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Iran will receive the first $550 million installment of a total of $4.2 billion in previously blocked overseas funds on or about February 1, a senior U.S. official told Reuters on Sunday. The money will be transferred to Iran as part of the implementation of the nuclear deal reached with it in Geneva on November 24. Earlier Sunday, President Barack Obama confirmed that the agreement would be implemented starting January 20. Under the agreement, six major powers agreed to give Iran access to $4.2 billion in revenues blocked overseas if it carries out the deal, which offers sanctions relief in...

Iran will receive the first $550 million installment of a total of $4.2 billion in previously blocked overseas funds on or about February 1, a senior U.S. official told Reuters on Sunday. The money will be transferred to Iran as part of the implementation of the nuclear deal reached with it in Geneva on November 24. Earlier Sunday, President Barack Obama confirmed that the agreement would be implemented starting January 20. Under the agreement, six major powers agreed to give Iran access to $4.2 billion in revenues blocked overseas if it carries out the deal, which offers sanctions relief in...

TEL AVIV – The Obama administration is working behind the scenes in tandem with the European Union’s boycott of Israeli settlements, tying the seriousness of the EU’s future ban to the Jewish state’s actions during current U.S.-brokered talks with the Palestinians, according to a senior Palestinian negotiator. Last week, the EU published guidelines that deny EU funds in the form of grants, prizes and financial instruments from going toward any Jewish entities in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights or eastern Jerusalem. The guidelines further require any future Israeli-EU financial agreements to include a clause stipulating that the West...

Which of course most definitely includes Judea, Samaria, Golan, Gaza, and its liberated capital city of Jerusalem.According to reports the EU's Islamist appeasing Catherine Ashton is concerned about Israel doing just that. As well they should.Ashton and her European collaborators are a bunch of dhimmi enablers of Islamic imperialism.Some key excerpts from the INN article:["Maja Kocijancic, a spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, responded to the decision by saying, "The EU is concerned by reports in the Israeli media that the Israeli Minister of Defense has announced a number of restrictions affecting EU activities supporting the Palestinian people."Kocijancic...

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, an outspoken supporter of Egypt's ousted President Mohamed Mursi, lashed out at the European Union and others for failing to condemn strongly enough the killing of dozens in Cairo earlier on Saturday. Security forces shot dead dozens of Mursi supporters on Saturday, days after the army called for a popular mandate to wipe out "violence and terrorism" following its removal of Egypt's first democratically government on July 3. The EU's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, said she "deeply deplores" the deaths and called for a halt in violence. But Erdogan, who has recently faced large...

The United States urged Arab ally Egypt to pull "back from the brink" after security forces killed dozens of supporters of deposed Islamist President Mohamed Mursi and opened a dangerous new phase in the army's confrontation with his Muslim Brotherhood... Washington, treading a fine line with an important Middle East ally and recipient of over $1 billion in military aid, urged the Egyptian security forces to respect the right to peaceful protest... U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry spoke to two senior members of Egypt's army-installed interim cabinet, expressing his "deep concern." "This is a pivotal moment for Egypt," he...

Catherine Ashton: The EU's anti-Israel moonbat Islamist appeaser.From INN:EU's Ashton adds to 'settlement discrimination'Key excerpts:["EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton is pushing for comprehensive guidelines to introduce separate labeling for products made by Jews in Judea and Samaria,  Israeli-daily Haaretz reported on Tuesday.According to the report. Ashton sent a letter to European commissioners urging them to draft the guidelines by the end of 2013.The EU last week published guidelines that forbid the 28 members of the bloc from funding or dealing with Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria, eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, alleging that the areas are “illegally...

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton is pushing for comprehensive guidelines to introduce separate labeling for products made by Jews in Judea and Samaria, Israeli-daily Haaretz reported on Tuesday. According to the report. Ashton sent a letter to European commissioners urging them to draft the guidelines by the end of 2013. The EU last week published guidelines that forbid the 28 members of the bloc from funding or dealing with Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria, eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, alleging that the areas are “illegally occupied.”

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, is working on an initiative that would blacklist Hizbullah’s so-called “military wing” while leaving the EU open to talking with its political faction, EU diplomats said on Wednesday. EU ambassadors are set to discuss on Thursday the issue of adding Hizbullah to its list of terrorist groups. Counter-terrorist experts from the bloc's 28 member states twice failed last month to reach a unanimous decision to blacklist the Lebanese Shiite group. Two EU diplomats told Reuters on Wednesday that the proposal by Ashton suggests including a statement the EU "should continue dialogue with...

World leaders weigh in after Egypt's army commander announces that president had been removed The Egyptian army's suspension of the constitution and removal of President Mohamed Morsi has drawn mixed responses from world leaders: European Union The EU has called for a rapid return to democracy in Egypt. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said: "I urge all sides to rapidly return to the democratic process, including the holding of free and fair presidential and parliamentary elections and the approval of a constitution, to be done in a fully inclusive manner, so as to permit the country to resume and...

The European Union on Monday denied a report in the Israeli media that it was delaying a decision to label products from Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem, AFP reported. On Sunday, the Haaretz newspaper reported that the EU had delayed labelling the products to the end of June at the request of the United States. "Contrary to what was recently reported in the Israeli media, work on the effective enforcement of EU legislation with regard to the labelling of settlement products has not been delayed. Nor has the EU been asked to postpone such work," a statement...

As Independence Day celebrations were winding down Tuesday night, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made a guest appearance on Channel 2's left-wing satire show Eretz Nehederet. One of the final questions that the show's host Eyal Kitzis asked the premier was how he would like to be remembered after he leaves office. Netanyahu thought a moment and said, "I'd like to be remembered as the leader who preserved Israel's security." On the face of it, Netanyahu's stated aspiration might seem dull. In a year he'll be the longest-serving prime minister in the state's history, and all he wants is to...

Baroness Ashton will be entitled to £400,000 at the taxpayer’s expense over three years for doing nothing after finishing her five year term as the European Union’s foreign minister at the end of 2014. Research by The Daily Telegraph has established that the Labour peer, who finishes her job as High Representative of foreign affairs in October next year, will be paid £133,500 ($204,735.60) a year, 55 percent of her basic salary, until the end of 2017. The “transitional allowance” does not require her to do any work at all, and she will be paid under reduced rates of EU...

Laura Rozen’s account of the behind-the-scenes action during the Iranian nuclear talks in Istanbul undermines the notion that President Obama is in control of the P5+1 diplomatic process that he fiercely defended during the weekend. As Rozen’s reporting makes clear, it is the European Union’s Catherine Ashton who was clearly in charge of the affair, and as long as that fierce critic of Israel is calling the shots, it’s unlikely the Iranians will surrender their nuclear ambitions. Indeed, by championing Iran’s right to nuclear development, which could be ultimately used for military purposes, Ashton may be steering the negotiations toward...

Question: What enabled the slaughter of Jewish children and soldiers in the French city of Toulouse by a Muslim steeped in radical, victim-centric, warped Islamist ideology? Answer: People like EU Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton, an apologist for terrorist hate. She is the epitome of amoral, cowardly, politically correct, morally relativistic trash allowed by decadent, fearful Westerners to run amok at the top of their societies. This combination of a disconnected public and crazy political elite creates an atmosphere where lying bullies -- Islamo-fascist-leftists -- trample Western values, commit horrendous acts of ultra-violence, and shut down free speech. Meanwhile, people...

- FrontPage Magazine - http://frontpagemag.com - Obama, Iran and the 1939 SyndromePosted By P. David Hornik On March 7, 2012 @ 12:55 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 1 Comment On Tuesday EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton announced that the group of six global powers—permanent UN Security Council members the U.S., Britain, France, China, and Russia plus Germany—were resuming nuclear talks with Iran at an unspecified time and place.She announced it just as Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu was in Washington trying to convince the U.S. leadership that neither diplomacy nor sanctions were coming anywhere near stopping Iran’s push to...

Juppe: It's our responsibility to bring to Israel's attention the unforeseeable consequences it [strike] would have. PARIS - French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said on Wednesday that it was important to ensure that Israel is fully aware of the potential consequences of a military strike on Iran. "There is still a debate in Israel (about a military strike) and it's our responsibility to bring to Israel's attention the unforeseeable consequences it would have," he said, signaling that France was wary of resorting to a military strike. Related: •'Israel must be ready to strike Iran if talks fail'•PM: Israel has acted...

Catherine Ashton Wikimedia CommonEuropean Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton raced to assure Palestinian Authority officials they were still on the EU dole. “Ashton informed Abbas that the EU projects to the PA and the Palestinians which are carried out in the Palestinian Territories, won’t be frozen due to the PA Leader move at the UN,” the Arabic-language Al-Quds newspaper reported, citing sources close to PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas. Ashton's assurances come on the heels of reports the United States Congress was blocking the transfer of $200 million to cash-strapped officials in Ramallah due to Abbas' statehood gambit at the...

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on Tuesday (17 May) said the bloc's response to events unfolding in the southern neighbourhood is not at all "a marginal activity", citing evacuations from Libya, the opening of an office in Benghazi and humanitarian aid. Speaking alongside US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, Ashton stressed the need to keep "remembering what the European Union is and what it is not, and it's bringing together the 27 member states to support action and activities in a recognition of the principles that we hold dear." "It doesn't mean that on every...

The Arab League on Saturday announced it would host next week a conference on war-wracked Libya, which will be attended by UN chief Ban Ki-moon and the European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton. The April 14 gathering will focus on political solutions to the crisis and "reinforce coordination between the Arab League, UN, African Union and Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC)," league number two Ahmed Ben Helli said. Amr Mussa, who heads the 22-member pan-Arab body based in the Egyptian capital, OIC chief Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu and Jean Ping, head of the African Union Commission, will also attend the...