Iran paid homage yesterday to its revolutionary father Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini who landed in Tehran 30 years ago to set off the Islamic revolution.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his Cabinet, as well as Iran’s military and revolutionary guards commanders, appeared at Khomeini’s mausoleum in Tehran to mark his arrival from exile.
Former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was to speak at the shrine, where hundreds of military personnel were also present.
To mark Khomeini’s return after 15 years in exile, all schools, trains and boats ring their bells at precisely 9:33am, the moment his plane touched down in 1979.
The country will begin 10 days of celebrations marking the 30th anniversary of the overthrow of the shah, who ruled Iran for almost four decades but fled just two weeks before Khomeini’s return.
This year’s anniversary celebrations come barely four months before a presidential election in Iran, with Ahmadinejad seeking another four-year term.
Meanwhile, Egypt on Friday accused the Hezbollah leader in Lebanon, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, of being “an agent of Iran” after he attacked Egypt in statements on Thursday.
“Hassan Nasrallah’s criticism of Egypt confirms once more that he is nothing more than an agent of the Iranian regime and takes his orders from Tehran,” an unnamed Egyptian official said.
Nasrallah had criticized Egypt for keeping its border with Gaza shut. He also accused Egypt of being involved in blockading Gaza, and questioned the neutrality of Egyptian ceasefire efforts.
Egypt on Wednesday accused Iran and its allies from Hezbollah and Hamas of trying to create conflict in the region.
BLOODSHED: North Koreans take extreme measures to avoid being taken prisoner and sometimes execute their own forces, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Saturday said that Russian and North Korean forces sustained heavy losses in fighting in Russia’s southern Kursk region. Ukrainian and Western assessments say that about 11,000 North Korean troops are deployed in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces occupy swathes of territory after staging a mass cross-border incursion in August last year. In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy quoted a report from Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi as saying that the battles had taken place near the village of Makhnovka, not far from the Ukrainian border. “In battles yesterday and today near just one village, Makhnovka,
Russia and Ukraine have exchanged prisoners of war in the latest such swap that saw the release of hundreds of captives and was brokered with the help of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), officials said on Monday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that 189 Ukrainian prisoners, including military personnel, border guards and national guards — along with two civilians — were freed. He thanked the UAE for helping negotiate the exchange. The Russian Ministry of Defense said that 150 Russian troops were freed from captivity as part of the exchange in which each side released 150 people. The reason for the discrepancy in numbers
The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Poland on Tuesday expressed concern about “the political crisis” in Georgia, two days after Mikheil Kavelashvili was formally inaugurated as president of the South Caucasus nation, cementing the ruling party’s grip in what the opposition calls a blow to the country’s EU aspirations and a victory for former imperial ruler Russia. “We strongly condemn last week’s violence against peaceful protesters, media and opposition leaders, and recall Georgian authorities’ responsibility to respect human rights and protect fundamental freedoms, including the freedom to assembly and media freedom,” the three ministers wrote in a joint statement. In reaction
BARRIER BLAME: An aviation expert questioned the location of a solid wall past the end of the runway, saying that it was ‘very bad luck for this particular airplane’ A team of US investigators, including representatives from Boeing, on Tuesday examined the site of a plane crash that killed 179 people in South Korea, while authorities were conducting safety inspections on all Boeing 737-800 aircraft operated by the country’s airlines. All but two of the 181 people aboard the Boeing 737-800 operated by South Korean budget airline Jeju Air died in Sunday’s crash. Video showed the aircraft, without its landing gear deployed, crash-landed on its belly and overshoot a runaway at Muan International Airport before it slammed into a barrier and burst into flames. The plane was seen having engine trouble.
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