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Media Summary

09/02/2015

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The Times reports a speech by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in which he said that Iran would be prepared to sign a “good” nuclear deal with the P5+1 powers. However, he also called for a “single-state” deal with all the details worked out in advance, which is unlikely to be possible. BBC News online reported that there are “mixed signals” on progress towards a nuclear deal.

The Times cites a report from Iranian media that Iran’s current President, Hassan Rouhani, signed orders placing opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi under house arrest four years ago. The two men remain confined to their homes. Mr Rouhani was elected in 2013 as a reformist candidate by many of the voters who supported Mousavi and Karroubi in the 2009 election.

Almost all UK papers discuss a new report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Antisemitism. The report was commissioned after the increase in antisemitic incidents in the UK following this summer’s conflict in Israel and Gaza. The Telegraph, Express, Independent and Independent i, Metro, Guardian and Daily Star all cover the new report, particularly its recommendation of “online ASBOs” for racist trolls. The Times reported comments by Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby calling for social networking sites to remove antisemitic materials.

The Guardian, Telegraph and Financial Times report on the deaths of 30 Egyptian football fans in a clash at a Cairo stadium. According to the Guardian, the police opened fire on fans queueing to get into the stadium, though reports differ as to whether they were ticketholders or un-ticketed fans trying to force their way in. This is the third mass-casualty incident at a football stadium since the Arab Spring.

The USA has provided $25 million of weapons to Lebanon, the Guardian reports. The weapons are meant to help Lebanon deal with the threat of ISIS expansion.

Ben Lynfield in the Independent i tells a personal anecdote about Israel’s recognition of only Orthodox Jewish marriages.

Israel Hayom leads on Benjamin Netanyahu’s pledge that he will not invite the centre-left Zionist Union to join his coalition if he wins the March election. Haaretz reports that Mr Netanyahu made this commitment after a Jewish Home campaign to woo Likud voters.

The Jerusalem Post leads on comments from US Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif that there will be no additional extension to the Iran nuclear talks. Yediot Ahronot reports that Mr Netanyahu warned against the rush to a “bad and dangerous agreement” at the weekly Cabinet meeting.

Haaretz and the Jerusalem Post report that that Israel’s Supreme Court has ordered the demolition of nine homes in the settlement of Ofra after determining that these homes were built on privately-owned Palestinian land.

Haaretz reports an amusing anecdote at the Munich Security conference, where Israel’s Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz was forced to miss a meeting with Italian ministers after US Vice-President Joe Biden began to speak in the conference plenary. According to the report, Mr Steinitz felt unable to leave the plenary because the media would interpret his departure as a snub to Mr Biden.