The Financial Times published an article devoted to additional sanctions against Russia, which may be imposed by the EU and the US in response to Russia's interference in the Ukrainian crisis.
According to the author of the article, Thomas Graham, the policy aimed at containing Russia will not be effective. Russia is the world's sixth-largest economy and one of the major producers of energy sources, so it cannot be isolated, the author believes.
Moreover, Graham writes that such a containment policy is not in the interests of the US. Mutual cooperation in the spheres of nuclear non-proliferation and the struggle against international terrorism is crucial for the United States, the author believes.
Instead the US should support its European allies by improving their military capacities, holding joint war games and patrolling the air borders of such countries as Poland and the Baltic states.
Such military cooperation will in fact guarantee the security of Europe's Nato member states, while sanctions only damage relations with Russia without any positive outcome, Graham writes.
The Jerusalem Post published an article by Benjamin Weinthal devoted to the current political situation in Iran.
"The world powers’ negotiation with Tehran over its nuclear military work has overshadowed the Islamic Republic’s deteriorating human rights situation and outbreaks of social protest. Just last week, Iranian men and women posted pictures on social media of themselves with shaved heads to promote solidarity with beaten political prisoners in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison. The prison authorities conducted, according to the Iranian diaspora and reform websites in the country, a massive assault on Evin’s Ward 350 – the section used to incarcerate political dissidents," the article begins.
More than 30 prisoners were injured and at least four inmates were taken to a hospital outside the jail because they were bleeding or had sustained fractures, the author of the article informs.
In response to the violence, Iranians launched a shaved head protest, the author informs. “Activists both inside and outside the country are posting their photos on a Facebook page titled ‘With the Political Prisoners of Evin’s Section 350,’” he cites Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty as saying on Wednesday.
"The prison brutality appears to be a great source of embarrassment to Iran’s regime. Gholam Hossein Esmaili, who oversaw the country’s prison network and flatly rejected the brutality allegations, was promoted on Wednesday to run Tehran Province’s courts. Iran said his promotion was long planned. It is yet another bizarre manifestation of a legal and prison system that promotes an official engulfed in a human rights scandal. Iran’s opaque legal system has faced longstanding criticism, to put it mildly, for its woefully inadequate due process guarantees," the article reads.
"Exposes of Iran’s human rights violations remain an Achilles’ heel for Rouhani. After all, he promised greater openness and his regime reacts in a hypersensitive way to criticism. Take the example of the European Parliament’s resolution in late March urging Iran’s leaders to improve its human rights situation," Weinthal writes.
