U.S. too weak to wage war against Iran: Washington ambassador

TEHRAN – U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland Donald Beyer has said that given the severe economic crisis in the United States the country’s military option against Tehran is beyond the realms of possibility.
 
The U.S. overall debt has exceeded $16 trillion and the country’s unemployment rate stands at 8.2 percent, Beyer said, according to Press TV.
 
The low-spending level in the U.S. budget over the past two years is unprecedented, the American envoy said, adding that there is a tacit consensus among Democrats and Republicans that the country’s military budget needs to be reduced.

With 900 military bases abroad, the U.S. has the highest military expenditure in the world, however the matter is no longer acceptable, he noted.
 
Under the prevailing circumstances, no one considers war with Iran as an option, Beyer stated.

The United States and the Zionist regime have frequently threatened threatened to use military force against Iran if Tehran does not stop its nuclear program.
 
As a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation regime Iran is legally entitled to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

Malaysia to extradite Iranian accused of plotting to attack Israeli targets abroad

Iranian man accused of plotting to bomb Israeli targets in Bangkok in February denies any involvement in terrorist organizations; court rules to extradite the man to Thailand.

By The Associated Press

A Malaysian court ruled Monday that an Iranian man accused of plotting to attack Israeli targets in Bangkok must be extradited to Thailand. Masoud Sedaghatzadeh said he planned to appeal the decision. He is not expected to be immediately deported.

Sedaghatzadeh was arrested at a Malaysian airport soon after an apparently accidental explosion rocked a Bangkok neighborhood on Feb. 14. Bombs were found at the house, where the explosion occurred, and Thai police say Sedaghatzadeh, and two other Iranian men now in Thai custody, had been seen leaving the house. Thai officials have said Israeli diplomats may have been the targets of the alleged plot.

A Kuala Lumpur district court on Monday ruled in favor of the Malaysian government's bid to deport Sedaghatzadeh to the Thai capital. Sedaghatzadeh has 15 days to file an appeal, said his lawyer, Nashir Hussin.

Malaysian prosecutors have said the Iranian was wanted by Thailand on suspicion of "taking part in making and possessing an explosive device" as well as causing an explosion that led to human injuries and property damage. He faces life in prison if convicted in Thailand.

Israel has blamed Iran for the explosions, which wounded five including one of the alleged bombers, as well as two incidents the day before: a bombing in India that wounded an Israeli diplomat's wife and driver, and an attempted bombing in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. Iran has denied involvement.

‘Thunder’ will fall on Israel if it attacks Iran: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

By Farhad Pouladi / AFP

TEHRAN — Any attack by Israel on Iran will blow back on the Jewish state “like thunder,” Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Sunday.

Khamenei also said that the international community’s suspicion that Iran was seeking nuclear weapons is based on a “lie” and he insisted that sanctions imposed on his country were ineffective and only strengthened its resolve.

His speech, broadcast on state television to mark the 1989 death of his predecessor and founder of the Islamic republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, contained no sign Iran was prepared to make any concessions on its disputed nuclear program.

Instead, it was infused with defiance and Khamenei’s customary contempt for Iran’s arch-foes Israel and the United States.

If the Israelis “make any misstep or wrong action, it will fall on their heads like thunder,” Khamenei said.

The Jewish state, he added, was feeling “vulnerable” and “terrified” after losing deposed Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak as an ally.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters in Stockholm the threats against Israel were “nothing new,” insisting she would judge Tehran by its actions at upcoming nuclear talks in Russia.
“We look forward to what the Iranians actually bring to the table in Moscow,” she said.

“We want to see a diplomatic resolution. We now have an opportunity to achieve it, and we hope it is an opportunity that’s not lost, for everyone’s sake,” she said.

Allegations that Iran was trying to develop atomic bombs were false, Khamenei said on Sunday.

“International political circles and media talk about the danger of a nuclear Iran, that a nuclear Iran is dangerous. I say that they lie. They are deceiving,” Khamenei said.

“What they are afraid of — and should be afraid of — is not a nuclear but an Islamic Iran.”

He added: “They invoke the term ‘nuclear weapons’ based on a lie. They magnify and highlight the issue in their propaganda based on a lie. Their goal is to divert minds and public opinion from the (economic) events that are happening in the US and Europe.”

Western economic sanctions imposed to pressure Iran to curb its nuclear program were having no effect, Khamenei insisted. Their only impact, he said, was “deepening hatred and animosity of the West in the hearts of the Iranian people.”

Khamenei called the stance by the United States and its Western allies “crazy.”

“The Iranian people have proved they can progress without the United States, and while being an enemy of the United States,” he said.

Western nations, the United States at the fore, accuse Iran of wanting to develop the capability to make nuclear weapons, something Khamenei has repeatedly denied. The supreme leader has called atomic arms “a great sin.”

Talks between the Islamic republic and the so-called P5+1 group of nations — the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China, plus Germany — were revived this year and are to go to a crucial next round in Moscow on June 18-19.

But the United States and its ally Israel — the sole, if undeclared, nuclear weapons state in the Middle East — have threatened military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities if diplomacy fails.

Khamenei’s speech was being closely watched by P5+1 officials for signs of what positions the Iranian delegation might take into the Moscow negotiations. The supreme leader has the final word on any decision on Iran’s nuclear activities.

At one point in his speech, Khamenei declared it “forbidden to stop on the path to progress, in the political sphere and in the sphere of science and technology.”

That carried the implication that Iran had no intention on scaling back its nuclear development.

More grisly details emerge from face-eating attack in Miami

Rudy Eugene

police identified Eugene’s victim as Ronald Poppo,
a 65-year-old homeless man who has lived on
Miami’s streets for more  than three decades.



By DAVID OVALLE, SCOTT HIAASEN and DIANA MOSKOVITZ / Miami Herald

Rudy Eugene walked naked alongside the MacArthur Causeway before pouncing on a homeless man he found dozing in the shade of the elevated Metromover train tracks.

For almost 18 grisly minutes, Eugene savaged his victim, punching him and stripping the man’s pants before gnawing off the homeless man’s face — all as cars and cyclists rolled by on the busy causeway on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

The new details of the horrific attack were captured in additional video footage taken by security cameras at the nearby Miami Herald building.

At least five passersby, including a Road Ranger from the Florida Department of Transportation, called police to report what they saw of the macabre scene. Three bicyclists pedaled by the two bloody men in the minutes before the arrival of Miami police officer Jose Rivera, who shot and killed Eugene to end the attack, the new footage shows. The shooting itself was obstructed in the video, and the officer appeared to shoot Eugene within a minute of arriving.

On Tuesday police identified Eugene’s victim as Ronald Poppo, a 65-year-old homeless man who has lived on Miami’s streets for more than three decades. With his nose, mouth and eyes torn off, he remained in critical condition at Jackson Memorial Hospital on Tuesday.

The new video, and information from police, suggest that Eugene stumbled upon Poppo by sheer happenstance.

The footage shows Eugene walking naked on the sidewalk along the Biscayne Boulevard off-ramp of the causeway at around 1:55 p.m. Saturday when he paused in a shady spot under the Metromover Omni loop line. Eugene appeared to twirl as a bicyclist zoomed by. For about two minutes, Eugene bent over a second figure in the shade, though the images are obscured by a rustling palm frond.

Eugene then rolled Poppo out onto the sunny sidewalk, stripping off his clothes while Poppo appeared to kick in resistance. Eugene later appeared to straddle Poppo and hunch over him for several minutes.

Meanwhile, two more cyclists passed by, and one motorist in a white car slowed down while descending the off-ramp. But for many motorists, the scene was obscured by a waist-high concrete safety wall along the highway.

According to Miami police, the first call of a disturbance came from a passing motorist who reported seeing Eugene stripping off his clothes and acting erratically. That call was routed to the Florida Highway Patrol — it’s unclear why — and then transferred to the Miami police. Police have not disclosed the time of the first call.

A Road Ranger called to the scene also called 911 and used a loudspeaker to call for the naked attacker to cease. As the attack dragged on, two other motorists called police, as did another cyclist, Larry Vega, who later told reporters that Eugene “just stood, his head up like that, with pieces of flesh in his mouth. And he growled.”

At about 2:11 p.m. — 16 minutes after the attack began — a Miami police patrol car briefly turned up the causeway ramp, against traffic, before turning around, the video shows.

About two minutes later, the patrol car turned against traffic again and drove up the ramp to scene, just south of the Miami Herald’s parking garage. Just a few seconds after stepping from his car to confront the attacker, Officer Rivera drew his gun, but it’s unclear when he fired on Eugene, killing the 31-year-old man. A second officer arrived about one minute later.

Police have just begun to piece together Eugene’s actions in the hours before the attack.

It appears Eugene had been in Miami Beach — in full party mode for Urban Beach Week over the Memorial Day Weekend — shortly before the attack. Eugene’s car, a purple 1995 Chevrolet Caprice, was towed for being parked illegally at 1100 10th St.

The night before, Eugene had been with his girlfriend in Miami Gardens. She reported that he was acting strangely before leaving in his car. According to police, Eugene later called her to say that his car broke down.

Still unclear is what motivated the attack. Though some have speculated that Eugene was under the influence of some kind of stimulants or other drugs that sometimes cause violent episodes, police said they found no evidence of drugs or paraphernalia at the scene. Toxicology tests of Eugene’s blood will likely take several weeks.