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Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker said Wednesday that efforts to resolve House concerns with a bipartisan Senate sanctions bill targeting Russia and Iran have hit a new snag. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

By Elana Schor

06/28/2017 03:16 PM EDT

Updated 06/28/2017 06:37 PM EDT

An overwhelmingly bipartisan Senate sanctions bill targeting Russia and Iran hit a new snag Wednesday, as Democrats sought assurances that House Republicans will not water it down after what the GOP has billed as a simple fix.

Senior senators have negotiated with their counterparts across the Capitol since the sanctions bill, passed by the Senate on a 98-2 vote, ran into a constitutional objection in the House last week.

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But when Democrats aware that the White House is urging House Republicans to make the sanctions bill more friendly to President Donald Trump asked the GOP to commit to no new, significant changes in the House, that commitment didn't arrive, according to a senior Senate Democratic aide.

Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), a leader in the bicameral sanctions talks, declared Democrats' response "self-defeating" and "actually accommodating Russia" by furthering the delay in the legislation.

"It is a ridiculous position to take that youre not going to let our bill go to the House in an appropriate manner until you know exactly how the House is going to deal with a bill we passed," Corker told reporters Wednesday.

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Before the partisan tensions bubbled over, a deal on a technical fix to the sanctions package appeared within reach as the latest proposal earned sign-off from Corker's Democratic counterpart on the committee, Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin.

For Democrats who fought hard for language in the bill that hamstrings Trump's ability to warm relations with Vladimir Putin's government, however, the prospect of diluting the sanctions package in the House is hard to swallow.

"House Republicans have also not committed that this is the last change bill would undergo," the Democratic aide said. "We are happy to make changes to the bill to deal with the problem, provided it doesnt weaken or fundamentally alter the core of the bill. We need assurances that thats it, that bill is not going to be weakened or watered down in the House."

The crux of the sanctions delay has been a provision in the Senate-passed bill that allows Congress to block Trump from easing or ending sanctions against Russia. Changing sanctions policy would affect federal revenue, and the Constitution requires any bills that change revenue to start in the House triggering a so-called "blue slip" delay that has stalled the Senate-initiated legislation from moving forward.

Democrats have raised repeated concerns that the White House plans to push House Republicans to dilute the congressional review provision to make it friendlier to the president. House Republicans have pushed back against the suggestion of any such political motivations behind their procedural holdup of the Senate bill.

House Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.) told Fox News on Wednesday that "now that the Senate has some time on its hands" with the postponement of a health care vote, "it should fix the constitutional problem in the bill."

We need to send this message to Putin and to Russia that there will be consequences for their intervention in undermining democracies around the world," Royce added.

As recently as Tuesday afternoon, Cardin said he was inclined to sign off on the House's proposed change to the congressional review provision.

"I think I'm okay with it" based on a staff-level review of the House-drafted language, Cardin told reporters, warning that other Democrats may not have all agreed.

The proposed revisions to the sanctions bill should not change its effect "if interpreted properly," Cardin told reporters, but "we're not sure that's the holdup to passing it." Democrats suspect the Russia bill's delay may be "a little bit more Machiavellian" in nature, the Maryland Democrat added.

The Senate's bill imposes new sanctions against Moscow and codifies existing sanctions into law, while also adding new penalties against Tehran related to its ballistic missile program, human rights violations and support for terrorist groups.

One source described the changes under consideration for the sanctions bill as technical rather than substantive, adding that the House Rules Committee had also identified a minor issue that could be in line for a fix.

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Russia-Iran sanctions talks hit new hiccup - Politico

United Nations Iran is accusing US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson of a brazen interventionist plan to change the current government that violates international law and the UN Charter.

Irans UN Ambassador Gholamali Khoshroo said in a letter to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres circulated on Tuesday that Tillersons comments are also a flagrant violation of the 1981 Algiers Accords in which the United States pledged not to intervene, directly or indirectly, politically or militarily, in Irans internal affairs.

Tillerson said in a June 14 hearing before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the 2018 State Department budget that US policy is to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons and work toward support of those elements inside of Iran that would lead to a peaceful transition of that government.

Those elements are there, certainly as we know, he said.

Khoshroo said Iran expects all countries to condemn such grotesque policy statements and advice the government of the United States to act responsibly and to adhere to the principles of the (UN) Charter and international law.

He noted that Tillersons comments came weeks after President Hassan Rouhanis re-election to another four-year term and local elections in which 71 percent of the Iranian people participated. Rouhani is a political moderate who defeated a hardline opponent.

The people of Iran have repeatedly proven that they are the ones to decide their own destiny and thus attempts by the United States to interfere in Iranian domestic affairs will be doomed to failure, Khoshroo said.

They have learned how to stand strong and independent, as demonstrated in the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

He said Tillersons statement also coincided with the release of newly declassified documents that further clarified how United States agencies were behind the overthrow of Mohammad Mossadegh, the popular and democratically elected prime minister of Iran on August 19, 1953.

At the June 14 hearing, Tillerson said the Trump administrations Iranian policy is under development.

But I would tell you that we certainly recognise Irans continued destabilising [role] in the region, Tillerson said, citing its payment of foreign fighters, support for Hezbollah extremists, and their export of militia forces in Syria, in Iraq, in Yemen.

US lawmakers have long sought to hit Iran with more sanctions in order to check its ballistic missile programme and rebuke Tehrans continued support for terrorist groups, and on June 15 the Senate approved a sweeping sanctions bill.

The bill imposes mandatory sanctions on people involved in Irans ballistic missile programme and anyone who does business with them.

The measure also would apply terrorism sanctions to the countrys Revolutionary Guards and enforce an arms embargo. It now goes to the House. Senators insisted the new Iran sanctions wont undermine or impede enforcement of the landmark nuclear deal that Former President Barack Obama and five other key nations reached with Tehran two years ago.

Meanwhile, tensions have been escalating between the US and North Korea following the death of US student Otto Warmbier, who was arrested in North Korea and sent home in a coma after 18 months, and in the face of Pyongyangs military and nuclear ambitions.

Moon Jae-in, the new leader of North Koreas neighbour and arch enemy, South Korea, is headed to Washington for talks this week. North Koreas state news agency KCNA said: The America-first principle . . . advocates the world domination by recourse to military means just as was the case with Hitlers concept of world occupation.

And it went on to accuse Trump of following Hitlers dictatorial politics to divide others into two categories, friends and foes in order to justify suppression.

It is not the first time the secretive state has evoked Hitler in propaganda against the US.

After George W Bush branded the North, along with Iran and Iraq an axis of evil, Pyongyang hit back, saying the then-US president was a tyrant that puts Hitler in the shade and a political imbecile bereft of even elementary morality.

America has been angling for tougher sanctions against North Korea because of the states insistence on developing missiles to carry nuclear warheads greater distances.

KCNA said the US policy of blocking medical supplies was an unethical and inhumane act, far exceeding the degree of Hitlers blockade of Leningrad. And it added: The Trump way of thinking that the whole world may be sacrificed, just for the better living of the US, has put even its allies and stooges in a pretty fix.

Moon is new in the job, but has already signalled he will move to pressure China on tightening the screws around North Korea. AFP

The rest is here:
Iran accuses US of 'brazen' plan to change its govt - Chronicle

Iran used a Star of David as a target for a missile test last year, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations revealed Wednesday.

Ambassador Danny Danon shared a startling satellite image of the Jewish and Israeli symbol with members of the UN Security Council, the Jerusalem Post reported.

This use of the Star of David as target practice is hateful and unacceptable, Danon told the Council. This missile test not only violates Security Council resolutions but also proves beyond doubt, once again, the true intentions of Iran to target Israel.

The Star of David was used as a target for a mid-range Qiam ballistic missile test in December, according to a statement from the Permanent Mission of Israel to the UN.

Alongside the symbol, a round crater caused by the rocket also can be seen.

The Security Council must act immediately against this demonstration of hate and Irans provocative violations that threaten the stability of the entire region, Danon said.

It is the Iranians who prop up the Assad regime as hundreds of thousands are killed, finance the terrorists of Hezbollah as they threaten the citizens of Israel, and support extremists and tyrants throughout the Middle East and around the world, he added.

Earlier this month, Iran fired missiles at Syria, targeting ISIS positions in the first attack by Iran outside its country in 30 years since the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988, the Times of Israel reported.

The missiles were seen as a threat to Israel and the US.

I have one message for Iran: Dont threaten Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said after the attack.

Iran has previously fired missiles with anti-Israel messages written on them in Hebrew.

In March 2016, it test-fired two ballistic missiles, which an Iranian news organization said were inscribed with the phrase Israel must be wiped out.

Meanwhile, it has been announced that Israel will test its Arrow 3 intercontinental ballistic missile defense system in the US next year.

The test will be carried out in cooperation with the US Missile Defense Agency, the Jerusalem Post reported.

View post:
Iran once used Star of David as missile target - New York Post

SUT represents the aspirations of a generation of Iranian policy makers who, in the wake of the 1979 revolution, were determined to put their country on the science and technology map.

"I don't want to exaggerate the situation," says Professor Jawad Salehi, tongue far from cheek, but "MIT is the Sharif of the U.S."

Be that as it may, Iran's educational leaders must also brace themselves for the fact that Sharif is a conduit out of the country.

"The computer engineering department in this university -- they call that the airport," says 19-year-old civil engineering student Kiarash. "Our main reason for joining this university is for going abroad."

"Going back really to (the) early stages of the revolution, but it continues, the government has really invested in education, partly to address inequality," says Arang Keshavarzian, associate professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at NYU.

That investment took on new importance after the bloody Iran-Iraq war launched by Saddam Hussein, says Salehi.

The war "showed the core of our system -- that knowledge and technology is very fundamental for our survivability in the future."

The lesson, says Salehi, was broad. MIT "helped to advance the American society," he says. "Iranian society at the time was in need of engineers, more than anything else."

"Our society would have to advance itself based on knowledge, on science, and know-how."

The resemblance between Sharif and major Western universities doesn't extend much beyond the groups of students chatting beneath the trees outside -- the buildings are heavy on breeze block and concrete. There are no starchitect-built theaters here, but faculty members and students speak of the place with pride.

"If you gave us the MIT budget," says Salehi, " and you gave us the facilities and laboratories, but here in the Sharif campus, I am sure that -- I mean, I don't want to exaggerate this -- but I am sure that we would be at par with some of the best of the world."

SUT staff would not allow CNN to chat to students on campus, but we spoke to several on the streets nearby; they are identified here only by their first names, as some of their comments could be considered controversial.

The university is "the best in the country," says 25-year-old electrical engineering student Mehdi.

But he says Western sanctions -- some now lifted in the wake of the 2015 nuclear deal -- have limited students' access to scientific papers, equipment, and the ability to "reach the technology. It's heavily affected us."

Walking to campus with four friends, Kiarash says that the "university atmosphere is way better" than most other Iranian institutions.

Kiarash's generation lives in a different world to that of their parents; through the internet, Western culture reaches Iran like never before.

Though many social media websites, such as Facebook and Reddit, are officially blocked, simple workarounds mean they are easily accessible. Encrypted messaging apps like Telegram have taken off, and allow of a form of communication completely out of the government's sight; even Iran's presidential campaigns have embraced Telegram.

Students like Kiarash and his friend Pegah, 20, recognize their privilege, but expect more.

"It's known to be the best university of Iran, but we don't have much facilities," says Pegah.

"We have something," Kiarash chimes in. "A device for mixing some kinds of concrete. It's (from) the former king of Iran's era."

And there are bigger, more fundamental issues.

"I wear whatever I like," says Kiarash. "But, for example, my friend here, she has to wear hijab."

Their clothing would fit it in at any Western university -- jeans and T-shirts. But Pegah, who is female, must adhere to Iran's rules mandating conservative clothing for women.

Several times, Pegah says, she's been reprimanded for her clothing. "For example, they say your jeans are too tight. But it's not tight!"

"The MIT of Iran?" laughs Satya, a 20-year-old in her senior year studying physics. "It is the best university in Tehran, I guess. It's hard. But I am doing it."

The strictures placed on students are not just a matter of personal annoyances, says Iranian economy and education specialist Nader Habibi, of Brandeis University in the U.S. "The government imposes an Islamic lifestyle," he says, but for many urban families, "their vision of a good lifestyle is more liberal."

One way around this, Habibi says, would be to "create small areas where (a) more diverse lifestyle is tolerated" -- think Dubai, an outpost of liberal excesses in a fundamentally very conservative country, the United Arab Emirates. That model has been successful in attracting foreign investment, and convincing multinationals to set up shop.

In Iran, there is a constant tug-of-war between politicians like President Hassan Rouhani -- reform-minded, at least by Iranian standards -- and the conservative, revolutionist clergy, with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei at the helm.

It's evident everywhere in Tehran, where you're as likely to pass a woman covered head to toe in a flowing black chador, as a woman made up to the nines, with coiffed hair, designer clothes, and a scarf half-way back on her head, barely conforming to rules requiring female head coverings.

The Iranian government, says Habibi, has thus far resisted implementing any Dubai-style system in Iran.

As far as Kiarash is concerned, that inflexibility is driving away Iran's brightest students. "They only wait (for) their main civil rights," he says. "And when they don't give them, they have to go."

Ramtin Keramati is one of those who left the country. On the phone from California, the SUT graduate recalls the first time he saw Stanford University's campus. "I was like, 'Oh my God, this is gorgeous! This is amazing!'"

Keramati says the transition was difficult, but he had company -- in the form of roughly 8,700 Iranian students studying in the US, according to a 2014 study by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. They're among as many as 50,000 Iranians studying around the world.

Stanford even has a Persian Students Association, which Keramati says picked him up from the airport and helped him get acclimatized to life on a US campus.

"It's really hard," he says. "I didn't know what to expect ... everything was a surprise."

There is a rich history of Iranians seeking greener pastures -- at least temporarily -- abroad.

President Rouhani studied in Scotland. His foreign minister, Javad Zarif, studied in California. SUT's Salehi got his bachelor's degree at the University of California at Irvine and his PhD at the University of Southern California before working at Bell Labs in New Jersey, which he calls "one of the best periods of my life." Firuzabad, the president of SUT, got his master's degree and PhD in Saskatchewan, Canada.

The "brain drain is significant," says Brandeis' Habibi; he says Iran's government has tried to stem it, using economic incentives.

Anyone who receives a government scholarship to study abroad can have that loan written off if they return to Iran to work for a certain number of years, but "that's only a small fraction of Iran's brain drain," Habibi says.

Much more significant are the students or professionals who move abroad for better opportunities. Once someone has completed their mandatory military service, Habibi says, the government can do nothing to stop them from leaving.

The brain drain is a "very sensitive question," Salehi acknowledges. Everyone has the right to emigrate, he says, "but we can influence their choice."

"It is the duty of the government, or the society, to give so many opportunities in our country that a young person who was thinking of leaving would have a bit of a doubt," he says.

The government often reaches out "to educated professional Iranians in ... Western countries, to encourage them to come back," Habibi says; he estimates that the Rouhani government, aided by the lifting of some sanctions, has convinced 100 to 200 Iranians a year to return to work in their homeland.

And the desire to leave is by no means universal.

Aerospace engineering student Mohammed, 21, says his faculty members have "good connections with the industry to get a job later," adding: "I just want to stay here."

But a very unscientific survey found that the call of foreign countries resonates with plenty of Sharif's students. That's certainly the case with physics student Satya.

As far as she's concerned, "every one" of the university's students goes abroad.

"That's the goal when we come here," she says. "This is why Sharif is important, and very famous, because we can apply and we can go and never come back, maybe."

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Brain drain to the West: Inside 'Iran's MIT' - CNN.com - CNN International

A police officer stands outside the U.S. Supreme Court on June 26, 2017 in Washington. Eric Thayer / Getty Images

Although foreign countries are generally immune from U.S. lawsuits, the law makes exceptions for acts of terrorism. A federal judge eventually awarded the Americans $71.5 million. But because Iran has few assets frozen in the US the usual source for satisfying such court judgments lawyers for the Americans had to come up with other assets to seize.

The Supreme Court case involved thousands of small clay tablets from Persepolis, the ancient capital of Persia, on long-term loan by Iran to the

In 2016, a federal appeals court ruled that the antiquities could not be used to help satisfy the court judgment, because Iran was not using them for commercial purposes.

The federal government has generally sided with Iran during the years of litigation. "Although the United States sympathizes with petitioners and other victims of terrorism, the seizure of a foreign sovereign's property via attachment or execution can affect the United States' foreign relations," said Jeffrey Wall, the Trump administration's acting solicitor general.

Originally posted here:
Supreme Court Takes Up Dispute Over Iran Antiquities in Terror Case - NBCNews.com