Iran's supreme leader has said his country will not be bullied by the United States and will react strongly to any "wrong move" by Washington on Tehran's nuclear deal.
It comes after US president Donald Trump said on Thursday that Iran was violating "the spirit" of the 2015 deal under which it gained sanctions relief in return for curbing its nuclear programme.
Iranian state television quoted Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as saying on Sunday that Tehran was standing firm "and any wrong move by the domineering regime regarding the [nuclear accord] will face the reaction of the Islamic Republic".
Washington extended some sanctions relief for Iran on Thursday under the nuclear deal with world powers, but said it had yet to decide whether to maintain the agreement.
Mr Trump must make a decision by mid-October on whether to certify that Iran is complying with the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). If he does not, Congress has 60 days to decide whether to reimpose sanctions.
Before then, however, US secretary of state Rex Tillerson will sit down at the same table as his Iranian counterpart, Mohammed Javad Zarif, on Wednesday in New York to review implementation of the nuclear deal.
The meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations general assembly will be closely watched for any signs that Mr Tillerson remains committed to the deal. Chaired by Federica Mogherini, the European Union's foreign policy chief, it will also include officials from the other signatories of the nuclear deal - Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany.
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Read more:
Editorial: US-Iran meeting at UN General Assembly will be one to watch
Comment: The US must find a third war over Iran, one that is neither reticent nor reckless
Trump weighing more aggressive Iran strategy in Gulf
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"Today, despite all the commitments and discussions in the negotiations, America's attitude towards these negotiations and their outcome is completely unjust and amounts to bullying," Ayatollah Khamenei said in a speech to Iranian police academy graduates on Sunday.
"The Americans should know … there will be no retreat by the Islamic Republic."
The foreign ministry in Tehran condemned as "continued Iranophobia" Washington's move on Thursday to impose sanctions on 11 individuals and firms, including two based in Ukraine, state news agency Irna reported.
The US treasury accused the 11 of supporting Iran's ballistic missile programme or its Revolutionary Guards, or engaging in cyber attacks against the US financial system.
US secretary of state Rex Tillerson said on Sunday he believed Iran was in technical compliance with the nuclear deal but had stepped up destabilising activities in Yemen and Syria and continued to have an active ballistic missile programme.
"None of that, I believe, is consistent with that preamble commitment that was made by everyone" in the nuclear deal, he said.
Iran said last month it could abandon the nuclear agreement "within hours" if the US imposed any new penalties, after Washington ordered unilateral sanctions over Tehran's ballistic missile tests.
Iranian president Hassan Rouhani, speaking on Sunday before leaving to attend a UN General Assembly meeting in New York, said Washington should join the countries that continued to support the nuclear deal, which he compared to a dinner party.
"They can choose the right path and also enter the room where the food is served. We would not have a problem with that," Irna quoted Mr Rouhani as saying.
Attacks on Egypt’s long rooted Copts
Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.
The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.
Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.
More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.
The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.
Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:
November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.
May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.
April 2017: Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.
February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.
December 2016: A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.
July 2016: Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.
May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.
New Year's Eve 2011: A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.
THE BIO
Occupation: Specialised chief medical laboratory technologist
Age: 78
Favourite destination: Always Al Ain “Dar Al Zain”
Hobbies: his work - “ the thing which I am most passionate for and which occupied all my time in the morning and evening from 1963 to 2019”
Other hobbies: football
Favorite football club: Al Ain Sports Club
Tonight's Chat on The National
Tonight's Chat is a series of online conversations on The National. The series features a diverse range of celebrities, politicians and business leaders from around the Arab world.
Tonight’s Chat host Ricardo Karam is a renowned author and broadcaster who has previously interviewed Bill Gates, Carlos Ghosn, Andre Agassi and the late Zaha Hadid, among others.
Intellectually curious and thought-provoking, Tonight’s Chat moves the conversation forward.
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Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989
Director: Goran Hugo Olsson
Rating: 5/5
Hidden killer
Sepsis arises when the body tries to fight an infection but damages its own tissue and organs in the process.
The World Health Organisation estimates it affects about 30 million people each year and that about six million die.
Of those about three million are newborns and 1.2 are young children.
Patients with septic shock must often have limbs amputated if clots in their limbs prevent blood flow, causing the limbs to die.
Campaigners say the condition is often diagnosed far too late by medical professionals and that many patients wait too long to seek treatment, confusing the symptoms with flu.
Singham Again
Director: Rohit Shetty
Stars: Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Ranveer Singh, Akshay Kumar, Tiger Shroff, Deepika Padukone
Rating: 3/5
The specs
Engine: Dual 180kW and 300kW front and rear motors
Power: 480kW
Torque: 850Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh359,900 ($98,000)
On sale: Now
How to protect yourself when air quality drops
Install an air filter in your home.
Close your windows and turn on the AC.
Shower or bath after being outside.
Wear a face mask.
Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.
If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.
Thank You for Banking with Us
Director: Laila Abbas
Starring: Yasmine Al Massri, Clara Khoury, Kamel El Basha, Ashraf Barhoum
Rating: 4/5
Company%20Profile
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Tree of Hell
Starring: Raed Zeno, Hadi Awada, Dr Mohammad Abdalla
Director: Raed Zeno
Rating: 4/5
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: HyperSpace
Started: 2020
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Entertainment
Number of staff: 210
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
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