Will remain in Syria until final victory: Hezbollah

October 24, 2016

Lebanon, Oct 24: The secretary general of the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement says the group's fighters will remain in neighboring Syria until they achieve the final victory over foreign-sponsored Takfiri terrorists and purge the crisis-hit Arab country of extremists.

HezbollahAddressing people in a speech marking a week since the killing of the movement's military commander, Hatem Hamade, in Syria, Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah dispelled illusions about Hezbollah forces' withdrawing from Syria, stressing that the fighters will leave Syria only after they have defeated Takfiri terrorists there.

"Our choice of going to Syria was very well studied after observing the regional developments that began in Tunisia and reached Syria," he said, adding, "Time has revealed that the battle in Syria is aimed at making existential changes on the ground as well as to the political map of the region."

“We will continue this battle until the end, and we are proud of our martyrs in Syria, and whoever bargains on our tiredness will lose,” he said, emphasizing that the security “we are living in now is not the outcome of agreements or mere prayers," but it is the outcome of efforts made by martyrs and their blood.

Nasrallah pointed out that Hezbollah fighters were not ordered by any third party to play a role in Syria, but rather entered the neighboring country following a comprehensive and extensive analysis.

The Hezbollah leader stated that the ongoing foreign-backed militancy in Syria is not simply aimed at toppling the incumbent Damascus government, but rather meant to make changes to demographic map and borders of the region in order to uproot certain groups of people.

The Hezbollah secretary general further condemned Saudi Arabia as the country actively supporting and financing the Daesh Takfiri terrorists group.

He added that leaded private emails related to former US secretary of state and Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, attest to the fact that Saudi Arabia and US were behind forming Daesh group.

Nasrallah also condemned the inaction and passivity of international human rights bodies toward crimes being perpetrated by Daesh terrorists in Iraq and Syria, noting that despite hundreds and thousands of people have been either beheaded or killed in other ways by this group, world rights bodies maintain their silence toward its crimes.

Yemen blockade threatening over 20 million people

Turning to the Saudi-led coalitions' aerial and naval blockade of Yemen, Nasrallah stated that the restrictive measures adopted by Riyadh toward its impoverished southern neighbor have affected the lives of more than 20 million people.

Nasrallah also took to task international organizations for their failure to adopt any decisive measure to end Saudi Arabia's brutal embargo on the Yemeni people.

All Iraqis fighting Daesh to liberate Mosul

Elsewhere in his speech, the Hezbollah secretary general said that people from all walks of life are currently fighting the Daesh Takfiri terrorists in Iraq, and dozens or even hundreds of people are sacrificing their lives in order to liberate the northern Iraqi city of Mosul from Daesh terrorists.

“Unfortunately, what Daesh is doing is under the name of [Prophet] Mohammad (PBUH). They want to throw this name, which has always shined in this world with glory, into darkness of Daesh,” Nasrallah said, adding that committing crimes under the name of Islam and its prophet is a deliberated and preplanned act by Daesh.

The secretary general of Hezbollah also slammed Turkish authorities' for their effort to pave the way for Turkish military to play a role in the operation for the liberation of Mosul, saying that they have a greedy eye on that area of the Iraqi territory.

Hezbollah endorses Aoun for Lebanon president

Elsewhere in his speech, Nasrallah focused on internal issues of Lebanon, including election of the country's new president.

The secretary general of Hezbollah praised former Lebanese prime minister, Saad Hariri, for his endorsement of the founder of Michel Aoun for presidency, emphasizing that the move paves the way for holding presidential election in a realistic manner.

In a televised news conference on Thursday, Hariri, who leads Lebanon's March 14 Alliance, voiced support for his rival, raising hopes for the settlement of a long-running deadlock on Lebanon's political stage.

"I announce today before you my decision to endorse the candidacy of General Michel Aoun for the presidency of the republic," Hariri said, adding that his decision "comes from the need to protect Lebanon and the state and the people."

Aoun, the founder of the Free Patriotic Movement, is an ally of the Lebanese resistance bloc, Hezbollah.

Nasrallah added, “Everything can be solved through dialogue. We do not impose any decision on our allies. Each of us has his own approach.”

Nasrallah emphasized that Hezbollah's members of parliament would vote for Aoun to become president of Lebanon at a parliamentary session at the end of October.

Lebanon has been without a head of state since 2014, when the term of President Michel Suleiman expired.

The Lebanese parliament has repeatedly failed to elect a president due to the lack of quorum. The presidential election has been put off until the end of October.

Under Lebanon's power-sharing system, the president must be a Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim and the parliament speaker a Shia Muslim.

Lebanon's resistance movement Hezbollah has accused Saudi Arabia of thwarting political initiatives and blocking the election of a president in Lebanon.

Hezbollah has strong relations with Amal

In another part of his speech, leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah noted that the movement has strong and deep-seated relations with the Amal (Hope) Movement, and that relationship cannot be disturbed with fabrications.

“We are honest and faithful to our allies and all we seek is to have a secure country,” Nasrallah said.

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News Network
July 1,2020

As Peru begins to ease its strict coronavirus lockdown, the country's biggest LGBTQ nightclub opened its doors on Tuesday, but there will be no nighttime revellers; its dance floor will instead be filled with shelves stocked with groceries.

Instead of slinging cocktails at the bar or dancing on stage, ValeTodo Downtown's famed staff of drag queens will sell customers daily household products as the space reopens as a market while nightclubs are ordered to remain closed.

The Peruvian government will lift the lockdown in most regions of the country at the beginning of July but will keep borders closed, as well as nightclubs and bars.

The lockdown has been a struggle for the club's 120 employees like drag queen Belaluh McQueen. Her life completely changed when the government announced the quarantine. Her nights were spent at home, rather than performing as a dancer at the club in vivid-coloured costumes.

"I was very depressed because I have been doing this art for years, but you have to adapt to new challenges for the future," said McQueen, who is identified by her stage name.

Now McQueen is back to work as a grocery store employee, wearing a sequined suit, high heels and a mask. A DJ will play club music as patrons shop. "We have a new job opportunity," McQueen added.

Renamed as Downtown Market, the club, which has been a mainstay hallmark of the local LGBTQ community, ushered in its reopening with an inauguration ceremony.

"Before, I used to come here to dance and have a good time, but now we come to buy," said Alexandra Herrera, a regular attendee of the club. "The thing is to reinvent yourself."

The club's general manager, Claudia Achuy, said that the pandemic impacted the heart of Lima nightlife, but she chose to reopen as a market rather than risk cutting staff. "If we had just stayed as a nightclub we did not have a close horizon or a way of working," Achuy said.

Peru's confirmed coronavirus cases rose to 282,364 with 9,504 associated deaths on Monday, according to government data. It has the second-highest outbreak in Latin America after Brazil, according to a Reuters tally.

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News Network
May 7,2020

Mumbai, May 7: Maharashtra Minister Nawab Malik on Wednesday accused the BJP-led Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka governments of adopting an uncooperative approach in taking back migrant workers hailing from these two states.

Mr Malik said that such a problem has not arisen with other states like Bihar, Rajasthan and another BJP-ruled state, Madhya Pradesh.

"They are creating new hurdles. There are no such problems in case of other states like Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal though.

"The process (of sending back migrants) has been smooth in the case of these states," Mr Malik said.

The NCP leader alleged that the Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka governments either don't want the people hailing from their states to return or are deliberately creating hurdles so that out of job workers do not go back in big numbers.

The Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka government should understand that the migrant workers are not ready mentally to stay back in Maharashtra and want to return to their native states, Mr Malik said.

The NCP minister said the Maharashtra government has been sending the applications received from migrant workers to the nodal officers of their respective native districts.

Once the nodal officers (of the native districts) concerned approve the applications, the workers are sent back either by trains or private vehicles following their medical tests, Mr Malik added.

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Agencies
January 9,2020

Washington, Jan 9: The U.S. and Iran stepped back from the brink of possible war Wednesday as President Donald Trump signaled he would not retaliate militarily for Iran's missile strikes on Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops. No one was harmed in the strikes, but U.S. forces in the region remained on high alert.

Speaking from the White House, Trump seemed intent on deescalating the crisis, which spiralled after he authorized the assassination of Iran's top general, Qassem Soleimani. Iran responded overnight by firing more than a dozen missiles at two installations in Iraq, its most direct assault on America since the 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

Trump's takeaway was that “Iran appears to be standing down, which is a good thing for all parties concerned and a very good thing for the world.”

The region remained on edge, however, and American troops including a quick-reaction force dispatched over the weekend were on high alert. Hours after Trump spoke, an ‘incoming’ siren went off in Baghdad's Green Zone after what seemed to be small rockets “impacted” the diplomatic area, a Western official said. There were no reports of casualties.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the overnight strike was not necessarily the totality of Iran's response. “Last night they received a slap,” Khamenei said. “These military actions are not sufficient (for revenge). What is important is that the corrupt presence of America in this region comes to an end.”

The strikes had pushed Tehran and Washington perilously close to all-out conflict and left the world waiting to see whether the American president would respond with more military force. Trump, in his nine-minute, televised address, spoke of a robust U.S. military with missiles that are “big, powerful, accurate, lethal and fast.'' But then he added: “We do not want to use it."

Iran for days had been promising to respond forcefully to Soleimani's killing, but its limited strike on two bases--one in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil and the other at Ain al-Asad in western Iraq--appeared to signal that it too was uninterested in a wider clash with the U.S. Foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted that the country had “concluded proportionate measures in self-defence.”

Trump said the U.S. was “ready to embrace peace with all who seek it.” That marked a sharp change in tone from his warning a day earlier that “if Iran does anything that they shouldn't be doing, they're going to be suffering the consequences, and very strongly.”

Trump opened his remarks at the White House by reiterating his promise that “Iran will never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.” Iran had announced in the wake of Soleimani's killing that it would no longer comply with any of the limits on uranium enrichment in the 2015 nuclear deal crafted to keep it from building a nuclear device.

The president, who had earlier pulled the U.S. out of the deal, seized on the moment of calm to call for negotiations toward a new agreement that would do more to limit Iran's ballistic missile programmes and constrain regional proxy campaigns like those led by Soleimani.

Trump spoke of new sanctions on Iran, but it was not immediately clear what those would be.

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