Al Sawaaq militias, which some politicians likened to an attempted coup, brought the restive North African country’s long-running political showdown to a head. Parliament is split between Islamist and non-Islamist blocs. Its mandate was to have expired this month, but the Islamists led a motion to extend its mandate by another year.

Under street protesters’ pressure, the parliament voted to hold early elections in the spring. But many are angry that parliament, widely viewed as a failed institution, should hold power until then.

The two militias at first said that parliament had until 9pm Tuesday to hand over power or be arrested as “usurpers,” but later said they had extended their deadline to Friday after meeting with UN special representative Tarek Mitri. Their second ultimatum said all parties should reach a “final and radical solution” to the crisis, but did not spell out any consequences if they failed to do so.

Mitri says he met with the commanders of the two militias and appealed to them to “give a chance to political dialogue about holding general elections at the earliest possible” opportunity. He warned that the use of force “threatens the stability of Libya and the political process”.

The country’s embattled Prime Minister Ali Zidan told reporters late Tuesday that he held meetings with the rival militias and UN envoy in an attempt to reach a “truce” and defuse the crisis.

“We reject a military coup, we reject the use of force to push Libyan people to take any action,” he said. He said the only way forward is through ballot boxes and the peaceful transition of power through elections.

The interim parliament, elected in 2012, was to guide a transition that would see a constitution drafted then new elections before February 7. Libya is preparing to elect a 60-member constitutional panel to draft the charter on Thursday.

The crisis comes as Libyans mark the third anniversary of the February 17, 2011, start of the uprising that toppled the 42-year-old dictatorship of Muammar Qadhafi.

Qadhafi came to power in a bloodless coup in 1969. He claimed he was instituting direct rule by the people through his ideological tract known as the Green Book, but ultimately put all powers in his hands.

As a result, after rebel forces toppled Qadhafi, the country was left bereft of functioning institutions. Successive governments relied on militias made up largely of ex-rebels to impose order. But those militias have allied with parliamentary blocs, while a series of assassinations and abductions mostly blamed on militias have further destabilised the country.

Libya’s now split spans regional, ideological and ethnic divides. Al Qaaqaa and Al Sawaaq, from the western Libyan town of Zintan, back the non-Islamist National Forces Alliance in parliament. Other militias, including those from the port city of Misrata, are allied with the Muslim Brotherhood behind the Islamist bloc.

The National Forces Alliance issued a statement distancing itself from the militias, saying it has no armed wing.

OROUMIEH, Iran — The first Cabinet decision made under Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, wasn’t about how to resolve his country’s nuclear dispute with world powers. It was about how to keep the nation’s largest lake from disappearing.

Lake Oroumieh, one of the biggest saltwater lakes on Earth, has shrunk more than 80 per cent to 1,000 sq.km. in the past decade, mainly because of climate change, expanded irrigation for surrounding farms and the damming of rivers that feed the body of water, experts say. Salt-covered rocks that were once deep underwater now sit in the middle of desert.

Experts fear the lake — famous in years past as a tourist spot and a favourite stopping point for migrating flamingos, pelicans and gulls — could disappear within two years if nothing is done.

“The lake is gone. My job is gone. My children are gone. Tourists, too,” said Mozafar Cheraghi, 58, as he stood on a dusty platform that was once his bustling teahouse.

Less than a decade ago, he recalled, he hosted dozens of tourists a day, with his two sons taking them on boat tours. His children have since left to pursue work elsewhere.

“I sold a dozen boats and kept half a dozen here, hoping the water will return,” he said. “But it didn’t happen.”

Rescuing the lake in northwestern Iran, near the Turkish border, was one of Rouhani’s campaign promises, and his new Cabinet promptly decided to form a team to invite scholars to help find solutions.

The president is putting an emphasis on tackling long-neglected environmental problems critics say were made worse by his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. An engineer with an appetite for giant populist projects, Ahmadinejad pursued policies that led to the expansion of irrigation projects and construction of dams.

“Rouhani stands by his campaign promise to revive the lake,” Isa Kalantari, a popular scholar appointed by Rouhani to lead the rescue team, said at an international conference in Oroumieh this week.

The gathering brought experts from Iran and around the world to discuss the best options for reversing the trend and saving Iran from a major environmental and economic disaster.

“Don’t blame nature and drought. Human beings, not climate change, are responsible for this situation. We dried up the lake because of our excessive demands and wrong methods. Now, we have to revive it ourselves. Five million people have to leave this region if the lake dies,” Kalantari said.

Kalantari and his team are to come up with a final rescue plan by May.

Twenty proposals are on the table for saving the lake, including cloud-seeding to increase rainfall in the area and the building of pipelines to bring in more water. Experts have also proposed the creation of other industries to reduce reliance on agricultural water.

The government has already begun a project to raise public awareness and encourage farmers to abandon wasteful practices and adopt drip irrigation systems that save water. It is also urging farmers to switch to less-thirsty crops. Wheat and pistachios, for example, use less water than sugar beets.

In the village of Govarchinghaleh, near the lake, Nader Hazrati and his son, Ali, grow grapes and almonds.

“A decade ago, this was a green area. Now it is not because of decrease in rainfall. With the level of water in the lake going down, water in wells has gone down too. If we dig deeper, the water gets very salty and isn’t fit even for agricultural use. Our grape and almond harvest has fallen dramatically,” Ali said.

Ali, 27, said salty winds have killed some of his almond trees.

The effect on crops has prompted many villagers to leave the place of their birth. Govarchinghaleh had about 1,000 people a decade ago. Now, only 300 live in the village overlooking the shrinking lake. Once there were three schools; now there is one, serving a dozen students.

Not far away, trucks hauling salt, a new business, could be seen driving over the dry lake bottom.

Ali Asghar Siab Qudsi, a university teacher and one of the organisers of the conference, said dams and the digging of more than 24,000 unauthorised wells — in addition to some 30,000 legal ones — are among the reasons for the shrinking of the lake. He said increasing evaporation and cultivation of thirsty crops such as sugar beets have worsened the crisis.

Lakes in other parts of Iran are facing a similar crisis, though not as severe as at Oroumieh. Even residents of Tehran experience water shortages on weekends, and authorities are making plans for possible rationing in the capital.

Authorities have warned of a national disaster in the coming decade if water is not managed properly.

“My No. 1 demand is to see our dying lake back to life. Will that happen in my lifetime?” Cheraghi asked. 

A former US army soldier sentenced to life in prison for the 2006 rape and murder of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and killing of her parents and sister, was found hanged in his cell, The Los Angeles Times reported on Tuesday, citing prison officials.

The death on Saturday of Steven Dale Green, 28, at the United States Penitentiary in Tucson, Arizona, was being investigated as a suicide, the paper said. Green had been found hanging in his cell last week, according to the Times report.

A spokesman at the federal maximum-security prison could not immediately be reached on Tuesday afternoon to confirm the report.

Green was convicted in 2009 of the rape and murder of 14-year-old Abeer Qassim Hamza Al Janabi and the shooting deaths of her father, mother and 6-year-old sister in Mahmoudiya, 32 kilometres south of Baghdad.

He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after a federal jury in Kentucky could not decide whether he should be executed.

During the trial, prosecutors portrayed Green as the ringleader of a gang of five soldiers that plotted to invade the home of the family of four to rape the girl, and later bragged about the crime.

Green, 19 at the time of the crime, was described as the triggerman in the group of soldiers, which donned black “ninja” outfits and raped the girl before killing her and her family. The rape and murders took place after the soldiers drank whiskey, played cards and plotted the attack.

Three of the four other soldiers pleaded guilty in the attack and the fourth was convicted, all in military courts-martial. They received sentences ranging from five to 100 years.

Green was tried as a civilian because his arrest came after he was discharged from the army. He was described by prosecutors as predisposed to killing Iraqis.

Defence attorneys acknowledged he took part in the killings, but argued he was suffering combat stress after the death of close colleagues and should be spared the death penalty.

It was one of several incidents involving American soldiers that enraged Iraqis and strained US-Iraq relations.