A changed Middle East brings vindication for Netanyahu but comes at a cost for Israel
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu likes to remind his country and the world that in the disorienting first days after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack, he predicted Israel would 'change the Middle East.'
Now, 20 months later, a regionwide war has all but crushed the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza, thrashed Hezbollah in Lebanon, toppled Bashar Assad in Syria and delivered a harsh blow to archenemy Iran.
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Canada News.Net
30 minutes ago
- Canada News.Net
Ahead of ceasefire, Islamic nations called out Israel on its nuclear weapons
ANKARA, Turkey: Amid rising tensions in the Middle East, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) announced it would form a new ministerial contact group aimed at supporting diplomatic efforts and preventing further escalation between Iran, Israel, and other regional actors. The move follows recent U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, which have drawn sharp criticism from across the Islamic world. In a joint declaration issued after a foreign ministers' meeting in Istanbul, the 57-member OIC condemned "the aggression of Israel" and expressed "great concern regarding this dangerous escalation." The group stressed the "urgent need to stop Israeli attacks" and called on the international community to impose deterrent measures and hold Israel accountable for crimes committed. The move came ahead of a ceasefire entered into on Tuesday between Israel and Iran. The ceasefire was negotiated by U.S. President Donald Trump. Although the joint declaration did not mention U.S. involvement in the strikes on Iran, the OIC also adopted a 13-article resolution addressing the broader conflict. This resolution explicitly condemned both the Israeli and U.S. attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities and declared full solidarity with Tehran. According to a draft of the resolution, the OIC urged the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to "unequivocally condemn those attacks" and report them to the UN Security Council, labelling them as "barbaric" and in violation of international law. The OIC also pressed Israel to "join without delay the treaty of Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons" and to place all its nuclear sites under comprehensive IAEA safeguards. While Israel has never confirmed or denied possessing nuclear weapons, it is widely believed to be the only country in the Middle East with such capability. The country has justified recent strikes as efforts to prevent Iran from developing nuclear arms. In their resolution, the OIC member states also reaffirmed Iran's inherent right to self-defence, stating that Tehran had the right "to take all necessary measures to fully protect its sovereignty and citizens" and prevent similar "criminal acts" in the future. The creation of a contact group reflects a growing urgency among Muslim-majority nations to manage rising hostilities and avoid broader regional fallout. The group will engage regularly with international and regional stakeholders to support diplomatic de-escalation. The OIC, founded in 1969, is the world's second-largest intergovernmental organisation after the United Nations and often serves as a collective voice for the Muslim world on major geopolitical issues.
Winnipeg Free Press
an hour ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Alvin Bragg, Manhattan prosecutor who took on Trump, wins Democratic primary in bid for second term
NEW YORK (AP) — Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, the prosecutor who oversaw the historic hush-money case against President Donald Trump, won Tuesday's Democratic primary as he seeks reelection. Bragg defeated Patrick Timmins — a litigator, law professor and former Bronx assistant district attorney — to advance to November's general election. About 70% of registered Manhattan voters are Democrats. The first-term incumbent will face Republican Maud Maron, who was a public defender for decades and previously ran for Congress and NYC's City Council as a Democrat. Bragg has long been one of the nation's most prominent prosecutors, spotlighted in TV's 'Law & Order' and other shows. The DA directs about 600 attorneys in one of the biggest local prosecutors' offices in the U.S. He raised the office's profile still further by bringing the hush-money case. His predecessor, fellow Democrat Cyrus R. Vance Jr., spent years investigating various Trump dealings but didn't procure an indictment. Bragg decided to focus on how and why porn actor Stormy Daniels was paid $130,000 to clam up about her claims of a 2006 sexual encounter with the married Trump. The payment was made, through the then-candidate's personal attorney, weeks before the 2016 presidential election. Trump's company records logged the money as a legal expense. Trump denied any wrongdoing and any sexual involvement with Daniels. But a jury last year found him guilty of 33 felony counts of falsifying business records, the first-ever felony conviction of a former — and now again — U.S. commander in chief. Trump is appealing the verdict. The Republican president has long derided the case as a political 'witch hunt,' and he has kept lambasting Bragg by social media as recently as March. Bragg, 51, was a civil rights lawyer, federal prosecutor and top deputy to New York's attorney general before becoming DA. Raised in Harlem and educated at Harvard, he's the first Black person to hold the post. His tenure had a rocky start. Days after taking office in 2022, he issued a memo telling staffers not to prosecute some types of cases, nor seek bail or prison time in some others. After criticism from the police commissioner and others, Bragg apologized for creating 'confusion' and said his office wasn't easing up on serious cases. The matter continued to animate his critics. Trump repeatedly branded Bragg 'soft on crime,' and Timmins said on his campaign site homepage that the memo 'has brought about increased crime and a perception of chaos in the subway and on our streets.' Timmins — who has raised about $154,000 to Bragg's $2.2 million since January 2022 — also pledged to do more to staunch subway crime, keep cases from getting dismissed for failure to meet legal deadlines, and prioritize hate crimes, among other things. Bragg's campaign emphasized his efforts to fight gun violence, help sexual assault survivors, prosecute hate crimes and go after bad landlords and exploitative bosses, among other priorities. His office, meanwhile, has been enmeshed in a string of high-profile cases in recent months. The office is using a post-9/11 terrorism law to prosecute UnitedHealthcare CEO killing suspect Luigi Mangione, lost a homicide trial against Marine veteran and Republican cause célèbre Daniel Penny in a case that stirred debate about subway safety and self-defense, and retried former movie mogul Harvey Weinstein on sex crimes charges. Mangione, Penny and Weinstein all pleaded not guilty. Bragg unexpectedly inherited the Vance-era Weinstein case after an appeals court ordered a new trial. In a jumbled outcome, jurors this month convicted Weinstein on one top charge, acquitted him of another and didn't reach a verdict on a third, lower-level charge — which Bragg aims to bring to trial a third time.
Vancouver Sun
2 hours ago
- Vancouver Sun
American attack only set back Iran's nuclear program by months, U.S. intelligence report suggests
WASHINGTON — A U.S. intelligence report suggests that Iran's nuclear program has been set back only a few months after U.S. strikes and was not 'completely and fully obliterated' as President Donald Trump has said, according to two people familiar with the early assessment. The report issued by the Defense Intelligence Agency on Monday contradicts statements from Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the status of Iran's nuclear facilities. According to the people, the report found that while the Sunday strikes at the Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear sites did significant damage, the facilities were not totally destroyed. The people were not authorized to address the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The U.S. has held out hope of restarting negotiations with Iran to convince it to give up its nuclear program entirely, but some experts fear that the U.S. strikes — and the potential of Iran retaining some of its capabilities — could push Tehran toward developing a functioning weapon. Start your day with a roundup of B.C.-focused news and opinion. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Sunrise will soon be in your inbox. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. The assessment also suggests that at least some of Iran's highly enriched uranium, necessary for creating a nuclear weapon, was moved out of multiple sites before the U.S. strikes and survived, and it found that Iran's centrifuges, which are required to further enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels, are largely intact, according to the people. At the deeply buried Fordo uranium enrichment plant, where U.S. B-2 stealth bombers dropped several 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs, the entrance collapsed and infrastructure was damaged, but the underground infrastructure was not destroyed, the assessment found. The people said that intelligence officials had warned of such an outcome in previous assessments ahead of the strike on Fordo. The White House strongly pushed back on the DIA assessment, calling it 'flat-out wrong.' 'The leaking of this alleged assessment is a clear attempt to demean President Trump, and discredit the brave fighter pilots who conducted a perfectly executed mission to obliterate Iran's nuclear program,' White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. 'Everyone knows what happens when you drop fourteen 30,000 pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration.' The CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment on the DIA assessment. ODNI coordinates the work of the nation's 18 intelligence agencies, including the DIA, which is the intelligence arm of the Defense Department, responsible for producing intelligence on foreign militaries and the capabilities of adversaries. The Israeli government also has not released any official assessments of the U.S. strikes. Trump has said in comments and posts on social media in recent days, including Tuesday, that the strike left the sites in Iran 'totally destroyed' and that Iran will never rebuild its nuclear facilities. Netanyahu said in a televised statement on Tuesday that, 'For dozens of years I promised you that Iran would not have nuclear weapons and indeed … we brought to ruin Iran's nuclear program.' He said the U.S. joining Israel was 'historic' and thanked Trump. The intelligence assessment was first reported by CNN on Tuesday. Outside experts had suspected Iran had likely already hidden the core components of its nuclear program as it stared down the possibility that American bunker-buster bombs could be used on its nuclear sites. Bulldozers and trucks visible in satellite imagery taken just days before the strikes have fueled speculation among experts that Iran may have transferred its half-ton stockpile of enriched uranium to an unknown location. And the incomplete destruction of the nuclear sites could still leave the country with the capacity to spin up weapons-grade uranium and develop a bomb. Iran has maintained that its nuclear program is peaceful, but it has enriched significant quantities of uranium beyond the levels required for any civilian use. The U.S. and others assessed prior to the U.S. strikes that Iran's theocratic leadership had not yet ordered the country to pursue an operational nuclear weapons, but the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly warned that Iran has enough enriched uranium to make several nuclear bombs should it choose to do so. Vice President JD Vance said in a Monday interview on Fox News Channel that even if Iran is still in control of its stockpile of 408.6 kilograms (900.8 pounds) of enriched uranium, which is just short of weapons-grade, the U.S. has cut off Iran's ability to convert it to a nuclear weapon. 'If they have 60 per cent enriched uranium, but they don't have the ability to enrich it to 90 per cent, and, further, they don't have the ability to convert that to a nuclear weapon, that is mission success. That is the obliteration of their nuclear program, which is why the president, I think, rightly is using that term,' Vance said. Approximately 42 kilograms of 60 per cent enriched uranium is theoretically enough to produce one atomic bomb if enriched further to 90 per cent, according to the UN nuclear watchdog. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi informed UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi on June 13 — the day Israel launched its military campaign against Iran — that Tehran would 'adopt special measures to protect our nuclear equipment and materials.' American satellite imagery and analysis firm Maxar Technologies said its satellites photographed trucks and bulldozers at the Fordo site beginning on June 19, three days before the Americans struck. Subsequent imagery 'revealed that the tunnel entrances into the underground complex had been sealed off with dirt prior to the U.S. airstrikes,' said Stephen Wood, senior director at Maxar. 'We believe that some of the trucks seen on 19 June were carrying dirt to be used as part of that operation.' Some experts say those trucks could also have been used to move out Iran's enriched uranium stockpile. 'It is plausible that Iran moved the material enriched to 60 per cent out of Fordo and loaded it on a truck,' said Eric Brewer, a former U.S. intelligence analyst and now deputy vice president at the Nuclear Threat Initiative. Iran could also have moved other equipment, including centrifuges, he said, noting that while enriched uranium, which is stored in fortified canisters, is relatively easy to transport, delicate centrifuges are more challenging to move without inflicting damage. Apart from its enriched uranium stockpile, over the past four years Iran has produced the centrifuges key to enrichment without oversight from the UN nuclear watchdog. Iran also announced on June 12 that it has built and will activate a third nuclear enrichment facility. IAEA chief Grossi said the facility was located in Isfahan, a place where Iran has several other nuclear sites. After being bombarded by both the Israelis and the Americans, it is unclear if, or how quickly, Isfahan's facilities including tunnels could become operational. But given all of the equipment and material likely still under Iran's control, this offers Tehran 'a pretty solid foundation for a reconstituted covert program and for getting a bomb,' Brewer said. Kelsey Davenport, director for nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association, a nonpartisan policy center, said that 'if Iran had already diverted its centrifuges,' it can 'build a covert enrichment facility with a small footprint and inject the 60 per cent gas into those centrifuges and quickly enrich to weapons grade levels.' But Brewer also underlined that if Iran launched a covert nuclear program, it would do so at a disadvantage, having lost to Israeli and American strikes vital equipment and personnel that are crucial for turning the enriched uranium into a functional nuclear weapon. ___ Associated Press writers Eric Tucker, David Klepper, Ellen Knickmeyer and Aamer Madhani in Washington and John Leicester in Paris contributed to this report.
