Comment: Iraq confession puts Blair's integrity on line

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here we go again:
Source: 'Alarming' secret document details Iran's nuclear goals

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Monday, 14 December 2009

Iranian jailed in US for arms trafficking plot

An Iranian man has been jailed for five years in the US after admitting plotting to procure and smuggle arms to Iran, prosecutors say.

Amir Ardebili was seized by undercover US agents overseas in 2007 following a five-year investigation.

In May 2008, he pleaded guilty to arms trafficking, but this was only revealed two weeks ago.

Iran complained to United Nations officials in October about how the US had seized Ardebili.

A federal prosecutor in the state of Delaware, Assistant Attorney David Hall, said Ardebili had acquired thousands of items, including military aircraft parts, the Associated Press news agency reported

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Exiled Hamas leader visits Iran

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CNN) -- Exiled Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran, Iran, on Sunday, according to Iran's semi-official Fars news agency.

During the meeting, Ahmadinejad told Mashaal that "Iran will always stand by the oppressed people of Palestine," Fars reported.

The Iranian leader declared that "enemies are experiencing successive failures," Fars said. He cited "the failed assault over Gaza Strip and Lebanon, lack of success in reforming the U.S. image" after President Obama took office and a lack of success in Iraq and Afghanistan.

These are "among failures of world arrogance and particularly the U.S. and Zionist regime [Israel] over recent years," Ahmadinejad said, according to Fars.

Mashaal said Hamas and the Palestinian resistance will continue fighting until their goals become reality, Fars reported. Palestinians are determined to return to their homeland, he said.

Al Qaeda's No. 2 condemns Obama's Mid East policy after terror ring smashed in Lebanon

December 14, 2009

Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's second top leader, denounced US president Barack Obama's Middle East policy as "nothing but a new stage in the Crusader and Zionist campaign to subjugate and humiliate us… and our religion" in a statement posted on an Islamist website Monday, Dec. 14.

He also slammed Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, Saudi king Abdullah and Jordan's monarch as "Arab Zionists." By unusually listing them by name, Zawahiri is seen by DEBKAfile's terror experts as directly threatening those leaders whom he accuses of "implementing the orders of Obama… whose real plan is to support Israel…"

DEBKAfile's counter-terror sources report that Zawahiri's angry statement was posted as Lebanese president Michel Suleiman prepared to meet President Obama at the White House Tuesday, Dec. 14. It was influenced no doubt by the breakup of an important al Qaeda ring in Lebanon controlled by one of his minions, Gemal Baioni, an undercover operative of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad who was based in Athens.

Lebanese military intelligence moved in on the network in time to foil its mission to attack US, UK, French and German embassies in Beirut and UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon while Suleiman was away in Washington. The agents acted on information drawn from three al Qaeda operatives captured last week at the border village of Majdal Anjar on the Beirut-Damascus highway, which led to the rest of the network being rolled up Thursday night, Dec. 11 in Beirut and the Palestinian Ein Hilwa refugee camp.

The network's commander was Tareq Abdul Fattah Baidouin codenamed Abu Qusaiba, a biochemist whose extremist leanings and connections were kept dark.

Their controller, the Egyptian Baioni, visited Lebanon several times in recent months to get operations moving. However, last October he arrived from Athens particularly to supervise a Katyusha rocket barrage against northern Israel on the 27th of the month. Only one 207mm rocket was actually fired. Another four were found by UN peacekeepers ready for launching.

Al Qaeda named that operation for Zaid Jarrah, he commanded the hijack of Flight 93 from Newark airport which on Sept. 2001 crashed in Pennsylvania killing all 43 people aboard. Baioni was out of Lebanon when the al Qaeda ring was broken up. The Greek authorities have mounted a big manhunt for his capture.

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Binyamin Netanyahu must decide whether to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities

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The moment is fast approaching when Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, may have to make the most difficult decision of his career — whether to launch a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities and risk triggering a conflagration that could spread across the Middle East.

Israeli experts believe the point of no return may be only six months away when Iran’s nuclear programme will have — if it has not already — metastasised into a multitude of smaller, difficult-to-trace facilities in deserts and mountains, while its main reactor at Bushehr will have come online and bombing it would send a radioactive cloud over the Gulf nations.

Mr Netanyahu has consistently called Iran the most serious threat Israel faces. President Ahmadinejad of Iran has called for Israel to be obliterated and his Revolutionary Guards supply training, money and weapons to both Hezbollah in Lebanon, on Israel’s northern border, and to Hamas in the Gaza Strip, whose missiles are believed to be capable of reaching Tel Aviv.

In the run-up to his election this year, Mr Netanyahu promised that “under my Government, Iran will not be allowed to go nuclear”. Yet Mr Ahmadinejad has promised to produce 20 per cent enriched uranium: a big step towards weapons-grade fuel.

With the Iranian threat at the front of his strategic thinking, Mr Netanyahu has surrounded himself with old comrades from Israel’s most prestigious military unit, the Sayeret Matkal, or General Staff Reconnaissance. Mr Netanyahu served in the elite unit in the 1970s under Ehud Barak, who went on to become Israel’s most decorated soldier and later Prime Minister in his own right.

When Mr Netanyahu came to power, he made great efforts to recruit his former commander as Defence Minister. Mr Barak serves with another former leader of the unit, the Deputy Prime Minister, Moshe “Bogie” Yaalon. The Israeli Prime Minister has hard-wired his core Cabinet with so much military experience for a good reason. Striking Iran’s nuclear facilities would be a huge military and political gamble. Although Russia has delayed supplying Iran with S300 anti-aircraft missiles, which could weaken any Israeli attack, the air force would have to mount one of its largest long-range attacks to have a chance of disabling Iran’s nuclear installations.

Earlier this year a report by Anthony Cordesman of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, warned that “a military strike by Israel against Iranian nuclear facilities is possible . . . (but) would be complex and high-risk and would lack any assurances that the overall mission will have a high success rate”.

At roughly the same time, Leon Panetta, the head of the CIA, went on a covert visit to Israel to seek assurances that the new Government would not surprise the Obama Administration with a sudden unilateral attack.

In 2007, in what is often seen as a trial run for an attack on Iran, an Israeli squadron flew undetected through Turkish airspace and over Syria’s unprotected border to destroy what was thought to be a nuclear facility under construction with Iranian and North Korean support.

In June 2008, the air force staged exercises over the Mediterranean, with dozens of fighters, bombers and refuelling tankers flying roughly the same distance as between Israel and Iran. Earlier this year, Israeli jets again carried out a long-range bombing mission, hitting trucks in Sudan that were believed to be bringing Iranian weapons to Hamas via Egypt.

In the immediate term, the threat of a strike has receded. Israel is satisfied that Iran’s hostile stance towards the international community has increased the chances of serious, crippling sanctions. Officials noted that for the first time Russia seemed to be serious about isolating Tehran.

But that international front could easily crack, and then Mr Netanyahu would be faced with the decision on whether to order his bombers into action. Iran has already threatened to bomb Israel’s cities with its long-range missiles should its nuclear facilities come under attack.

It could also, in stages, order Hezbollah to launch rockets across the northern border. The attack could come in conjunction with a Hamas assault from the Gaza Strip.

Alternatively both sides may choose to do nothing. Some analysts believe that Israel might tolerate Iran as a “threshold nuclear state”, capable of building a bomb but not testing it.

Iran could opt for the path chosen by Syria in 2007, if Israel strikes at isolated facilities miles from an urban areas, where the only casualties would be technicians and guards. After the strike against Syria, neither side admitted what had happened, thereby avoiding a war and saving face.

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Iran denies Times newspaper 'nuclear trigger' report

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breaking: Iran tests long-range missile, state-run television reports
Iran tested an "optimized version" of the Sajil missile, a surface-to-surface missile with a range that makes it capable of reaching parts of Europe

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Dubai $10bn help from Abu Dhabi 'was loan, not handout'

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Abu Dhabi's last-minute $10bn (£6.13bn) bail-out to United Arab Emirates neighbour Dubai was a loan, not a handout, it has emerged.

The loan, announced on Monday, stopped a unit of investment company Dubai World defaulting on its debt.

The Emirates Business newspaper quoted a source close to Dubai as saying the $10bn came in the form of bonds.

Concerns about Dubai's huge debt load set off waves of panic in the financial markets over the past few weeks.

The Dubai government did not say what form the bail-out took, leading many to think the money was a handout.

Investors have been worried about Dubai's debt levels and may be more concerned now that the city has had to add to its debt to get out of its immediate problems.

Ends speculation

There had been fears that Nakheel, a property unit of Dubai World, would not be able to pay off the bonds when they matured on 14 December.

"Of course, the funding is at attractive prices, but the important thing is that it is a commercial debt, not a sovereign bail-out," the newspaper quoted a "top Dubai-based bank official" as saying.

The loan was advanced "on similar commercial terms" to aid received by Dubai from the Abu Dhabi-based UAE central bank in February.

At that time, when Dubai also received $10bn from its neighbour, the deal involved Dubai paying 4% interest on five-year bonds.

The last-minute intervention by Abu Dhabi came a surprise.

Dubai's fellow emirate has helped its neighbour out before. Their relationship is close, as both belong to the seven-member UAE and their ruling families are from the same tribe.

But unlike Dubai, whose economy is largely a service-sector one, Abu Dhabi has substantial oil reserves.

Bank shares fall on fears over new regulations

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Global banking stocks have fallen on concerns that banks will have to maintain significantly more funds in reserve from 2012.

That is the recommendation of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, which sets global standards for the banks.

It said that increased financial reserves would help prevent a repeat of the credit crisis and its impact.

Although the Basel Committee's views are not binding, countries generally use them as a reference.

The European Commission said it was studying the report.

Analysts said banking stocks had fallen, as investors were concerned that banks may have to issue new shares to help the additional funds, thereby diluting the value of existing shareholdings.

In the UK, Lloyds Banking Group closed Thursday trading down 8%, while Barclays lost 6.2%.

Meanwhile, Germany's Commerzbank lost 4.3%, and France's Credit Agricole fell by 4.6%.

The UK government is already moving ahead with plans to force banks to build up their capital reserves, with such a measure featured in its Financial Services Bill, which is currently making its way through parliament.

THis is a timeframe equal to the last Venus Transit - end of Mayan calendar ( June 6, 2012 - December 21-23, 2012 ):

( Note that Venus is about to cross the Transit Line these days )

June 1, 2009 - December 17, 2009

Air France crash remains a mystery as latest report released

December 17, 2009

(CNN) -- Investigators probing the June crash of an Air France flight in the Atlantic Ocean still do not know what brought the plane down, who was at the controls when it crashed, or what the pilots did in the moments leading up to the disaster, according to a new report released Thursday.

"At this stage ... it is still not possible to understand the causes and circumstances of the accident," investigators said in the report.

Flight 447 -- an Airbus A330 -- went down in stormy weather in the Atlantic Ocean June 1 while flying from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, France. All 228 people on board were killed. Most of the bodies were never recovered.

France's air accident investigation agency, the BEA, released its second interim report into the crash Thursday. It had been planning a news conference at the same time, but canceled it because of snow in Paris.

The plane hit the water belly first, essentially intact, studies of the debris and the bodies that have been recovered show.

Oxygen masks were not deployed, indicating that the cabin did not depressurize, the report said.

Automated messages sent from the plane in the minutes before the crash showed there were problems measuring airspeed, the investigators said.

But that alone was not enough to cause the disaster, they added.

"Inconsistency in the measurements of airspeeds was one of the elements in a chain of events that led to the accident, though this alone cannot explain it," the report says.

Large parts of the plane -- including the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder -- have never been found, leaving investigators without key pieces of the puzzle.

Investigators are preparing to begin a new search for the recorders in February, the report said.

But the area where the plane went down is far out in the Atlantic -- two to four days for ships from the nearest ports in Brazil or Senegal in west Africa. The underwater terrain is rough, with great variations in depth -- that is, underwater mountains and valleys -- over short distances, the report says.

The new search will involve air accident investigators from the United Kingdom, Germany, Brazil, Russia, the United States and France, as well as the U.S. Navy.

The search is planned to last 60 days, the report said.

Jean-Paul Troadec, director of the French investigation bureau, told reporters earlier this week that the new search, about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) from Brazil's northeast coast, will involve sonar and robot submarines.

Troadec was in Rio de Janeiro to speak to the relatives of the 58 Brazilians who were on board, the French news agency AFP reported Sunday. "We tried to convince the families that we are conducting the investigation with the full intention of getting to the truth," he said.

Tests have already brought into question the performance of pitot tubes, which measure the pressure exerted on the plane as it flies through the air, and are part of a system used to determine air speed.

Before it crashed, Flight 447 sent out 24 automated error messages that suggested the plane may have been flying too fast or too slow through the thunderstorms, officials have said.

The European Aviation Safety Agency issued a directive in late August requiring airlines to replace pitot tubes manufactured by Thales Avionics on Airbus A330s and A340s. It said airlines should replace them with other Thales tubes and those manufactured by Goodrich.

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'Meaningful deal' reached at Copenhagen climate summit

Key states in Copenhagen have reached a "meaningful agreement" in climate change talks, a US official says.

No country was "entirely satisfied" with the deal, but it was a "historic step forward," the official added.

The deal was not enough to tackle dangerous climate change but was an important first step, he said.

The two-week summit in the Danish capital had been deadlocked on Friday evening as world leaders tried to hammer out a deal.

Details of the reported agreement emerged after a meeting involving US President Barack Obama, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and South African President Jacob Zuma.

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updated Phi point Hariri assassination - end of Mayan calender

Lebanese leader on first trip to arch-foe Syria

Beirut, Lebanon (CNN) -- Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri arrived in Damascus on Saturday for his first meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad, Hariri's press office said.

The talks could signal a thawing of icy relations between the neighboring nations that further deteriorated after the 2005 assassination of Hariri's father, former leader Rafiq Hariri.

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Bus carrying Syrian workers attacked in Lebanon

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A bus carrying Syrian workers in northern Lebanon has come under fire and at least one person has been shot dead, security sources say.

Several others were reported injured by shattered glass during the attack.

The incident took place near an army checkpoint in the Deir Emar district, some three miles (5km) north of the city of Tripoli.

The bus was taking Syrian labourers along the main highway between northern Lebanon and Syria.

One eyewitness said the vehicle's tyres had bullet holes and several windows on the driver's side were shattered by the shots.

According to the French news agency AFP, the person killed was a 17-year-old labourer.

The attack occurred a day after Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri completed a two-day visit to Damascus for talks with Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Analysis: Global business decade in review

December 21, 2009

(CNN) -- The new century did not begin on Jan. 1, 2000 -- it started on Sept. 15, 2008, when Lehman Brothers collapsed.

At least, that's what Vivek Ranadive, chairman and chief executive officer of U.S. software maker TIBCO, thinks history will remember -- much like World War I is now considered the start of the 20th Century, an event that changed the landscape of the decades to come.

At the World Economic Forum in Dalian, China, last September, where Ranadive made his comments, the 1,500 company and government leaders who gathered agreed the business world was undergoing a fundamental change.

The Great Recession was the biggest news event in a decade filled with blockbuster business news. The decade was bookended by financial implosions -- the dotcom crash of 2000 and the fall of Lehman Brothers in 2008, which turned the smoldering burn of the 2007 subprime mortgage market collapse into a global banking crisis. Even as developed economies are timidly stepping back into growth, the late November debt crisis in Dubai showed how the economic shockwaves of the collapse still reverberate around the globe.

But through the lens of the financial crisis you get a clear picture of the factors that have defined the business world of the last decade: China, technology and speed.

The world grew rich

If businesses are judge by their bottom line, the bottom line of the past decade is this: It was the most lucrative in human history.

Take just one measurement by the International Monetary Fund -- fixed-income securities, which essentially are the global savings of the world. In 2000, that stood at $36 trillion globally. Today, it's around $83 trillion, a more than twofold increase -- thanks to the growth of China and the rest of the developing world.

If the decade had ended 16 months ago, the business story of the decade would undisputedly be China. The spectacular closing ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympics on Aug. 24 in Beijing would have been the defining image of the past ten years if the bankruptcy of investment giant Lehman Brothers hadn't cratered just three weeks later.

China opened for business in the 90s, but really came into its own this past decade. China only joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. Now it's the world's third largest economy. In 1999, the per capita income of Chinese urban dwellers was $700 -- by 2008 that climbed to $2,300.

With its new wealth, China -- along with Russia, India, Brazil and rest of the newly rich in the developing world -- invested heavily in the U.S., creating the feeding frenzy of investments in subprime real estate from which the financial crisis was born.

Crisis culprit: Technology

The decade began with the bust of the dotcom bubble. But technology fed the incredible growth in the past decade.

The infrastructure of technology has ballooned. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, among its member nations in 2001, an average of two households per 100 had broadband connections. By 2009, 23 households per 100 had broadband.

Globally, mobile phone use went from unique to ubiquity: mobile phone penetration was 8 percent in 1999, compared to 64 percent today, according to the International Telecommunications Union.

But technology also was an essential accomplice in the financial crisis. Technological advances in banking promulgated derivative financial products, those "Weapons of Mass Destruction" as Warren Buffet famously called them.

Banks were able to spit out these new complex products because of increases in technology used by the banks. Derivatives traders I spoke with during the crisis said they were able to take a derivatives product a competitor put out, analyze it and reverse engineer an identical product in a matter of hours. This stoked the competitive drive to create and sell more of these products, creating a large financial house of cards that finally fell.

Reversal of fortunes

Jim Turley, the CEO of accounting giant Ernst & Young, said what defined the past decade was the speed of change.

Becoming a CEO in the last decade, he saw two recessions in that period -- one at the beginning and the current deeper one.

"I've seen the global turmoil that happened after Sept. 11 and the aftermath; I've seen the turmoil in our profession and restructuring in our profession after Enron," he said.

"I've now seen up close and personal the financial crisis and the banking crisis. Very importantly we've seen the importance of emerging markets just scream to the world about how vital they are," Turley added

This has been a decade punctuated by breathtakingly quick changes in fortunes, changes in players, changes in government policies that impact business. Enron was the seventh largest company in the world shortly before its downfall. A month before it happened, no one could have predicted the fall of Lehman Brothers, or the U.S. administration under President George W. Bush stepping in to prop up banks.

The stunning reversal of fortunes in the past decade underlines how quickly businesses must change tack, and the increasing pressure that puts on executives to make quick decisions with incomplete information. As the banking industry saw, the past decade ushered in an age where record bonuses one year could be followed by massive waves of layoffs.

"We have to look in the mirror ... and see that what is in front of us is very different from what we see in the mirror behind us," said Ben J. Verwaayen, chief executive officer of Alcatel-Lucent, at Dalian.

"This crisis isn't about when will we restore order; this is about going from one reality to the next reality," he said. "We'll have different values, different criteria of success, and different environmental issues to deal with. That will require different leadership."

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Tuesday, 22 December 2009

Ahmadinejad denies Iran nuclear bomb trigger tests

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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said a document apparently showing that Tehran plans to test a trigger for a nuclear bomb is a US forgery.

In an interview filmed on Friday with ABC News, Mr Ahmadinejad said the report in the Times newspaper was "fundamentally not true".

Mr Ahmadinejad said criticism of Iran's nuclear programme had become "a repetitive and tasteless joke".

Iran says its nuclear enrichment programme is for peaceful purposes.

The BBC's Jane O'Brien in Washington says the interview offered a rare opportunity to see an Iranian leader being questioned by the US media.

But Mr Ahmadinejad's answers gave little indication that his administration is moving towards a more conciliatory position, says our correspondent.

'Fabricated papers'

The Times reported last week that it had obtained a document, dating from 2007, describing a four-year plan by Iran to test a nuclear trigger using uranium deuteride.

The product can be used as a neutron initiator: the component of a nuclear bomb that triggers an explosion.

In his first public response to the report, Mr Ahmadinejad said the accusations were "fundamentally not true".

He dismissed the documents, saying: "They are all a fabricated bunch of papers continuously being forged and disseminated by the American government."

When asked if there would "be no nuclear weapon in Iran, ever", Mr Ahmadinejad said his view was already known.

"You should say something only once. We have said once that we don't want a nuclear bomb. We don't accept it."

'Bullying'

Iran is already subject to three sets of UN sanctions for its refusal to suspend its uranium enrichment programme.

It is at risk of further sanctions after it rejected a deal to send low-enriched uranium abroad to be refined into fuel for a research reactor.

Mr Ahmadinejad said Iran would welcome talks "under fair conditions".

"We don't welcome confrontation, but we don't surrender to bullying either," he said.

"If you are saying you are going to impose sanctions, then go and do it."

Mr Ahmadinejad also rejected criticism of Iran's human rights situation and allegations of mass arrests following the elections which returned him to office in June.

"These things have to do with the judiciary. We have good laws. There is the judge. These people have got lawyers. These are not political questions."

He said people in Iran had more freedom than in the US.

The ABC interview took place before the latest protests held at the funeral of the influential dissident cleric, Grand Ayatollah Montazeri.

Iran says its uranium enrichment programme is for purely peaceful purposes, aimed at generating electricity so that it can export more gas and oil.

But the US and its allies say it could be used to develop weapons.