Oscar-winning filmmaker Roman Polanski has been arrested in Switzerland on a decades-old arrest warrant stemming from a sex charge in California, Swiss police said Sunday.
Polanski, 76, was taken into custody trying to enter Switzerland on Saturday, Zurich police said. A spokesman for the Swiss Justice Ministry said Polanski was arrested upon arrival at the airport.
He has lived in France for decades to avoid being arrested if he enters the United States and declined to appear in person to collect his Academy Award for Best Director for “The Pianist” in 2003.
The director pleaded guilty in 1977 to a single count of having unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, acknowledging he had sex with a 13-year-old girl. But he fled the United States before he could be sentenced, and U.S. authorities have had a warrant for his arrest since 1978.
Iran claims its nuclear enrichment program is intended for peaceful purposes, but the international community accuses it of continuing to try to develop nuclear weapons capability. Before the new letter, it had acknowledged only a uranium enrichment plant in Natanz, which nuclear inspectors visited recently.
The United Nations Security Council has implemented sanctions against Iran for refusing to halt enrichment.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did not mention the plant during his visit to New York this week for U.N. General Assembly sessions. He reiterated earlier claims that Iran has fully cooperated with nuclear inspectors.
Obama has already said that “serious sanctions” are a possibility if Iran fails to adequately address the nuclear issue.
Middle East analyst Meir Javendafar said it was “very significant” that Iran had come clean.
“When pressured the regime does show some sign of flexibility,” said Javendafar, author of the book “The Nuclear Sphinx of Tehran: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the State of Iran.” He said ultimately, Iran is fearful of international isolation.
Iran’s admission comes ahead of next week’s rare meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, between Iran and the five permanent United Nations Security Council members, plus Germany.
Iran’s revelation of a new nuclear site could actually “strengthen their hand” as it heads into next week’s talks, according to Paul Ingram, an analyst who studies Iran and nuclear non-proliferation.
“It will be seen as an indication that they are willing to play by the rules,” said Ingram, the executive director of the British American Security Information Council in London, England.
He said the timing of Iran’s revelation — in between the U.N. General Assembly sessions and the October 1 meeting — is deliberate on Iran’s part.
“This will make it more difficult to persuade them to abandon enrichment,” Ingram said.
U.S. and French intelligence officials have known about the facility for several months, the source said. When Iran discovered that Western nations had knowledge of the facility, it sent the letter to the
“I can confirm that on 21 September, Iran informed the IAEA in a letter that a new pilot fuel enrichment plant is under construction in the country,” agency spokesman Marc Vidricaire said.
Iran’s letter stated that it would provide “further complementary information … in an appropriate and due time,” Marc Vidricaire said. In response, the IAEA has requested that Iran provide specific information and access to the nuclear facility as soon as possible.
Several diplomatic sources told CNN they were aware of the letter.
The second nuclear facility, on a military base near the Shia Muslim holy city of Qom, is thought to be capable of housing 3,000 centrifuges, not enough to produce nuclear fuel to power a reactor, but sufficient to manufacture bomb-making material, a U.S. diplomatic source who read the letter told CNN.
He called on Iran to “take concrete steps” to demonstrate it will comply with its international obligations to ensure its nuclear program is for civilian use and not a covert weapons program.
Brown said international leaders were prepared to impose “further and more stringent” sanctions against Tehran.
The “level of deception by the Iranian government” will “shock and anger the whole international community … and harden our resolve,” he said. There is “no choice but to draw a line in the sand.”
Iran “is taking the international community on a dangerous path,” Sarkozy said.
Iran has acknowledged the existence of a second uranium enrichment plant in a letter sent to the International Atomic Energy Agency, a spokesman for the nuclear watchdog agency said Friday.
The United States, France and Britain have presented “detailed evidence” to the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog that “Iran has been building a covert uranium enrichment facility,” President Obama said Friday.
Obama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy — all in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for a G-20 economic summit — accused Iran of intentionally hiding its nuclear facilities from the International Atomic Energy Agency.
They threatened a stiff response if Iran fails to conform to international obligations regarding nuclear development.
Iran’s newly unveiled uranium enrichment facility “is inconsistent with a peaceful (nuclear) program,” Obama said. “Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follow.”
He highlighted the role of the CPC in the great changes of New China in the past 60 years, stressing, “the Chinese nation will definitely play an even more splendid movement in the process of its great rejuvenation.”
Jia stressed that it is a common aspiration of the whole Chinese to promote a peaceful development of the cross-strait relations and finally achieve a complete unification of the nation.
“Practice shows that Chinese living on the sides of the strait have the abilities and wisdom to hold the future of the cross-strait relations in their own hands,” the top political advisor said.
He urged the two sides to join hands in promoting a peaceful development of the cross-strait relations and opening up a beautiful future for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
In his speech, Jia called for further studying and implementing the six-point instruction on cross-strait ties made by President Hu Jintao last December, when he spoke in memory of the 30th anniversary of the Letter to Taiwan Compatriots by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress.
BEIJING, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) — The Eight Conference of the Board of Directors of the Chinese Council for the Promotion of Peaceful National Reunification (CCPPNR) came to an end Thursday, re-electing senior leader Jia Qinglin the council’s chairman.
Jia is a member of the Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee Political Bureau, and chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).
He attended the closing session and congratulated its success on behalf of the CPC Central Committee, saying facts indicate that the council has become a major link between the mainland and overseas Chinese, and a bridge between Chinese compatriots living on the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.
Taliban insurgents fighting Afghan and the NATO-led forces in Afghanistan attacked Italian forces and injured two soldiers in western Herat province on Thursday, a local official said.
“The Taliban rebels opened fire on Italian troops in Barmakan village of Shindand district at 10:00 local time wounding two soldiers,” said Lal Mohammad Omarzai, the district chief of Shindand.
He also added that the insurgents used light weapons in the ambush. However, he did not say if there were any casualties on the insurgents.
This is the second attack on the Italian forces over the past eight days in Afghanistan. On last Thursday, a suicide car bomb against Italian forces in the capital city Kabul left 16 people dead including six Italian soldiers and injured over 50 others with majority of them none-combatants.
More than 2,000 Italian forces have been serving in Afghanistan within the framework of NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to help stabilize security in the post-Taliban country.
President Barack Obama’s administration has been urging Israel to deliver the security in the West Bank to the PNA, dominated by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement.
Bethlehem’s redeployment plan is being examined by the two sides, said Adnan al-Dumairi, spokesman for the Palestinian forces.
“It was a scout tour that did not come up with anything new,” al-Dumairi told Xinhua, adding “it is still too early to talk about handing out the security control to the Palestinian services.”
He accused Israel of “delaying and setting obstacles” to prevent the PNA from taking over its security responsibilities in the West Bank.
The spokesman also accused Israel of not carrying out any of its obligations in the U.S.-backed Roadmap peace plan which in its first phase calls on the two sides to take a series of steps to provide common grounds for future peace negotiations.
The second phase of the Roadmap, which was due in 2005, calls for establishing the Palestinian statehood with provisional borders that would be finalized in the third phase.