Shorter Question Everything

Israel

• As Israel keeps threatening the regional countries with war, Egyptian maritime sources say the Israeli navy has deployed two missile ships to the Persian Gulf.
  Citing the sources, Yediot Ahronot reported Saturday that two Israeli missile ships passed through the Suez Canal en rout to the Red Sea on Thursday morning.

• The United Nations is likely to refer the findings of the Goldstone report to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, diplomatic sources in New York said on Saturday.

Iran

• Iran has arrested seven people linked to a Farsi-language radio station funded in part by the United States, accusing them of fomenting unrest.
  According to the Associated Press, the Official Iranian News Agency and state radio both cited a statement by the Iranian Intelligence Ministry which claimed the seven individuals were trained outside of Iran in sabotage, spreading rumors and overthrowing a government by soft means.
  The suspects were not identified and it is unclear exactly when they were arrested.

• Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Monday that Iran is set to deliver a “punch” that will stun world powers during this week’s 31st anniversary of the Islamic revolution.
  “The Iranian nation, with its unity and God’s grace, will punch the arrogance (Western powers) on the 22nd of Bahman (February 11) in a way that will leave them stunned,” Khamenei, who is also Iran’s commander-in-chief, told a gathering of air force personnel.
  The country’s top cleric was marking the occasion when Iran’s air force gave its support to revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a key event which led to the toppling of the US-backed shah on February 11, 1979.

UK: Chilcot Inquiry

• Reappeared before Britain’s inquiry into the Iraq war, former foreign secretary, Jack Straw, has rejected claims that he ignored advice that the UK did not have enough legal backing to invade Iraq in 2003.
  Straw, the current Justice Secretary, was summoned to the inquiry on Monday after his senior legal adviser at the time of the Iraq war, Sir Michael Wood, told the inquiry Straw had ignored his warnings.
  Wood said he had stressed that the war was not legal and would amount to a “crime of aggression.”
  Straw insisted Monday that he had given it “the serious attention it deserved,” adding that he had had “reasonable grounds for taking a contrary view.”
  Straw defended his position by arguing that Wood’s comments that there had been “no doubt” in anybody’s mind about the illegality of war was wrong.

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