In an exclusive interview with CNN, Zarif warned the US was "playing a very, very dangerous game" by boosting its military presence in the region.
Zarif criticized the US for sending the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group and a bomber task force to the Gulf. "Having all these military assets in a small area is in of itself prone to accidents, extreme prudence is required and the United States is playing a very, very dangerous game," Zarif said.
He accused Washington of walking out first on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, the 2015 deal designed to limit Iran's nuclear capabilities in return for the lifting of sanctions "We acted in good faith," Zarif said of the deal, which was signed by the US, Iran, Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia. "We are not willing to talk to people who have broken their promises."
Earlier this month, Trump said Iran should be "calling me up." But on Sunday the President hardened his rhetoric. "If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran," Trump said in a tweet. "Never threaten the United States again!"
Iran would not bow to the threats, Zarif said. "Iran never negotiates with coercion. You cannot threaten any Iranian and expect them to engage. The way to do it is through respect, not through threats."
Zarif's comments came after it emerged that Iran has quadrupled its rate of production of low-enriched uranium, according to the Tasnim news agency which cited an official at the Natanz nuclear facility Monday.
By ramping up production, Iran could soon exceed the 300-kilogram threshold agreed under the 2015 nuclear deal -- though without knowing the details of the country's current stockpile, it's difficult to predict when the threshold will be breached.
Under the deal, Iran can only enrich uranium at 3.67% -- suitable for a power plant and far below the 90% required for weapons grade.
The move puts further strain on what remains of the nuclear deal. Iran earlier this month announced it was partially withdrawing from the accord, following the US decision to walk away.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand — The Australian man accused of fatally shooting dozens of Muslim worshipers at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, has been charged with carrying out a terrorist act, the police said Tuesday.
Mr. Tarrant also faces 40 attempted murder charges.
It is rare for the authorities to invoke New Zealand’s Terrorism Suppression Act to charge a suspect, and a police spokesman said in a statement that the decision to bring forth a charge of engaging in a terrorist act was made after police officials consulted government lawyers.
Officers would not say why they pursed a terrorism charge against Mr. Tarrant when he already faces so many counts of murder. If he is found guilty, both the murder and terrorism charges are punishable by life in prison.
Some legal experts questioned the addition of the terrorism charge, saying it increased the chance that the gunman — a self-proclaimed white supremacist who posted a rambling manifesto online and streamed part of the massacre live on Facebook — would be able to use the trial as a platform for his ideology.
“He will say ‘I’m not a terrorist, I’m a patriot,’” Bill Hodge, a University of Auckland law professor, told Newstalk ZB, adding that the suspect could invoke his views in explaining why he had not committed terrorism.
Local news outlets in New Zealand have agreed on a set of guidelines for reporting on the case if it goes to a trial; they include not reporting on white supremacist views. Mr. Tarrant, who had earlier said he would represent himself in court, now has lawyers acting on his behalf.
Mr. Tarrant has yet to enter a plea on the charges; at his last court appearance, in April, a judge ordered psychiatric reports to ensure his fitness to stand trial, a normal procedure in New Zealand murder cases. He will next appear in court in June.
No one has ever been sentenced to life without the possibility of parole in New Zealand; the longest previous sentence for murder was 30 years without chance of release for a man convicted of a triple murder. A judge has the discretion to remove the possibility of parole if Mr. Tarrant is found guilty.
After the March 15 massacre, New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, pushed through a law banning most semiautomatic weapons, and urged social media companies to take more responsibility for the content on their platforms. New Zealand’s chief censor has made it a crime to possess the gunman’s manifesto or footage of the killings.
Australian citizen Brenton Tarrant, 28, faces an additional 51 charges of murder and 40 of attempted murder for the March attack which was New Zealand's worst mass shooting in modern history, New Zealand police said in a statement Tuesday.
A Turkish citizen died in hospital earlier this month, bringing the total death toll to 51.
Tarrant, who allegedly wrote an anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim manifesto, also faces one charge under the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002, the first time anyone has been prosecuted under the act, a police spokesperson confirmed to CNN.
The charge of committing a terrorist act carries a possible life sentence.
Andrew Geddis, a law professor at New Zealand's Otago University, said that if Tarrant was convicted, the additional terrorism charge wouldn't result in a heavier punishment. Instead, the charge was about labeling the alleged shooter's action as terrorism.
"It's using the legal process to send a message," he said.
Following the shooting on March 15, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said: "It is clear that this can only be described as a terrorist attack."
New Zealand's terrorism law was introduced in 2002 in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
Police referred to the Act in search warrants for 2007 raids in the Te Urewera ranges, a rugged, sparsely populated area of the North Island where police believed Maori terrorists were running military-style training camps as part of a plot to bomb Parliament.
Ultimately none of the people arrested in the raid faced charges under the act as the Solicitor-General found the evidence was insufficient.
AMIENS, France (Reuters) - In Emmanuel Macron’s hometown of Amiens, it’s hard to find enthusiasm for either the French president or the European Union, less than a week before European parliament elections.
A woman walks past official European election posters in a street in Amiens, France, May 16, 2019. Picture taken May 16, 2019. REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol
Blue-collar workers on its outskirts are tempted by protest votes, while a disillusioned, conservative middle-class in its pretty center is contemplating other right-leaning candidates or not even voting at all, spelling bad news for the president in his battle against the far-right.
“We’ve been abandoned,” Antonio Abrunhosa, 49, a former welder, told Reuters on the deserted parking lot of the former Whirlpool tumble-dryer factory.
It was at the plant in the 2017 presidential election campaign that Macron tried to convince workers angered about the plant’s relocation to Poland that far-right leader Marine Le Pen’s protectionist, Eurosceptic views were misguided.
Two years on, only a fraction of the former workers have been taken on by the plant’s new owner, and resentment at both the European Union and Macron is building.
Abrunhosa, a unionist who was born in Portugal, says the European project was a good thing, but that competition with low-paid eastern European workers was killing what’s left of France’s industrial heritage.
“That’s what Europe has become. Even the dumbest of idiots can understand it’s better to hire in Poland than here. It’s going haywire,” said Abrunhosa, whose job application was declined by the new buyer because he was “too qualified”.
With five days to go before French voters elect their representatives for the 751-seat European parliament, the election is becoming both a referendum on Macron’s first two years in power and a vote of confidence in the EU.
A fervent Europhile, Macron is hoping to convince the French he can reform the EU into a bloc that better protects its workers, its borders and the environment, though he has had to dilute his ambition on matters such as euro zone reform.
SHATTERED HOPE
But even in the pretty city center of his hometown, where concerns abound over closing factories on the outskirts and public sector job cuts, the argument is falling flat.
Many middle-class voters feel Macron did not live up to his promise of re-energising the economy and cleaning up politics.
The ‘yellow vest’ crisis, which started as a revolt against high fuel prices and turned into a broader challenge to his presidency, has dented his appeal among center-right voters who hoped he would mark a clear break from years of stagnation.
“We had hope in Macron, like a lot of people here. He was young, dynamic and he wasn’t a career politician,” said Frederic Dupont, a 41-year-old government worker who identifies as right-wing.
“With the yellow vests, his whole program was derailed, he’s more reacting than acting now,” he said, adding that he and his wife Marie-Christine would not bother voting this time.
A few steps from the chocolatier owned by Brigitte Macron’s family, a couple of pensioners said they were still hesitating whether to vote for Macron or another candidate. “We don’t know yet - we’ll decide at the last minute,” said Bernard Lemaire.
Whether these conservative voters, in mid-size cities such as Amiens, Reims or Angers targeted by Macron to expand his centrist base, turn out to vote, abstain, or opt for another candidate, will be pivotal to the vote’s outcome, analysts say.
Few of these will vote for Le Pen’s National Rally party, which can count on a strong core of working-class voters but is struggling to make inroads with wealthier ones. But the candidate for the traditional center-right party, Francois-Xavier Bellamy of The Republicans, is proving tougher competition than expected for Macron’s Republic On the Move.
The candidate Macron picked as his campaign flagbearer, European affairs minister Nathalie Loiseau, whose conservative background was meant to attract the center-right, also made a series of gaffes that have weighed in the polls.
“This issue will decide who comes first. With a strong showing by the Republicans, the Republic On the Move cannot possibly come first,” Bernard Sananes of the Elabe pollster said.
HIGH STAKES
Although mid-term disillusion with government and protest votes are normal in France, the stakes are now high for Macron.
If he comes second to Le Pen’s party, as polls suggest, it will hurt his ambitions both at home and on the European stage.
In France, second place could pressure Macron to reverse his reform agenda, already derailed by the yellow vest crisis.
Slideshow (11 Images)
But it could also cost the French president influence over policymaking affecting some 427 million people and credibility with other EU leaders, just as they negotiate the next top jobs in Brussels, including the European Commission president.
Seeking to drum up support, Macron has not downplayed what is at stake, a gamble that may prove risky.
“I’m not of those who think it’s no problem if the National Rally is once again the big winner of these elections,” he told reporters in Biarritz last week. “The more the French rally behind the candidates of the presidential majority, the more they strengthen France’s ability to influence Europe.”
Reporting by Michel Rose; editing by Richard Lough, William Maclean
On Monday, he laid a wreath at a monument dedicated to the Long March, a fabled retreat during the Chinese civil war which helped cement Mao Zedong's rise to power. Could this be a sign that a similar protracted struggle will be needed in the expanding trade war with the the US?
Perhaps not. But the correct interpretation of another of Xi's actions was much clearer, spelled out for all by state media.
In Jiangxi province, in southeastern China, Xi visited a company which specializes in rare earth minerals. Such elements are vital to the production of high-tech devices including smartphones, lasers, missile systems, superconductors and a whole host of others.
China accounted for 80% of all rare earth minerals imported by the US between 2014 and 2017, according to the United States Geological Survey, and they were among the few items not hit by US tariffs in Washington's most recent trade war escalation.
Xi was accompanied in his visit to Jiangxi by Liu He, the vice premier who has led trade negotiations. And while China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has tried to downplay the symbolism of the pair's visit, analysts and state media were in little doubt what message was being conveyed.
Global Times, a nationalist tabloid, said Xi's visit had "offered huge support to the critical industry that has been widely viewed as a form of leverage for China in the trade war with the US."
In a piece last week, the paper went further, saying US demands for rare earth minerals were "an ace in Beijing's hand."
"It will take many years if the US wants to rebuild its rare-earth industry and increase its domestic supply to reduce its dependence on China's minerals," Global Times said. "That's long enough for China to win a trade war against the US, during which time China's monopoly on the production of rare earths will help Beijing control the lifeblood of the US high-technology sector."
But while rare earths could prove a potential pain point for Washington, they may not be the advantage some in China think.
Phantasmal weapon?
We've been down this road before.
In 2010, following a dispute with Japan over contested islands during which a Chinese fishing boat captain was detained by Tokyo, China cut off rare earth exports to that country. Japan quickly released the captain in what was described as a "humiliating retreat."
China's apparent ability to force concessions through its rare earths monopoly was greeted with widespread alarm, including in Washington, where a Congressional hearing was held to discuss "China's monopoly on rare earths: Implications for US foreign and security policy."
In the decade since, however, experts have questioned whether this alarm was misplaced. China secured the release of its citizen but the disputed Senkaku islands (known as the Diaoyu islands in Chinese) remain in Japanese control.
As Eugene Gholz, who has advised the US government on rare earths, wrote in a report for the Council on Foreign Relations, at no point was China's leverage over the rare earths market greater than in 2010, "but even with such apparently favorable circumstances, market power and political leverage proved fleeting and difficult to exploit."
"The broad lesson is that policymakers should not succumb to pressure to act too quickly or too expansively in the face of raw materials threats. Not all such threats are like that posed by the historical precedent that is typically invoked: the 1973 oil crisis," Gholz wrote, referencing the oil embargo imposed by Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in retaliation for Washington's decision to help supply the Israeli military during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War.
"Caution about overstating raw materials threats is particularly advisable because where foreign policy or intelligence analysts see a potential for dangerous market concentration and economic coercion, some businesses are also likely to see an opportunity to introduce competition and make a profit, ameliorating risks," added Gholz.
Weakness in strength
Despite their name, rare earths are not that rare. They are difficult and often environmentally devastating to extract and refine, but some so-called rare earth elements are actually among the most abundant on Earth.
Unlike oil and other raw materials, the need for a large and constant supply of many rare earth materials is also less important. Many products which use rare earths only require tiny amounts -- they have been described as "the vitamins of modern technology" -- and therefore it will take time for them to be impacted by tariffs. The US also maintains stockpiles of many key rare earth materials, not least those used in the defense industry.
China's monopoly on rare earths is also not what it seems. While it plays a major role in current global trade, this is largely due to relatively lax environmental regulations in the past which made extraction and refinement in China cheaper and easier than other countries. That advantage, if it could be described as such, has shrunk in recent years as Beijing has cracked down on domestic companies and illegal extractors.
China holds around one-third of remaining reserves, roughly equivalent to those of Brazil and Vietnam combined, but is also one of the leading consumers of rare earths in order to fuel its own technology industry. By 2025, China is expected to be net importer of rare earths, a factor that may lead Beijing to hesitate to drive up global prices or set a precedent of using rare earths as a political tool.
Major rare earth reserves have been found in Japan, southeast Asia, Australia, and parts of southern and eastern Africa. Companies have also begun to innovate how they use rare earths: Apple said in a recent environmental responsibility report that it has begun recycling rare earth materials from old iPhones and other products.
His motivation for scaling the Paris landmark was unclear.
Officials closed the tower and began evacuating visitors after the man was first spotted.
Pictures and videos of the individual climbing up the tower, which is 324 meters (1,062 feet) tall, were also circulating online.
"The Eiffel Tower has been closed and is in the process of being evacuated because a person is scaling it," a spokeswoman for the landmark said earlier in the day.
Firefighters are at the scene and have established contact with the man climbing the tower, a spokesman for the fire brigade said.
Irish tourist Claire Murphy, who is on vacation in Paris, told CNN that the lockdown began at 2:15 p.m. (8:15 a.m. ET) and that she was still stuck on the tower's top floor.
Almost 7 million people visit the Eiffel Tower every year. Completed in 1889, it was designed and built by Gustave Eiffel as part of a "Universal Exposition" marking the centenary of the French Revolution. It celebrated its 130th anniversary last week.
This isn't the first time someone has tried to scale the tower. Three people were spotted climbing the landmark in 2015. It was also evacuated twice in 2010 due to bomb threats, once in 2013 over security concerns and was closed for two days following the terror attacks in Paris in 2015.
In 2017, a protective glass wall measuring 65 millimeters (about 2.5 inches) thick and resistant to bullets was erected around the base of the tower to provide increased security.
Visitors began tweeting pictures and videos of the individual climbing up the tower, which is 324 meters (1,062 feet) tall.
"The Eiffel Tower has been closed and is in the process of being evacuated because a person is scaling it," a spokeswoman for the landmark said.
Firefighters are at the scene and have established contact with the man climbing the tower, a spokesman for the fire brigade said.
Irish tourist Claire Murphy, who is on vacation in Paris, told CNN that the lockdown began at 2:15 p.m. local time and that she was still stuck on the tower's top floor.
Almost seven million people visit the Eiffel Tower annually, which was completed in 1889.
