Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said that the Japanese government intends to support companies cooperating with Iran, including via the conclusion of the bilateral investment agreement.

Japan seeks to develop cooperation with Iran in line with the removal of economic sanctions introduced by the UN Security Council, the country's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Monday.

"Measures will be taken quickly on the basis of UN Security Council decisions, the relevant departments are working on the issue."

Turkish prosecutors have launched an investigation against leader of the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), Kemal Kilicdaroglu, after he called President Recep Tayyip Erdogan a "tinpot dictator." The chief prosecutor's office in Ankara launched the probe against Kilicdaroglu on charges of "openly insulting the president," the official Anatolia news agency reported on Monday.

Kilicdaroglu, who was speaking out against the president at a CHP congress over the weekend, slammed Erdogan over the detention of Turkish academics last week for filling a petition in condemnation of Ankara's military crackdown in the Kurdish-dominated southeast.

"Academics who express their opinion are being detained, one by one, because of a tinpot dictator," Kilicdaroglu had told the meeting, saying in an address to Erdogan, "How dare you send police to these peoples' doors and have them detained. Tell us, tinpot dictator, what do honor and pride mean to you? Either you maintain your impartiality and get respect or I will remind you every day what honor and pride mean," he added.

Erdogan, himself, has separately filed a civil lawsuit against Kilicdaroglu, seeking 100,000 Turkish Liras ($33,300) in compensation for "slander" from the CHP leader, the private NTV channel said. Erdogan had in June last year filed another lawsuit against Kilicdaroglu for "slander" after the opposition leader said the president's vast palace in Ankara had gold-plated toilet seats.

Concerns have mounted in recent months over freedom of expression in Turkey, in particular over the spiraling numbers of Turks being taken to court on charges of insulting Erdogan, who is accused by his opponents of promoting authoritarianism.

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?—Langston Hughes, "Harlem"

Martin Luther King Jr. could tell you what happens to dreams deferred. They explode.

As I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, more than 50 years after King was assassinated, his dream of a world without racism, militarism and materialism remains a distant dream.

Indeed, the reality we must contend with is far different from King's dream for the future: America has become a ticking time bomb of racial unrest and injustice, police militarization, surveillance, government corruption and ineptitude, the blowblack from a battlefield mindset and endless wars abroad, and a growing economic inequality between the haves and have nots.

King's own legacy has suffered in the process.

The image of the hard-talking, charismatic leader, voice of authority, and militant, nonviolent activist minister/peace warrior who staged sit-ins, boycotts and marches and lived through police attack dogs, water cannons and jail cells has been so watered down that younger generations recognize his face but know very little about his message.

Rubbing salt in the wound, while those claiming to honor King's legacy pay lip service to his life and the causes for which he died, they have done little to combat the evils about which King spoke and opposed so passionately: injustice, war, racism and economic inequality.

For instance, President Obama speaks frequently of King, but what has he done to bring about peace or combat the racial injustices that continue to be meted out to young black Americans by the police state?

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump plans to "honor" Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy by speaking at a convocation at Liberty University, but what has he done to combat economic injustice?

Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton will pay tribute to King's legacy by taking part in Columbia, South Carolina's King Day at the Dome event, but has she done anything to dispel her track record's impression that "machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are still considered more important than people"?

Unlike the politicians of our present day, King was a clear moral voice that cut through the fog of distortion. He spoke like a prophet and commanded that you listen. King dared to speak truth to the establishment and called for an end to oppression and racism. He raised his voice against the Vietnam War and challenged the military-industrial complex. And King didn't just threaten boycotts and sit-ins for the sake of photo ops and media headlines. Rather, he carefully planned and staged them to great effect.

The following key principles formed the backbone of Rev. King's life and work. King spoke of them incessantly, in every sermon he preached, every speech he delivered and every article he wrote. They are the lessons we failed to learn and, in failing to do so, we have set ourselves up for a future in which a militarized surveillance state is poised to eradicate freedom.

An airstrike launched by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen killed at least 26 people and injured around 15 others after hitting a police building in Sanaa overnight, according to security sources. Some 30 people are believed to be trapped underneath rubble.

Security forces arrived at the site of the airstrike, which was launched shortly after midnight on Sunday, using heavy equipment to search for bodies and survivors, AP reported.

Officials initially announced that 20 people were killed, but later said that six additional bodies were unearthed from underneath debris. Those killed and wounded were policemen and Houthi rebels, the sources said.

In addition to the reported deaths and injuries, police vehicles parked in the building's courtyard were destroyed and nearby homes suffered some damage, according to the sources.

Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi says the Islamic Republic's cooperation with the UN nuclear agency has entered a new phase. Salehi made the remarks in a joint press conference with Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Yukiya Amano, in Tehran on Monday as part of his first visit after the beginning of the implementation of a landmark nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries, dubbed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Salehi said Amano's visit sends 'many messages.' "Through [Amano's] visit [to Tehran], we will witness the opening of a new chapter in cooperation between Iran and the agency. We want to make up for the 10-12-year lost opportunities in relations with the agency," Salehi said. He added that the IAEA chief is visiting Tehran at a time when "there is no longer such an issue as the fabricated nuclear dossier of the Islamic Republic of Iran." The AEOI head noted that during his talks with Amano, the sides had worked on a roadmap for fresh cooperation after the JCPOA implementation.

Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan says the Islamic Republic will unveil new domestically-designed and manufactured missiles in the near future in defiance of new US sanctions against the country over its missile program.

"[Any] attempt to impose new sanctions [against Iran] under irrelevant pretexts is indicative of the continued US hostile policy and acrimony toward the Iranian nation, and a futile effort to undermine Iran's defense might," Dehqan said on Monday. He added that the Islamic Republic of Iran's missile industry is fully domestically-manufactured and anchored in science and expertise of the country's defense sector. "Hence, sanctions against [certain] people and companies will have no impact on the development of the industry, and we will actually demonstrate [their ineffectiveness] by displaying new missiles," he added.

Earlier on Monday, Iran's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the country will continue to enhance its missile capabilities in defiance of the "destructive" US sanctions over the Islamic Republic's missile program."We will respond to such propaganda stunts and disruptive measures by more robustly pursuing our lawful missile program and promoting our defense capabilities and national security," the statement added. It further noted that Iran's missiles serve defensive and deterrent purposes and have not been designed to carry nuclear warheads. "The Iranian missile program has by no means been designed to carry nuclear weapons and is not in contravention of any international principle," the statement pointed out.

On October 11, Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) successfully test-fired its first guided ballistic missile dubbed Emad. Washington slammed the test, claiming the projectile is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. It vowed to respond with more sanctions.

Last September we published an outline of the analysis produced by Russian investigator Vladimir Shalak on the hidden aspects of a Twitter-based campaign to lure Middle Eastern refugees to Germany. Having examined 19,000 refugee-related original tweets, Shalak claimed that the great exodus to continental Europe was artificially arranged by non-European actors. The latest wave of migrant-related violence in a number of European cities on New Year's Eve sparked another intense anti-Merkel campaign in German and European social media, and yielded additional data for Shalak's in-depth research.

Below we will share its preliminary results. But before we do, let's have a glance at two pictures demonstrating the drastic change in just 4 months of German public opinion about the refugees:

Iran has accused the US of hypocrisy and said that new sanctions imposed by the US are illegal, as arms sold by Washington are being used against people in Palestine and Yemen, the Iranian Foreign Ministry has stated.

A spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Hossein Jaberi Ansari, says that Tehran will continue to enhance its missile capabilities, despite Washington introducing fresh sanctions, following a missile test by Iran in October, Press TV reports.

"The US sanctions against Iran's ballistic missile program ... have no legal or moral legitimacy," Reuters cited Ansari as saying in a televised news conference.

"America sells tens of billions of dollars of weaponry each year to countries in the region," Ansari said. "These weapons are used in war crimes against Palestinian, Lebanese and most recently Yemeni citizens."

Iran has currently met its obligations to the IAEA under the 2015 US-­led agreement with the UN and now IT is the time for Israel to submit its nuclear program to UNSC inspection or face international sanctions. The imperative is for:

1. The Negev Nuclear Research Center at Dimona to be fully opened to inspection by the IAEA and its estimated undeclared stockpile of up to 400 nuclear warheads be put under UN supervision for eventual destruction other than those required for legitimate defence purposes, estimated not to exceed five warheads (5) in total.

Growing inequality means that the world's wealthiest 62 people own as much as the poorest half of the planet's population - some 3.6 billion people - according to a new report from Oxfam.


The richest 1% - around 73 million out of the world's 7.3 billion people - now own as much as everyone else put together, said the report, published ahead of the annual World Economic Forum of global political and business leaders in Swiss ski resort Davos.

Oxfam said urgent action was needed to tackle the "inequality crisis" and called on world leaders - including Prime Minister David Cameron - to take action to crack down on tax-dodging by the rich, which denies governments in the developing world billions of pounds a year which could be used on health, education and anti-poverty measures.