In brief: Shin Bet says it arrested Iran spy

JERUSALEM – Israel’s Shin Bet domestic security service said Sunday it has arrested a Belgian citizen of Iranian origin whom it claims was sent by Iran to spy on Israel under the guise of a windows and roofing salesman.

The Shin Bet said the accused spy, identified as Belgian-Iranian businessman Ali Mansouri, had admitted to interrogators that he was recruited by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force last year and sent to Israel to set up business ties as a front for spying on Israeli and Western targets. For his services, the Shin Bet said, Mansouri’s Iranian handlers promised him $1 million.

There was no official Iranian comment on the spy, but Iranian state TV called the arrest an attempt at “anti-Iranian propaganda” by Israel before Netanyahu’s meeting with Obama.

The Shin Bet denied the timing was linked to the Netanyahu’s trip to the U.S., where he will visit the White House today and address the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday.

Assad vows to comply with U.N. resolution

BEIRUT – Syria’s president vowed Sunday to abide by the U.N. resolution calling for the country’s chemical weapons stockpile to be destroyed.

Speaking to Italy’s RAI News 24 TV, President Bashar Assad said his government approved of the U.N. Security Council plan to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons program, and also agreed to join the international convention that outlaws such arms.

“Of course we have to comply. This is our history to comply with every treaty we sign,” he said in a video of the interview posted on the Syrian presidency’s official Facebook page. “According to every chapter in the agreement, we don’t have any reservation.”

The U.N. resolution, which passed unanimously Friday, aims to strip the Assad regime of its estimated 1,000-ton chemical arsenal by mid-2014. It also calls for consequences if Syria fails to comply, though the council would have to pass another resolution to impose any penalties.

Chemical weapons inspectors outline plan

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – Inspectors who will oversee Syria’s destruction of its chemical weapons said Sunday their first priority is to help the country scrap its ability to manufacture such arms by a Nov. 1 deadline – using every means possible.

The chemical weapons inspectors said that may include smashing mixing equipment with sledgehammers, blowing up delivery missiles, driving tanks over empty shells or filling them with concrete, and running machines without lubricant so they seize up and become inoperable.

On Friday, the U.N. Security Council ordered the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to help Syria destroy its chemical weapons by mid-2014.

“This isn’t just extraordinary for the OPCW. This hasn’t been done before: an international mission to go into a country which is involved in a state of conflict and amid that conflict oversee the destruction of an entire category of weapons of mass destruction which it possesses,” OPCW spokesman Michael Luhan said. “This is definitely a historical first.”

Thousands protest Sudanese president

KHARTOUM, Sudan – Thousands of Sudanese protesters took to the streets of the capital Khartoum late Sunday, chanting “freedom” and renewing calls for their longtime autocratic president to resign after dozens of protesters were killed in a week of demonstrations sparked by austerity measures.

The government, which has imposed a media blackout, moved to appease the rancor with cash, saying it would distribute cash to half a million families to offset higher fuel and food prices in a country where nearly half the population lives below the poverty line.

The street demonstrations, which began after subsidies were lifted last week, have been the most widespread in Sudan since Omar al-Bashir seized power 24 years ago.

Waving pictures of slain protesters, thousands held a Sunday night memorial for Salah al-Sanhouri, a demonstrator shot Friday during an earlier protest in Burri, an old Khartoum district.

In a latest blow to freedom of the press, Sudanese authorities also forced the country’s largest daily newspaper, Al-Intibaha, to stop printing, according to the paper’s website.