Iran News, Iran amends law on stoning

TEHRAN News, Iran has amended its internationally condemned law on stoning convicted adulterers to death to allow judges to impose a different form of execution, according to the revision seen by AFP yesterday.

Tehran News Desk, The controversial practice, in which stones are thrown at the partially buried offender, has provoked outcries from human rights organizations, international bodies and Western countries urging Iran to abandon it.

Iran News, An article of Iran’s Islamic new penal code, published earlier this week, states that, “if the possibility of carrying out the (stoning) verdict does not exist,” the sentencing judge may order another form of execution pending final approval by the judiciary chief.

Iran News, Iranian-American gets 25 years for Saudi envoy plot

Latest Iran News

NEW YORK News ,  A man who admitted that he plotted to kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States was sentenced on Thursday to 25 years in prison.

Manssor Arbabsiar, a US citizen who was born in Iran, pleaded guilty in October to two conspiracy charges and a murder-for-hire count. He admitted he was directed by Iranian military officials to go to Mexico on multiple occasions in 2011 to arrange the assassination attempt, which never occurred.

Iran News, Arbabsiar lived in Texas, working in real estate and automobile sales since moving to the United States in 1977.

The government said he intended to kill the ambassador by planting explosives at a Washington restaurant and that he recognized the plan likely would result in mass casualties.

Syria News, Assad gets ‘game-changing’ Russian missiles

Latest Arab News

Syria News, Syrian President Bashar Assad yesterday was quoted as saying his regime has received from Russia a first shipment of sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles — game-changing weapons that are bound to further raise regional tension, particularly with Israel whose defense chief has called them a threat.

In a new setback to international efforts to end Syria’s civil war, the main Western-backed Syrian opposition group announced that it would not participate in UN-sponsored peace talks that were to have been launched in Geneva.

Gulf News, Iraqi Shiite militia warns of sectarian fighting

Latest Gulf News

Iraq News, BAGHDAD: A senior member of an Iraqi Shiite militia that once fought the US military warned yesterday that Iraq is heading toward widespread sectarian bloodletting similar to the kind that once pushed the country to the brink of civil war.

Latest Gulf News, The head of the political bureau of the Asaib Ahl Al-Haq group, Adnan Faihan, also said the militia is preparing to defend itself, but denied the group’s involvement in a spate of attacks targeting Iraq’s Sunni Arab minority.

Meanwhile, violence in Iraq on Tuesday killed 45 people, after evening attacks raised an earlier toll, the latest in a spate of unrest sparking concerns the country could be sliding back to all-out sectarian war.

The wave of shootings and bombings, which also wounded nearly 100 people, came the same day ministers discussed ways to curb the violence, while the UN has urged Iraq’s feuding political leaders to resolve long-running disputes that have paralyzed the government and been blamed for its inability to halt the bloodshed.