Region

TEHRAN — Iran said Monday it will surpass from June 27 its uranium stockpile limit set under the nuclear deal with world powers, turning up the pressure after the US walked away from the landmark pact last year.

"Today the countdown to pass the 300 kilogrammes reserve of enriched uranium has started and in 10 days time... we will pass this limit," Iran's atomic energy organisation spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi, told a new conference broadcast live on state television.

The move "will be reversed once other parties live up to their commitments", he added, speaking from the Arak nuclear plant southwest of Tehran.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the international community to immediately hit Iran with "snapback sanctions" should it violate the deal by surpassing the uranium stockpile limit set in the deal.

On May 8, President Hassan Rouhani said Iran would stop observing restrictions on its stocks of enriched uranium and heavy water agreed under the 2015 nuclear deal.

Rouhani said the move was in retaliation for the unilateral US withdrawal from the accord a year earlier, which saw Washington impose tough economic sanctions on Tehran.

Tensions between Tehran and Washington have escalated ever since, with the United States bolstering its military presence in the region and blacklisting Iran's Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organisation.

The United States has also blamed Iran for last week's attacks on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman, a charge Tehran has denied as "baseless".

Iran has threatened to go even further in scaling down nuclear commitments by July 8 unless remaining partners to the deal — Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia — help it circumvent US sanctions and especially enable it to sell its oil.

“The current situation is sensitive” and there is still time for the deal’s partners to save this agreement, Rouhani told the French ambassador to Tehran Philippe Thiebaud on Monday.

“The collapse of the JCPOA is undoubtedly not in the interest of Iran... the region and the world,” he added, referring to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as the deal is formally known.

‘Save the deal’ 

Under the agreement, Iran pledged to reduce its nuclear capacities for several years and allow international inspectors inside the country to monitor its activities in return for relief from international sanctions.

The deal set a limit on the number of uranium-enriching centrifuges, and restricted its right to enrich uranium to no higher than 3.67 per cent, well below weapons-grade levels of around 90 per cent.

It also called on Iran to export enriched uranium and heavy water to ensure the country’s reserves would stay within the production ceiling set by the agreement, yet recent US restrictions have made such exports virtually impossible.

According to Rouhani, the ultimatum he issued last month was intended to “save the [deal], not destroy it”.

The three European parties to the accord created a trade mechanism meant to bypass US sanctions, but their attempt was dismissed by Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as a “bitter joke”.

The spokesman for Iran’s atomic energy organisation warned further steps could be taken if world powers do not step up to help the country.

“They range from going to 3.68 per cent to any other per cent according to the country’s needs,” said Kamalvandi.

Authorities were still debating whether to “redesign or revive” the Arak reactor, he added.

Uranium enriched to much higher levels than Iran’s current stocks can be used as the fissile core of a nuclear weapon, while heavy water is a source of plutonium, which can be used as an alternative way to produce a warhead.

“#Iran not bluffing about 60-day deadline for ceasing compliance with parts of nuclear deal,” Ellie Geranmayeh, senior fellow at European Council on Foreign Relation said in a Tweet.

She downplayed the importance of uranium and heavy water stockpiles increasing and said it would be more worrying for Europe if Iran exceeded the enrichment level allowed in the deal.

“I imagine Tehran will do this incrementally, testing Europeans at each stage.”

Germany has acknowledged the economic benefits Iran hoped for from the deal were now “more difficult to obtain”, but has urged Iran to fully respect the “extraordinarily important” nuclear deal.

“A point to Europeans: if the first step took time to be done, other steps, especially increasing enrichment... need no more than a day or two,” said Kamalvandi.

KHARTOUM — The Sudanese movement whose protests triggered the ouster of autocrat Omar Al Bashir called Monday on its supporters to begin new night-time rallies to condemn the "massacre" of demonstrators at a Khartoum sit-in.

Thousands of protesters who had camped outside the Khartoum military headquarters for weeks were violently dispersed by gunmen in military fatigues on June 3, leaving dozens dead and hundreds wounded, according to doctors and witnesses.

The sit-in was held for weeks, initially seeking the ouster of Bashir and later to demand that the army generals who toppled him hand power to a civilian administration.

The protest camp was dispersed after talks between the Alliance for Freedom and Change, the umbrella protest movement, and the generals collapsed over installing a civilian rule.

At least 128 people have been killed in the crackdown on demonstrators, the majority the day the sit-in was cleared, according to doctors linked to the protest movement.

The health ministry put the June 3 death toll nationwide at 61.

On Monday the alliance called for new night-time protests as it released its “time-table” for this week.

In a statement, it called for night-time demonstrations in residential areas in Khartoum and other regions starting on Tuesday to “ask for our main demands, which are transitional civilian rule and condemning the massacre of June 3”.

The alliance said protests would also be held on Wednesday and Thursday nights.

“We are calling on our people in villages, towns and all over the country to participate and to print and distribute this time-table,” the alliance said.

During the anti-Bashir campaign, the alliance had managed to mobilise supporters by posting such calls on social media networks, but since the June 3 crackdown the authorities have cut internet services across the country, making it difficult for protest leaders to connect with supporters.

Talks between the protest leaders and generals are, however, expected to resume following mediation led by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, but it is still unclear when they would actually begin.

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories — Gulf state Qatar is set to distribute more than $10 million in aid to thousands of cash-strapped Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, a Qatari official said on Monday.

The money was brought into the Hamas-controlled enclave Sunday evening by the Qatari ambassador to Gaza and is expected to be distributed on Monday or Tuesday, the official said on condition of anonymity.

More than 100,000 families will each receive payments of $100, he added.

Another $15 million would be provided for infrastructure and cash-for-work projects, the official said.

Palestinians lined up outside post offices throughout Gaza to receive their funds, but were ultimately turned away.

Kamal Musbah, 46, told AFP at midday he had been waiting since the early morning outside a post office in Gaza City. 

"We don't know anything yet," he said.

Musbah and around 200 other people erupted with frustration when they were told in the afternoon to return the next day.

Qatar, a rare Hamas ally in the Middle East, has been providing millions in monthly aid to Gaza since November.

The money is part of an informal agreement between Islamists Hamas and Israel that is supposed to ensure calm in exchange for an easing of Israeli crippling blockade of Gaza.

Hamas and Israel have fought three wars since 2008.

Despite the informal agreement, the two sides nearly returned to war in early May as Hamas and its allies fired hundreds of rockets at Israel during a two-day flareup.

Around 80 per cent of Palestinians in impoverished Gaza are reliant on international aid, according to the United Nations.

MOHAMMEDIA, Morocco — Beneath an apartment block that looms over Monica Beach in the western coastal city of Mohammedia, a sole sand dune has escaped the clutches of Morocco's insatiable construction contractors.

Here, like elsewhere across the north African tourist magnet, sand has been stolen to help feed an industry that is growing at full tilt.

A report last month by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) on the global over-exploitation of this resource accuses "sand mafias" of destroying Morocco's beaches and over-urbanising its coastline. 

"The dunes have disappeared along the entire city's coastline," lamented environmental activist Jawad, referring to Mohammedia, on the Atlantic between Rabat and Casablanca.

The 33-year-old environmental activist leads Anpel, a local NGO dedicated to coastal protection.

"At this rate, we'll soon only have rocks" left, chipped in Adnane, a member of the same group. 

More than half the sand consumed each year by Morocco's construction industry — some 10 million cubic metres — is extracted illegally, according to UNEP.

"The looters come in the middle of the night, mainly in the low season," said a local resident in front of his grand home on the Monica seafront.

"But they do it less often now because the area is full of people. In any case, there is nothing more to take," added the affable forty-something.

Sand accounts for four fifths of the makeup of concrete and — after water — is the world's second most consumed resource.

Beaches and rivers are heavily exploited across the planet, legally and illegally, according to UNEP. 

 ‘Official complicity’ 

In Morocco, "sand is often removed from beaches to build hotels, roads and other tourism-related infrastructure", according to UNEP.

Beaches are therefore shrinking, resulting in coastal erosion. 

"Continued construction is likely to lead to... destruction of the main natural attraction for visitors — beaches themselves," the report warned. 

Theft of sand from beaches or coastal dunes in Morocco is punishable by five years in prison. 

Siphoned away by donkey, delivery bike and large trucks, the beaches are being stripped from north to south, along a coastline that runs from the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic. 

"On some beaches, the sand has nearly disappeared" in parts of the north, said an ecological activist in Tangiers. 

"There has been enormous pressure on the beaches of Tangiers because of real estate projects," he said.

To the south, the UNEP report noted, "sand smugglers have transformed a large beach into a rocky landscape" between Safi and Essaouira.

Activist Jawad points to "small scale looting, like here in Mohammedia".

But "then there is the intensive and structured trafficking by organised networks, operating with the complicity of some officials". 

While the sand mafias operate as smugglers, "key personalities — lawmakers or retired soldiers — hand out permits allowing them to over-exploit deposits, without respect for quotas", he added.

 Organised mafia 

A licensed sand dredger spoke of "a very organised mafia that pays no taxes" selling sand that is "neither washed nor desalinated", and falls short of basic building regulations. 

These mafia outfits have "protection at all levels... they pay nothing at all because they do everything in cash", this operator added, on condition of anonymity. 

"A lot of money is laundered through this trade." 

A simple smart phone helps visualise the extent of the disaster. 

Via a Google Earth map, activist Adnane showed a razed coastal forest, where dunes have given way to a lunar landscape, some 200 kilometres south of Casablanca. 

Eyes fixed on the screen, he carefully scrutinised each parcel of land. 

"Here, near Safi, they have taken the sand over [a stretch of] 7 kilometres. It was an area exploited by a retired general, but there is nothing left to take," he alleged. 

Adnane pointed to another area — exploited, he said, by a politician who had a permit for "an area of 2 hectares".

But instead, he "took kilometres" of sand. 

Environmental protection was earmarked as a priority by Morocco, in a grandiose statement after the country hosted the 2016 COP22 international climate conference.

Asked by AFP about measures to fight uncontrolled sand extraction, secretary of state for energy Nezha El Ouafi pointed to "a national coastal protection plan [that] is in the process of being validated".

The plan promises "evaluation mechanisms, with protection programmes and [a] high status", she said. 

Meanwhile, environmental activists are pleading against the "head in the sand approach" over the scale of coastal devastation.

KHARTOUM — Fallen Sudanese leader Omar Al Bashir was Sunday seen in public for the first time since being ousted, as he was driven in an armed convoy to the prosecutor's office.

The former president  was toppled on April 11 after weeks of protests against his reign.

Dressed in a white traditional robe and turban, Bashir rode in a heavily-armed convoy from the notorious Kober prison in the Sudanese capital Khartoum to prosecutors' office to face charges of alleged corruption.

Prosecutor Alaeddin Dafallah told reporters after Bashir left the office that the ousted president had been informed that he was facing charges of "possessing foreign currency, corruption and receiving gifts illegally".

Meanwhile, a top general from the country’s new ruling military council vowed that those who carried out a deadly crackdown on an iconic protest site that left dozens dead earlier this month would face the death penalty.

“We are working hard to take those who did this to the gallows,” Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, deputy chief of the ruling military council said in a speech broadcast live on state television.

“Whoever committed any fault” will be held accountable, Dagalo added.

Thousands of protesters who had camped outside Khartoum’s military headquarters for weeks were violently dispersed by armed men in military fatigues on June 3, according to witnesses.

More than 100 people were killed that day in Khartoum, according to doctors linked to the protest movement, while the health ministry put the nationwide death toll at 61.

‘Regret’ for crackdown 

Protesters and witnesses accuse the feared paramilitary group led by Dagalo, the Rapid Support Forces, of carrying out the assault on demonstrators.

Demonstrators and US officials have called for an independent probe into the crackdown.

On Thursday, military council spokesman Gen. Shamseddine Kabbashi expressed “regret” over the crackdown.

But the council insists it did not order the dispersal, saying it had actually planned to purge an area near the protest camp where people are said to sell drugs.

“The planning of the operation of Colombia [area] was done by military and security authorities,” the council said in a statement late on Saturday.

“We assure you that the council is keen to investigate minute by minute facts through its investigation committee.”

Brig. Abderrahim Badreddine, spokesman for the investigative committee, told state television Saturday initial findings indicate that “officers and soldiers of different ranks and regular forces” had entered the sit-in without any orders from their superiors.

As calls for an independent probe grew, Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit visited Khartoum on Sunday where the military council said he met its chief Gen. Abdel Fattah Al Burhan.

Bashir had swept to power in an Islamist-backed coup in 1989. 

Sudan suffered high rates of corruption during his rule, ranking 172 out of 180 countries in Transparency International’s 2018 Corruption Perceptions Index.

When he imposed a state of emergency on February 22 in a bid to quell protests that erupted in December over the spiralling costs, Bashir issued a decree making it illegal to possess more than $5,000 in foreign currency.

But in April, military council chief Burhan said more than $113 million worth of cash in three currencies had been seized from Bashir’s residence after he was toppled.

A team of police, army and security agents found 7 million euros ($7.8 million), $350,000 and 5 billion Sudanese pounds ($105 million).