Rep. Tom Graves Announces Retirement From House, Citing Family

Rep. Tom Graves (R-Ga.) announced Thursday that he would not be seeking reelection in 2020.

The 49-year-old lawmaker was first elected in 2009 after having served in Georgia’s state House of Representatives. Graves sits on the House Committee on Appropriations and serves as the vice-chairman of the Committee on the Modernization of Congress.

In a statement, he cited his family as the reason for his retirement from Congress.

“As we all do, I’m entering a new season in life. An exciting season. So, the time has come for me to pass the baton. Now it’s my turn to cheer, support and sacrifice for those who have done the same for me over the last two decades,” he said in a statement (pdf).

https://www.theepochtimes.com/rep-tom-graves-announces-retirement-from-house-citing-family_3166207.html

Zarif: EU3’s UN letter on Iran missiles aims to hide their ‘miserable incompetence’

Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says a letter written to the UN chief by three European signatories to the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), is aimed at hiding their “miserable incompetence” in fulfilling their commitments under the accord.

Zarif made the remarks in a Thursday tweet in which he said, “Latest E3 letter to UNSG on missiles is a desperate falsehood to cover up their miserable incompetence in fulfilling bare minimum of their own #JCPOA obligations.”

Having failed to fulfill their commitments to Iran under the JCPOA, the European signatories to the deal wrote a letter to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, which was circulated on Wednesday, accusing Tehran of possessing “nuclear-capable ballistic missiles” and claiming that the country’s latest missile activities are “inconsistent” with a UN resolution that endorsed the accord.

In that letter, UN ambassadors from France, the UK and Germany claimed that “Iran’s developments of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles” go against a 2015 UN resolution calling on Tehran not to undertake any activity involving such missiles.

UN Security Council Resolution 2231 endorsed the multilateral nuclear accord, which was signed between Iran and six major world powers — also including the US, Russia, and China.

https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/12/05/612895/zarif-jcpoa-un-letter-eu3