Iran strongly rejects IAEA allegations in new resolution
Press TV – June 6, 2024
Iran’s permanent ambassador to the United Nations has firmly rejected allegations by the IAEA against the Islamic Republic’s peaceful nuclear program.
In a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the rotating president of the UN Security Council Joonkook Hwang on Thursday, Amir Saeed Iravani said Tehran’s decision to take remedial measures is in full compliance with its inherent right under Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
The resolution was issued by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors on Wednesday.
The Iranian diplomat also lambasted Britain, France and Germany – known as the E3 – for spearheading the anti-Iran resolution at the UN’s nuclear agency.
Tehran, he said, “rejects all the allegations” in the E3’s letter and “reiterates its position concerning its peaceful nuclear program and the JCPOA.”
Iravani said the E3 continues to level unfounded allegations against Iran for non-compliance with JCPOA commitments.
“Iran’s decision to take remedial measures was in full accordance with its inherent right under paragraphs 26 and 36 of the JCPOA, in reaction to the United States’ unlawful unilateral withdrawal from the agreement on 8 May 2018, and the subsequent failure of the E3 to uphold their commitments. The objective behind Iran’s decision, which was made a full year after the US’s unlawful withdrawal and the E3/EU’s failure to fulfill their sanctions-lifting obligations, was crystal clear: to restore a balance in reciprocal commitments and benefits under the JCPOA,” Iran’s ambassador to the UN said.
“The claim that the E3 has consistently upheld its JCPOA commitments is simply untrue. On the contrary, the E3 has constantly failed to honor its obligations under paragraph 20 of Annex V of the JCPOA. This significant non-compliance is still ongoing. The E3’s failure to implement its sanctions-lifting commitments specified in paragraph 20 of Annex V of the JCPOA on Transition Day (18 October 2023) as an unjustifiable unilateral is a clear example of substantial non-performance of their obligations, thereby violating both the JCPOA and UNSC Resolution 2231 (2015),” Iravani stated.
He said Tehran has persistently complied with its obligations under the Comprehensive Safeguard Agreements (CSA), including through maximum cooperation with the UN nuclear agency to implement its verification activities in Iran, emphasizing that Iran has so far been under the most “robust verification and monitoring activities” of the IAEA.
“Iran’s decision to enrich uranium in Fordow was a remedial measure in response to non-compliance of the United States and E3/EU with their legally binding obligations under Resolution 2231 (2025) and their significant non-performance under the JCPOA commitments. That decision was also made in exercising Iran’s rights expressly stated in paragraphs 26 and 36 of the JCPOA and in full accordance with its inherent rights under the NPT and the commitment under CSA. However, all such activities have been and continue to be under the supervision of the IAEA,” Iravani further wrote in the letter.
Iran’s UN envoy also stated that Iran’s commitment to its obligations under the NPT remains steadfast.
“States parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) shall not be prevented from exercising their inalienable rights under the Treaty to develop research, production, and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in full conformity with articles I and II of the Treaty. Any allegation to the contrary is baseless and categorically rejected. The claim that Iran’s nuclear program has reached a critical and irreversible point, coupled with assertions that Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities pose a threat to international peace and security, are entirely false and unfounded,” he said.
In conclusion, Iravani said Iran “reaffirms its unwavering commitment to diplomacy. It has repeatedly shown its willingness to resume talks with the aim of full implementation of the JCPOA by all participants. The JCPOA is a hard-won multilateral diplomatic achievement that remains the best option with no alternatives. It exemplified successful dialogue and diplomacy, effectively averting an undue crisis. Its revival is indeed in the interest of all participants.”
Iran asserts that it runs one of the most transparent peaceful nuclear energy programs among the IAEA’s members.
The Islamic Republic has also repeatedly voiced its readiness to resolve differences with the IAEA within a framework of constructive and mutual interaction and technical cooperation.
Potential US Tactical Nuke Deployment in Asia-Pacific Could Bring Catastrophic Fallout – Expert
Sputnik – 06.06.2024
The director of the Knowfar Institute for Strategic and Defense Studies, Li Jian, provided insight regarding the potential deployment of US tactical nuclear weapons in the western Pacific Ocean in an interview with Sputnik.
“The question of US nuclear weapon deployment has a long history,” Jian told Sputnik, highlighting advancements in US tactical nuclear capabilities, such as the B61-12 bomb, and the completion of testing for various aircraft models.
“Since the US Department of Defense purchased 400 B61-12 tactical nuclear bombs, there needs to be somewhere to deploy them,” Jian emphasized.
The expert outlined potential deployment sites in the western Pacific, including military bases in South Korea, Japan, Okinawa, the Philippines, and Diego Garcia island.
“If tactical nuclear weapons are deployed directly in South Korea, this would become a direct factor of strategic containment against Russia’s Far East, Northern China, and North Korea,” the expert warned.
Addressing concerns in Northeast Asia, Jian questions the likelihood of deployment in South Korea over Okinawa due to prevalent anti-war and anti-nuclear sentiments among the Japanese, particularly island locals. He cautioned that such actions could disrupt the regional strategic balance, exacerbate arms races, and impede nuclear non-proliferation efforts.
US Senator Roger Wicker, the highest-ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, released a report on May 29 urging a significant increase in US military preparedness, particularly against nations like North Korea and China.
Titled “Peace Through Strength,” the report suggests exploring new strategies, including a “nuclear sharing agreement in the Indo-Pacific and re-deployment of US tactical nuclear weapons in the Korean Peninsula.” This call comes in the wake of the US Army’s deployment of the Mid-Range Capability, also known as the Typhon Weapon System, to Northern Luzon, Philippines, for the Salaknib 24 exercises in April.
ASEAN States Will Not Support US Plans to Deploy Missiles in Region – Official
Sputnik – 06.06.2024
JAKARTA – Member states of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) are unlikely to positively assess the plans of the United States to deploy shorter- and intermediate-range missiles in the region, Indonesian Ambassador to Russia Jose Tavares has told Sputnik.
In April, a spokesperson for the US Army Pacific told Sputnik that the US was on track to deploy a new medium-range missile system in the Asia-Pacific region by the end of 2024.
“I don’t think anyone in our region would appreciate if other countries deployed armament in our region,” the ambassador said, speaking about ASEAN’s reaction to the US Plans to deploy such missiles in the region.
He added that Indonesia has always been advocating peace and stability in the region and hopes that major powers also adhere to these principles.
Jakarta hopes that Southeast Asia will be a region of cooperation and common good and not a center of an arms race, the ambassador said.
He added that the Southeast Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone has yet to be ratified by the nuclear-weapon states while expressing hope that it will happen soon.
Neocon Star Julie Smith is ‘Worthy’ Successor of Warmongering Victoria Nuland
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 06.06.2024
US Permanent Representative to NATO Julianne Smith was nominated on June 5 to fill Victoria Nuland’s shoes and become under secretary of state for political affairs. What’s known about Smith?
- From 2009 to 2012, Julie Smith served as the director of European and NATO policy at the United States Department of Defense and then as the deputy national security advisor to Vice President Joe Biden from 2012 to 2013.
- In 2016, The Intercept called Smith a “rising star in the Democratic foreign policy establishment” akin to neocon and warmonger Robert Kagan, Victoria Nuland’s husband.
In January 2016, Smith signed Hillary Clinton’s anti-Bernie Sanders letter, bashing his desire to normalize ties with Iran. The letter was part of Clinton’s broad smear campaign against Sanders, then her Democratic presidential rival. - Testifying before the Senate in February 2017, Smith accused Russia of continuously undermining US interests at home and abroad and peddled the “Trump-Russia collusion” hoax.
- Between 2014 and 2018, Smith worked in the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) funded by major US defense contractors.
- She also worked at consultancy firm WestExec Advisors, founded by Antony Blinken and Michele A. Flournoy in 2017, that is suspected of secret lobbying on behalf of US military corporations. Over a dozen WestExec alums joined the Biden administration, triggering concerns “about the potential for groupthink, conflicts of interest, (…) legalized corruption” and “monopolization of foreign policymaking” by corporate interests, per The Intercept. According to the New York Times, some of WestExec’s clients – which the firm keeps on the hush-hush – got hefty contracts from the Pentagon.
- In May 2020, Smith accused China of undermining US leadership by providing aid to Europe to fight the COVID-19 pandemic; in July 2020 she called to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
- In March 2022, Smith groundlessly accused Russia of using chemical and biological weapons amid Russia’s revelations with regard to a network of Pentagon-funded secret bio-weapons labs in Ukraine.
- In December 2022, she announced an effort to step up arms production by NATO member states amid the Ukraine conflict and strongly advocated enhancing NATO military presence in Europe “to ensure that Russia can never attack NATO” in December 2023.
- “We do consider the Russian threat to the NATO alliance to be the preeminent threat that we’re grappling with,” Smith told an online briefing on April 4, 2020.
- At the same press briefing she stressed that NATO’s engagements will not be limited to one region, expressing willingness to challenge Russia and China simultaneously and adding that “a lot of the security challenges we face today don’t have any geographic boundaries.”
- In October 2023, Smith asserted to the press that the US and NATO will continue to support Ukraine and Israel amid the latter’s Gaza war.
Being a darling of the military-industrial complex, Smith is likely to follow in the footsteps of her predecessor, Victoria Nuland, and continue stoking tensions in Europe, Asia Pacific and the Middle East.
Biden could cause nuclear war – Trump

RT | June 6, 2024
US President Joe Biden may end up destroying the world in a nuclear conflict, his election rival Donald Trump has claimed.
Speaking to Fox News host Sean Hannity on Wednesday, the former president warned that “we have a chance of going into World War III because of our leader.”
The remark came after Hannity suggested that Biden was in a state of mental decline, showing several clips of the president appearing distracted or fumbling his words during public appearances. Hannity and Trump were discussing a report published in the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, which said the incumbent was showing “signs of slipping” behind closed doors.
Trump suggested that, unlike the leaders of Russia, China and North Korea, Biden is “not at the top of his game” and “was never the brightest bulb” among American politicians – even when he was younger. It is currently the “most dangerous time in the history of our country,” he warned, citing the destructive potential of nuclear weapons.
In the event of a nuclear exchange, “nothing will matter because practically nothing will be here anymore,” he warned. “This is obliteration. Maybe world obliteration. And we have a man that is incapable of even discussing it.”
Trump pointed to the Ukraine conflict as a major source of danger. Russian President Vladimir Putin “is talking about nuclear weapons,” he said.
The Biden administration has recently granted Kiev permission to strike targets outside of what Washington recognizes as Ukrainian territory with US-donated weapons.
When asked on Wednesday how he would react to possible attacks deep inside Russia using Western arms, Putin said Moscow may “supply our weapons of the same class to parts of the world, where strikes would be delivered against sensitive assets of the nations that act like that against Russia.”
The US and its allies are getting “directly involved in the war against us,” he added, and this path of escalation “leads to very serious problems.”
Asked directly whether Moscow would consider using nuclear weapons, Putin said he’d rather stay clear “not only from the use, but even from the threat of use” of such arms. However, he warned people in the West not to delude themselves that such a scenario was impossible.
The West is already at war with Russia but its leaders can’t wake up from a dream
By Martin Jay | Strategic Culture Foundation | June 5, 2024
Is NATO planning something big in Ukraine? Are we on the cusp now of WWIII really breaking out since the U.S. has now backed the idea that Ukraine can fire missiles beyond its borders into Russia?
The news that President Joe Biden has given the go-ahead for long-range missiles to be fired into Russia should be worrying for a number of reasons. The dangerous game of escalation that the West is playing will have a breaking point in the not too distant future. The question is whether the West really understands how Putin thinks as it is presently betting on no retaliation from Russia, which is not only erroneous but very, very dangerous. Recent missile strikes into Russian territory destroyed two radar installations which western press refuse to report. The significance of this strike is important as the more Ukraine loses on the battlefield, the more desperate its tactics, egged on by western leaders who still think that their stake in the war is minimal. Although just recently Germany’s leader Scholz did a U-turn at a conference in Berlin with French President Macron — in backing the missile strikes into Russia plan — the truth is that officially NATO does not support the plan, which is why the UK is doing it independently using Storm Shadows operated by SAS soldiers.
This has been going on for months and so in many respects the news that the U.S. has authorised the practice could be taken lightly. What’s new? Or, more to the point, is Ukraine going to use longer-range U.S. missiles to keep up with such strikes like the radar stations? Does it have enough missiles in stock is also an important question.
With this strategy in play, we are looking in all scenarios at the slow demise of NATO as the more that such strikes occur, the more it is evident that NATO is a defunct organisation and only really a talk shop at best. NATO members are divided on an overall strategy with Ukraine and so member states do their own thing. If we see more of these strikes, the pressure on Putin to react will be overwhelming but when that time comes, he will practice an eye-for-an-eye strategy and strike the equivalent military installations within Europe or at least Ukraine’s drones operating in the Black Sea. This will be a shock for the West. It will take some days for such a strike to be seen for what it is: a warning. The message will be the escalation game has its limits and you’ve gone over a line.
But are the recent reports of a new offensive in the planning from NATO genuine? Probably not. Just like the reports of Putin wanting to negotiate a peace deal now. Both fake news reports are part of a strategy of panic from the Biden administration which really needs some sort of victory in Ukraine to present to the American people. Yet all of the aces are with Putin and he doesn’t seem to be showing any signs of falling into these traps. Putin has been pretty consistent in how he sees any kind of peace deal. Denazification, demilitarisation and no deal on NATO membership. The reasons why peace talks are a mere figment of the imagination of western journalists who sink to new lows is that the West cannot entertain any of these requests and has taken so much control of the media that its leaders are starting to believe their own BS. The fourth requirement also of Putin’s is that he can’t negotiate peace with a leader in the Ukraine who no longer has legitimacy as a president. One wonders how long the West can continue to kick up a fuss about that one.
Deborah Birx Is Back: Humans and Cows Be Warned
By Adam Dick | Peace and Prosperity Blog | June 5, 2024
Remember Deborah Birx, the “scarf lady” United States bureaucrat who joined President Donald Trump and chief coronavirus fearmonger Anthony Fauci for regular televised briefings to whip up fear of coronavirus and support for crackdowns and new health practices supposedly required by “the science”?
She was there day after day pushing mask wearing and social distancing that had not been shown to produce any net reduction in disease spread, mass PCR testing that proved unreliable, elimination of early treatment efforts, implementation of conveyor belt to death ventilators and remdesivir hospital protocols, production and distribution of Operation Warp Speed “vaccines” that proved to be both ineffective and dangerous, closure of businesses, prohibition of gatherings, and other tyrannical quackery. Birx also was conniving behind the scenes to strengthen national crackdown-related measures and traveling around the country promoting coronavirus fear and encouraging state governments to implement, maintain, and expand their crackdown measures.
In other words, Birx was a primary villain behind the coronavirus crackdowns in America.
Well, Birx is back. And she is pursuing a similar mission again. She is stirring up fear of a new disease du jour — bird flu — and calling for new crackdowns in response. In an interview this week at CNN, Birx declared, “we should be testing every cow weekly” with PCR tests for bird flu. She also wants to test every “dairy worker” as well as test “to really see how many people have been exposed and got asymptomatically infected.”
Birx seems to be jonesing for a replay of the coronavirus crackdown approach, this time in the name of countering bird flu. Indeed, she may want to take the crackdown bigger this time. In the interview, she suggests that the failure to already be doing the extensive testing she supports for bird flu means “we’re making the same mistakes today that we made with covid.” Got that? For Birx, a big mistake with the government response to coronavirus was that it didn’t do enough soon enough. With time, however, Americans have increasingly come to realize that government actions taken in the name of countering coronavirus created much more suffering than did coronavirus.
Don’t let Birx and other authoritarians succeed in using bird flu as an excuse to roll out a new crackdown dangerous to both health and liberty. Let’s end this tyrannical push now. Just say no to Birx and her new scheme.
Majority of British youth think Israel ‘should not exist’: Poll
Press TV – June 5, 2024
The majority of young British people think that Israel “should not exist”, blaming the occupying entity for the ongoing genocidal war on the besieged Gaza Strip, a new opinion poll shows.
Released on Wednesday, the survey, carried out by British news and opinion website UnHerd, suggested that 54 percent of 18-24-year-olds in Britain thought the Israeli regime “should not exist” compared with seven percent of 65-year-olds and older.
“A preliminary finding of an exclusive survey of 1,012 voters about foreign policy, conducted by Focaldata and due to be released tomorrow on UnHerd, found that a striking 54% of 18-24-year-olds agreed with the statement that” the Israeli regime “should not exist.”
According to the new polling, 50 percent of the age group also blamed the occupying regime for the ongoing violence in the war-torn Palestinian enclave.
Back in December, a poll suggested that 51 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 believed the key solution to bring to a close the Israel-Palestinian conflict was for “Israel to be ended and given to Hamas and the Palestinians.”
Israel’s bloody war machine has killed over 36,500 Palestinians since October 7, 2023. The vast majority of the fatalities are women and children.
The savage campaign was launched after Hamas carried out its historic Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the usurping entity in retaliation for the regime’s intensified atrocities.
Israel has additionally enforced a comprehensive blockade on the coastal sliver, severing the supply of fuel, electricity, sustenance and water to the population of over two million Palestinians residing there.
Israel using massive campaign of influencing US lawmakers to back war: Report
Press TV – June 5, 2024
In a long-running social media campaign, Israel has been trying to influence legislators of the United States to support the occupying entity’s actions in its genocidal war on the besieged Gaza Strip, according to a report by the New York Times.
Citing unnamed officials and documents, The NY Times reported on Wednesday Israel’s so-called Ministry of Diaspora Affairs has paid at least $2 million for the covert campaign of convincing American lawmakers to back the regime’s atrocities in the war-torn Palestinian territory.
The report said the Israeli ministry has hired the Israeli-based firm STOIC, a political marketing firm in Tel Aviv, to carry out the campaign.
The firm has for months been generating anti-Hamas and pro-Israel content across the Internet.
According to the report, the influence campaign, which started in October and is still ongoing on X (formerly known as Twitter), has used hundreds of fake accounts that posed as real Americans on X, Facebook and Instagram to post pro-Israel comments.
The accounts, the report added, targeted US lawmakers, particularly those who are Black and Democrat, “such as Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader from New York, and Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia”, with posts urging them to continue funding Israel’s military.
“ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence-powered chatbot, was used to generate many of the posts. The campaign also created three fake English-language news sites featuring pro-Israel articles,” said the Times, which verified the influence operation with four current and former members of the so-called Ministry of Diaspora Affairs.
“The secretive campaign signals the lengths Israel was willing to go to sway American opinion on the war in Gaza,” it further said.
Citing Meta and OpenAI, the report said the influence campaign has failed to generate a widespread impact.
Furthermore, according to FakeReporter, an Israeli misinformation watchdog, the fake accounts accumulated more than 40,000 followers across X, Facebook and Instagram, but as Meta said, many of those followers may have been bots and did not generate a large audience.
Israel’s bloody war machine has killed over 36,500 Palestinians since October 7, 2023. The vast majority of the fatalities are women and children.
The savage campaign was launched after Hamas carried out its historic Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the usurping entity in retaliation for the regime’s intensified atrocities.
Israel has additionally enforced a comprehensive blockade on the coastal sliver, severing the supply of fuel, electricity, sustenance and water to the population of over two million Palestinians residing there.
Greek EPAM Party Calls for Lifting Sanctions Against Russia, Dialogue
Sputnik – 05.06.2024
Greece’s non-parliamentary United People’s Front party (EPAM), which is running in the elections in the European Parliament, supports Russia and calls for lifting sanctions against the country along with ceasing arms transfers to Ukraine, Liudmila Bogila, the party’s candidate for the elections, told Sputnik.
Bogila was born in the Lugansk region of the USSR. She is a professional doctor and the head of the Center for scientific and social initiatives.
“Only EPAM demands the lifting of sanctions against Russia and, moreover, supports Russia. EPAM has consistently taken a clear position in relations with Russia since the beginning of the [Ukrainian] crisis several years ago — it opposes the adoption of sanctions and is in favor of dialogue, for the preservation of friendly relations with Russia both in economy and in politics. And we want to convey this position to the voters,” Bogila said.
The Ukrainian crisis began 10 years ago, but has worsened and gotten to a new, dangerous level, the candidate added.
“Our party’s election program directly says that today, when Europe, under US directions, is drawn into a war with Russia, the politicians of our country are preparing to sacrifice us to foreign interests. We are fighting to end the war in Ukraine and the lifting of sanctions against Russia, the only result of which is impoverishment of the people and enrichment of the elites,” Bogila said.
The interests of the United States, not Russia’s intentions, spurred the conflict, the candidate said.
“People must understand, what is happening in Ukraine today is not the result of Russia’s alleged invasive sentiment. It is the outcome of the invasive sentiments of the US and its satellites and Russia’s forced actions,” Bogila said, adding that most of the people she communicates with support this position.
Western countries and their allies rolled out a comprehensive sanctions campaign against Russia after it launched a military operation in Ukraine in February 2022. The EU, in particular, has already adopted 13 sanctions packages targeting Russia’s economy, energy and banking services, among other areas. Moscow says that Western sanctions against Russia have failed.


