President Raisi vows US, West won’t sow discord among Iranians by spreading lies

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi
©AP Photo/Vahid Salemi

In his 7th live televised interview, President Raisi said the enemies have targeted Iran's territorial integrity and national sovereignty by creating differences among the Iranians.

"The enemies of the Islamic revolution will not achieve their goals and sow discord among the Iranian people by spreading lies," he said in Tehran during a meeting with the veterans of the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war. "Young people are our children and all those who were misled will be welcomed by their motherland but there is no mercy for traitors," he added.

According to the Iranian president, "hypocrites, monarchists and counterrevolutionaries, that is, all those against the Islamic republic" were involved in organizing disturbances and unrest that erupted in Iran in mid-September.

On Monday, the Iranian prosecutor’s office reported that 83% of the protesters detained earlier by the police and the security services had been released by the authorities. A statement cited by the Tasnim news agency notes that "over the past three months, judges overseeing the cases of the protesters visited prisons 2,239 times and had personal conversations with the detainees."

In October and November, the Iranian authorities repeatedly granted pardons to demonstrators who took part in protest rallies in Sanandaj, the administrative center of Kurdistan, and Zahedan, the capital of Sistan and Baluchestan Province. Groups of protesters were released in the south-western province of Khuzestan, populated by Arab tribes, and in Ardabil where ethnic Azerbaijanis reside.

On December 26, the United States urged Iran to unconditionally release all protesters. US Department of State Spokesman Ned Price stressed that this is about "all people imprisoned in Iran for peacefully exercising their freedoms."

Street rallies

Iran has been gripped by protests since the funeral of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini on September 16. According to the official version, this Kurdish girl was detained by the police for not wearing her headscarf properly. During an interrogation that followed, she suffered a heart attack and died. Social media, however, spread word that Amini had been beaten by the police. On October 7, the Iranian Forensic Medicine Authority published an official report on the cause of her death noting that she had not sustained any trauma.

According to Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper, over three months, the rallies and processions had widened to engulf 157 cities and populated localities with the protesters demanding democratic changes, condemning state repression and calling for the release of those arrested.

According to the news outlet, in all, 18,500 people have been detained in Iran since mid-September. Some 507 activists and 66 members of security forces have been killed in the unrest.

The Iranian president, meantime, described the results and achievements of his latest two trips to Samarkand and New York.

He referred to his trip to Samarkand to attend the Summit of Shanghai Cooperation Organization and discussed meeting with heads of 10 regional countries as successful and in line with the development of neighborhood policy.

President Raisi also referred to his visit to the New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly and said, "This was the first visit of the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran to American after the assassination of Haj Qasem Soleimani, and it was necessary to broadcast the voice of the authority and innocence of the Iranian nation to the world."

He went on to discuss the achievements of the two recent trips to Samarkand to participate in the Shanghai Summit and the trip to New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly and stated, "Iran's membership in the Shanghai Organization is an important issue."

President Raisi stated that with Iran's membership in the Shanghai Organization, Iran was economically connected to the economic infrastructure of Asia, and emphasized, "The members of the Shanghai Organization have a significant part of the world's population and control an important part of the world's economy."

Recalling that the members of the Eurasian Union and Shanghai are significant countries, the President said, "Naturally, Iran's economic and commercial relations with these countries and with these infrastructures can definitely contribute greatly to the development of trade and economic development of our country."

The Iranian president continued, "In addition to participating in the general debate of the Shanghai Organization, where the heads of the countries were present, and Iran's official membership was officially announced, I also met with the President of China, and in this meeting, the decision and will of the two countries to implement the 25-year plan between the two countries were emphasized."

President Raisi pointed out, "In this meeting, the development of cooperation between the two countries in the field of energy, which has always existed between Iran and China, as well as monetary and financial issues to make bilateral trade more active, were emphasized by the presidents."

He stated that the participation of Chinese companies in important and fundamental projects such as railway projects in Iran, and added, "In the meeting of the President of China, it was decided that these matters should be followed seriously and we can pursue the cooperation between the two countries in railway projects."

President Raisi further said, "What is certain is that we will continue our cooperation in a serious and extensive manner between the two countries."

The Iranian president further referred to the development of mutual cooperation with Russia, and added, "Since my trip to Moscow until the recent Shanghai summit, our business relations with Russia have increased by 80 percent."

He stated that "we have cooperation with Russia in various fields such as space, oil and energy as well as commercial and economic fields, and stated that cooperation such as the North-South Corridor, which is the rail route between Sarakhes and Chabahar, were also discussed at the Shanghai Summit".

The Iranian president referred to Iran's cooperation with India in Chabahar Port, and said, "In the meeting I had with the Prime Minister of India on the sidelines of the Shanghai Summit, the will of the two countries to continue this cooperation seriously and increase its speed was emphasized so that we can take full advantage of this capacity."

He pointed out that the development of Chabahar Port and Makran coasts can have many benefits not only for the development of Iran, but also can provide a good development ground for the region.

President Raisi further referred to his first foreign trip as president to the Shanghai Summit hosted by Tajikistan and said, "Since then, Iran's economic and commercial relations with Tajikistan have increased 5 to 6 times in various fields and we have various cooperation with other countries of the Central Asia, which are in line with the continuation of the neighborhood policy."

The Iranian president also said that the policy pursued by Iran with neighboring countries has led to mutual trust between our country and the Shanghai member countries, and now "we must seek to improve this trust". "In general, the neighborhood policy has worked in the continuation of objective and practical cooperation between us and the neighboring countries".

He referred to the bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the Shanghai Summit with the heads of 10 countries, and emphasized that the main issues raised in these meetings were the development of economic and commercial activities between Iran and the countries of the region.

The Iranian president stated, "This year's trip was my first trip to New York after the martyrdom of Haj Qasem Soleimani. Our inference was that I had to be the voice of the Iranian nation there, and I had to express the right positions of the Islamic Republic and the Iranian nation, and broadcast the voice of the innocence and authority of the nation in my speeches, statements, and communications."

President Raisi also pointed to the educational positions of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the educational positions at the UNESCO meeting, and said, "In this meeting, I talked briefly about the positions of the Islamic Republic, from attention to internal documents such as the fundamental document of education, as well as interaction with all countries and using their experiences."

Referring to his bilateral meetings with the heads of some countries and his participation in scientific and specialized meetings with senior media managers and religious leaders in the United States on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, the President said, "In all these meetings, issues related to the positions of the Islamic Republic of Iran were raised."

He stated, "In the meeting we had with President Emmanuel Macron, we discussed nuclear and bilateral issues and the position of the Islamic Republic and what was announced earlier. We announced that a fair and good agreement is completely achievable and we are ready for a good agreement, but the agreement must be fair."

Regarding the details of his meeting with the French President in New York, the President added, "The main point we emphasized was that the Americans withdrew from this agreement and the Europeans did not fulfil their obligations. President Macron agreed that the Europeans did not fulfil their commitments. I said that this time we should focus on adherence to commitments. Our positions were such that he said that he would go and talk to Americans and Europeans and express our positions to them and inform us about it."

He insisted on the guarantee of the Western parties to the Islamic Republic to reach a good agreement, and stated, "We once witnessed that they withdrew from the JCPOA and did not fulfil their commitments, so we should be careful."

Explaining the other details of his meeting with President Macron, President Raisi said, "I told him that you are negotiating on the one hand and proposing a resolution to the Board of Governors on the other hand, these issues do not go together, and the point I emphasized to the French president was that, as Europe, how much do you follow the Americans?

I gave him an example and said that during my trip to France to participate in a conference, a Frenchman said that the life of the building where I sat was longer than the entire life of America, so now why are you following America with this long history? Of course, he said that their position was independent."

Russian Scientists Discover How to Create Super-Powerful Laser Radars For Drones

©RIA Novosti . Alexei Danichev

Transport drones have so far relied on laser LiDARS (Light Detection and Ranging), measuring the pulse that bounces back from a surface to measure distances. The new research has been described as a way to boost the power of such radiation.

A method for producing high-power laser radiation necessary for the development of transport drones has been invented by Russian scientists at the Ioffe Physical-Technical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg.

Transport drones that have been created recently can only work when using laser LiDARS (Light Detection And Ranging). In effect, these lasers collect data about a surface by measuring the “bounce back” time of reflected laser beams to the receiver.

The main difficulty in the use of LiDARS is that to "view" an object hundreds of meters away in whatever weather and conditions, a great deal of power is needed for the laser to be sufficiently bright while operating at nanosecond speeds. At present, fiber and solid-state lasers are used in LiDARS but because they need an additional "pumping" stage (to transfer energy from an external source to the laser), they are inefficient.

The institute's scientists managed to get rid of "an extra stage in the chain of converting energy for the power source into energy for laser radiation," said Sergei Slipchenko, senior researcher at the Ioffe Institute's Laboratory of Semiconductor Laser Diodes.

According to him, they have "proposed an alternative".

"We carried out calculations into the interaction processes between current power and light sources in heterostructures (such as those grown on a substrate, consisting of layers of various materials) and high-power semiconductor laser crystals. Based on this, new designs of semiconductor heterostructures and laser crystal designs were generated for subsequent experimental implementation," Slipchenko added.

A Drone
©RIA Novosti . Aleksei Danichev / Go to the mediabank

New, optimized layers of heterostructures, consisting of different compositions, resulted in minimal energy loss. Furthermore, the scientists have managed to create a technology for so-called selective epitaxy (a type of crystal growth) for high-power lasers, when heterostructures can be grown on a specially prepared substrate.

As a result of the breakthrough research, the efficiency of high-power semiconductor lasers exceeded 70 percent, which is twice the efficiency of solid-state and fiber lasers. The team of researchers also managed to obtain laser pulses with a duration of 100 nanoseconds and with a peak power of more than 1 kilowatt from a surface measuring fractions of square centimeters.

Nikita Pikhtin, associate professor at the Department of Photonics at LETI and head of the Ioffe Institute's Center for Nanostructure Physics, explained that in high-power lasers, the size of the element and the emitting region must be larger, so that it can convert a greater amount of energy into light.

The next stage of the research, which was carried out with the financial support of the Russian Science Foundation, will be to increase the spectral brightness of the lasers.

UIMC is making an “all-seeing eye” for Russian drones
©Photo : Rostec

The Russian Special military operations, December 27th. The main thing:

In the Donetsk direction, during a successful offensive, units of the Kyiv 79th Airborne Assault Brigade were defeated, up to 60 Ukrainian military personnel were destroyed;

The Russian Armed Forces in the South-Donetsk direction destroyed more than 70 Ukrainian soldiers, in the Kupyansky and Krasnolymansky Kyiv directions lost 70 people;

In the Netaylovo (DPR) and Preobrazhenka (Zaporozhye region) regions, the US-made M777 artillery system was destroyed;

Ukraine uses not only NATO weapons, but also Soviet-made weapons, said Alaudinov;

Guterres is ready to mediate on the Ukraine summit only with the consent of all parties, including Russia, RIA Novosti was informed at the UN Secretary General's office;

No mass New Year's events are planned in Donetsk, as Ukrainian forces usually increase shootings for the holidays, said interim adviser to the speaker of the House of Representatives Gagin;

More than 700 critical infrastructure facilities have been damaged in Ukraine since the beginning of the year, says the local Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Russian MoD briefing on the progress of the special military operation in Ukraine

• The Russian Army eliminated up to 30 Ukrainian servicemen in the LPR;



• Russian troops eliminated more than 40 Ukrainian servicemen in the DPR;



• Russian forces eliminated more than 70 Ukrainian servicemen in the South Donetsk direction;



• The Russian Army destroyed four Ukrainian Msta-B howitzers and two D-20 howitzers near Kharkov, Kherson, and in the DPR;



• Russian troops hit the 79th Air Assault Brigade of the Ukrainian Army in the Donetsk direction, eliminating up to 60 Ukrainian servicemen;



• Russian forces destroyed two Ukrainian Gvozdika self-propelled howitzers in the DPR;



• Russian troops destroyed a US-made M777 artillery system that had been used to shell residential areas of Donetsk.

'She thought she would die’: Rohingya refugees reach Indonesia after weeks at sea

Villagers look at a boat used by Rohingya refugees in their weeks-long journey across the Andaman Sea from Bangladesh, in Pidie, Aceh, on Tuesday. (AFP)

More than 200 rescued Rohingya refugees were receiving emergency health assistance in Indonesia, a UN agency said on Tuesday, after they were saved by fishermen when calls on the regional countries to assist them fell on deaf ears for weeks.

The International Organization for Migration has confirmed that at least 174 Rohingya on a rickety wooden boat reached the coastal village of Muara Tiga in Pidie district of northern Aceh province on Monday.

The group of 36 men, 31 women and 107 children arrived about a day after 57 Rohingya refugees landed in the province’s Aceh Besar district.

“The group is in very poor health condition, with many suffering severe dehydration and malnutrition,” the International Organization for Migration said.

“IOM’s medical team is currently conducting basic health assessments.”

Eros Shidqy Putra, a member of Indonesia's National Refugee Task Force, told that the refugees would be placed under the care of the local government for the time being.

“After that, we will move them to a province which is already housing refugees,” he said. “Aceh is not a province that shelters refugees.”

At least five boats carrying hundreds of refugees had left the coast of Cox’s Bazar, the largest Rohingya settlement in Bangladesh, in late November, in an attempt to cross the Andaman Sea to another host country.

One boat carrying 154 refugees was rescued by a Vietnamese offshore company and handed over to the Myanmar Navy, while a vessel carrying 104 people was rescued by the Sri Lanka Navy on Dec. 18.

The UN Refugee Agency previously said it had received unconfirmed reports that a boat carrying 180 people had sunk.

International organizations and activists have urged countries in the region for weeks to rescue the refugees stranded at sea, but despite multiple appeals for help, no official assistance was dispatched.

Mohammed Rezuwan Khan, the brother of Hatamonesa, a 27-year-old woman who was with her five-year-old daughter onboard the boat that arrived in Indonesia on Monday, spoke to his sister on Tuesday after more than a month with no communication.

“We feel like we got a new world today,” Khan said. “We could see their faces again. It’s really a moment of joy for all of us.”

During the call, Khan learned that his niece had received treatment for dehydration because she had drunk salt water during the journey. They did not eat for 13 days.

According to Hatamonesa, 20 people had died on the boat and were thrown overboard.

“She thought that she would die in the voyage at sea,” Khan said.

“She hoped that if she could leave to Malaysia, there would be a better future for her daughters and for her.”

More than 730,000 Rohingya fled to neighboring Bangladesh in 2017 following a brutal crackdown by the Myanmar military that the UN said amounted to genocide.

For the last five years, refugees have lived in squalid and overcrowded camps in Cox’s Bazar facing increasing uncertainty. The situation has prompted some to take risky journeys by sea in hopes of finding a better life.

Merkel Rules Out Her Participation in Ukraine Conflict Settlement

Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel ruled out her participation in the settlement of the conflict in Ukraine.

Asked by Italian weekly Sette whether her role in resolving this crisis is completely out of the question, Merkel said that "the question is not being posed." She also admitted that she does not know exactly how the conflict in Ukraine could end.

"One day it will end with negotiations. Wars end at the negotiating table," the ex-chancellor said. "There is a difference between a forced peace, which I, like many others, do not want, and an open and friendly conversation," she said.

Merkel defended her policy towards Russia and Ukraine, saying: “The talk was about trying to prevent such a war. Just because it didn’t work doesn’t mean the attempt was wrong.”

Merkel expressed her belief that the possible accession of Georgia and Ukraine, which was discussed at the NATO summit in 2008, would be regarded as a “mistake”.

Merkel considered that the reaction of the West to the annexation of Crimea to Russia in 2014 was “not strong enough and fast enough.”

Earlier, Merkel said in an interview with the German newspaper Zeit that the Minsk agreements were “an attempt to save time for Ukraine” in 2014 and questioned NATO’s ability to provide the same amount of assistance to Ukraine at that time

Putin Resmi Larang Export Minyak Ke UE

Presiden Vladimir Putin resmi telah membuat keputusan, bahwa Moskow akan melarang penjualan minyak ke negara-negara yang mematuhi batas harga yang diberlakukan pada 1 Desember.

Pembatasan harga, yang tidak terlihat bahkan di masa Perang Dingin antara Barat dan Uni Soviet, ditujukan untuk melumpuhkan upaya militer Moskow di Ukraina - tanpa mengganggu pasar dengan benar-benar menghalangi pasokan Rusia.

Di bawah batas, pengusaha minyak yang ingin mempertahankan akses penjualan ke Barat untuk aspek penting pengiriman global seperti asuransi harus berjanji untuk tidak membayar di atas $60 per barel untuk minyak lintas laut Rusia.

Itu mendekati harga minyak Rusia saat ini, tetapi jauh di bawah harga di mana Rusia dapat menjualnya hampir sepanjang tahun lalu.

Dekrit Putin, yang dipublikasikan di portal pemerintah dan situs web Kremlin, disajikan sebagai tanggapan langsung terhadap "tindakan yang tidak ramah dan bertentangan dengan hukum internasional oleh Amerika Serikat dan negara asing serta organisasi internasional yang bergabung dengan mereka".

Larangan Kremlin akan menghentikan penjualan minyak mentah ke negara-negara yang berpartisipasi dalam batasan harga mulai 1 Februari 2023 sd 1 Juli 2023.

Larangan terpisah atas produk minyak sulingan seperti bensin dan solar akan berlaku pada tanggal yang akan ditetapkan oleh pemerintah. Putin memiliki wewenang untuk mengesampingkan langkah-langkah tersebut dalam kasus-kasus khusus.

Rusia adalah pengekspor minyak terbesar kedua di dunia setelah Arab Saudi, dan gangguan apa pun terhadap penjualannya akan berdampak luas pada pasokan energi global.

Kota Tak Bertuan

Di tanah di timur dan selatan Ukraina, pasukan Rusia kembali menembaki dan membom kota-kota pada hari Selasa. Setelah sejumlah kemenangan dramatis Ukraina di musim gugur, perang telah memasuki fase yang lambat dan sulit karena cuaca musim dingin yang pahit telah terjadi di garis depan.

Di Bakhmut, rumah bagi 70.000 orang sebelum perang dan sekarang sebagian besar merupakan kota hantu yang dilanda bom, api berkobar di sebuah bangunan tempat tinggal yang besar, sementara puing-puing berserakan di jalanan dan sebagian besar bangunan jendelanya pecah.

Ukrainian soldiers with the 43rd Heavy Artillery Brigade fire a projectile from a 2S7 Pion self propelled cannon, as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, during intense shelling on the front line in Bakhmut, Ukraine, December 26, 2022. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne

Sorotan Reuters

Reuters, BBC, CNN dan media barat lainnya, sejak awal hanya menyoroti serangan balasan Rusia, dan tidak pernah mempublikasikan serangan bertubi - tubi tentara Ukrania dan tentara bayaran Ukrania ke rumah sipil,fasilitas sipil di Donetsk, Kherson. Seperti cuplikan berikut ini yang dipublikasikan

"Bangunan kami hancur. Dulu ada toko di gedung kami, sekarang sudah tidak ada lagi," kata Oleksandr, 85, seraya menambahkan bahwa dia satu-satunya penghuni yang tersisa di sana.

Di dekatnya, Pilaheia yang berusia 73 tahun mengatakan dia sudah lama terbiasa dengan "ledakan konstan".

Di dekatnya, Pilaheia yang berusia 73 tahun mengatakan dia sudah lama terbiasa dengan "ledakan konstan".

Di Kherson, yang ditinggalkan oleh pasukan Rusia bulan lalu, pasukan Rusia menembaki sayap bersalin sebuah rumah sakit, kata Kyrylo Tymoshenko, wakil kepala staf Presiden Ukraina Volodymyr Zelenskiy, di Telegram. Tidak ada yang terluka dan staf serta pasien telah dipindahkan ke tempat penampungan, kata Tymoshenko.

Menurut Reuters, Reuters tidak dapat segera memverifikasi laporan tersebut. Namun belum terverifikasi tapi tetap dipublikasikan apa namanya?

Ini semua adalah kerjasama apik Barat terutama AS dan NATO yang melakukan intervensi ke media Barat untuk melanggengkan kejahatannya sejak 2009 sd hari ini.

Death toll in Philippine floods rises to 17

Images on social media showed rescue workers helping residents out of chest-deep flood waters caused by two days of moderate to heavy rainfall in the central and southern Philippines

Christmas Day floods in the Philippines forced the evacuation of nearly 46,000 people from their homes, civil defence officials said on Monday (Dec 26).

The death toll of heavy rain and floods triggered by shear line in the Philippines has climbed to 17, said the government's disaster agency Tuesday evening.

At least 27 others are still missing, according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) in its latest report.

The NDRRMC has tallied five deaths in the Bicol region on the main Luzon island, two in the central Philippines, and 10 in the southern Philippines. The agency did not say the cause of death, but media reports said it was mainly by drowning.

For the missing people, the agency said 12 were in the Bicol region, 12 were in the central Philippines, and three were in the southern Philippines. Eight people were also reported injured.

The agency said the flooding displaced almost 187,000 people in six regions across the Southeast Asian country. Over 46,000 evacuated people are now housed in at least 87 government shelters while the rest stayed with relatives.

The agency added that over 1,100 houses were either totally or partially damaged by heavy rain and flooding. The floods also damaged infrastructures, including at least 116 roads, bridges and crops.

The state weather bureau warned on Tuesday that the shear line will bring "moderate to heavy rains with, at times, intense rains" in the country.

"Flooding and rain-induced landslides are likely," the national weather bureau said

Former Afghan President Says US Was Involved in Corruption in His Country

©AP Photo/Rahmat Gul

Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on Tuesday that he took responsibility for corruption in the country, while also admitting that the United States was involved in it as well.

"(I take) full responsibility for the corruption and bribes in the delivery of services … But the big contracts, big corruption, in hundreds of millions of dollars or millions of dollars, was clearly a United States of America thing," Karzai told US newspaper.

According to the newspaper, the former president lives in Kabul where he is closely watched by the Taliban* that do not let him leave the Afghan capital.

Karzai, however, said that he had made the right decision to stay in the country even after the Taliban takeover in August 2021

"I was not sure of my own safety (after the Taliban came to power). But I would have never left and I will never leave. This is my country," the former Afghan leader noted.

The newspaper reported that the Taliban see Karzai as their adversary as he was "the first individual who worked with the Americans for the occupation of Afghanistan."

The Taliban came to power in August 2021, toppling the US-backed government as foreign troops were leaving the country, with the political crisis exacerbating the economic disarray and food shortages that have pushed the country to the brink of a humanitarian crisis.

Karzai was Afghanistan's president from December 2004 to September 2014. He was the first leader of the country after the US toppled the Taliban government in 2001 following their military operation in response to September 11 attacks, the deadliest terrorist attacks on US soil.

The US newspaper said the former president lives in Kabul where he is closely watched by the Taliban which does not let him leave the Afghan capital . Karzai, however, said he had made the right decision to stay in the country even after the Taliban takeover in August 2021.

"I was not sure of my own safety. But I would have never left and I will never leave. This is my country," the former Afghan leader said.

The Washington Post reported that the Taliban see Karzai as their adversary as he was "the first individual who worked with the Americans for the occupation of Afghanistan".

Karzai claimed that the United States bears ultimate responsibility for the fate of Afghanistan.

"The war in Afghanistan was not our war," Karzai told The Washington Post, adding, "I was not a partner of the United States in that war against Afghan villages and homes. I changed from the moment I recognized that this war that is fought in the name of defeating terrorism is actually a war against the Afghan people."

"I called the Taliban 'brothers' for that reason," he said.

The Taliban came to power in August 2021, toppling the US-backed government as foreign troops were leaving the country.

The political crisis has exacerbated the economic disarray and food shortages that have pushed the country to the brink of a humanitarian crisis.