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DUBAI — Iran summoned the British and Norwegian ambassadors over what it called interference and hostile media coverage of the nationwide unrest triggered by the death of a woman detained by morality police.

Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian also criticized US support for “rioters” — the label Tehran has used for many who have joined the protests which have swept the country, prompting a security crackdown and curbs on internet and phones.

Demonstrations which erupted more than a week ago at the funeral of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman named Mahsa Amini, who died in detention after being arrested by police enforcing the Islamic Republic’s strict restrictions on women’s dress, have turned into the biggest protests in years.

Clashes continued between security forces and protesters in several northwestern regions, according to sources in the cities of Tabriz, Urmia, Rasht and Hamedan. Activists said there were also protests in districts of the capital, Tehran.

A main teachers union, in a statement posted on social media on Sunday, called for teachers and students to stage the first national strike since the unrest began, on Monday and Wednesday.

It urged teachers, trade unions, military veterans and artists to “stand with pupils, students and people seeking justice in these difficult but hopeful days.”

Details of casualties have trickled out slowly, partly because of the restrictions on communication.

The sister of a 20-year-old woman identified as Hadis Najafi told a US-based activist that she died on Wednesday after being shot by security forces. Videos of Najafi had been shared on Twitter, showing her without hijab and protesting in Karaj, 30 kilometers northwest of Tehran.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Iran should “immediately stop the violent crackdown on protests and ensure internet access.” He also called for information on the number of people killed and arrested, and an investigation into “the killing of Mahsa Amini.”

President Ebrahim Raisi has said Iran ensures freedom of expression and that he has ordered an investigation into Amini’s death. He also said that “acts of chaos” were unacceptable and that Iran must deal decisively with the unrest. At the United Nations, he said extensive coverage of Amini’s case was “double standards,” pointing to deaths in US police custody.

ENVOYS SUMMONED

Mr. Amirabdollahian said the United States was supporting “rioters” and seeking to destabilize Iran, a stance he said contradicted American calls for stability in the region and for a nuclear deal with Tehran.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry summoned Britain’s ambassador in response to the “hostile character” of London-based Persian language media. Britain’s foreign ministry said it championed media freedom and condemned Iran’s “crackdown on protesters, journalists and internet freedom.”

Norway’s envoy was also summoned to explain the “interventionist stance” of its parliament speaker Masud Gharahkhani, who has expressed support for the protesters.

Mr. Gharahkhani, who was born in Tehran, continued to speak out on Sunday, writing on Twitter: “If my parents had not made the choice to flee in 1987, I would have been one of those fighting in the streets with my life on the line.”

Amini’s death has reignited anger in Iran over issues including restrictions on personal freedoms, the strict dress codes for women and an economy reeling from sanctions.

Women have played a prominent role in the protests, waving and burning their veils. Some have publicly cut their hair as furious crowds called for the downfall of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The protests are the largest to sweep the country since demonstrations over fuel prices in 2019, when Reuters reported 1,500 people were killed in a crackdown on protesters — the bloodiest bout of internal unrest in the Islamic Republic’s history.

PROTEST VIDEOS

Iranian Oscar-winning director Asghar Farhadi called on activists and artists around the world to support the protesters, who he said were “looking for simple and yet fundamental rights that the state has denied them for years.”

“I deeply respect their struggle for freedom and the right to choose their own destiny despite all the brutality they are subjected to,” Mr. Farhadi said in a post on Instagram.

Iran’s state television said 41 people have been killed since the protests broke out following Amini’s death on Sept 16. The semi-official Mehr news agency said on Sunday eight members of the Basij, a militia under the umbrella of the Revolutionary Guards, were among the dead.

State media said 12 bank branches were destroyed in the unrest in recent days, and 219 ATMs have been damaged.

The Iranian human rights group Hengaw posted a video on Twitter purportedly showing protests late on Sunday in Sanandaj, the capital of Kurdistan province, with chants of “Death to Khamenei.”

Activist Twitter account 1500tasvir posted videos it said showed protests on Sunday in western and eastern districts of Tehran. In one a protester could be heard saying: “They (security forces) won’t get the better of us. People, I beg you to join us.” Reuters could not verify the footage.

یزد امشب سه مهر #مهسا_امینی pic.twitter.com/8Svc5vPdPf

— +۱۵۰۰تصویر (@1500tasvir) September 25, 2022

Iranian television showed thousands of people rallying in Tehran on Sunday in support of authorities and chanting slogans against the United States and opposition groups they accused of insulting the Koran.

“Sedition is the cause of riots and is directed by America,” they chanted. — Reuters

SEOUL — South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol said on Monday “untrue” media reports over his remarks threatened to damage relations with the United States after he was caught cursing on a hot mic during his visit to New York last week. 

A series of gaffes and controversies overshadowed Mr. Yoon’s first major overseas tour which also included Britain and Canada, sending his ratings plunging and inviting scathing criticism from some lawmakers even within his own party. 

In the highest profile controversy, Mr. Yoon was caught cursing on a hot mic as he left an event in New York on Wednesday after a brief chat with US President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. 

Opposition lawmakers accused Mr. Yoon of insulting Mr. Biden and disgracing South Korea as local media initially reported Mr. Yoon was saying Mr. Biden would be embarrassed if the US Congress did not pass a bill relating to funding of a global initiative. 

“What an embarrassment … if these bastards refuse to approve it in parliament,” Mr. Yoon told Foreign Minister Park Jin in a video aired by South Korean broadcasters, which went viral on social media. 

Reuters could not independently verify Mr. Yoon’s full comments. 

His press secretary, Kim Eun-hye, dismissed the allegations, saying Mr. Yoon was referring to the South Korean parliament without mentioning Mr. Biden. 

“Well, rather than a controversy, I will say this: Except for one or two or three superpowers in the world, no country can fully protect the lives and safety of its people with its own capabilities,” Mr. Yoon told reporters when asked about the hot mic incident on Monday. 

“I’d like to say that damaging the alliance with reports that are different from the facts puts the people at great risk,” he added, calling for efforts to establish facts. 

The main opposition Democratic Party has been urging Mr. Yoon to apologize for the controversy and sack his national security advisor, his deputy and the foreign minister. 

The opposition floor leader said it would propose a resolution for their dismissal to parliament if Mr. Yoon does not take action on Monday. 

Mr. Yoon’s office declined to comment. — Reuters

TOKYO — The British pound tumbled nearly 5% to an all-time low on Monday as investors ran for the exits after the new government’s fiscal plan threatened to stretch Britain’s finances to their limits.  

The currency dived as much as 4.85% to an unprecedented $1.0327, extending a 3.61% dive from Friday, when finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng unleashed historic tax cuts, and the biggest increase in borrowing since 1972 to pay for them.  

Economists and investors said Prime Minister Liz Truss’s government, in power for less than three weeks, was losing financial credibility in unveiling such a plan just a day after the Bank of England (BOE) hiked interest rates to contain surging inflation.  

The pound was last down 2.7% at $1.0560.  

Marc Chandler, chief market strategist at Bannockburn Global Forex, called the currency’s record plunge “incredible.”  

“The weekend press tarred and feathered sterling with assertions of its emerging-market status,” he said. “I don’t buy that schadenfreude. Still, there is now bound to be speculation of an emergency BOE meeting and rate hike.”  

Mr. Kwarteng’s announcement marked a step change in British financial policy, harking back to the Thatcherite and Reaganomics doctrines of the 1980s that critics have derided as a return to “trickle down” economics.  

The so-called mini budget is designed to snap the economy out of a period of double-digit inflation driven by surging energy prices and a 15-year run of stagnant real wage growth.  

In total, the plans will require an extra 72 billion pounds of government borrowing over the next six months alone.  

British government bond yields surged by the most in a day in more than three decades on Friday, with yields on the five-year gilt — one of the most sensitive to any near-term shift in interest rate or borrowing expectations — up by half a percentage point.  

“When we see those gilt markets open a little later on, we’re probably going to see a pretty sharp spike,” said Chris Weston, head of research at Melbourne-based brokerage Pepperstone.  

“In this environment, you either need to see much higher growth — which isn’t happening at the moment — or you need to see significantly higher bond yields to incentivize capital inflows. To get bond yields up to those levels, you need to see the Bank of England coming out and doing an emergency hike.” — Reuters

KYIV — The United States warned on Sunday of “catastrophic consequences” if Moscow uses nuclear weapons in Ukraine, after Russia’s foreign minister said regions holding widely-criticized referendums would get full protection if annexed by Moscow.  

Votes were staged for a third day in four eastern Ukrainian regions, aimed at annexing territory Russia has taken by force. The Russian parliament could move to formalize the annexation within days.  

By incorporating the areas of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia into Russia, Moscow could portray efforts to retake them as attacks on Russia itself, a warning to Kyiv and its Western allies. 

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the United States would respond to any Russian use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine and had spelled out to Moscow the “catastrophic consequences” it would face. 

“If Russia crosses this line, there will be catastrophic consequences for Russia,” Mr. Sullivan told NBC’s “Meet the Press” television program. “The United States will respond decisively.”  

The latest US warning followed a thinly veiled nuclear threat made on Wednesday by President Vladimir Putin, who said Russia would use any weapons to defend its territory.  

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made the point more directly at a news conference on Saturday after a speech to the UN General Assembly in New York in which he repeated Moscow’s false claims to justify the invasion that the elected government in Kyiv was illegitimately installed and filled with neo-Nazis.  

Asked if Russia would have grounds for using nuclear weapons to defend annexed regions, Mr. Lavrov said Russian territory, including territory “further enshrined” in Russia’s constitution in the future, was under the “full protection of the state.” 

British Prime Minister Liz Truss said Britain and its allies should not heed threats from Putin, who had made what she called a strategic mistake as he had not anticipated the strength of reaction from the West.  

“We should not be listening to his saber-rattling and his bogus threats,” Ms. Truss told CNN in an interview broadcast on Sunday. “Instead, what we need to do is continue to put sanctions on Russia and continue to support the Ukrainians.”  

‘BOGUS THREATS’
Ukraine and its allies have dismissed the referendums as a sham designed to justify an escalation of the war and a mobilization drive by Moscow after recent battlefield losses. 

Russian news agencies quoted unidentified sources as saying the Russian parliament could debate bills to incorporate the new territories as soon as Thursday. State-run RIA Novosti said Putin could address parliament on Friday.  

Russia says the referendums, hastily organized after Ukraine recaptured territory in a counteroffensive this month, enable people in those regions to express their view.  

Luhansk’s regional governor said Russian-backed officials were going door to door with ballot boxes and if residents failed to vote correctly their names were taken down.  

“A woman walks down the street with what looks like a karaoke microphone telling everyone to take part in the referendum,” Luhansk governor Serhiy Gaidai said in an interview posted online.  

“Representatives of the occupation forces are going from apartment to apartment with ballot boxes. This is a secret ballot, right?”  

The territory controlled by Russian forces in the four regions represents about 15% of Ukraine, of roughly the size of Portugal. It would add to Crimea, an area nearly the size of Belgium that Russia claims to have annexed in 2014.  

Ukrainian forces still control some territory in each region, including about 40% of Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia’s provincial capital. Heavy fighting continued along the entire front, especially in northern Donetsk and in Kherson. 

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who insists that Ukraine will regain all its territory, said on Sunday some of the clashes had yielded “positive results” for Kyiv.  

“This is the Donetsk region, this is our Kharkiv region. This is the Kherson region, and also the Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia regions,” he said in nightly video remarks.  

In a statement on Facebook, the general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces said Russia had launched four missile and seven air strikes and 24 instances of shelling on targets in Ukraine in the past 24 hours, hitting dozens of towns, including some in and around the Donetsk and Kherson regions.  

Reuters could not independently verify the accounts.  

PROTESTS IN RUSSIA OVER DRAFT
On Wednesday, Mr. Putin ordered Russia’s first military mobilization since World War Two. The move triggered protests across Russia and sent many men of military age fleeing.  

Two of Russia’s most senior lawmakers tackled on Sunday a string of mobilization complaints, ordering regional officials to swiftly solve “excesses” stoking public anger. 

More than 2,000 people have been detained across Russia for draft protests, says independent monitoring group OVD-Info. In Russia, where criticism of the conflict is banned, the demonstrations are among the first signs of discontent since the war began.  

In the Muslim-majority southern Russian region of Dagestan, police clashed with protesters, with at least 100 people detained. 

Mr. Zelenskyy acknowledged the protests in his video address. 

“Keep on fighting so that your children will not be sent to their deaths – all those that can be drafted by this criminal Russian mobilization,” he said. “Because if you come to take away the lives of our children — and I am saying this as a father — we will not let you get away alive.” — Reuters