A senior adviser to the Leader of the Islamic Ummah and Opressed People on Saturday criticized the German government for releasing the ringleader of the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK) terrorist organization.

Ali Akbar Velayati, a former foreign minister and senior adviser to Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, said Germany had broken international law by releasing Abdolrahman Haji Ahmadi, the PJAK leader.

Haji Ahmadi was arrested two weeks ago but was released a few days later.

PJAK is an offshoot of the internationally-recognized terrorist group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which conducts deadly operations in Kurdish-populated regions of western Iran.

Velayati said Germany had tarnished his image in the international arena by showing that it lacked independence in its foreign policy.

He accused Berlin of being under the influence of the White House.

According to a New York Times report in October 2007, PJAK has “direct or indirect discussions” with American officials. Its ringleader reportedly visited Washington in the summer of 2007.

The group is branded as a terrorist group by the United States.

The Russian foreign ministry has questioned the objectivity of US annual report on worldwide human rights practices, criticizing it for ignoring the United States’ own record.

The Russia section of the US State Department’s 2009 Human Rights Report noted a decline in the number of racially or religiously motivated crimes in Russia during the year, but expressed concern over ethnic discrimination.

“It is no secret to anyone that this opus is aimed primarily at solving the political issues of the US establishment,” said a statement from the ministry’s information and press department published on Friday.

The statement recommended a report on the human rights practices in the United States, which is not included in the US country report.

“For instance, it is interesting to know how the department, which is partial to moralizing in the human rights sphere, will comment on the tortures and cruel and inhumane treatment of people in the US itself.

“And not just the widely known cases in Bagram and the special prison in Guantanamo — which, contrary to the administration’s promises, just doesn’t close — but also in the prisons and on the streets of America.”

Such a report should not shirk from mentioning “domestic violence leading to the murder of children, including those adopted in Russia,” as well as “racism and xenophobia toward migrants, and Islamophobia,” it said.

The ministry concluded that despite efforts to “re-set” relations with Washington, which suffered a post-Cold War low during the former administration, the report had just rehashed its attitude towards Russia:

“Everything in the report fits tradition and ritual.”

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will visit Moscow next week for a Middle East quartet meeting and sideline negotiations about Iran.

The quartet, which includes the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States, will meet on March 19 to address a self-proclaimed goal of reviving peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

Israel’s Tuesday announcement of plans to build 1,600 more homes in East Jerusalem al-Quds has, however, cast serious doubts over the effectiveness of the Moscow negotiations.

Other than issues concerning Israel, Clinton’s stay in the Russian capital will include efforts to convince officials in Moscow to back a US-push for more sanctions against the Iran at the UN Security Council.

This is while, China and Brazil, both Security Council members, have so far resisted US pressure to back the embargoes against Iran.

Beijing has stressed that diplomacy is still the best way to resolve the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program, while Brasilia has also warned of the adverse consequences of pressuring Tehran.

With Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in India, New Delhi and Moscow inked a raft of agreements on defense, space and civil nuclear energy cooperation and discussed fighting terrorism in the region.

Putin, who was on a one-day deal-making visit to New Delhi, held back-to-back meetings with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, President Pratibha Patil and ruling Congress party leader Sonia Gandhi.

The two countries signed a series of deals on Friday under which India will purchase more than $7 billion in hardware and expertise from Russia.

The multi-billion-dollar agreements include the construction of at least 12 Russian nuclear reactors for an energy-starved India, purchase of an aircraft carrier, a fleet of MIG-29 fighters, along with defense and space technology.

Following the signing of the agreements, Singh told a joint press conference that India and Russia can work together to promote global peace and stability and help revive the global economy.

“We’ve agreed to intensify our consultations on Afghanistan and the challenges posed by terrorism and extremism in our region,” the Indian prime minister told reporters.

The new pacts come as the Russian prime minister wants the level of trade between India and Russia to expand to $20 billion a year by 2015 from the current $8 billion.

The UK’s ambassador to Beijing has warned that China could face isolation internationally, should it fail to give its consent to fresh sanctions against Iran.

“It’s not in China’s interests to find itself isolated from permanent members of the Security Council or the E3+3. It would damage China internationally,” Sebastian Wood said on Friday.

Wood said that China favored a different approach to the Iranian nuclear issue but he hoped that “fluid” talks would persuade Beijing to accompany others in imposing more sanctions against Iran.

“China has emphasized a need for engagement and diplomacy and wants to see the situation resolved soon. We have seen tactical differences in recent weeks but it’s a fluid discussion,” he added.

The US has been lobbying for fresh punitive measures against Iran, which is already under three rounds of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) sanctions over its enrichment program.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on Thursday that the UNSC was drafting new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program and he expressed hope that world powers would agree on fresh sanctions against Iran soon.

US-led calls for more sanctions against Iran have mainly received a chilly response from China, a veto-wielding member of the UNSC, which insists that diplomacy should be exercised regarding the nuclear standoff.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband will travel to China on Sunday to hold talks with Chinese officials on different issues including Iran’s nuclear program.

Iran says any punitive measures against the country are legally baseless as Tehran’s nuclear work is being fully monitored by the UN nuclear watchdog.

Tehran’s Ambassador to Rome Mohammad-Ali Hosseini has rejected Italy’s allegations against a veteran Iranian journalist as unacceptable.

Hamid Masoumi-Nejad, a correspondent for the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) based in Rome, was arrested on March 3 along with another Iranian national identified as Homayoun Bakhtiyari under the allegations of arms trafficking to Iran.

Hosseini said the allegations, which were in fact directed at Iran were unacceptable, adding that the Iranian Embassy in Rome and the Iranian Consulate in Milan would spare no effort to secure the release of the two detained Iranian nationals.

The senior correspondent has been working for IRIB in Rome for more than 15 years.

In response to the move, Iran’s Foreign Ministry earlier summoned the Italian envoy and demanded an explanation about what it called the politically-motivated arrests.

Iran Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Thursday that “a committee made up of diplomatic, political and legal [experts] has been established in the Foreign Ministry to follow up on the case on a daily basis.”

Iran says it hopes the Italian government will free the two nationals as soon as possible.

Moscow says the United States and NATO’s inaction in fighting drug trafficking in Afghanistan, translates into an “undeclared war” against Russia.

Russia’s ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin slammed the alliance for its loose surveillance on drug trafficking out of Afghanistan, the Associated Press reported on Friday.

Afghanistan produces some 90 percent of the world’s opium. The Afghan drugs enter Russia and Central Asia before reaching Western Europe.

Rogozin said the drugs imported from Afghanistan kill 30,000 people in Russia annually, adding that this amounted to “an undeclared war against our country.”

Moscow as well argues that the drug production within the Afghan borders has increased ten times since the 2001 US-led invasion of the country.

There are currently more than 100,000 US-led troopers staged in Afghanistan. The war-weary nation is as well hit with unprecedented levels of violence which is seen as a militant reaction to the sprawling military presence.

The European Parliament voted on Wednesday to monitor Zionist and Palestinian investigations into alleged war crimes in Gaza and to support the recommendations of a UN investigation into the matter.

The motion passed 325 to 287 with 43 abstentions. According to the resolution, the parliament “urges both sides to conduct investigations within five months that meet international standards of independence, impartiality, transparency, promptness and effectiveness.”

The parliament also called on the EU’s 27 member states to monitor the investigations. It also asked the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, Catherine Ashton, to report back to the body on the issue.

Significantly, the motion also endorsed the report of a UN fact-finding mission led by judge Richard Goldstone, which found evidence of war crimes in the aftermath of Zionist entity’s three-week attack on Gaza in 2008 and 2009.

Some 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Zionists died in the Gaza war. Goldstone’s 575-page report called on Zionist and Palestinian authorities to investigate war crimes charges. If they failed to do so, the report asks UN bodies to act to bring accused war criminals to justice.

After tasking Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon with evaluating Zionist and Palestinian investigations of war crimes, the UN General Assembly in February gave a 5-month extension for the local probes to proceed. Both the Zionist military and the Hamas government in Gaza say they investigated the allegations, but so far neither side has charged anyone with significant wrongdoing.

The European Parliament’s resolution endorsed the recommendation of the Goldstone report, saying it “Reiterates its call on the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and the Member States to work towards a strong EU common position on the follow-up to the report of the Fact-Finding Mission led by Judge Goldstone on the conflict in Gaza and Southern Zionist entity, publicly demanding the implementation of its recommendations and accountability for all violations of international law, including alleged war crimes.”

On Tuesday Zionist entity announced that it plans to allow Ashton and Ban into Gaza in the coming weeks. Zionist entity routinely bars foreign officials from visiting the besieged territory.

With the launch of Iran’s first nuclear power plant in the southern city of Bushehr long overdue, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says the nuclear facility will become operational in 2010.

“The Bushehr nuclear power plant will be launched this year. Adjustment and aligning work is now being done,” Lavrov was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying on Tuesday.

He, however, did not specify an exact date for the launch of the plant, explaining that Russia’s state nuclear giant Rosatom was in charge of the timetable.

Earlier this month, Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Ali Akbar Salehi had also announced that the 1,000-megawatt Bushehr plant would become operational this year.

“The Bushehr power plant will be launched according to schedule by the end of the spring (late June). There is no problem in the process,” Salehi said.

The construction of the Bushehr plant started in 1975 when Germany signed a contract with Iran. Berlin, however, pulled out of the project following the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

As a result of the withdrawal, Iran signed a deal with Russia in 1995. Under the Iranian-Russian agreement, the plant was originally scheduled to come on-stream in 1999 but the completion of the project has repeatedly been delayed.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband has called on the Afghan government to work harder in order to achieve a peace agreement with the Taliban.

Miliband’s comments, in a speech to be delivered at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) later on Wednesday, reflect increasing recognition in the West that the Taliban militants who break ties to al Qaeda could play a role in the country’s future.

“Now is the time for the Afghans to pursue a political settlement with as much vigor and energy as we are pursuing the military and civilian effort,” Miliband said in excerpts published prior to his speech.

In a separate appearance in Boston on Tuesday night, Miliband said there was no longer a military solution for Afghanistan.

“The truth about an insurgency and a counterinsurgency is that it’s never ended militarily, it’s only ended politically,” he said at a public forum at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston.

Nearly nine years after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, it is not enough to explain to people why the war started, Miliband is to say in Wednesday’s speech.

“We need to set out how it will be ended,” he is expected say. “Afghanistan will never achieve a sustainable peace unless many more Afghans are inside the political system, and the neighbors are onside with the political settlement.”

The Labour government in the UK, which faces a struggle to win an election due in the next few months, needs to show it has an exit strategy for its 9,500 troops in Afghanistan.

Violence has briefly broken out at the headquarters of France’s largest company, Total, as several hundred of workers clash with police.

Security forces used tear gas to disperse the crowds, after some 300 of the demonstrators managed to break through a line of riot police and into the company’s offices.

The physical damage was minimal with only a few broken windows.

But the anger felt by disaffected employees has been growing ever since Total announced plans to shut down a refinery at its Dunkirk site in northwest France.

Total managers say the refinery is loosing money because of falling worldwide demand for finished petroleum products and must be closed.

The company has however introduced different initiatives to save some jobs.

“We have about 370 employees in the refinery and we have designed a plan of several job opportunities within the group to each of them. So we are going to fire exactly nobody,” Michel Benezit Total Refineries Director told Press TV.

But these assurances have fallen on deaf ears, with union leaders saying Total has underestimated the number of jobs to go and failed to consider the impact that the closure of the refinery will have on the wider community and sub contractors.

The protesters, who have been striking since January 12, meanwhile believe that Total, an iconic French company has a national responsibility to keep refinery production going on.

According to Press TV’s correspondent in France, this protest is something of an embarrassment to Total, which has some 97,000 employees in more then 130 companies across the world.

There is also a political factor in play, with President Nicolas Sarkozy reportedly pressuring Total’s management to try and bring a resolution to this dispute.

Sweden’s foreign minister said Tuesday all parties involved in the Iranian nuclear issue must switch focus from sanctions to diplomacy, a report said.

Carl Bildt, the Swedish foreign minister, told the Eco of Moscow radio that the Iranian nuclear issue could be best resolved through diplomatic means, the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported.

Bildt reiterated that his country had not abandoned hope to resolve the issue through diplomacy.

He, however, said that talks were already underway at the UN Security Council on more sanctions against Iran and urged Tehran to sit at the negotiating table to avoid further sanctions.

Iran is already under three rounds of UNSC resolutions for its enrichment program, which, it says, is aimed at the civilian applications of the technology.

US-led calls for more sanctions against Iran have mainly received a chilly response from China, a veto-wielding member of the UNSC, which insists that diplomacy should be exercised regarding the nuclear standoff.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporter on Tuesday that there was “still space for diplomatic efforts, dialogue and consultation.”

Iran says any punitive measures against the country are legally baseless as Tehran’s nuclear work is being fully monitored by the UN nuclear watchdog.

France has urged international organizations to finance a new era of global nuclear power in a world facing scarcer fossil fuels and growing energy demands.

The request came as delegates from 60 energy-hungry nations arrived at Paris for a conference hosted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

While criticizing international finance bodies for “ostracizining” civil nuclear power, President Nicolas Sarkozy on Monday promised to set up an international institute to promote atomic energy.

“I have decided to shift up a gear by creating an International Institute of Nuclear Energy that will include an international nuclear school,” he said.

The president also called on world and regional financial bodies — such as the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development — to finance new nuclear projects in developing countries.

France has the world’s second largest nuclear sector and generates around 75 percent of its own electricity through nuclear power.

Analysts believe that the two-day conference is just a trade show for the French nuclear contractors, who lost a massive $20 billion deal to South Korea, after the United Arab Emirates asked the Asian country to supply four reactors with a lower offer.

The meeting also comes at a sensitive time for nuclear diplomacy.

France is currently leading efforts for fresh UN sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.

Israel, the US and some western countries accuse Iran of wanting to build nuclear weapons — an accusation that Iranian leaders have repeatedly denied, saying that the program is for peaceful purposes only.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband has claimed that UK’s involvement in the Iraq war has earned it respect in the Middle East.

Giving evidence to the public inquiry into Britain’s role in the war on Monday, Miliband insisted that many Arab countries now respected Britain more for following through on threats of military force in Iraq.

“Even those who disagree with it (the war) would say to me, ‘you’ve sent a message that when you say something you actually mean it. And if you say something’s a last chance it really is a last chance’.”

Miliband also claimed that the UK is now in a “stronger position,” believing that UK decisions on Iraq have not “undermined our relationships or our ability to do business” in the region.

The top official meanwhile alleged that “many Iraqis” view Britain as having been instrumental in “freeing the country from a tyranny that is bitterly remembered.”

This is while according to polls conducted by The Arab American Institute and the Pew Global Attitudes Project in 2007 and 2006, the majority of people in the Middle East and Europe viewed the war negatively and believed that the world was safer before the Iraq War and the toppling of Saddam Hussein.

Miliband, who was a junior education minister in Tony Blair’s government at the time of the 2003 invasion, was not directly involved in the events leading up to the occupation.

But the foreign secretary — seen as a potential successor to Gordon Brown as leader of the Labor party — has repeatedly backed Britain’s decision to invade Iraq.

He claims that the war was necessary because the United Nations’ efforts had been “feeble” in trying to disarm Saddam.

He also urged the government to not be afraid of similar actions in the future stressing that Britain must remain a major player in international affairs.

Miliband was the last senior politician to appear at Sir John Chilcot’s inquiry before the election, which is expected on May 6.

The five-person panel, which was set up to learn the lessons of the conflict, has so far heard testimonies from Prime Minister Gordon Brown, former prime minister Tony Blair, former foreign secretary Jack Straw, current MI6 intelligence agency chief John Sawers, head of Britain’s military Jock Stirrup and a host of ministers and government officials.

According to data compiled by the London-based Opinion Research Business and its research partner in Iraq, the Independent Institute for Administration and Civil Society Studies, the Iraq war has left more than one million Iraqis dead.

Moreover, a fifth of Iraqi households have lost at least one family member due to the conflict.

The United Nations estimates that the number of displaced persons in Iraq stands at more than four million.

The head of the Iranian Offshore Oil Company (IOOC) says a European company is to invest in Iran’s Lavan gas field in the Persian Gulf.

“The technical and investment details of the development plan of Lavan gas field have been agreed between Iran and the European firm,” Mahmoud Zirakchianzadeh told Shana news agency on Monday.

He said a delegation from the European firm is to come to Tehran within the next two weeks to finalize the deal.

Zirakchianzadeh added that the two sides are seriously interested in signing the contract which facilitates the production and export of 4 million tons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) per year to Europe.

He had announced earlier that the IOOC was holding talks with a European company that is interested in investing over $4 billion to produce LNG at Iran’s Lavan gas field.

Then Iranian Oil Minister Gholam-Hossein Nozari announced in June that in the past four years, the total investment in Iran’s oil projects stood at $66 billion.

“Many people, [in the beginning], did not believe this high an investment could be made, but that investment has now turned into real operational projects.”

In total, Iran’s five-year energy sector investment plan requires investments around $30 billion per year.

The Lavan gas field has gas reserves of around 12 trillion cubic feet.

Thousands of French protesters have rallied against the import of Israeli goods produced in Palestinian territories.

Monday’s demonstration comes less then a month after the European Union’s Court of Justice ruled that Israeli goods made in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank cannot be considered Israeli.

This means that those products cannot benefit from a trade deal giving Israel preferential access to EU markets.

The protesters, who came from all over France, symbolically gathered in the streets of the Mediterranean port of Sete — a hub for the biggest Israeli food exporter, Agrexco.

Over fifty percent of the company, selling over 300,000 tons of fresh fruits and vegetables to Europe, is owned by the Israeli regime.

“The EU and Israel have agreed that Israel will get preferential import taxes on one condition, the goods should not come from occupied territories. But we knows Agrexco grows its products in the occupied areas and is still benefiting from tax deductions,” Tannich Coupe Sud de France General Secretary said.

“This is a campaign of stigmatization. It’s not an illusion that the economy will be demolished, it’s the image of Israel that we are trying to attack,” Israeli filmmaker Eyal Sivan who also took part in the event told Press TV.

France is one of Israel’s top ten economic partners, a fact that has disappointed many of the French.

Israeli companies based around the illegal West Bank settlements manufacture a host of products including confectionery, wine, cosmetics and computer equipment.

Palestinians have long argued that since the settlements are not part of Israel, the goods made there should not receive trade privileges.

Pro-Palestinian campaigners have also regularly protested that European supermarkets stock goods with Israeli labels on farm products from the West Bank.

In another major blow to the French president ahead of this month’s local elections, a new poll suggests that Nicolas Sarkozy does not have the approval of 64 percent of the French.

Results of a CSA opinion poll published in Le Parisien daily suggested on Sunday that Sarkozy’s approval rating sank 4 points in a month to stand at 36 percent — the lowest level since he came to power in 2007.

Critics on both sides of the French political spectrum attributed the low level of approval rating to economy saying unemployment was weighing in on the respondents minds.

“The government’s strategy has led to more poverty and more unemployment, so the regional elections have come at the right moment,” Socialist party spokesman Benoit Hamon told Canal+ television on Sunday, according to Reuters.

This, analysts maintain, could provide more fodder for those who want to challenge Sarkozy’s leadership.

“A positive trend is opening up for all those who see themselves as alternatives to Nicolas Sarkozy, both on the left and the right,” said political analyst Stephane Rozes.

Based on a separate CSA poll, leftwing groups would collect a combined 52 percent of the ballot in the local elections against a scanty 28 percent for center-right and rightist parties.

Sarkozy has suffered a host of setbacks in recent months, his authority damaged by internal party disputes, allegations of nepotism, a controversial debate on national identity and growing concerns over the ever-increasing debt and deficit levels.

The visiting Ukrainian president to Russia says he will launch a new direction in ties with the Kremlin, vowing to dramatically boost Kiev-Moscow relations.

“I see my task as ensuring that relations between Russia and Ukraine take a sharp turn in the right direction,” Viktor Yanukovich said on Friday in a televised meeting with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev, AFP reported.

Relations between Kiev and Moscow “should never be the way they were for the past five years,” he added, referring to the strained relations between the two neighbors under his predecessor, Viktor Yushchenko.

For his part, Medvedev also expressed hope that Ukraine and Russia will start a new chapter in their bilateral ties.

“I hope very much that with the arrival of a new president in Ukraine, the relations between our two countries will acquire a qualitatively new dynamic,” Medvedev said in the meeting, which took place at the Kremlin.

Ties tarnished between the ex-Soviet states over the past five years under West-leaning Yushchenko who was trying to bring Ukraine within the sphere of NATO military alliance, something deemed by the Kremlin as the encroachment of Russia’s sovereignty.

The natural gas supplied by Russia has also been another point of contention between the two nations.

Much of the Russian natural gas exported to Europe goes through Ukraine to reach the continent. Last January, however, a dispute over gas prices between Russia and Ukraine left more than a dozen European states without gas.

Ireland blasts the Israeli siege of the Gaza Strip as “medieval,” urging the European Union to pressure Tel Aviv into easing the restrictions.

“I genuinely believe that the medieval siege conditions being imposed on the people of Gaza are unacceptable,” wrote Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin, in an opinion piece published in the International Herald Tribune.

The already-impoverished coastal sliver has endured almost three years of an Israeli-imposed blockade which has deprived it of its most direly-needed requirements.

The siege has pushed some 80 percent of Gaza’s nearly 1.5-million population below the poverty line, leaving more than half of them jobless.

Martin, who was to the enclave last week, added that “the tragedy of Gaza is that it is fast in danger of becoming a tolerated humanitarian crisis.”

The situation, he said, “is proving extremely difficult to remedy or ameliorate due to the blockade and the wider ramifications of efforts to try and achieve political progress in the Middle East.”

The siege lasted during the December 2008-January 2009 Israeli bombardment of Gaza which lasted for three weeks and killed more than 1,400 Palestinians.

“The European Union and the international community simply must do more to increase the pressure for the ending of the blockade and the opening of the border crossings to normal commercial and humanitarian traffic.”

Romania has confirmed its intention to host three batteries of US interceptor missiles on its soil as part of Washington’s revamped missile system plan for Eastern Europe.

Bucharest in October expressed readiness to take part in the US missile system plan expected to be operational by 2015.

“This is not a secret. There will be three batteries of eight missiles each,” President Traian Basescu said on Friday during a presentation of the Defense Ministry in the country’s capital, AFP reported.

The announcement has angered Russia, which deems the US plan an infringement of its national sovereignty and a direct threat against Moscow.

In an attempt to reassure Russia, Washington and its allies in the region say the missile system is meant to ward off threats from rogue states like ‘North Korea and Iran.’

“This is a defensive system and it cannot be reversed into an offensive one,” Basescu reiterated.

US President Barack Obama decided last year to drop the missile plan drawn up by former President George W. Bush, which envisaged deployment of elements of the missile system in the Czech Republic and Poland.

The new plan stipulates the deployment of medium-range ballistic missile interceptors in Romania while initiating a “phased, adaptive approach” to the plan in Eastern Europe.