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N. Korea defends self at U.N. over nukes, calls Japan 'war criminal'
NEW YORK-North Korea defended the resumption of its nuclear activities at the U.N. General Assembly on Saturday while slamming Japan for being a "war criminal state" and unsuited to becoming a permanent U.N. Security Council member.North Korea has taken counter measures over the nuclear program on the basis of "action for action" as the United States has failed to remove it from a list of state sponsors of terrorism, Pak Kil Yon, North Korea's vice minister of foreign affairs, told diplomats at the 63rd General Assembly general debate session. "The U.S. has laid an artificial obstacle to implementing the October 3 agreement by refusing to implement her obligations and put forward such an unjust demand as verification of the 'international standard' never agreed on among the six parties or between the DPRK and the U.S.," Pak said.The six-party talks format is a diplomatic channel being used in attempts to denuclearize the Korean peninsula and involves both Koreas, Japan, China, Russia and the United States.North Korea stopped disablement work at its Yongbyon complex in mid-August. Pak also told the session, "Japan is the only war criminal state that beautifies the history of aggression and massacre of millions of innocent peoples in Korea and other Asian countries.""Such a country should never be allowed for a permanent member of the Security Council of the United Nations," he added.Japan's deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Norihiro Okuda, called Pyongyang's accusations "groundless.""Japan has been facing up to its past with sincerity and consistency," Okuda said, adding that his country had officially expressed "the sense of remorse and apology" many times since the end of World War II.Okuda pointed out that Japan had served nine times as a non permanent member of the Security Council and was dedicated to "making positive contributions to international peace and security."Meanwhile, North Korea also took a shot at Seoul, claiming that current inter-Korea relations have "been worsening" since President Lee Myung Bak took office in February vowing to adopt a tough policy on Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions and its human rights record.http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D93FFVLO0&show_article=1&catnum=0
As in the days of Noah...
U.S. Diplomat Heading to North Korea Over Nuclear Facility Restart
The United States plans to send a top diplomat to North Korea next week in response to the communist country's recent moves to restart a nuclear facility in the face of U.S. opposition.Christopher Hill, the chief U.S. negotiator in the six-party talks over North Korea's nuclear program, is preparing to leave Monday for South Korea and then its neighbor to the north. Tensions between the United States and North Korea have been rising since reports surfaced that the country was reassembling nuclear processing facilities at Yongbyon that had been demolished last year in accordance with an agreement between the countries.The demolition was among the conditions for the United States taking North Korea off its list of terror-supporting countries, and U.S. officials have suggested that North Korea's reversal is a form of protest at delays on the diplomatic front.On Wednesday, the chief inspector in North Korea for the IAEA, announced that the country has removed the inspection seals and all surveillance equipment from the nuclear reprocessing facility at Yongbyon.U.N. inspectors have been ordered to leave, and U.S. officials and IAEA representatives confirmed that reprocessing at the facility could begin in a matter of days. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice responded then that the moves would "only deepen its isolation."She then insisted the six-party talks with the North Koreans to disarm are not dead.Yongbyon has 3 parts to it: the nuclear reactor, the cooling ponds for the spent fuel rods and the reprocessing plant. The reprocessing plant is the easiest to restart. Earlier this year the North Koreans blew up the cooling tower, a largely symbolic act, according to experts. Plutonium can still be extracted from the spent fuel for use in a bomb without the cooling facility.The North Koreans had completed approximately 8 of 11 requirements to denuclearize in exchange for aid but talks with the U.S., China and others hit a snag when the U.S. demanded greater verification and soil samples from the facility and refused to take North Korea off the U.S. State Department’s terror list, which essentially blocked the Koreans from receiving trade money.North Korean leader Kim Jong Il reportedly suffered a stroke in August and it isn't clear how much control he has over his country.
As in the days of Noah...
N.Korea says boosts self-defense from hostile U.S
UNITED NATIONS-North Korea wants to press ahead with denuclearization of the Korean peninsula but is strengthening its "self-defensive capability" in the face of hostile U.S. policy, a North Korean official said on Saturday.The comments came as Chris Hill, the U.S. nuclear envoy for North Korea, set plans to visit Pyongyang in coming days in a bid to salvage crumbling six-party denuclearization talks, a senior U.S. official said.The U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency said earlier this week that Pyongyang was expelling agency monitors from its Soviet-era nuclear plant that produces plutonium and plans to start reactivating it next week, rolling back a disarmament-for-aid deal.That prompted South Korea's foreign minister to say on Friday that international talks on ending North Korea's nuclear arms ambitions could be heading for a breakdown.The U.S. official said Hill had consultations in New York with other nations involved in nuclear talks with North Korea and they decided it would be a good idea for him to go to Pyongyang.The State Department refused to confirm Hill was going to Pyongyang but said he was traveling to Seoul, the South Korean capital, on Monday.North Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Pak Kil-yon told the U.N. General Assembly that there was still a possibility of keeping the so-called six-party talks on track, although he made clear Pyongyang felt it was being slighted."(North Korea) will continue to make every sincere effort toward the denuclearization of the whole Korean peninsula, but will not be indifferent to an attempt to offend our dignity and self-respect, and violate its sovereignty," he said.To read more go to:
As in the days of Noah....
North Korea nuclear deal could break down: Seoul
SEOUL-International talks on ending North Korea's nuclear arms ambitions could be heading for a breakdown after Pyongyang said it would restore a plutonium- making plant, South Korea's foreign minister said on Friday.The International Atomic Energy Agency said on Wednesday that the North was expelling U.N. monitors from its Soviet-era nuclear plant and plans to start reactivating it next week, rolling back a disarmament-for-aid deal and putting pressure on Washington."We are at a difficult situation where we may be going back to square one," Yu Myung-hwan said at an academic seminar.Yu, who has just returned from a trip to the United States where he discussed North Korea with Washington officials, said Pyongyang might be trying to turn up the heat on the outgoing Bush administration and the next person in the White House."It is possible that the North's decision to go back on the disablement steps is a strategy associated with the U.S. presidential election," Yu said.The Bush team, looking for a foreign policy success with just a few months left in office, might be willing to offer last-ditch concessions and if not, Pyongyang will be in a stronger bargaining position when a new president takes office in January.Yu told reporters there were still U.N. and U.S. nuclear inspectors at Yongbyon, with analysts saying the North could want them there to watch it take its first serious steps toward re-starting Yongbyon.The disarmament deal might have broken down in part because North Korea thought a U.S. plan to verify Pyongyang's claims about plutonium production would give inspectors far too much access to the secretive state, the Washington Post reported on Friday.To read more go to:
As in the days of Noah...
North Korea army threatens South and region: Seoul
SEOUL -North Korea is a grave threat to regional security, deploys most of its ground forces near the border with the South and is ready to attack at a moment's notice, South Korea's defense minister said on Friday.Global concern has mounted after North Korea's pledges this month to restore a reactor complex that makes arms-grade plutonium."North Korea maintains a vast military and forward deploys more than 70 percent of its ground forces. It stands ready to mount a surprise attack any time," Defense Minister Lee Sang-hee told a security forum, according to a prepared text."It continues to develop weapons of mass destruction such as nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and missiles and is a grave threat to the stability, not only of the Korean peninsula, but also the region."Residents of Seoul and other South Korean cities near the heavily armed border have lived under the threat of North Korea's howitzers and 1.2-million-man military for decades.Ties between the two Koreas have chilled since President Lee Myung-bak took office in February and angered Pyongyang by cutting off what once had been free-flowing aid and said Seoul's handouts would now be tied to Pyongyang's nuclear disarmament."The prospects for the nuclear issue are unclear because of unpredictable actions by the North such as suspending disablement steps," the defense minister said.South Korea has about 670,000 troops, who are supported by about 27,000 U.S. soldiers in the country.The two Koreas remain technically at war because the truce ending the 1950-53 Korean War has never been replaced by a peace treaty.http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE48P2NR20080926
As in the days of Noah...
U.S. demands upset N.Korea nuclear deal: report
WASHINGTON-U.S. demands for verification presented to Pyongyang lead to the apparent unraveling of a 2007 deal to end North Korea's atomic bomb program, The Washington Post reported on Friday. Under the proposal presented last week, the United States requested "full access to all materials" at sites that might have had a nuclear purpose in the past, the Post said, citing a copy of the document obtained by the newspaper. The four-page document also sought "full access to any site, facility or location" deemed relevant to the nuclear program, including military facilities, the article said.Details of the verification plan have not been revealed before, the newspaper said. It cited unnamed officials as saying that the proposal had deeply split the Bush administration. The proposal, heavily influenced by the State Department's arms control experts, said investigators would be able to take photographs and make videos, remain on site as long as necessary, make repeated visits and collect and remove samples, The Washington Post reported. Citing officials it did not identify, the newspaper said the United States pressed ahead with the proposal despite warnings from China, Russia and other countries that it was asking too much of the xenophobic North Koreans. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, the chief U.S. negotiator, and his aides were opposed to making such an opening bid, but they were overruled at higher levels. North Korea immediately balked at the verification plan and the once-promising talks were at an impasse, the paper said. North Korea had been warning visitors privately for months that it would object to an extensive inspection proposal. North Korea said on Friday it was working on reactivating the plutonium-producing Yongbyon complex, the basis of its atomic bomb program, which it was dismantling under a much delayed disarmament-for-aid deal among the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States. On Monday, North Korea asked the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog to remove seals and cameras from its main atomic complex, International Atomic Energy Agency Director Mohamed El Baradei told a meeting of the IAEA Board of Directors.As in the days of Noah...
Hurricane Kyle forms in open ocean, Maine on watch
MIAMI - National Hurricane Center forecasters say Hurricane Kyle has formed in the Atlantic Ocean and it's expected to pass near eastern New England.Kyle had top sustained winds near 75 mph Saturday afternoon. The storm is moving north in the open Atlantic at 23 mph and could make landfall anywhere from Maine to Nova Scotia.A hurricane watch is in effect for the Maine coast from Stonington north to Eastport. Hurricane conditions are possible in that area within 36 hours.A tropical storm warning is in effect from Port Clyde south to Cape Elizabeth, an area that includes Portland.At 5 p.m. EDT, the storm's center was located about 315 miles west-northwest of Bermuda.A rare hurricane watch was posted for part of the Maine coast on Saturday as Tropical Storm Kyle roared north toward the region with a threat of conditions similar to one of New England's nor'easter storms."Hurricane season isn't over, " said Maine Emergency Management Agency director Rob McAleer. "It's been a very active season."It was Maine's first hurricane watch in 17 years, the National Weather Service said. Elsewhere in New England, a hurricane warning was posted for Nantucket Island off the coast of Massachusetts in September 1996, according to the weather service office in Taunton, Mass.Two to 4 inches of rain had already fallen along some coastal areas by midday Saturday and the storm was expected to deliver an additional 2 to 4 inches, said Eric Schwibs of the weather service in Gray.At 2 p.m. EDT, Kyle was centered about 300 miles west-northwest of Bermuda and 550 miles south of Nantucket, the National Hurricane Center said in Miami.The storm had top sustained wind near 70 mph and the potential to grow to hurricane strength. It was moving north over the open Atlantic at 20 mph, up from 15 mph during the morning.Kyle's center was forecast to be near eastern New England or the Canadian Maritime provinces late Sunday, the hurricane center said.The hurricane center posted a hurricane watch from Stonington, at roughly the center of the Maine coast, to Eastport, on the border with New Brunswick, Canada. A tropical storm watch extended south to Cape Elizabeth, near Portland.Kyle could make landfall near Eastport, possibly late Sunday, the hurricane center said.That would put the storm's strongest wind in New Brunswick, rather than in Maine, which would get conditions more akin to "a garden variety nor'easter," said Schwibs.The government of Canada issued a tropical storm watch for southwestern New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, the hurricane center said.The weather service also issued flood watches for the southern two-thirds of New Hampshire and southern Maine through Sunday evening. McAleer said the storm's biggest threat in Maine would be the potential for high waves and small stream flooding."We urge everyone to pay close attention to weather warnings, and stay away from any flooded roadways, or fast-running streams,"McAleer said.The Coast Guard prepared crews and equipment for the storm and urged boat owners to secure their vessels in anticipation of high wind and seas that could run 10 to 20 feet high off shore.Eastern Maine's power company, Bangor Hydro-Electric, said it prepared for potential outages and planned to have additional crews on duty.As in the days of Noah....
Taiwan issues land, sea warning on Typhoon Jangmi
TAIPEI-Taiwan issued land and sea warning Saturday as the 15th typhoon of this year headed toward the south coast.Typhoon Jangmi, 600 km (373 miles) southeast of Taiwan at 0200 GMT, was expected to brush Taiwan, bringing sustained winds of up to 184 kph (114 mph) and gusts of up to 227 kph. Taiwan issued warnings for high winds and heavy rain.The storm is expected to grow to category 3, on a 1-5 severity scale, according to Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau and the forecasting service Tropical Storm Risk: http://www.tropicalstormrisk.comA typhoon earlier this month killed 12 people in Taiwan from mudslides, raging waters and a collapsed bridge. On July 18, a typhoon killed at least 20 people and caused extensive flooding, landslides and crop damage.Typhoons regularly hit China, Taiwan, the Philippines and Japan from August until the end of the year, gathering strength from the warm waters of the Pacific or the South China Sea before weakening over land.
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE48Q0YD20080927
As in the days of Noah...
Flash floods kill 21 in northern Vietnam
HANOI-Flash floods from a powerful typhoon that swept through the Philippines and China earlier in the week have killed at least 21 people in Vietnam, the government said Saturday.Thousands of homes were either washed away or destroyed in northern Vietnam as typhoon Hagupit brought heavy rains and landslides, the government's storm and flood prevention committee said in a report.Hagupit, which means "lashing" in Filipino, killed at least eight people in the Philippines and three in China where it triggered a "once-in-a-century storm tide."The Vietnamese army sent 3,400 soldiers to rescue and evacuate thousands of people out of areas vulnerable to more flash floods and landslides in the mountainous provinces of Son La, Lang Son and Bac Giang.Four people were not yet accounted for since floods hits the northern areas and 30 were injured, the government said.The water level in two swollen rivers, Ky Cung and Thai Binh is expected to rise swiftly Saturday and peak at 5.5 meter Sunday, the National Metereology Centre's forecast said.Vietnam's main agriculture belt, including the coffee-growing Central Highlands region and the Mekong Delta rice basket, was not on the storm's path.
As in the days of Noah....
Russia to build missile defence shield and renew nuclear deterrence
Russia is to build new space and missile defence shields and put its armed forces on permanent combat alert, President Medvedev announced today.In a sharp escalation of military rhetoric, Mr Medvedev ordered a wholesale renovation of Russia’s nuclear deterrence and told military chiefs to draw up plans to reorganise the armed forces by December.He said that Russia must modernise its nuclear defences within eight years, including the creation of a “system of air and space defence”.The announcement puts Russia in a new arms race with the United States, which has infuriated the Kremlin by seeking to establish an anti-missile shield in eastern Europe. The US argues that the shield is aimed at rogue states such as Iran, but Russia is convinced that its own security is threatened.Mr Medvedev told military commanders that “all combat formations must be upgraded to the permanent readiness category” by 2020. He added that Russia would begin “mass production of warships, primarily nuclear cruisers carrying cruise missiles and multi-purpose submarines”.“A guaranteed nuclear deterrent system for various military and political circumstances must be provided by 2020,” he said after attending military exercises in the southern Urals region of Orenburg.Tensions with the West have soared to new levels since Russia’s war with Georgia last month. Mr Medvedev told army chiefs that the conflict showed that “a war can flare up suddenly and can be absolutely real”.The military build-up was announced as Russia wages a struggle to prevent Georgia and Ukraine entering Nato. The military alliance is due to consider fresh applications from the two former Soviet satellites in December.Russia also openly declared its ambition to rival the US in Latin America yesterday as Prime Minister Vladimir Putin promised to sell nuclear technology to Venezuela.Mr Medvedev met Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez in Orenburg. Tthe Kremlin issued a statement calling their relations a “counterweight to US influence” and added that Venezuela sought “a widening of our presence in the region”.“We are ready to consider opportunities for cooperating on the use of atomic energy,” Mr Putin told Mr Chavez during earlier talks in Moscow.“Latin America is becoming a noticeable link in the whole chain of the emerging multipolar world. We will pay more and more attention to this area of our economic and foreign policy.”The announcement of atomic assistance is certain to alarm Washington. Moscow has already angered the West by delivering enriched uranium to Iran for its Russian-built power station, amid fears that Tehran is secretly building a nuclear bomb. Venezuela’s fiercely anti-American leader has long coveted his own nuclear energy programme, but insists that he has no desire to build an atomic bomb.He lavished praise on Mr Putin during his second visit to Russia in as many months.“Today, like never before, all that you said on the multi-polar world becomes reality. Let us not lose time...The world is developing fast geopolitically,” Mr Chavez said.The Kremlin despatched its nuclear-powered warship Peter the Great and a submarine destroyer, Admiral Chabanenko, to Venezuela on Monday for military exercises in the Caribbean, which is traditionally America’s backyard.It is Russia’s first naval mission to Latin America since the end of the Cold War.The move was seen as a retort to the passage of American warships through the Black Sea to deliver aid to Georgia after the war. It came just days after Russian strategic nuclear bombers visited Venezuela for the first time, in what Mr Chavez described as a warning to the US.Mr Medvedev said that the joint naval exercises between Russia and Venezuela would demonstrate “the strategic nature of our relations”. The Kremlin earlier announced that it was giving Venezuela a $1 billion loan to buy Russian weaponry.Mr Chavez has already struck deals worth $4.4 billion since 2005 to buy jet fighters, tanks and 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles. The two countries also edged closer in energy relations after Russia’s Gazprom and Venezuela’s state-run oil company struck a deal to create an “oil and gas consortium”.Venezuela is the ninth largest oil producer in the world and a major supplier to the US, while Russia is the second largest oil exporter and has a quarter of global gas reserves. Mr Chavez said that the joint venture would be “the biggest oil consortium on the planet”.Tony Halpin, Moscow
As in the days of Noah...
Iran Students Unveil Book Mocking Holocaust
An Iranian student holds a stone in his hand as he flashes the victory sign during a parade marking Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day in Tehran. Iranians chanted "Death to Israel" as a group of Islamist students unveiled a book mocking the Holocaust in an annual parade to show solidarity with the Palestinians.Iranians chanted "Death to Israel" as a group of Islamist students unveiled a book mocking the Holocaust in an annual parade on Friday to show solidarity with the Palestinians.Featuring dozens of cartoons and sarcastic commentary, the book "Holocaust" was published by members of the Islamist Basij militia.Education Minister Alireza Ali-Ahmadi was present in the capital's Palestine Square for the book's presentation during the annual Quds (Jerusalem) Day parade. The cover shows a Jew with a crooked nose and dressed in traditional garb drawing outlines of dead bodies on the ground.Inside, bearded Jews are shown leaving and re-entering a gas chamber with a counter that reads the number 5,999,999.Another depicts Jewish prisoners entering a furnace in a Nazi extermination camp and leaving as gun-wielding terrorists from the other side.Yet another shows a patient covered in an Israeli flag and on life support breathing Zyklon-B, the poisonous gas used in the extermination chambers.Iran does not recognise the Jewish state and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has attracted international condemnation by repeatedly predicting Israel is doomed to disappear and branding the Holocaust a "myth."The commentary inside the book includes anti-Semitic stereotypes and revisionist arguments, casting doubt on the massacre of Jews and mocking Holocaust survivors who claimed reparations after World War II.One comment in a question-and-answer format reads:"How did the Germans emit gas into chambers while there were no holes on the ceiling?" Answer: "Shut up, you criminal anti-Semite. How dare you ask this question?"In 2006, Iran hosted a conference of Holocaust deniers and revisionists and a mass-circulating Iranian newspaper held a cartoon competition on the subject.On Friday, tens of thousands of Iranians marched in Tehran, chanting "Death to Israel," declaring solidarity with the Palestinians and calling for Jerusalem and Israel to be handed to the Palestinians.Demonstrators carried placards which read, "Israel will be destroyed, Palestine is Victorious" and "Holy war until victory," and they torched American and Israeli flags.The protest follows a fresh verbal attack on Israel by Ahmadinejad.In an address to the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, he said "the Zionist regime is on a definite slope to collapse and there is no way for it to get out of the cesspool created by itself and its supporters."Quds Day was started by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic republic, who called on the world's Muslims to show solidarity with Palestinians on the last Friday of the fasting month of Ramadan.A mother of six, Zahra Hedayat, 47, said: "It is important to support Palestinians to show the world that Israel is oppressive, and, God willing, one day Muslims will get Palestine back."The demonstration was held under an official slogan: "The Islamic world will not recognise the fake Zionist regime under any circumstances and believes that this cancerous tumour will one day be wiped off the face of the earth."
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080926111949.vk2p8oxk&show_article=1&lst=1
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080926111949.vk2p8oxk&show_article=1&lst=1
PS:When ISLAMOFASCISM gets THIS FANATIC,it also GETS BLIND and IGNORANT...These people are AS DANGEROUS as THEIR LUNATIC LEADERS....!
this is just SOMETHING,isn't it...???.....These IGNORAMUSES can MOCK the Holocaust in a book,BUT the rest of the world CANNOT PUT OUT a DVD like OBSESSION which actually is BASED IN TRUTH and TRUTHFUL FACTS because MUSLIMS GET ENRAGED and RIOT...
ISLAMOFASCISM is the FINAL THREAT for the free world in these last days.
Muslims have turned this into a HOLY WAR against the REST of the free world that IS NOT MUSLIM,which is YOU and ME that are reading....
As in the days of Noah...
US, Russia reach deal on new UN Iran resolution
UNITED NATIONS-Russia and the United States have reached a deal to seek a new U.N. resolution on Iran, Britain's U.N. ambassador said Friday.Ambassador John Sawers spoke before heading into a high-level meeting at U.N. headquarters of nations concerned with events in Pakistan.After the meeting, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said the resolution will be introduced in the Security Council on Friday.Western diplomats said the resolution would reaffirm three rounds of earlier U.N. sanctions to make clear that the process has not been dropped and that the council wants Iran to comply.The diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity because details have not been made public.The United States, Britain and France have been pressing for a new round of sanctions to step up pressure against Iran for its continuing refusal to suspend uranium enrichment as a prelude to talks on its nuclear program. But Russia and China objected to new sanctions.The proposed new resolution appears to be a compromise—no new sanctions but a tough statement to Iran that Security Council resolutions are legally binding and must be carried out.Russia on Tuesday had scuttled high-level talks on imposing new sanctions on Iran that had been set for Thursday between the foreign ministers of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany, the key players in seeking an agreement with Iran. Even sanctions opponent China had agreed to the meeting.U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, sought to downplay the move, saying the time wasn't right for the session. But they had previously said such a gathering would be useful and necessary to get a fourth Security Council sanctions resolution on Iran.Iran insists its nuclear program is purely peaceful and designed to produce nuclear energy, but the U.S. and Europeans suspect Tehran is pursuing nuclear weapons.Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday that Tehran needs the ability to produce nuclear fuel because it cannot rely on other nations to supply enriched uranium to the Islamic regime's planned reactors.As in the days of Noah...
No-name storm lands with rain, gusts in Carolinas
RALEIGH, N.C. - A storm that never quite gained tropical strength or a name over the Atlantic blew ashore with drenching rain Friday in the Carolinas, knocking out power and sending rain, gusty winds and high surf far up the Atlantic seaboard.Although the center of the storm was well to the south, forecasters said it was so large that rain and some wind would be felt in the Northeast. Small craft advisories, meaning strong winds or gusts and choppy seas, were issued from Savannah, Ga., to Maine."Much of the winds have diminished," said meteorologist Dave Loewenthal at the National Weather Service in Wilmington. "It's a very large system. It goes all up and down the eastern seaboard."Loewenthal said the system's center would "continue west throughout the day and then make a more northerly track along the Appalachians. You can have a lot of rain on the east side of the mountains, but it shouldn't be too much of a problem."The storm was expected to continue bringing coastal flooding, rip currents and high surf to the mid-Atlantic shore over the weekend.Forecasters turned their attention to Tropical Storm Kyle in the open Atlantic, south of Bermuda. The National Hurricane Center said Kyle could become a hurricane by Saturday as it moved north.At 8 a.m., Kyle was located about 500 miles south-southwest of Bermuda and moving north-northwest near 13 mph with top sustained winds near 60 mph. Tropical storm force winds extended out from the center up to 160 miles, mainly east of the center.A tropical storm watch was in effect for Bermuda.In the Carolinas, the storm knocked out power to about 3,400 utility customers but few serious problems were reported.A dozen houses were condemned in the Outer Banks town of Nags Head when waves exposed septic tanks, WRAL-TV reported. Officials said wind-driven tides flooded NC Highway 12 at times on Hatteras Island.Forecasters said the storm lacked the ingredients of a tropical system, but had looked enough like one that the National Hurricane Center sent aircraft into it several times to explore."This was very close to a tropical system," said Brandon Vincent of the National Weather Service office in Raleigh. "Before it came inland, it had a pretty impressive radar impression that was reminiscent of a tropical storm."By 9 a.m. Friday, the storm center was about 70 miles inland from Myrtle Beach, S.C., near the North Carolina border and had weakened, said Brandon Vincent of the National Weather Service office in Raleigh.Vincent said the storm would bring up to 2 inches of rain to some parts of the Carolinas after setting a daily record of 4.16 inches in Wilmington on Thursday. Winds would gust up to 30 mph in the western Piedmont area before dying out in the afternoon."We'll see some breezy conditions," he said. "No big deal, just a little breezy."http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080926/ap_on_re_us/coastal_storm
As in the days of Noah...
India: 1,000 Muslims shouted, "set the train on fire and kill the Hindus"
What has long been suspected has, six years later, been confirmed: the Godhra train fire (2/2002) which burned some 60 Hindu pilgrims alive was, in fact, initiated by Muslim extremists. Hindus long assumed this, and went on a rampage against Muslims in the Gujarat district soon after the Godhra train incident. Ironically, Osama bin Laden used to point to this episode as evidence of non-Muslim hatred for Muslims (The Al Qaeda Reader, 27). Now the facts are clear. Once again, it was Muslims who cast the first stone."Mob of Muslims attacked train, says Nanavati Commission," by Manas Dasgupta for The Hindu, September 25:GANDHINAGAR: The Nanavati-Mehta judicial inquiry commission on the Godhra train carnage has based its conclusion of it being a “pre-planned conspiracy” on the recorded evidence of over 100 witnesses, who claimed to having heard a crowd of about a 1,000 Muslims shouting “set the train on fire and kill the Hindus.” The report said “instigating slogans” were also made through loudspeakers from a nearby mosque to attack the Hindus.The evidence recorded by the commission also claimed that a mob of Muslims attacked the train and stoned the coaches so heavily that the passengers could not come out. This was to ensure maximum casualties when the S-6 coach of the Sabarmati Express was “set afire.”The commission in its 168-page report said the “conspiracy” was hatched by some local Muslims at the Aman guest house in Godhra the previous night. The conspirators immediately made arrangements for collecting about 140 litres of petrol from a nearby pump on the night of February 26, 2002, and the next day when the train arrived in Godhra, Hasan Lala after forcibly opening the vestibule between coaches S-6 and S-7 entered S-6 and threw burning rags setting it on fire.
[...]
The commission said the passengers of the train were attacked the second time some three hours after the stone throwing and burning incident when the train was being shunted to detach the two affected coaches. Two mobs of Muslims of about 700 people started pelting stones on the passengers waiting at the yard for the train to reassemble and resume their onward journey to Ahmedabad. The police had to open fire killing two persons and injuring one to disperse the violent mobs. This refutes the theory that it was an accidental fire, it claimed.
Posted by Raymond
As in the days of Noah....
Muslims Reject Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden
In the wake of the Marriott Hotel bombing in Islamabad, which killed 60 people, it might seem perverse to express optimism about the struggle against global terrorism as espoused by al-Qaeda. After all, the Taliban, which provided asylum for Osama bin Laden's network before 9/11, is resurgent on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border. Indeed, the tribal areas nominally controlled by the government in Islamabad have succeeded Iraq as the epicentre of world jihadism.Yet it is worth stepping back from last Saturday's carnage to look at the history of terrorism. This shows that all such movements come to an end, whether through divisions within the leadership, repression or co-option by the state or, most important, loss of trust among the people they claim to represent. In a paper for the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), Audrey Kurth Cronin encourages Western nations to focus on the "plentiful weaknesses" of al-Qaeda and its associates. These she defines as "indiscriminate killing in the service of a largely fictitious narrative without a shred of hopeful vision".Bin Laden has been weakened by allied military action in Afghanistan and tighter surveillance of international money transfers. More significant in the longer term is the criticism voiced within radical Islamic circles about the morality of what he is doing. This may seem a strange word to use in conjunction with an instigator of mass murder, but bin Laden set out with the self-proclaimed noble intention to defend the umma, or Muslim world, from Western encroachment.Why, then, say his critics, do you condone the killing of Muslims in suicide bomb attacks? Bin Laden's former mentor, the Saudi scholar Salman al-Oudah, has deplored al-Qaeda's violence and suggested that its leader has allowed the means to become the ends. The jihadist ideologue Sayyid Imam al-Sharif, better known by his underground name of Dr Fadl, has described 9/11 as "a catastrophe for Muslims".At this year's conference of Oxford Analytica, an international consultancy, one of the participants described al-Qaeda as "a profoundly moral project which contains the seeds of its own destruction because of its failure to live up to its own moral standards". Another thought it retained moral authority but had "little power in terms of organisation". The impression emerged of a movement with a puritanical, racist view of Islam which had proved a "very bad friend" to the Muslim world. This would explain its eclipse in Iraq in favour of Sunni-dominated militias and its limited success in the northern Caucasus.Al-Qaeda's fortunes could revive should what the Muslim world might deem a further "outrage" be committed in the form of, say, an Israeli attack on Iran or of continued American ground incursions into the tribal areas. But beyond harping on a sense of victimhood, the network has little to offer the umma.Compare, for example, its record with that of other radical organisations, such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hizbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Taking advantage of a fixed base, which al-Qaeda lacks, they have won popular support by providing welfare denied by an incompetent state. Bin Laden may be able to boast of spectacular assaults on his enemies, but he can hardly claim to have contributed to long-term social and economic development.The erosion of support for al-Qaeda presents those whom it targets with interesting opportunities. Professor Cronin argues that the best counter-terrorist policies are "those consciously synergistic with a group's natural tendency to implode". She adds that a government's top priority should be "not to win people's hearts and minds, but rather to amplify the natural tendency of violent groups to lose them".This might suggest that America and its allies should withdraw forthwith from Iraq and Afghanistan and watch al-Qaeda self-destruct. If only it were that simple. However, in the case of Pakistan, Washington should refrain from stoking resentment of the West by further unilateral incursions into the tribal areas, which merely strengthen the conviction that this is America's war. And a distinction should be made between the foreign jihadists, whose goal is global revolution, and the Taliban, who, like the Basque or Corsican separatists, are motivated by local factors. Driving a wedge between the two will in due course require negotiating with the Taliban.The eclipse of al-Qaeda does not, of course, mean that it is no longer a threat - modern historical experience indicates that waves of international terrorist activity last about 40 years, so we have some way to go. Bin Laden could still stage a hideous attack, and, even if he doesn't, there are many other terrorist groups around the world, either affiliated to his network or fighting for different ends, that could.Nevertheless, it is a hopeful sign that the man who would forcefully unite all Muslims in a new caliphate is proving subject to the same constraints as previous terrorist movements with more modest aims. Self-defence, despite its moral connotations, has in his hands turned out to be nihilistic. Opinion polls show that the Islamic world is turning against him. And it is there that his evil acts will finally be thwarted.
By Simon Scott Plummer
As in the days of Noah...
Anti-Obsession site rails against Spencer, Horowitz, who aren't in the film
Details are for "haters"Longtime Jihad Watch reader PRCS kindly sent in a link to ObsessionWithHate.com, a site run by a "coalition" known as Hate Hurts America, whose members include CAIR, MPAC, and assorted private citizens who may or may not have known what they were signing up for-after all, nobody likes hate, right?
As the name suggests, they're none too fond of Obsession, its makers, or those who appear in it. Nor are they fond, apparently, of David Horowitz and Robert Spencer, who are included on the far right (we're heard that one before, too) of the photo collage on OWH''s main page ... except they don't appear in the film. Oops.
OWH also complains that the Clarion Fund is not being forthcoming enough about its funding or the shady characters with deep pockets who are supposedly pulling the puppet strings behind the scenes. Though HHA does list its "coalition members," it also does not make available information about its founders or donors, and both sites are registered through Domains by Proxy. Therein lies a bit of a double standard.
The site includes the standard boilerplate about the "real Islam" -- that jihad is simply a generalized term for "struggle," that Islam respects and elevates women, and so forth, plus these two items, which may shed light on the agenda of the site (or may be sloppy copying and pasting -- or both). First:
"Islam is not a new religion. It is the same truth that God revealed to all His prophets throughout history. Islam is both a religion and a complete way of life. Muslims follow a religion of peace, mercy and forgiveness."
And:
... Muslims believe in a chain of prophets beginning with Adam and including Noah, Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Job, Moses, David, Solomon, and Jesus. God's eternal message was reaffirmed by each prophet and finalized by the Prophet Muhammad (peace be on them all). A Muslim’s basic testimony of faith reads: "There is no deity but God, and Muhammad is the messenger of God." By this declaration, a person announces faith in God and belief in the entire prophetic chain of God's messengers. God's eternal message was reaffirmed by each prophet and finalized by the Prophet Muhammad (peace be on them all). A Muslim’s basic testimony of faith reads: "There is no deity but God, and Muhammad is the messenger of God." By this declaration, a person announces faith in God and belief in the entire prophetic chain of God's messengers.
OWH also declares:
We believe the Media has an obligation to investigate this hate campaign and reveal its source of funding to the American people. We believe the presidential candidates have a responsibility to speak out against anti-American tactics that threaten to manipulate our election process...
You're going to reveal your funding sources, too, right?
Posted by Marisol
As the name suggests, they're none too fond of Obsession, its makers, or those who appear in it. Nor are they fond, apparently, of David Horowitz and Robert Spencer, who are included on the far right (we're heard that one before, too) of the photo collage on OWH''s main page ... except they don't appear in the film. Oops.
OWH also complains that the Clarion Fund is not being forthcoming enough about its funding or the shady characters with deep pockets who are supposedly pulling the puppet strings behind the scenes. Though HHA does list its "coalition members," it also does not make available information about its founders or donors, and both sites are registered through Domains by Proxy. Therein lies a bit of a double standard.
The site includes the standard boilerplate about the "real Islam" -- that jihad is simply a generalized term for "struggle," that Islam respects and elevates women, and so forth, plus these two items, which may shed light on the agenda of the site (or may be sloppy copying and pasting -- or both). First:
"Islam is not a new religion. It is the same truth that God revealed to all His prophets throughout history. Islam is both a religion and a complete way of life. Muslims follow a religion of peace, mercy and forgiveness."
And:
... Muslims believe in a chain of prophets beginning with Adam and including Noah, Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Job, Moses, David, Solomon, and Jesus. God's eternal message was reaffirmed by each prophet and finalized by the Prophet Muhammad (peace be on them all). A Muslim’s basic testimony of faith reads: "There is no deity but God, and Muhammad is the messenger of God." By this declaration, a person announces faith in God and belief in the entire prophetic chain of God's messengers. God's eternal message was reaffirmed by each prophet and finalized by the Prophet Muhammad (peace be on them all). A Muslim’s basic testimony of faith reads: "There is no deity but God, and Muhammad is the messenger of God." By this declaration, a person announces faith in God and belief in the entire prophetic chain of God's messengers.
OWH also declares:
We believe the Media has an obligation to investigate this hate campaign and reveal its source of funding to the American people. We believe the presidential candidates have a responsibility to speak out against anti-American tactics that threaten to manipulate our election process...
You're going to reveal your funding sources, too, right?
Posted by Marisol
As in the days of Noah...
DIRTY BOMB WATCH:Bomb Fears as Nuclear Waste Piles Up at Nation's Hospitals
Sept. 19, 2008: Waste is secured inside steel drums, encased in concrete vaults in an uncapped trench at Energy Solutions in Barnwell, S.C.
Sept. 19, 2008: Jim Latham, of Energy Solutions, points to waste secured inside steel drums at a landfill that has stopped taking nearly all radioactive material.BARNWELL, S.C.-Tubes, capsules and pellets of used radioactive material are piling up in the basements and locked closets of hospitals and research installations around the country, stoking fears they could get lost or, worse, stolen by terrorists and turned into dirty bombs.For years, truckloads of low-level nuclear waste from most of the U.S. were taken to a rural South Carolina landfill. There, items such as the rice-size radioactive seeds for treating cancer and pencil-thin nuclear tubes used in industrial gauges were sealed in concrete and buried.But a South Carolina law that took effect July 1 ended nearly all disposal of radioactive material at the landfill, leaving 36 states with no place to throw out some of the stuff. So labs, universities, hospitals and manufacturers are storing more and more of it on their own property."Instead of safely secured in one place, it's stored in thousands of places in urban locations all over the United States," said Rick Jacobi, a nuclear waste consultant and former head of a Texas agency that unsuccessfully tried to create a disposal site for that state.State and federal authorities say the waste is being monitored, but they acknowledge that it is difficult to track and inspected as little as once every five years. Government documents and dozens of Associated Press interviews with nuclear waste generators, experts, watchdogs and officials show that thousands of these small radioactive items have already been lost, and that worries are growing."They'll end up offered up on eBay and flea markets and sent to landfills, or metal recycling plants — places where you don't want them to be," said Stephen Browne, radiation control officer at Troxler Electronic Laboratories, one of the world's largest manufacturers of industrial gauges that use radioactive material.There are millions of radioactive devices in use for which there is no long-term disposal plan. These include tiny capsules of radioactive cesium isotopes implanted to kill cancerous cells; cobalt-60 pellets that power helmet-like machines used to focus radioactive beams on diseased brain tissue; and cobalt and powdered cesium inside irradiation machines that sterilize medical equipment and blood.Most medical waste can simply be stored until its radioactivity subsides within a few years, then safely thrown out with the regular trash. Some institutions store their radioactive material in lead-lined safes, behind doors fitted with alarms and covered with yellow-and-black radiation warning signs.Over the past decade, however, 4,363 radioactive sources have been lost, stolen or abandoned, according to a Nuclear Regulatory Commission report released in February.
To read more go to:
As in the days of Noah....
China Space Mission Article Hits Web Hours Before Launch
BEIJING-A news story describing a successful launch of China's long-awaited space mission and including detailed dialogue between astronauts launched on the Internet Thursday, hours before the rocket had even left the ground.The country's official news agency Xinhua posted the article on its Web site Thursday, and remained there for much of the day before it was taken down.A staffer from the Xinhuanet.com Web site who answered the phone Thursday said the posting of the article was a "technical error" by a technician. The staffer refused to give his name as is common among Chinese officials.The Shenzhou 7 mission, which will feature China's first-ever spacewalk, is set to launch Thursday from Jiuquan in northwestern China between 9:07 a.m. EDT and 10:27 p.m. EDT.The arcticle, dated two days from now on Sept. 27, vividly described the rocket in flight, complete with a sharply detailed dialogue between the three astronauts.Excerpts are below:"After this order, signal lights all were switched on, various data show up on rows of screens, hundreds of technicians staring at the screens, without missing any slightest changes ...'One minute to go!''Changjiang No.1 found the target!'..."The firm voice of the controller broke the silence of the whole ship. Now, the target is captured 12 seconds ahead of the predicted time ...'The air pressure in the cabin is normal!'"Ten minutes later, the ship disappears below the horizon. Warm clapping and excited cheering breaks the night sky, echoing across the silent Pacific Ocean."
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,428262,00.html
As in the days of Noah...
China's astronauts prepare for spacewalk
BEIJING-China's third manned space mission reached its final orbit early Friday morning, where astronauts preparing for the country's first spacewalk enjoyed spicy food and the relative luxury of an onboard toilet.The Shenzhou VII blasted off from a remote desert site on Thursday on a trip designed to showcase China's technological mastery and crown the success of the Beijing Olympics.The live launch was watched by millions of Chinese and the mission has dominated state television and domestic newspapers.The craft is now circulating about 350 kms (about 220 miles) above the earth, a senior engineer at the launch base told state television, but the most challenging part of the mission lay still ahead."For the space walk the demands are higher, and the challenge is more difficult," he said in front of bank of computers. One of the men is expected to make China's first "footprint in space" Saturday, though this could be changed depending on how long it takes them to adjust.The chosen astronaut will venture outside the craft in a Chinese-designed space suit, named after a flying Buddhist goddess and with a price tag of 30 million yuan ($4.40 million), the official Xinhua agency said.As they ready for the space walk the trio are testing the country's first ever space toilet. Astronauts aboard China's previous two manned missions had to wear diapers, Xinhua said.They are also enjoying a better menu after chefs worked to improve dishes put vinegar and sauces on the packing list.To read more go to:
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE48O9ZY20080925
As in the days of Noah....
Iran to launch satellite with own rocket to space
TEHRAN, Iran - Iran plans to launch a satellite into space soon using an Iranian-made rocket, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said.Iran has in the past launched satellites using rockets built by other nations, but this was the first announcement of such a launch with an all-Iranian made rocket. Ahmadinejad said the rocket will have 16 engines and will take a satellite some 430 miles into space,according to a state television report Thursday.The satellite will likely be a commercial one for communication or meteorological research purposes. Iran has never announced plans to launch military satellites.But the country has long pursued the goal of developing a space program, generating unease among world leaders already concerned about its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.The same technology used to put satellites into space can be used to deliver warheads, which will likely further raise concerns over Tehran's advances in rocketry, especially in Israel.Earlier this month, Tehran announced that a joint research satellite built by Iran, China and Thailand, was sent into orbit by a Chinese-made rocket. At the time, Iranian officials said the three countries suffer from natural disasters and that the satellite would transmit photos to help deal with such crises.Tehran sent its first commercial satellite into space on a Russian rocket in 2005. Last month, Iran tested a rocket which it hopes will one day carry an all-Iranian research satellite.The remarks by the Iranian president came during his meeting with a group of Iranian expatriates in New York, where Ahmadinejad is attending the U.N. General Assembly.There were no details about what type of satellite the rocket would carry, and Ahmadinejad gave no time frame for the plan.http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080925/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iran_ahmadinejad_4
As in the days of Noah....
Putin says ties with Latin America a top priority
NOVO-OGARYOVO, Russia-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin vowed Thursday to make relations with Latin America a top foreign policy priority, a pledge backed by the first Russian naval deployment to the Caribbean since the Cold War.Putin greeted Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, on his second trip to Russia in just over two months, with offers to discuss further arms sales to Venezuela and possibly helping it to develop nuclear energy.Chavez's visit takes place as a Russian naval squadron sails to Venezuela, across the Caribbean Sea from the United States, in a pointed response to what the Kremlin has cast as threatening U.S. encroachment near its own borders.Both men suggested their countries are working to decrease U.S. global influence."Latin America is becoming a noticeable link in the chain of the multi-polar world that is forming," Putin said at his suburban residence at the start of his talks with Chavez. "We will pay more and more attention to this vector of our economic and foreign policy."Putin did not mention any specifics of potential Russian-Venezuelan military cooperation in his opening remarks, but Russian news reports said that Venezuela could buy Russian air defense missiles and more Sukhoi fighter jets.Earlier Thursday, a Kremlin official who spoke on customary condition of anonymity said that Russia would grant Venezuela a $1 billion credit for the purchase of Russian weaponry in an effort to help Venezuela revamp its military forces.Russia has signed contracts worth more than $4.4 billion with Venezuela since 2005 to supply arms including fighter jets, helicopters, and 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles.Putin did not specify what kind of cooperation Russia could offer Venezuela in the nuclear field, but Russia is aggressively promoting itself as a builder of nuclear power plants and supplier of fuel to nations seeking nuclear energy.Chavez, who addressed Putin as "my dear friend Vladimir," said that stronger ties with Russia would help build a multi-polar world—a term Russia and Venezuela use to describe their shared opposition to the perceived U.S. global domination."I think that today more than ever before what you have said about a multi-polar world is becoming reality," Chavez told Putin. He said he brought greetings from Cuban leader Fidel Castro, another staunch U.S. enemy.Both leaders have used criticism of the U.S. to boost their popularity at home and advance foreign policy objectives. Russia is the latest leg in a tour taking Chavez to a number of nations whose governments are eager to counter U.S. global clout. He stopped briefly in Cuba on his way to China, where he touted agreements to increase oil exports and purchase military jets.Signaling similar interests in Russia, Chavez said he and President Dmitry Medvedev will observe military exercises when they meet Friday in the southern Orenburg region. The region near Kazakhstan's border is home to oil industry facilities.In an interview broadcast on Russian television before the visit, Chavez said that Venezuela and Latin America as a whole need "friends like Russia" to help them shed U.S. "domination" and ensure peace.Russia has ramped up its cooperation with Caracas further since last month's war with Georgia, which has badly damaged Moscow's already strained ties with the West and particularly the United States. Russia's deployment of warships to Venezuela for naval maneuvers came after the United States used naval ships to ferry aid to Georgia after the war—a mission Russian officials harshly criticized.The Russian naval deployment follows a weeklong visit to Venezuela by a pair of Russian strategic bombers. On his Sunday TV and radio program, Chavez joked that he would be making his international tour aboard the "super-bombers that Medvedev loaned me."Chavez has also talked about creating "a new strategic energy alliance" with between the oil-rich nations.After visiting Venezuela this month, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin said five major Russian oil companies are looking to form a consortium to increase Latin American operations and to build a $6.5 billion refinery to process Venezuelan crude.Putin said that Russia's Gazprom state natural gas giant will launch its first drilling rig next month to tap Venezuela's offshore gas reserves.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D93DVMM80&show_article=1
As in the days of Noah....
Russia may launch nuclear cooperation with Venezuela: Putin
Russia may launch nuclear energy cooperation with Venezuela, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Thursday during talks with the country's fiercely anti-US leader Hugo Chavez. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080925184642.yl08a12f&show_article=1As in the days of Noah...
Czechs say Russian spies stir against U.S. base
PRAGUE-Russian spies are extremely active in the Czech Republic and are stirring public sentiment against a planned U.S. missile defense base, the Czech counter-intelligence agency said on Thursday.In a 2007 annual report, the Security Information Service (BIS) said Russian spies' wider aim may be to weaken the integrity of the NATO alliance and isolate the United States.The United States plans to build a radar station in the Czech Republic and place interceptor rockets in Poland as part of its global shield against ballistic missiles that it says could be fired by adversaries such as Iran.Russia, increasingly aggressive in foreign policy, fiercely opposes the plan, which will bring U.S. military hardware into countries that once belonged to the former Soviet empire."The intelligence services of the Russian Federation have attempted in the past year to contact, infiltrate and influence people and organizations that have influence on public opinion," the BIS report said."Russian espionage activities in the Czech Republic currently reach an exceptionally high intensity."The plan to host the U.S. radar is highly unpopular in the central European NATO member, where the public is wary of any foreign military presence, largely due to the Soviet invasion of 1968.The BIS said the Russian spies had focused on non-government organizations, politicians and the media to drum up opposition to the missile defense base, but they may have a wider plan."The BIS believes the active Russian measures against the Czech Republic and its allies were possibly part of a wider and long-term Russian campaign whose aim is to impair the integrity of the EU and NATO, isolate the United States and renew control over the lost Soviet security perimeter in Europe," it said.To read more go to:
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE48O48220080925
As in the days of Noah...
Activists Talk Love, Not War, With Iranian President
Activists from the radical anti-war group CodePink met with the president of Iran in New York on Wednesday, pitching a “peace park” and investment in a bicycle maker as ways to patch relations between the U.S. and the Islamic republic.Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in New York to address the U.N. General Assembly, met with CodePink co-founders Jodie Evans and Medea Benjamin and about 150 peace activists at the Grand Hyatt Hotel.During the two-hour meeting, members of CodePink presented the Iranian president with a petition signed by 50 American mayors calling for diplomacy, not war, in dealing with Iran. CodePink wants to take the mayors who signed the petition to Iran to create “sister cities.” “We’re modeling diplomacy,” Evans said of her meeting with Ahmadinejad.The group proposed letting artists create a “peace park” in Tehran and suggested making grassroots investments in an Iranian business that makes green and sustainable products like bicycles.Investing in businesses in Iran violates U.S. sanctions against Iran.Ahmadinejad told the group that he wants a million Americans to come to Iran, but members of CodePink have had trouble getting visas to visit the country — including Benjamin, who is Jewish.“I’m sure it’s because she’s a radical activist,” Evans said.At the meeting, Ahmadinejad said that he would make sure Benjamin could get a visa to visit Iran.Benjamin has offered public support of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and has spoken out against U.S. sanctions against Cuba. She is also the co-founder of Global Exchange, a group that organizes tours of Venezuelan neighborhoods and Chavez-supporting media outlets.Evans has given a total $4,600 to the Obama campaign and $1,000 to former Democratic presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich. Reports in the media have called her a bundler — or someone who uses networking to maximize campaign fundraising — for Obama’s campaign. Evans told FOXNews.com that she has never raised money for Obama, but her husband, Max Palevsky, has been a longtime major fundraiser for the campaign and has supported Obama since he was an Illinois state senator. Palevsky has also given money to the campaigns of Kucinich and to Sen. Christopher Dodd.Evans said she knows Obama and sees him at public events.“Every time I see Obama I give him a hard time on his stance on the war,” she said. “There’s no such thing as a good war. I wouldn’t say I’m a supporter. I’m definitely a thorn in his side keeping him on the right path about war.” Ahmadinejad told the group his dream is that Iran makes friends with the West. He said that if America really didn’t want Iran developing nuclear weapons, the U.S. would have already disarmed Israel.“He’s really about peace and human rights and respecting justice,” Evans said.PS:These Code Pink FOOLS go and talk PEACE to lunatic Ahmadinejad,while he LAUGHS at them all the way....Hope Benjamin likes her trip to Iran....Benjamin a JEW herself wants to meddle with this holocaust denier...!!!!What's wrong with these women????These code pink people are a sorry bunch of fools....
As in the days of Noah...
Peres calls Ahmadinejad a disgrace to his own people
Addressing the UN General Assembly the day after Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s anti-Semitic, anti-Israeli and anti-American diatribe, Israeli president Shimon Peres accused him of dredging up the ugliest libel plot ever devised against the Jewish people-the Elders of Zion.Iran is enriching uranium and building long-range missiles, said Peres. “It has introduced a religion of fear which defies the call of the Lord to respect all human life.” Ahmadinejad, said the Israeli president, is a danger to his own people, the region and the world, He is a disgrace to the ancient Iranian people, the values of Islam and the basic principles of the United Nations. “His appearance shames this house,” the Israeli president declared.Tuesday, the Iranian president won applause when he reviled “the Zionist regime” as “on a definite slope to collapse” and shouted “The American empire in the world is reaching the end of its road.” The only delegates to leave the chamber were the UN, Israeli and Georgian ambassadors. There were no other protests or walkouts.As in the days of Noah...
Ahmadinejad Says Iran Needs Ability to Produce Nuclear Fuel
NEW YORK-Iran needs the ability to produce nuclear fuel because it cannot rely on other nations to supply enriched uranium to the Islamic regime's planned reactors, the Iranian president said Thursday.Mahmoud Ahmadinejad-speaking to a gathering of selected journalists-also contended that Washington does not have the will to launch a military strike on Iran over its nuclear ambitions, which Tehran insists is for peaceful energy production but the West fears is a clandestine effort to gain atomic weapons. "We're not concerned at all that a confrontation will occur," said Ahmadinejad, who is in New York for the U.N. General Assembly. "What (factors) demand a war?" Ahmadinejad has used the U.N. session to host a variety of gatherings-including students and religious leaders-to press Iran's claims that it does not seek nuclear arms and has the right to develop reactors as an energy alternative to its vast oil and gas reserves. Ahmadinejad also has taken broad swipes at the United States and Israel-saying the American "empire" is collapsing, branding the Jewish State as a "cesspool" that will someday disappear and again questioning the extent of the Holocaust.Protesters, including Jewish groups, have gathered outside the U.N. building and Israeli President Shimon Peres called Ahmadinejad's U.N. address "a repetition of the darkest accusations in the name of Hitler."But the nuclear standoff has loomed largest.Ahmadinejad said Iran must develop its own centrifuge system to enrich uranium or risk being held hostage to international supplies that could be halted. Western powers have offered Iran economic incentives to abandon its enrichment program and take outside supplies of fuel-suitable for reactors but not concentrated enough for weapons.Ahmadinejad, however, said Iran would not step back from its own enrichment projects."What guarantee do we have that they would give (the nuclear fuel) to us?" he told the media gathering, which included The Associated Press.He cited past contracts with U.S. and European companies for power plants and other projects that were canceled after the 1979 Islamic Revolution."Iran paid billions (and) Western countries pulled out ... Who do we take our complaints to?" he said.Iran, however, has turned to Russia to build its first nuclear plant at Bushehr near Iran's Persian Gulf coast. Earlier this week, Russia blocked talks on imposing new sanctions on Iran.Iranian officials have said the Bushehr plant could begin some operations later this year.In Vienna, Austria, the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-member board is holding meetings this week that include internal reports on Iran's nuclear capabilities-with one study citing a significant increase in Iran's uranium-enrichment centrifuges.A statement by the European Union said Iran's demands on its own enrichment program "brings us closer to the moment where Iran will have fissile materials for a weapon." But Ahmadinejad answered back from New York — reiterating his claim that nuclear weapons are no long a factor in the global balance of power following the end of the Cold War."The time for the atomic bomb has come to an end. If the atomic bomb could do any good, it would have kept the Soviet Union from collapsing," he said. "Those who stockpile or build the atomic bomb are backward thinking. " Ahmadinejad also looked ahead to Iran's presidential election next year, when he is expected to face challengers that could include the current Tehran mayor — Ahmadinejad's former post — and parliament speaker Ali Larijani, who previously served as Iran's top nuclear negotiator. Ahmadinejad said he encouraged Larijani's possible bid to run for president.As in the days of Noah...
Russia, China, Germany reject US evidence of Iran's covert nuke program
Russia,China and Germany refuse to countenance tougher sanctions against Iran notwithstanding the International Atomic Energy Agency’s report from Vienna that its inspections of suspect activities and covert projects were stalled by Tehran’s non-cooperation.Diplomats for the five permanent Security Council members and Germany, meeting at the State Department Friday, Sept 19, therefore failed to agree on a new round of sanctions ahead of their foreign ministers’ meeting at UN Center next week.The meeting avoided discussing the timing and content of a fourth round of sanctions, only broadly calling on Iran - for the umpteenth time after numerous rejections - to accept the incentives on offer for halting uranium enrichment and cooperating with UN inspections.The nuclear watchdog reported that Tehran had stalled its efforts to establish whether or not Iran was developing nuclear warheads, enriching uranium for military purposes, testing nuclear explosives or building nuclear-capable missiles.Tuesday, Sept 16, the UN watchdog gave a closed meeting of the 35-nation board of the IAEA photos and documents proving Iran had tried to refit a long-distance Shehab missile to carry a nuclear payload. The also produced calculations and diagrams from Iranian missile and nuclear experts’ computers on nuclear detonations and how to build nuclear-capable missiles.The next day, Wednesday, CIA chief Michael Hayden disclosed that the destruction of the Syrian reactor - as a result of intelligence collaboration with a “foreign partner” who first identified the facility’s purpose - spoiled a project “that could have provided Syria with plutonium for nuclear weapons.”He did not name the foreign partner, but the reference to Israel was obvious. He also said the reactor was similar to the North Korean model. "We were able last year to spoil a big secret, a project that could have provided Syria with plutonium for nuclear weapons," Hayden said, adding: “When pipes for a massive cooling system were laid out to the Euphrates River in the spring of 2007, there would have been little doubt this was a nuclear reactor."The Bush administration released all this data in order to back up the IAEA report and tell the international community that the US and Israel were furnished with more intelligence confirming Iran’s covert nuclear projects and the clandestine partnershipn between Tehran, Damascus and Pyongyang. North Korea was also made aware that Washington had not missed its preparations for re-activating its nuclear reactor.Nuclear watchdog officials asked Tehran to explain why its experts were busy making calculations for military projects, claimed to be non-existent. No answer has been forthcoming as yet. The Iranian representative only said the materials had been forged by certain parties as a provocation.Nonetheless, Russian, Chinese and German diplomats attending the IAEA board meeting last Tuesday insisted that the evidence they saw did not prove Iran was engaged in developing nuclear weapons.Despite the fact that leading world powers have tied themselves in knots to avoid keeping nuclear weapons out of Iran’s hands, Israel’s prime minister Shimon Peres plans to deliver a speech at the UN General Assembly next week announcing that Israel is against resorting to military action against Iran and relies on sanctions.DEBKAfile’s political circles stress that the Israeli government has never confirmed the position embodied in his address.Ahead of his address to the General Assembly, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, grandstanding as always, challenged the American presidential candidates to a public debate "over global issues, in the presence of the media at the UN. He also said that while "some say the idea of Greater Israel has expired, I say the idea of lesser Israel has expired, too."http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5595
As in the days of Noah....
Russia jilts six-power sanctions front against Iran’s nuclear defiance
Moscow’s actions spoke louder than the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s anti-Semitic, anti-American rantings at the UN General Assembly Tuesday, Sept. 23 - despite the applause he won in the chamber.A foreign ministry spokesman in Moscow said that Russia will not attend the meeting called for Thursday of the five UN Security Council permanent members’ foreign ministers plus Germany to approve more sanctions against Iran for its nuclear defiance. Using blunt, undiplomatic words, the ministry said: “We do not see any fire that requires us to toss everything aside and meet to discuss Iran's nuclear program in the middle of a packed week at the United Nations General Assembly.”Reflecting the post-Georgian conflict frictions besetting Russian-US relations, the statement harshly criticized Washington, saying: “It would be very desirable for Washington to finally decide what it wants in its relations with Moscow. If it wants to punish Russia, this is one thing. If it agrees we have common interests… that is another. To use the words of Condoleezza Rice, you can’t have it both ways.”DEBKAfile’s political sources report that Moscow’s action has buried the hopes publicly entertained by President George W. Bush and Israel’s Shimon Peres that a joint international diplomatic front would persuade Iran to give up its military nuclear aspirations and obey UN resolutions.The Russians are consistent in their new policy of promoting their influence in the anti-American sector of the Middle East. Saturday, Sept. 19, official spokesmen did not rule out the sale to Iran of advanced S-300 anti-air missiles, having just completed the delivery to Iran of 29 Tor-M1 missile batteries for deployment at its nuclear sites.Early Wednesday, Ahmadinejad proclaimed at the UN General Assembly: “The Zionist regime is on a definite slope to collapse” and “The American empire in the world is reaching the end of its road.”The Iranian president delivered his outrageous speech to the world, safe in the knowledge that his Islamic regime is backed by Russia.At the opposite end of the moral spectrum stood Argentine president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who demanded in her UN speech that Iran extradite five ex-officials to stand trial for the 1994 bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. The attack killed 85 people, left 150 injured. Among the terrorists accused of the violent attack are ex-president Hashem Rafsanjani and a member of the Lebanese Hizballah, a group which Tehran uses for its anti-Israeli, anti-Jewish terrorist operations.As in the days of Noah....
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