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US spy agencies hired psychics to help with Iran hostage crisis New York Post said William J. Daugherty, a CIA case officer, who worked in Iran in 1979. The psychics were hired by US Army intelligence and worked with other top commanders at the Pentagon during the 444-day standoff, according to the Herald. They also knew about a ...

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US spy agencies hired psychics to help with Iran hostage crisis - New York Post

By Lesley Wroughton | WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON The European Union's foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, said on Friday she was reassured during meetings with President Donald Trump's administration that it was committed to full implementation of the Iran nuclear deal.

In her first visit to Washington since Trump took power, Mogherini came to present the European Union as a valuable friend to the United States with common priorities.

In a nod to Trump's preferred style of diplomacy, she said that the European Union could adopt a more formal "transactional approach" on some issues to appeal to the new administration.

Mogherini, who met this week with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, Trump's advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner and members of Congress, said her main intention in Washington was to discuss the nuclear accord, which granted Iran sanctions relief in return for curbs on its nuclear program.

Her visit suggests concern among European and other countries, including Russia and China, that the Trump administration may withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal.

There have been increasing concerns since the White House put Iran "on notice" for test-firing a ballistic missile. Days later, Washington tightened sanctions against Iran by imposing measures against 25 individuals and entities for the missile test.

"I was reassured by what I heard in the meetings on the intention to stick to the full implementation of the agreement," Mogherini told reporters.

Mogherini said she won assurances from members of the Trump administration that they believe Russia should abide by the terms of the 2015 Minsk agreement to end fighting in eastern Ukraine. Mogherini said she and Tillerson discussed how the Minsk agreement might be fully implemented.

But Mogherini also signaled doubt about Trump's commitment to U.S. policy towards Russia. Republicans and Democrats in Congress have expressed concern that Trump will be too conciliatory towards Moscow, perhaps by granting Russia relief from sanctions on its energy, defense and finance industries.

"We agreed that as long as the Minsk agreements are not fully implemented, sanctions would remain in place," Mogherini said later on Friday at a Washington think tank. "But I don't know if this is going to be the consolidated policy ... I was not in the Oval Office when President Trump called President (Vladimir) Putin."

Mogherini avoided directly criticizing Trump, but said European history showed that blocking the movement of people is doomed to fail.

Trump has vowed to build a wall along the U.S. southern border to block illegal immigration from Mexico. He has also issued an executive order barring people from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the United States for 90 days and all refugees for 120 days, except refugees from Syria, who are banned indefinitely.

"We tend to celebrate when walls come down," Mogherini said. "America has always been great because it has been made up of many people coming from different places."

(Additional reporting by Yehaneh Torbati; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Sandra Maler)

BEIJING/WASHINGTON U.S. President Donald Trump changed tack and agreed to honor the "one China" policy during a phone call with China's leader Xi Jinping, a major diplomatic boost for Beijing which brooks no criticism of its claim to self-ruled Taiwan.

MOSCOW Slovenia would be a good place for a first meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump, Russia's Vladimir Putin said on Friday, but he said the choice of venue would not be Moscow's alone.

MEXICO CITY, Mexico's home-grown populist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has tapped into wide discontent with the ruling party and resentment toward Donald Trump to make a bid for the center ground, raising his chances of winning the presidency next year.

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EU's Mogherini: US says will fully implement Iran nuclear deal - Reuters

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) Iran is displaying hundreds of ancient and Persian artifacts, some dating back as far as 3,500 years and all of them recently brought back home from museums and collections in Western countries.

Mohammad Hassan Talebian, deputy head of the Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization of Iran, told The Associated Press that all of the items on display were repatriated over the past two and a half years from England, Belgium, Italy and the United States.

He credits the improved relations between Tehran and the West in the wake of the landmark 2015 nuclear deal for helping make the process possible.

"The atmosphere after the nuclear deal was very important," Talebian said. "It made it easy to bring back all these objects home."

The special exhibit, which opened Monday in Tehran's National Museum, displays 558 different artifacts.

They include hunting tools and stitching needles from the Iron Age and a pair of necklaces dating back more than 2,000 years to the Achaemenid Empire founded by Cyrus the Great the high point of the Persian rule.

Among the oldest items on display are dozens of clay bowls, jugs and engraved coin coins dating back 3,500 years and formerly housed in the University of Chicago's famed Oriental Institute.

Iran and the U.S. have not had diplomatic relations since 1979, when Iranian students stormed the American Embassy and took 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.

The 2015 deal between Tehran and world powers put limits on Iran's nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of international economic sanctions.

However, the brief thaw in Iranian-American relations may be short-lived. New U.S. president Donald Trump has heavily criticized the deal and has already engaged in a war of words with Iran's leadership and put Tehran "on notice" over a recent ballistic missile test.

The items from the University of Chicago had previously been displayed on their own in May 2016, but this is a first time that all of the items repatriated from these four countries have been displayed together.

Myriam Rahgoshay, an arts enthusiast, said that the return of these and thousands of other historic artifacts still overseas is a key boost to Iranian national identity.

"This is source of great pride and pleasure, because our identity, which is subject to disintegration, is becoming whole again," she said.

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Iran displays ancient Persian artifacts returned from the US - MyAJC

Miami Herald

CIA files reveal how US used psychics to spy on Iran Miami Herald The dozens of American diplomats taken hostage by revolutionary students who seized the U.S. embassy in Iran in 1979 may have had some secret company during their 15-month captivity: U.S. intelligence agencies had a squad of military-trained psychics ... and more »

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CIA files reveal how US used psychics to spy on Iran - Miami Herald

Michael Fallon says the unit could be closed down as early as this summer. Photograph: Katia Christodoulou/EPA

The unit investigating claims of abuse by British forces in Iraq is to close down, the government has announced, saying it will also greatly reduce similar inquiries connected to Afghanistan and Northern Ireland.

Ministers said the decision was made after misconduct findings against a solicitor involved in many of the claims. However, rights groups said it was important abuse was not brushed under the carpet.

The Iraq historic allegations team (Ihat) will close as early as this summer, the defence secretary, Michael Fallon, said on Friday. Any remaining investigations expected to soon fall to about 20 from a peak of 3,000 will be investigated by the Royal Navy police.

They would be expected to complete any final investigations by the summer of 2018, Fallon added.

He said the decision was made after the campaigning human rights lawyer Phil Shiner was struck off this month over multiple professional misconduct charges, including dishonesty and lack of integrity.

Shiner had led legal claims against British troops for their treatment of Iraqi detainees after the 2003 invasion. His company, Public Interest Lawyers (Pil), was involved in passing on almost two-thirds of the 3,392 allegations received by Ihat.

Shiner had pursued the case of Baha Mousa, a Basra hotel worker whose death after 36 hours in British military custody prompted an inquiry which condemned the treatment of detainees.

However, other allegations turned out to be untrue. In 2014 the long-running al-Sweady inquiry rejected claims that British soldiers murdered insurgents and mutilated their bodies. Shiner later admitted paying an Iraqi middleman to find claimants, in breach of professional standards.

His downfall was the beginning of the end for Ihat, said Fallon. This will be a relief for our soldiers who have had allegations hanging over them for too long. Now we are taking action to stop such abuse of our legal system from happening again.

As part of this process, the Royal Military police is to discontinue about 90% of 675 allegations of abuse from Afghanistan, a Ministry of Defence statement said.

For historical investigations in Northern Ireland, the government will ensure veterans and former police officers are not dragged through the courts in disproportionate numbers compared with terrorists, the statement added.

General Sir Nicholas Carter, chief of the general staff, said credible abuse claims should be investigated. However, a significant number of claims made against our soldiers have not been credible, he added.

A winding down of abuse inquiries has been called for by some Conservative MPs and newspapers. But Amnesty International said the failings of Shiner and his firm should not mean all abuse claims were dropped.

As we know from Baha Mousas torture and killing as well as the fatal forcing into a canal of a 15-year-old boy in Basra, UK forces in Iraq did some terrible things to people in their custody, said Allan Hogarth, Amnestys UKs head of policy.

These werent isolated cases numerous other cases involving alleged abuses of Iraqi detainees by UK military personnel have been settled out of court by the MoD.

Weve always said its vitally important the UK sets an example internationally by making sure any credible allegations of human rights violations are both independently and thoroughly investigated.

The UKs military reputation is on the line any credible allegations of abuses by UK forces in Iraq and Afghanistan should be independently investigated, which must mean by a body that is separate from the military itself.

The government has previously committed to ending what it calls an industry of vexatious claims against soldiers by allowing the military to opt out of the European convention on human rights (ECHR) during future conflicts.

While derogating from the ECHR in times of war or public emergency is permitted under the rules of the Council of Europe, which oversees the treaty, the plan has also been condemned by rights groups.

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Iraq war claims unit to be shut down, says UK defence secretary - The Guardian