Tens of Thousands Rally in London to Support Palestinians

Protesters display a large Palestinian flag in Parliament Square after taking part in a 'March For Palestine' in London on October 28, 2023, to call for a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas. (Photo by HENRY NICHOLLS / AFP)
Protesters display a large Palestinian flag in Parliament Square after taking part in a 'March For Palestine' in London on October 28, 2023, to call for a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas. (Photo by HENRY NICHOLLS / AFP)
TT

Tens of Thousands Rally in London to Support Palestinians

Protesters display a large Palestinian flag in Parliament Square after taking part in a 'March For Palestine' in London on October 28, 2023, to call for a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas. (Photo by HENRY NICHOLLS / AFP)
Protesters display a large Palestinian flag in Parliament Square after taking part in a 'March For Palestine' in London on October 28, 2023, to call for a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas. (Photo by HENRY NICHOLLS / AFP)

Tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters have turned out on London’s streets for a second straight weekend to demand a ceasefire in Gaza.
Fireworks and red and green flares were lit as huge crowds massed Saturday on the banks of the River Thames.
Mohammed Ullah, an engineer, said he was surprised politicians and governments are “not stopping this genocide against the Gaza people.”
“Yes, it was a crime by Hamas. But at the same time, what the Israelis are doing, this is genocide. And these children should not be killed and murdered and they don’t deserve to be treated like this,” Ullah said.
Demonstrations also took place Saturday in Indonesia, Pakistan, France, Italy, Norway and Switzerland.

Hundreds of protesters demanding a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas forced the closure on Friday of Grand Central Terminal, one of New York City's major transit hubs, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said.

Images on social media showed protesters pouring out of the train station and onto 42nd Street in Midtown Manhattan, and a large crowd being detained by law enforcement.
The group Jewish Voice for Peace, which organized the demonstration, posted a video on Instagram showing police in the station escorting a long line of protesters, who were wearing shirts reading "Cease Fire Now" and "Not In Our Name" with their arms secured behind their backs.
"HUNDREDS OF JEWS AND ALLIES ARE GETTING ARRESTED IN WHAT IS LIKELY THE BIGGEST MASS CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE NYC HAS SEEN IN TWO DECADES," the group wrote in the post.



Iran Says Could Abandon Nuclear Weapons But Has Conditions

A sample of the surveillance cameras that monitor the Iranian nuclear facilities presented at a press conference in Vienna. (Reuters)
A sample of the surveillance cameras that monitor the Iranian nuclear facilities presented at a press conference in Vienna. (Reuters)
TT

Iran Says Could Abandon Nuclear Weapons But Has Conditions

A sample of the surveillance cameras that monitor the Iranian nuclear facilities presented at a press conference in Vienna. (Reuters)
A sample of the surveillance cameras that monitor the Iranian nuclear facilities presented at a press conference in Vienna. (Reuters)

Iran on Saturday hinted it would be willing to negotiate on a nuclear agreement with the upcoming administration of US President-elect Donald Trump, but that it has conditions.
Last Thursday, the UN atomic watchdog's 35-nation Board of Governors passed a resolution ordering Iran to urgently improve cooperation with the agency and requesting a “comprehensive” report aimed at pressuring Iran into fresh nuclear talks.
Ali Larijani, advisor to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, said Iran and the US are now in a new position concerning the nuclear file.
In a post on X, he said, “If the current US administration say they are only against Iran’s nuclear weapons, they must accept Iran’s conditions and provide compensation for the damages caused.”

He added, “The US should accept the necessary conditions... so that a new agreement can be reached.”
Larijani stated that Washington withdrew from the JCPOA, thus causing damage to Iran, adding that his country started increasing its production of 60% enriched uranium.
The Iran nuclear accord, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was reached to limit the Iranian nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.
The deal began unraveling in 2018, when Washington, under Trump’s first administration, unilaterally withdrew from the accord and re-imposed a sanction regime of “maximum pressure” on Tehran.
In retaliation, Iran has rapidly ramped up its nuclear activities, including by increasing its stockpiles of enriched uranium to 60% — close to the 90% threshold required to develop a nuclear bomb.
It also began gradually rolling back some of its commitments by increasing its uranium stockpiles and enriching beyond the 3.67% purity -- enough for nuclear power stations -- permitted under the deal.
Since 2021, Tehran has significantly decreased its cooperation with the IAEA by deactivating surveillance devices to monitor the nuclear program and barring UN inspectors.
Most recently, Iran escalated its confrontations with the Agency by announcing it would launch a series of “new and advanced” centrifuges. Its move came in response to a resolution adopted by the United Nations nuclear watchdog that censures Tehran for what the agency called lack of cooperation.
Centrifuges are the machines that enrich uranium transformed into gas by rotating it at very high speed, increasing the proportion of fissile isotope material (U-235).
Shortly after the IAEA passed its resolution last Thursday, Tehran spoke about the “dual role” of IAEA’s chief, Raphael Grossi.
Chairman of the Iranian Parliamentary National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, Ebrahim Azizi said, “The statements made by Grossi in Tehran do not match his actions in Vienna.”
And contrary to the statements of Azizi, who denied his country’s plans to build nuclear weapons, Tehran did not originally want to freeze its uranium stockpile enriched to 60%
According to the IAEA’s definition, around 42 kg of uranium enriched to 60% is the amount at which creating one atomic weapon is theoretically possible. The 60% purity is just a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%.
Spokesperson and deputy head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Behrouz Kamalvandi, said on Friday that IAEA inspectors were scheduled to come immediately after the meeting of the Board of Governors to evaluate Iran’s capacity, “with those capacities remaining for a month without any interruption in enrichment at 60% purity.”
Iran’s news agency, Tasnim, quoted Kamalvandi as saying that “the pressures resulting from the IAEA resolution are counterproductive, meaning that they increase our ability to enrich.”
He added: “Currently, not only have we not stopped enrichment, but we have orders to increase the speed, and we are gradually working on that."