Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

World’s Top Climate Scientists Told to ‘cover Up’ the Fact That the Earth’s Temperature Hasn’t Risen
Sep 21st, 2013
Daily NewsMailonline
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Scientists working on the most authoritative study on climate change were urged to cover up the fact that the world’s temperature hasn’t risen for the last 15 years, it is claimed.

Published next week, it is expected to address the fact that 1998 was the hottest year on record and world temperatures have not yet exceeded it, which scientists have so far struggled to explain.

The report is the result of six years’ work by UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is seen as the world authority on the extent of climate change and what is causing it – on which governments including Britain’s base their green policies.

But leaked documents seen by the Associated Press, yesterday revealed deep concerns among politicians about a lack of global warming over the past few years.

Germany called for the references to the slowdown in warming to be deleted, saying looking at a time span of just 10 or 15 years was ‘misleading’ and they should focus on decades or centuries.

Hungary worried the report would provide ammunition for deniers of man-made climate change.

Belgium objected to using 1998 as a starting year for statistics, as it was exceptionally warm and makes the graph look flat – and suggested using 1999 or 2000 instead to give a more upward-pointing curve.

The United States delegation even weighed in, urging the authors of the report to explain away the lack of warming using the ‘leading hypothesis’ among scientists that the lower warming is down to more heat being absorbed by the ocean – which has got hotter.

The last IPCC ‘assessment report’ was published in 2007 and has been the subject of huge controversy after it had to correct the embarrassing claim that the Himalayas would melt by 2035.

It was then engulfed in the ‘Climategate’ scandal surrounding leaked emails allegedly showing scientists involved in it trying to manipulate their data to make it look more convincing – although several inquiries found no wrongdoing.

Syria Keeps Chemicals, Iran Its Nuclear Program – Under Russia’s Military Aegis
Sep 21st, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Every word coming out of Moscow and Damascus takes another bite out of the US-Russian deal for the removal of Syria’s chemical arsenal, which US Secretary of State John Kerry announced with loud fanfare in Geneva on Sept. 14, alongside Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Since then, Moscow stands fast against the UN Security Council resolution that was supposed to underpin the deal, ruling out the draft by the US, UK and France because it would punish the Assad regime for non-compliance with his commitment under the Chemical Weapons Convention to dismantle and hand over all his chemical stocks.
Moscow refuses to hear of any punishment, persisting in declaring the Assad regime innocent of the Aug. 21 chemical attack on eastern Damascus – which triggered the deal - and accusing Syrian rebels of faking the videotaped atrocities.
The UN chemical experts’ report on this event is dismissed by Moscow as biased. So the Russo-Syrian stipulation that the entire chemical dismantling process be funneled through the UN is effectively dead-ended.
Middle East sources claim the Assad regime is smuggling parts of his chemical arsenal to Iraq and Lebanon, or even built a tunnel into Hizballah-controlled regions of Lebanon. These reports are not confirmed by DEBKA Weekly’s intelligence sources.
But then, along came President Bashar Assad with another towering obstacle.

So where and how will the Syrian chemicals be destroyed?

In an hour-long interview with America’s Fox News TV channel (to be aired Sunday, Sept. 22), President Bashar Assad announced that destroying his chemical stockpile would cost $1bn and take time – “It needs a year, or maybe a little bit more," he said.
Then, with perfect sang froid, he challenged Washington: “If the American administration is ready to pay this money and take the responsibility of bringing toxic materials to the United States, why don't they do it?"
Hours after that comment was previewed on Thursday, Sept. 19, Russian Defense Minister Gen. Sergei Shoigu spoke up to rule out any thought of Syria’s chemical weapons being destroyed on Russian soil – attesting to the perfect harmony prevailing between Damascus and Moscow for killing the Kerry-Lavrov understanding.
Now, no one can tell where and how Syria’s chemical weapons can be destroyed.
As DEBKA Weekly reported at the time, the Kerry-Lavrov deal, far from being an accord as it was touted, was no more than a set of flimsy understandings which have been melting away since they left the Geneva bubble.
The Saudis, Israelis, Turks, Jordanians, Qataris and Emiratis have given up asking what happened to the “credible military option” which the US President and Secretary of State both repeatedly promised would be available to support diplomacy.
They have seen it go up in smoke as the US president Barack Obama turns his attention away from Syria and back to the Iranian nuclear issue, saying he is in a hurry to exploit the “window of opportunity” because it won’t be open for long.

Iran and Syria get to keep their WMD

Indeed, White House officials revealed Thursday that preparations are underway for him to meet Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in the last week of the month at the UN General Assembly in New York.
The US president is clearly satisfied with the ground covered by his secret give-and-take with Tehran (as reported in the first two articles in this issue.)
One of his concessions was US approval for Iran to maintain its nuclear program in full, so long as it does not advance towards assembling operational weapons.
Those concessions embody an important fallacy: Obama has separated the issues of nuclear-powered Iran from chemical-armed Syria, as though they are unrelated, and let Iran off the hook for its massive input to Syria’s chemical and biological weapons, including the technology for building chemical warheads for delivery.
Omitting this linkage has tripped him up: The US president has made the mistake of leaving two rogue Middle East countries with weapons of mass destruction: Iran is allowed to retain its nuclear capabilities, fissile materials and weapons components in a disassembled state, while Syria, judging from Assad’s words, will retain the bulk of his chemical arsenal after the dust settles from headline-grabbing rounds of US-led international diplomacy.
President Obama, for his part, is left boasting about his success in successfully resolving major international crises by diplomacy - without resorting to force.
And America’s foes continue to use the understandings they reached with the Obama administration to arm themselves to the teeth.

Putin uses Assad for leverage in Washington and Tehran

At this point, Russian President Vladimir Putin stepped in. He sent out messages to Washington and Tehran this week demanding a piece of the action, if indeed they were engaged in direct dialogue.
It was made clear to both that the Russian leader was in a position to spoil their game by swinging the Assad lever over their heads. The Syrian ruler clearly appears to be going from strength to strength under Moscow’s military and diplomatic patronage.
Putin had read Washington’s political map, just as Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had.
The ayatollah decided there was no better time than now for extracting from Washington an end to the sanctions crippling his country.
He sees the US president’s bid to eliminate Syrian’s chemical arsenal by means of a serious accord with Moscow running into the sand, with no chance of congressional approval for a US military option.
Obama is defeating his own efforts by taking on Russia, Iran and Syria as a lone rider, after dispensing with the professional support of a competent team of advisers.
He appears to have convinced himself that his “achievement” on the Syria’s chemical weapons issue has armed him for success on the Iranian nuclear track.
The guardians of Iran’s nuclear arsenal are convinced that Obama is heading for an almighty mess thanks to his fallacious certainties.

Seismologists Puzzle Over Largest Deep Earthquake Ever Recorded
Sep 21st, 2013
Daily NewsScience Daily
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

A magnitude 8.3 earthquake that struck deep beneath the Sea of Okhotsk on May 24, 2013, has left seismologists struggling to explain how it happened. At a depth of about 609 kilometers (378 miles), the intense pressure on the fault should inhibit the kind of rupture that took place.

“It’s a mystery how these earthquakes happen. How can rock slide against rock so fast while squeezed by the pressure from 610 kilometers of overlying rock?” said Thorne Lay, professor of Earth and planetary sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Lay is coauthor of a paper, published in the September 20 issue of Science, analyzing the seismic waves from the Sea of Okhotsk earthquake. First author Lingling Ye, a graduate student working with Lay at UC Santa Cruz, led the seismic analysis, which revealed that this was the largest deep earthquake ever recorded, with a seismic moment 30 percent larger than that of the next largest, a 1994 earthquake 637 kilometers beneath Bolivia.

Deep earthquakes occur in the transition zone between the upper mantle and lower mantle, from 400 to 700 kilometers below the surface. They result from stress in a deep subducted slab where one plate of Earth’s crust dives beneath another plate. Such deep earthquakes usually don’t cause enough shaking on the surface to be hazardous, but scientifically they are of great interest.

The energy released by the Sea of Okhotsk earthquake produced vibrations recorded by several thousand seismic stations around the world. Ye, Lay, and their coauthors determined that it released three times as much energy as the 1994 Bolivia earthquake, comparable to a 35 megaton TNT explosion. The rupture area and rupture velocity were also much larger. The rupture extended about 180 kilometers, by far the longest rupture for any deep earthquake recorded, Lay said. It involved shear faulting with a fast rupture velocity of about 4 kilometers per second (about 9,000 miles per hour), more like a conventional earthquake near the surface than other deep earthquakes. The fault slipped as much as 10 meters, with average slip of about 2 meters.

Obama Missed the True Import of Khamenei’s “heroic Leniency” in Relation to Their Understandings
Sep 21st, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

In his eagerness for a breakthrough in the nuclear controversy between the US and Iran, President Barack Obama chose to slide past the telling Shiite term Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei used to lend religious legitimacy for turning a new page in their relations.
Khamenei informed an audience of top Revolutionary Guards commanders in an address he delivered Tuesday, Sept. 17, that he had resorted to the strategy of “heroic leniency” (see also two additional articles in this issue) in his dealings with the United States
To the Western ear unfamiliar with the roots of Shiite Islam prior to the Muslim wars of 1360, the ayatollah sounded as though he was talking about the heroic concessions he was offering for a reconciliation with America.
DEBKA Weekly’s Iranian and Shiite experts present this term in a different light, after tracing it to its inception by an important figure in Islam called Al-Hassan ibn Ali ibn Abi Talib, who was born on March 4 and died on March 9 or 30, in the year 625 CE, at the age of 47.
Abi Talib was the son of Ali and his wife Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad, who succeeded his father briefly as the Imam Hassan, “the righteous Caliph,” before retiring to Medina, and entering into a pact with the first Umayyad ruler, Mu’awiyah ibn Abi Sufyan, who assumed the Caliphate.
But Mu’awiyah spread insecurity and unrest in the key cities of Kufa, Basra and Medina, it is told, and sent out secret agents to defame his partner, the Imam Hassan.

Heroic leniency – or, rather, pragmatic flexibility short term?

Hassan knew his father had fought Mu’awiyah, but their battles had caused heavy casualties on both sides, sowing devastation everywhere. So, after conferring with his brother Hussein and other relatives, he revealed that, to end the bloodshed and restore a reasonable measure of security to the Ummah (Muslim nation), he would sign a peace treaty with Mu’awiyah and abdicate until his enemy’s death.
It was this decision which he termed “heroic leniency.”
The treaty he signed under this heading had four noteworthy articles:

• The peoples of Syria, Iraq, Hijaz, Yemen and other places would enjoy amnesty against persecution.
  In terms of the contemporary US-Iranian détente, this measure translates into the lifting of all sanctions and punitive measures against Iranian individuals and organizations.
• Friends and companions of Imam Hassan and all their women and children shall be protected from danger.
• Mu’awiyah must immediately stop using abusive language and cursing Imam Hassan.
  The US must renounce its threat to exercise a military option against Iran and annul financial penalties.
• Mu’awiyah shall not appoint a successor.

Under the terms of his accord with Iran, President Obama must pledge not to give any figures hostile to the Islamic Republic positions in his administration with influence over Iran policy.
After the treaty was signed, Imam Hassan and his brother Hussein moved back from Kufa to Medina and returned to their mission of gathering the faithful.
The IRGC chiefs knew exactly what Khamenei was talking about when he spoke of “heroic lenience.”
It is Shiite shorthand term for a pragmatic, flexible, short-term détente with a foe.

Obama Lets Iran Keep 20pc - Enriched Uranium Stocks
Sep 21st, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

The most significant indicator of Iran’s direct nuclear talks with the Obama administration (see first article in this issue) is the slow but steady rise of the value of the rial versus the dollar by 7.5 percent in the last 11 days. The Iranian currency is still weak but, after losing 300 percent of its value, is beginning to gain ground for the first time in the past year.
More confirmation came in an Internet article on Tuesday, Sept. 17, written by Hossein Moussavian, a former aide to President Hassan Rouhani and member of Iran’s nuclear negotiating team, in which he revealed that Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had mandated the president to enter into direct talks with the United States.
Moussavian called this a “last chance that will not recur” for bringing to an end decades of enmity between the two countries.
It is significant that, although the writer is close to the former president Hashem Rafsanjani, long out of favor with the supreme leader, his article was nonetheless allowed to see the light of day.
DEBKA Weekly’s Iranian sources reveal here for the first time the high points of the ground so far covered between Washington and Tehran. They also disclose that those points closely follow the reconciliation plan which Rafsanjani crafted when he was president in the 1990s.
Now, the former outcast is again in good standing in Tehran and one of the most influential presidential advisers after years of being cast out in the cold by Khamenei.

Iran will keep its enriched uranium stocks

In their secret diplomatic exchanges, the Obama administration and Tehran reached agreement on four points:

1. Iran’s nuclear capabilities will be preserved in their present state. Tehran has thus won the respect it demanded for its right to enrich uranium and maintain in the country all accumulated stocks, including the quantities enriched to the 20 percent level (a short hop to weaponised grade).
2. Tehran accepts a cap on the number of centrifuges enriching uranium at the Natanz facility. The exact number has not been decided.
   DEBKA Weekly’s intelligence sources report that the number of machines for enriching uranium to 5 percent is still at issue. There are no restrictions on the centrifuges for a lower level of purity.
   Discussions on this point have not been finalized, since Washington wants to limit the number of advanced IR2 and IR1 centrifuges in operation and Tehran is holding out against this,
   Monday, Sept. 16, the German Spiegel Online claimed that at the UN General Assembly this month President Rouhani would offer to decommission the Fordo enrichment plant and allow international inspectors to monitor the removal of the centrifuges, in return for the US and Europe rescinding sanctions, including the ban on Iranian oil exports and international business with Iran’s central bank.
   The Fordo facility which began operations underground in 2011 is reputed to be “virtually indestructible.”
   This report was denied by Tehran, seen as it was as a US-European trial balloon to test the limits of Iranian flexibility on the enriched uranium issue.
   
   The US and EU will gradually lift all sanctions
   
    
3. Iran will sign the Additional Protocol of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty-NPT, which allows International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to make unannounced visits outside declared nuclear sites, which are suspected of carrying out banned operations.
   It will also allow the IAEA to install cameras in the chambers where the centrifuges are spinning and not just the areas where the enriched uranium is deposited.
   Here too, it is not clear whether Tehran will also demand that Israel sign the same article and permit inspections of its nuclear sites.
4. The US and European Union will gradually lift all sanctions.

Rouhani mandated at highest level to interact with US

Amir Moussavi, a middleman between Obama and Tehran from 2009 until early 2012, told the Iranian Fars News Agency this week that President Rouhani has received the green light from Ayatollah Khamenei to engage in “diplomatic maneuvers” with Washington.
He explained that the supreme leader used the term “heroic leniency” for entering into this process, in consideration of the fluid situation in the region and the clamorous US demands to embark on diplomacy.
Even before Barack Obama agreed to a summit with Rouhani at the UN General Assembly later this month, Moussavi predicted that this forum would see important strategic talks, culminating in an Obama-Rouhani meeting and another round with the 5 + 1 forum (the five permanent Security Council members plus Germany).
Rouhani has been given the political and diplomatic mandate at the highest level to interact with the United States in measured and balanced dialogue.
The Iranian writer also confirmed to the Fars agency, debkafile’s exclusive disclosures about the roles of Sultan Qaboos bin Said Al-Said of Oman and the UN Deputy Secretary, former US ambassador to Syria Jeffrey Feltman in delivering important messages to Tehran from the White House.
A dramatic breakthrough is therefore predicted - both on the international diplomatic level and in dialogue with Washington.
All that remains, according to Mousavi, is to persuade the heads of the Iranian clergy, the Majlis, the armed forces and various classes of Iranian society that their leaders are acting for the national benefit to heal relations with the United States and the world, without foregoing national honor and independence.

Let the Headlines Speak
Sep 21st, 2013
Daily NewsFrom the Internet
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

‘Intrusive and Unsettling’: Man Rigs E-Z Pass Toll Tag to Show It Tracks Cars Outside of Tolls
A New Jersey man modified his E-Z Pass — a device used to automatically pay highway tolls — to alert him every time his it was being connected to by an outside source. He found it wasn’t just when passing through tolls that his device was being read. ...The man recorded video of the device being read in non-toll areas and presented his findings at the hacking conference Defcon, which took place in August.  

Homeland Security to test BOSS facial recognition at junior hockey game
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security will test its crowd-scanning facial recognition system, known as the Biometric Optical Surveillance System, or BOSS, at a junior hockey game this weekend. With assistance from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, DHS will test its system at a Western Hockey League game in Washington state.  

Super typhoon cuts power, unleashes landslides in northern Philippines
The year's most powerful typhoon slammed into the Philippines' northernmost islands on Saturday, cutting communication and power lines, triggering landslides and inundating rice fields, officials said. Packing winds of 185 kph (114 mph) near the center and gusts of up to 220 kph, Typhoon Usagi weakened after hitting the Batanes island group, and is moving slowly west-northwest at 19 kph towards southern China, the weather bureau said.  

Pakistan 'frees top Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar'
Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, co-founder of the Afghan Taliban, has been freed from jail in Pakistan, reports say. There is no official confirmation. The Afghan government had requested his release to boost the Afghan peace process and has hailed the move. Mullah Baradar is one of the four men who founded the Taliban movement in Afghanistan in 1994.  

US House passes budget bill that would defund healthcare law
US lawmakers have passed a budget bill that would keep the government operating, while defunding President Barack Obama's healthcare law. The Republican-led House of Representatives voted 230-189, largely along party lines, in favour of the controversial measure. The Democratic-controlled Senate has promised to strip the "defund Obamacare" provision next week.  

Islamic Movement leaders warn of 'Israeli plan to destroy al-Aksa Mosque'
Tens of thousands of Israeli-Arabs attended the "Al-Aksa is in Danger" rally in Umm al-Fahm on Friday, organized by the Islamic Movement's northern branch. ...Islamic Movement leaders warned the Arab and Islamic world against "Israel's plan, which has lately gained the support of right-wing MKs, to destroy the Aksa Mosque and to build a Jewish temple at the site."  

Yemen violence: Twin attacks on army 'kill 40'
At least 40 people were killed when suspected al-Qaeda militants launched simultaneous attacks on army targets in southern Yemen, officials say. Two car bombs reportedly exploded at a camp in Shabwa province, killing about 30 soldiers and wounding many others. In a second assault in the area, gunmen shot dead another 10 soldiers in the town of Maifaa.  

N Korea postpones family reunions over South's 'hostility'
North Korea is indefinitely postponing scheduled reunions of families separated by the Korean War, a government statement has said. The statement did not provide details other than accusing unidentified conservatives in South Korea of "hostility" towards Pyongyang. North Korea regularly makes such claims about the South.  

Pakistan to free Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Baradar on Saturday
Former Afghan Taliban second-in-command Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar is to be released from prison in Pakistan on Saturday, the foreign ministry says. A spokesman said the release was to "further facilitate the Afghan reconciliation process". Mullah Baradar is one of the four men who founded the Taliban movement in Afghanistan in 1994.  

Atom bomb nearly exploded over North Carolina in 1961: UK paper
A U.S. atom bomb nearly exploded in 1961 over North Carolina that would have been 260 times more powerful than the device that devastated Hiroshima, according to a declassified document published in a British newspaper on Friday.  

Pope seeks historic easing of rigid Catholic doctrine
Pope Francis has urged a break with the Catholic Church's harsh "obsession" with divorce, gays, contraception and abortion, in an interview signalling a dramatic shift in the Vatican's tone.  

China: NKorea ready to make nuclear commitment
China's foreign minister pushed Friday for the restart of international talks on North Korea's nuclear program, saying that Pyongyang is ready to recommit to the goal of denuclearization. North Korea withdrew from the aid-for-disarmament talks in 2009, and over the past year has made clear it wants to be treated as a nuclear weapons state.  

Chemical watchdog examines Syria weapons details
The world's chemical weapons watchdog has begun on Saturday to examine details of Syria's chemical arsenal supplied by the regime, as rebels agreed a truce with jihadists in a key border town.China urged a quick implementation of a landmark US-Russian deal to destroy Syria's chemical stockpile, as the Hague-based Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) tasked with dismantling the weapons said it has received an initial report from President Bashar al-Assad's regime on the arsenal.In New York, UN envoys were due to resume talks on a draft Security Council resolution that would enshrine the plan to neutralise the lethal weapons.

Khamenei Takes Custody of Completed Nuclear Program Out of Rev. Guards Hands
Sep 21st, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

US President Barack Obama has sharply whittled down his advisory team on foreign affairs. Since early this year, he is playing a lone game of diplomacy – first on the Syrian chemical issue and latterly for nuclear Iran – holding his cards very close to his chest.
Last week, top White House Iran adviser, a key member of the US negotiating team, Puneet Talowar, was kicked sideways. Dropped as National Security Council Senior Director for Iran, Iraq and Persian Gulf after five years, Puneet was appointed Assistant Secretary of State for Political Military Affairs.
Former White House coordinator for WMD, Gary Samore, who left the Obama administration early this year, has not been replaced.
New National Security Adviser Susan Rice is far from happy about being sidelined in Syrian and Iranian diplomacy (as DEBKA Weekly reported in its last issue).
The US President appears to depend on two tight teams of advisers – an inner group headed by White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and Oman’s Sultan Qaboos bin Said Al-Said, his go-between with Tehran.

“Heroic Leniency” means marching orders for Revolutionary Guards

This week, Obama decided his secret dialogue with Tehran had matured sufficiently for a summit to be held with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at the UN General Assembly in New York in the last week of September.
Obama’s efforts on the Iranian front bore first fruit Tuesday, Sept. 17, when Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s virtual dictator, announced: “We are against nuclear weapons - not because of the US or other countries, but because of our beliefs. And when we say no one should have nuclear weapons, we definitely do not pursue it ourselves either (sic).”
Khamenei went on to say he is “not opposed to proper moves in diplomacy,” and “I agree with what I called ‘heroic leniency’ years ago, because such an approach is very good and necessary in certain situations, so long as we stick to our main principles.”
The sour faces of the high-ranking Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) chiefs in his audience showed they needed no translation for the term “heroic leniency.” Instead of the usual applause and shouts of support, these hawks greeted Khamenei’s speech with sullen silence and only a faint rattle of clapping which quickly died down.
For this hawkish backbone of the Islamic theocracy of Iran, the message was clear: The masters of Tehran had decided to put the national nuclear program on hold for a while as a pragmatic concession to Washington, before the IRGC had gained a well-packed arsenal of nuclear bombs and warheads. The officers who had devoted their lives to this goal and the struggle against America were out in the cold.

Khamenei and Rouhani conduct an internal coup

That affront followed swiftly on President Rouhani’s stern caution to the IRGC Monday, Sept. 16, to stop meddling in politics, just five years after they rescued the ayatollahs regime from mass riots across the country.
This double blow amounted to a quiet internal coup against the powerful Guards and their displacement as custodians of the national nuclear program. According to DEBKA Weekly’s Iranian and intelligence sources, all sensitive nuclear installations were previously purged of Guards personnel who were not trusted for blind obedience to the new custodians, Khamenei and Rouhani, whose security was beefed up.
IRGC chiefs were given to understand that they had done their bit in bringing the Islamic Republic’s nuclear capabilities up to scratch. Now, it was time for them to step aside with pride in their accomplishment and leave it to the appointed guardians of state to decide if and when to go forward and build an operational nuclear weapon.
The realignment of the power balance in Tehran had become imperative for the reopening of the diplomatic track with Washington, which after years of empty palaver had run out of steam and needed new impetus.

Obama sends Tehran the key for talking business

Robert Einhorn, another senior nuclear negotiator recently disposed of by Obama, remarked on Sept. 12 that “President Obama’s flexibility on Iran” will be affected if the Syrian chemical weapons disarmament plan goes awry.”
Addressing the Atlantic Council chapter in DC, he said, “If Assad and the Russians deliver on the plan,” it could have “very positive implications” for Iran talks and make it easier for the Obama administration to risk making concessions to Tehran.”
According to Einhorn, it would be unfortunate if the American people made it more difficult for Obama to appease Iran. He offered advice on “the most productive way” forward as being “for the US and Iran to sit down and explore what’s possible… a frank give-and-take about what each side is really seeking in these negotiations.”
Proposals could then be drafted and presented to the permanent members of the UN Security Council-plus-Germany group for approval.
Einhorn implied that when Obama zigzagged on Syria, he was in fact thinking of Iran.
And indeed, DEBKA Weekly reports that Obama played his part by sending Tehran the key for opening the door to talking business.
He sent a message to Iran’s leaders by the hand of Oman’s Defense Minister Brig. Gen. Sayyid Badr bin Saud Al Busaidiat. It was delivered quietly while, publicly, the parties signed a mutual memorandum of understanding for boosting cooperation between Muscat and Tehran in education, sports and culture.
DEBKA Weekly’s sources in Washington and the Gulf disclose its content:
The US president said that for an understanding to go forward, the supreme leader must convene the IRGC chiefs and inform them that they were no longer in charge of the country’s national nuclear assets. If that condition was met, Obama would make the gesture of meeting President Rouhani at UN HQ this month.

Two concessions for Tehran from Washington

And in fact, Monday, Sept. 16, the Omani minister informed the White House that Khamenei had agreed to take this step the next day, as reported above.
Obama reciprocated - first Tuesday night by asserting in an interview to the Spanish language Telemundo network that he was willing to open dialogue on Iran’s nuclear program if its leaders demonstrated their own “seriousness by agreeing not to weaponise nuclear power.”
He went on to say: “There is an opportunity here for diplomacy. I hope the Iranians take advantage of it. There are indications that Rouhani, the new president, is somebody who is looking to open dialogue with the West and the United States in a way that we haven’t seen in the past. And so we should test it.”
The first gold nugget for Tehran in these remarks was the US president’s acquiescence to Iran’s nuclear bomb capabilities so long as its leaders, specifically supreme leader Khamenei, agreed “not to weaponise nuclear power” – at least in the three and a half years remaining of Obama’s term in office.
The second was the Obama-Rouhani summit.
The areas of agreement and discord in his dialogue with Khamenei and Rouhani will be itemized in the next article.

Come Ison Break - Up Pose a Threat?
Sep 21st, 2013
Daily Newsspace.com
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

As the possible ‘comet of the century’ approaches its date with the Sun (Nov. 28th, 2013), the chances of its break-up will increase exponentially. The comet is not on a trajectory to hit the Earth. What will happen to pieces that may break away?

5.3 - Magnitude Earthquake Hits Japan's Fukushima
Sep 21st, 2013
Daily NewsThe Age World
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

A 5.3-magnitude earthquake has hit the Japanese prefecture that is home to the nuclear power plant crippled in the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

The US Geological Survey says the quake struck early Friday at a depth of about 22 kilometres under Fukushima Prefecture and about 177 kilometres northeast of Tokyo.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center did not issue an alert.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday ordered TEPCO to scrap all six reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant and concentrate on tackling pressing issues like leaks of radioactive water.