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Russia, Iran to Ink Medical Isotope Export Deal
An agreement is being finalized for Russia to export medical isotopes to Iran, the Russian state-owned nuclear firm Rosatom announced yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 22).
Israeli President Shimon Peres delivers a speech in Madrid today. Peres said the passage of two Iranian navy ships through the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean Sea showcased the potential threat of a nuclear-armed Iran (Javier Soriano/Getty Images).
A spokesman for the organization did not elaborate on the timing of the anticipated signing, RIA Novosti reported. Tehran’s need for molybdenum 99 and iodine 131 was addressed in talks between Iranian officials and Rosatom head Sergei Kiriyenko (RIA Novosti, Feb. 22).
The deal would involve transfers of each isotope from Russia to Iran every week, Interfax reported.
Under a 2009 bid put forward by the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran would have exchanged 1,200 kilograms of low-enriched uranium for material to fuel a medical isotope production reactor in Tehran. The Middle Eastern state ultimately rejected the plan worked out with France, Russia and the United States, which was aimed in part at deferring Iran’s ability to produce sufficient weapon material for a bomb long enough to more fully address U.S. and European concerns about Iranian enrichment activities. Tehran has insisted its atomic ambitions are strictly peaceful.
Iran since December has two rounds of talks with Germany and permanent U.N. Security Council member states Read more…
Earthquake Shakes Up Suez Canal as Iran Warships Approach
Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
An earthquake measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale shook up residents at the entrance to the Suez Canal early Monday morning, 48 hours before two Iranian ships, a frigate and a supply vessel, are expected to enter the canal.
The National Institute for Astronomical and Geophysical Research reported that tremors from the 3 a.m. quake lasted for 27 minutes, but caused no damage.
The ships had originally been expected to enter the Suez today (Monday), but Egyptian officials announced the delay this morning, without explanation.
Iran inexplicably announced Sunday morning that two of its warships had crossed the Suez, a report that was thoroughly denied by Egyptian authorities. Iranian media did not mention the ships on Monday, and the false report may have been Read more…
Iranian warships’ passage through Suez put back two days
Iran’s Fars news agency has identified the 1,500-tone Alvand as one of the warships heading to the Suez Canal
The passage of two Iranian naval ships through the Suez Canal has been put back to Wednesday, a canal official said on Sunday as Israel expressed its grave concern about the Mediterranean-bound vessels.
“The shipping agent handling the two Iranian warships has told the canal administration to push back their passage by two days,” the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
He did not elaborate on the reasons for the delay, but confirmed that the new day of passage through the waterway that links the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea would be Wednesday.
Reportedly bound for Syria on a journey that would Read more…
US Internet censorship fight falling short: report
WASHINGTON — State Department efforts to combat Internet censorship in China and other countries have fallen short and funding for the drive should be shifted to another US agency, a Senate committee report says.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee report sharply criticizes the State Department for being slow in spending money allocated by Congress for Internet Censorship Circumvention Technology (ICCT).
The report, a copy of which was obtained by AFP, recommends that the funding be given instead to the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which oversees the Voice of America, Radio Free Asia and other US radio and TV networks.
The report is to be released on Tuesday, the same day Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is scheduled to Read more…
Egypt is Just the Beginning for Gold’s Next Move
Watching CNN, its easy to be lulled into the sense that the cute little third world African country that is home to Cleopatra, mummies and pyramids is having a little revolution to get rid of a tired old tyrant. That the old goat is putting up such resistance to the national message is to be expected, and might be forgiven. Unleashing bands of paid thugs under the guise of ‘supporters’ reveals true brutality and illuminates the character of the man, Hosni Mubarak – a sociopath.
This phenomenon, originated in Tunisia, a nation of 10 million, and now raging in Egypt, of 85 million has spread to Yemen, population 25 million and Jordan, population 6 million is no mere regional political shift: this is the beginning of America’s loss of control over the region.
That the democratic process even got a foothold in the tribal and historically despotically governed middle east is due to a series of historical power plays, and not so much to a nascent and organic inclination towards the idea of democracy. When oil emerged to become the most strategic substance on earth after the second world war, the United States, armed with the economic windfall from the war machine, set about toppling governments and seeding insurrection through the offices of the C.I.A., bolstering governments that were ‘incentivized’ to protect U.S. interests, and destroying those that were not.
Back then, before the light-sped connected world, the C.I.A. could operate with Read more…
WikiLeaks: tension in the Middle East and Asia has ‘direct potential’ to lead to nuclear war
Tension in the Middle East and Asia has given rise to an escalating atomic arms and missiles race which has “the direct potential to lead to nuclear war,” leaked diplomatic documents disclose.
By Heidi Blake
Rogue states are also increasing their efforts to secure chemical and biological weapons, and the means to deploy them, leaving billions in the world’s most densely populated area at risk of a devastating strike, the documents show.
States such as North Korea, Syria and Iran are developing long-range missiles capable of hitting targets outside the region, records of top-level security briefings obtained by WikiLeaks show.
Long-running hostilities between India and Pakistan – which both have nuclear weapons capabilities – are at the root of fears of a nuclear conflict in the region. A classified Pentagon study estimated in 2002 that a nuclear war between the two countries could result in 12 million deaths.
Secret records of a US security briefing at an international non-proliferation summit in 2008 stated that “a nuclear and missile arms race [in South Asia] has the Read more…
Something Large This Way Comes
And so it picks up steam. What started in Iceland, instigated by Wall St, has now engulfed Tunisia, Yeman, Sudan, Egypt, Syria, Jordan and others yet to be made manifest. Saudi Prince Turki bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud has warned the country’s royal family to step down and flee before a military coup or a popular uprising overthrows the kingdom.
Julianne the Apostate can take the credit of kicking this ball down the hill as it was his release of some of those documents which demonstrated selected venality amongst certain countries’ leadership. It would have happened anyway, but the Apostate, it seems, was the spark. How this could be to Israel’s benefit is beyond me.
The control system is blowing apart at the seams. Anyone thinking the unrest across North Africa to the Middle East is part of a planned paradigm has got to be crazy. Certainly, there are organizational forces at work trying to ride on top of the chaos, but all Read more…
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