Iran’s top leader warns ‘thugs’ as protests reach 100 cities
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran’s supreme leader on Sunday cautiously backed the government’s decision to raise gasoline prices by 50 percent after days of widespread protests, calling those who attacked public property during demonstrations “thugs” and signaling that a potential crackdown loomed.
The government shut down internet access across the nation of 80 million people to staunch demonstrations that took place in a reported 100 cities and towns. That made it increasingly difficult to gauge whether unrest continued. Images published by state and semiofficial media showed the scale of the damage in images of burned gas stations and banks, torched vehicles and roadways littered with debris.
Since the price hike, demonstrators have abandoned cars along major highways and joined mass protests in the capital, Tehran, and elsewhere. Some protests turned violent, with demonstrators setting fires as gunfire rang out.
It remains to be seen how many people were arrested, injured or killed. Videos from the protests have shown people gravely wounded.
Iranian authorities on Sunday raised the official death toll in the violence to at least three. Attackers targeting a police station in the western city of Kermanshah on Saturday killed an officer, the state-run IRNA news agency reported Sunday. A lawmaker said another person was killed in a suburb of Tehran. Earlier, one man was reported killed Friday in Sirjan, a city some 500 miles southeast of Tehran.
In an address aired Sunday by state television, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said “some lost their lives and some places were destroyed,” without elaborating. He called the protesters “thugs” who had been pushed into violence by counterrevolutionaries and foreign enemies of Iran.
Khamenei specifically named those aligned with the family of Iran’s late shah, ousted 40 years ago, and an exile group called the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq. The MEK calls for the overthrow of Iran’s government and enjoys the support of President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.
“Setting a bank on fire is not an act done by the people. This is what thugs do,” Khamenei said.
The supreme leader carefully backed the decision of Iran’s relatively moderate President Hassan Rouhani and others to raise gasoline prices. While Khamenei dictates the country’s nuclear policy amid tensions with the U.S. over its unraveling 2015 accord with world powers, he made a point to say he wasn’t an “expert” on the gasoline subsidies.
In a statement issued Sunday, the Trump administration condemned “the lethal force and severe communications restrictions used against demonstrators.”
“Tehran has fanatically pursued nuclear weapons and missile programs, and supported terrorism, turning a proud nation into another cautionary tale of what happens when a ruling class abandons its people and embarks on a crusade for personal power and riches,” the White House statement said.
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In a rare interview with BBC Newsnight that was broadcast late Saturday, Andrew categorically denied having sex with the woman, Virginia Roberts Giuffre.
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Britain’s newspapers and social media commentators criticized him for defending his friendship with Epstein and for failing to show empathy for the convicted sex-offender’s victims.
“I expected a train wreck,’’ said Charlie Proctor, editor of the Royal Central website, which covers the British monarchy. “That was a plane crashing into an oil tanker, causing a tsunami, triggering a nuclear explosion-level bad.”
Giuffre has said Epstein forced her to have sex with Andrew in 2001, when she was 17. She says Epstein flew her around the world on private planes to have sex with powerful men, and that she had sexual encounters with Andrew in London, New York and in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The BBC’s Emily Maitlis grilled Andrew on the details of an alleged encounter in March of that year, when Giuffre says she dined with the prince in London, danced with him at the Tramp nightclub, then had sex with him at a house in the tony London neighborhood of Belgravia.
“I can absolutely categorically tell you it never happened,” Andrew said.
The 59-year-old prince said he had “no recollection” of ever meeting Giuffre, adding that there are “a number of things that are wrong” with her account. He also suggested that a picture showing him with his arm around the teenage Giuffre may have been faked.
There was no immediate comment from Giuffre’s representative about the prince’s interview.
BATON ROUGE, La. — Deep in the heart of the conservative South, Louisiana’s voters reelected Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards to a second term, shocking Republicans who had hoped to reclaim the seat on the strength of President Donald Trump’s popularity.
With his focus on bipartisan, state-specific issues, the moderate Edwards cobbled together enough cross-party support Saturday to defeat Republican businessman Eddie Rispone, getting about 51 percent of the vote.
Trump fought to return the seat to the GOP, but his intense interest in the race not only motivated conservative Republicans, but also powered a surge in anti-Trump and black voter turnout that helped boost Edwards over the finish line.