Friday, December 28, 2012
"Global Governance" Now Acceptable Terminology
Global Governance" Now Acceptable Terminology
While much of the Christian and post-Christian worlds were busy rushing about in last-minute preparations for Christmas celebrations, an important event took place in Brussels, Belgium, that went largely unnoticed and unreported. Leaders of the European Union and Russia met in Brussels on December 20 and 21 for the 30th EU-Russia Summit, continuing a process of convergence and interdependence that is leading toward political, economic, and social merger.
The world is changing dramatically, and the 'world order' is therefore changing too. The western powers of the United States and Europe are in decline, whilst China and Asia in general are on the rise. Many 'developing' countries, such as the BRIC nations of Brazil, Russia, India and China, are becoming more wealthy and more powerful than the established 'developed' economies of the west. Whereas the old international order saw the vast majority of power wielded by western powers, with America as the undisputed global superpower, a new multi-polar world is now emerging, with Asia as its power centre. This new order will indeed see the importance of international organisations increase. The imposition of Western rules and systems will be replaced by negotiated solutions reflecting the needs and desires of a much wider range of countries. Led by countries such as China, which has always opposed western interventionism, this new way is likely to emphasise national sovereignty and non-interference in other country's affairs. There is one group who has the most to lose from this change – the corporate and banking elite. – World News Curator
The idea is to generate increasing
levels of control throughout society. The mechanism is mercantilism,
which allows those at the very top to gain and keep virtually unlimited power,
as they are exempt from the laws and regulations being inflicted on everyone
else.
Another meme that the article promotes is that China and the BRICs generally are rising up and diminishing Western power. But this is by design, in our view.
The West's topmost elites, the ones
that control central banking, are as firmly entrenched as ever, in our view.
Those who will be inconvenienced by the efflorescence of global government will
be a secondary tier of political, banking, military and industrial types – those
who may believe they are among the "untouchables" but actually are not. They may
find this out over time to their dismay.
The creation of global governance demands all sorts of
stresses and strains. Only from fear and chaos can a new global society emerge.
Enemies are necessary. The Soviet Union is no more, so new enemies have to be
identified.
Congressman Ted Poe, R-Texas, says it is irresponsible for Barack Obama to be “arming” a country that may be aiming for the destruction of Israel with a shipment of 20 F-16 fighter jets.
There are also the more philosophical issues that are thought by some to represent an inherent anti-American default position on the part of the president. The Muslim Prayer Day in 2009 is one such example.
The hypocrisy of it all is stunning. While screaming, “GUNS ARE BAD!” to American farmers, ranchers and citizens, the government is buying up billions of dollars worth of guns and ammo itself. This isn’t ammo to be used in a foreign theater of war, by the way, it’s ammo that can only be used domestically, against the American people. (The hollow point ammo violates international war treaties and so cannot be used in international war actions.)
In addition to purchasing 450 million rounds of hollow point .40 caliber ammo, the U.S. government has also purchased:
The political and media side show that is the so-called “fiscal cliff” will soon be overshadowed by the appalling and rapidly deteriorating situation regarding the U.S. national debt.
It's interesting how the news seems to be
concentrated on certain themes on certain days and today is no exception. More
and more publications are becoming aware of what seems to be a big push towards
a global form of "governance" (more on this term later) from the EU, the U.S.,
the UN and now Russia.
Just a few years ago, such talk would have been considered as "conspiracy
theory" - and that is a term that deserves some discussion. Be very very careful
of falling into that trap. One thing I find interesting is the idea that many of
the individuals and web-sites who have been calling attention to this movement
towards "global governance" should be dismissed and considered as "wacko
conspiracy people" - to be completely ignored. If you go back and look at what
such people have been saying for decades now - those who were labeled as such
(who is passing out these "labels" anyway?) - they have been uncannily accurate
as we watch the evolution of the movement to a world government transpire before
our very eyes.
Labeling those who closely follow the news - especially the "stories behind
the MSM version" - as "conspiracy nuts" is actually a form of censorship.
Obviously there are some crazy people and sites out there, but we must be
very careful to lump a large group into the conspiracy category and then dismiss
what they are drawing attention to.
Having said that - consider the news today in light of biblical prophecy
and the coming Tribulation (the quotes from these articles are extensive, but
this information is important):
While much of the Christian and post-Christian worlds were busy rushing about in last-minute preparations for Christmas celebrations, an important event took place in Brussels, Belgium, that went largely unnoticed and unreported. Leaders of the European Union and Russia met in Brussels on December 20 and 21 for the 30th EU-Russia Summit, continuing a process of convergence and interdependence that is leading toward political, economic, and social merger.
In
his remarks at the conclusion of the summit, Herman Van Rompuy, president of the
European Council, made repeated reference to progress toward the goal of “global
governance,” which has always been code in globalist circles for world
government. Van Rompuy stated:
By
working together, the EU and Russia can make a decisive contribution to global
governance and regional conflict resolution, to global economic governance in
the G 8 and G 20, and to a broad range of international and regional issues. I
would like to congratulate President Putin for taking over the presidency of G
20.
As
we have reported in this magazine many times, the term “global governance” is an
intentionally deceptive term, used by political ruling elites because it is more
vague and mushy and sounds less threatening than “global government” or “world
government.” Hence, there will be less political opposition mounted to “global
governance” than “world government.”
“Global governance” came into vogue in the late 1990s,
following the publication in 1995 of Our
Global Neighborhood, a report of the UN-appointed Commission on Global
Governance. That report attempted emphatically to assure readers that they had
nothing to fear; they were not proposing world government. It
claimed:
Global
governance is not global government. No misunderstanding should arise from the
similarity of the terms. We are not proposing movement towards world
government.
United
Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan practiced the same semantic sleight-of-hand
and false assurance at the UN Millennium Summit in New York City in 2000. In his
report We
the Peoples: The Role of the United Nations in the 21st Century, Annan
called for “new forms of global governance,” “a new ethic of global
stewardship,” “global norms,” and “global rules” — all of which assume a role
for the UN as global legislator.
Many of the political elites who formerly dismissed
concerns that “global governance” is a ruse for “global government,” now
matter-of-factly admit that they are one and the same. Jacques Attali, an ardent
globalist and an adviser to former President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, for
instance, has said: “Global governance is just a euphemism for global
government.”
This
is how Denis Healey described a Bilderberg person to me: "To say we were
striving for a one-world government is exaggerated, but not wholly unfair. Those
of us in Bilderberg felt we couldn't go on forever fighting one another for
nothing and killing people and rendering millions homeless. So we felt that a
single community throughout the world would be a good
thing."
He
said, "Bilderberg is a way of bringing together politicians, industrialists,
financiers and journalists. Politics should involve people who aren't
politicians. We make a point of getting along younger politicians who are
obviously rising, to bring them together with financiers and industrialists who
offer them wise words.
It
increases the chance of having a sensible global policy."
David
Rockefeller, a longtime leader at Bilderberg conclaves, was even more explicit
when addressing the 1991 meeting of the Bilderberg group. Rockefeller
stated:
We
are grateful to the Washington
Post, The
New York Times, Time
Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our
meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost 40 years. It
would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had
been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years.
But
the world is more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world
government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world
bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in
past centuries.
What seemed outlandish to many people at the time, and
was frequently dismissed as kooky "conspiracy theory," is being confirmed daily
in unfolding events — and admissions from those who are causing the events to
happen.
The world is changing dramatically, and the 'world order' is therefore changing too. The western powers of the United States and Europe are in decline, whilst China and Asia in general are on the rise. Many 'developing' countries, such as the BRIC nations of Brazil, Russia, India and China, are becoming more wealthy and more powerful than the established 'developed' economies of the west. Whereas the old international order saw the vast majority of power wielded by western powers, with America as the undisputed global superpower, a new multi-polar world is now emerging, with Asia as its power centre. This new order will indeed see the importance of international organisations increase. The imposition of Western rules and systems will be replaced by negotiated solutions reflecting the needs and desires of a much wider range of countries. Led by countries such as China, which has always opposed western interventionism, this new way is likely to emphasise national sovereignty and non-interference in other country's affairs. There is one group who has the most to lose from this change – the corporate and banking elite. – World News Curator
There
is, from our perspective, an effort to create global
governance and the only sensible conclusion to reach is that those who
control central
banks are behind it. Creating such a scenario demands not just consensus but
the manufacturing of consensus on a worldwide level. That takes unfathomable
financial resources.
The development and application of such insights is useful in terms of understanding the world around us and also for practical purposes such as investment. Once one understands the central banking economy all sorts of possibilities emerge
The methodology is what we call directed
history and like you we have been successful at predicting certain
evolutions because we apply our understanding of current events to the evolution
of power
elite trends.
The development and application of such insights is useful in terms of understanding the world around us and also for practical purposes such as investment. Once one understands the central banking economy all sorts of possibilities emerge
Another prediction we made for a long time was that
the Muslim
Brotherhood was being deliberately empowered in the Middle East in order to
create religious tension
between East and West. This then allows for the further implementation of
anti-terrorist legislation that is extremely invasive and drains freedom from
the West. That's happening, too.
Another meme that the article promotes is that China and the BRICs generally are rising up and diminishing Western power. But this is by design, in our view.
Europe and the US, from what we can tell, are
being brought down while Asia and certain developing countries like Brazil are
being raised up. The tool in use is the central bank that can create both booms
and busts almost at will.
As
for the emergence of China and other powers to challenge Western "dominance" ...
well, this also seems perfectly predictable and we don't believe that such an
emergence is in any way an unforeseen or untoward
development.
It is all part of what may be called directed
history.
Terrorists are one such enemy. The war
on terror is very useful because it is an amorphous one that can be used in
any of a number of ways.
A terrorist, after all, is someone who has been branded
as such by government officials. In the 21st century, many people who believe in
freer, smaller societies will be labeled (ironically) as terrorists. And many
bankers and industrialists will be labeled as part of the world's controlling
"elite."
The link above is actually a long video/audio clip from Infowars/Prison
Planet and it is worth listening to. It is highly consistent with everything we
are reading from other wide-spread sources.
Why is our administration arming Israel's enemies?
Congressman Ted Poe, R-Texas, says it is irresponsible for Barack Obama to be “arming” a country that may be aiming for the destruction of Israel with a shipment of 20 F-16 fighter jets.
“It
is reckless and unwise for the U.S. to give F-16s to Egypt and its new
president/dictator, controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood,” he told WND. “This
extremist group is notoriously anti-American and anti-Israel. The United States
should not be arming a country ruled by a group that has the destruction of
Israel in its charter.”
Florida Rep. Vern Buchanan said, “American tax dollars
must not be used to aid and abet any dictatorial regime that stands with
terrorists,” and Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, said, “We should also be cautious
about the arms we provide.”
Obama
is proceeding with his plan to gift Egypt with 20 brand new F-16 fighter jets as
part of a $450 million aid package promised to Egypt in 2010 when it was led by
the U.S.-friendly Hosni Mubarak regime.
Now
Egypt is governed by the openly hostile Muslim Brotherhood, which has called for
the destruction of America and Israel. The new President Mohammed Morsi, head of
the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, recently joined in a public prayer to the
effect of “Oh Allah, destroy the Jews and their supporters. Oh Allah, disperse
them, rend them asunder.”
There are also the more philosophical issues that are thought by some to represent an inherent anti-American default position on the part of the president. The Muslim Prayer Day in 2009 is one such example.
Imams
were permitted by Obama to hold a Muslim Prayer Day near White House premises in
2009, the same year Obama prohibited a similar Christian “Day of Prayer” despite
the longstanding precedent for such gatherings. One of the speakers at
the event is on record saying, “We are going to the White House, so that Islam
will be victorious, Allah willing, and the White House will become … Muslim
house.”
The hypocrisy of it all is stunning. While screaming, “GUNS ARE BAD!” to American farmers, ranchers and citizens, the government is buying up billions of dollars worth of guns and ammo itself. This isn’t ammo to be used in a foreign theater of war, by the way, it’s ammo that can only be used domestically, against the American people. (The hollow point ammo violates international war treaties and so cannot be used in international war actions.)
To help us all visualize the
hypocrisy in the government’s gun control schemes, I came up with our latest
Counterthink cartoon.
In addition to purchasing 450 million rounds of hollow point .40 caliber ammo, the U.S. government has also purchased:
• Over one million rounds of
hollow-point .223 rifle ammo
• Over half a million rounds of non-hollow-point .223 rifle ammo
• 220,000 rounds of 12 gauge shotgun #7 ammo (target ammo)
• Over 200,000 rounds of 12 gauge shotgun #00 buckshot ammo (tactical anti-personnel ammo)
• 66,000 rounds of 12 gauge shotgun slugs (tactical anti-personnel, anti-vehicle rounds)
• Over two million rounds of hollow-point .357 Sig JPH (hollow-point) pistol ammo (anti-personnel)
• Over four million rounds of .40 S&W JPH (hollow-point) pistol ammo (anti-personnel)
• Over 60,000 rounds of .308 match grade anti-personnel sniper rounds (BTHP)
• Plus, hundreds of thousands of additional rounds of .38 special, .45 auto, 9mm, 7.62×39 (AK rifle) ammo, and others.
• Over half a million rounds of non-hollow-point .223 rifle ammo
• 220,000 rounds of 12 gauge shotgun #7 ammo (target ammo)
• Over 200,000 rounds of 12 gauge shotgun #00 buckshot ammo (tactical anti-personnel ammo)
• 66,000 rounds of 12 gauge shotgun slugs (tactical anti-personnel, anti-vehicle rounds)
• Over two million rounds of hollow-point .357 Sig JPH (hollow-point) pistol ammo (anti-personnel)
• Over four million rounds of .40 S&W JPH (hollow-point) pistol ammo (anti-personnel)
• Over 60,000 rounds of .308 match grade anti-personnel sniper rounds (BTHP)
• Plus, hundreds of thousands of additional rounds of .38 special, .45 auto, 9mm, 7.62×39 (AK rifle) ammo, and others.
The political and media side show that is the so-called “fiscal cliff” will soon be overshadowed by the appalling and rapidly deteriorating situation regarding the U.S. national debt.
Treasury
Secretary Timothy Geithner has alerted Congress that the nation will once again
hit the debt ceiling on Monday, but that his department can take “extraordinary
measures” to keep paying the bills for another few months.
Incredibly,
the debt ceiling was raised from $14.294 trillion in August 2011, to its current
level of $16.394 trillion. Thus in the span of only sixteen months, the Obama
administration has added a whopping $2.1 trillion to the national
debt.
U.S.
unfunded liabilities are now estimated at between $50 trillion and $100 trillion
and by the end of the decade (in less than just 7 years), runaway entitlement
spending will require shutting down the military or crippling many other vital
domestic spending programs to head off massive deficits that will likely lead to
a dollar crisis and significant inflation.
No matter
what deal is eventually agreed, whether before or after the new year, it will at
best nibble at the edges of the trillion dollar annual deficits that are being
piled up.
The
question we face in this era is: Will America be a nation essentially organized
around traditional families, largely free of government restraint, where
individuals generally seek to order their lives according to the inalterable
moral norms of the Judeo-Christian tradition? Or will it be a nation where the
traditional family is essentially extinct, where people are largely dependent on
government for some of their most basic needs and where the inalterable moral
norms of the Judeo-Christian tradition are generally flouted and sometimes even
criminalized?
Whether that crisis results in America descending deeper
into socialism and moral decay or a rebirth of traditional morality and limited
government will depend greatly on whether there now emerge national leaders who
understand what has happened to us and have the moral courage to speak it
plainly.
We have to end today's news on a positive note:
Here it is, in full - couldn't have said it better myself:
Every
year the week before Christmas, St. Peter's Church in Purcellville, VA hosts a
"Blue Christmas" service. The aim is to offer a message of hope and comfort to
those who might not be feeling so holly jolly during the
holidays.
Heaven
knows, there are many reasons to feel blue this Christmas. From the senseless,
tragic loss of innocent life in New Town, CT, to the seemingly intractable
political divide paralyzing our nation's capital, to the escalating tensions in
the Middle East. It would be easy to give in to feelings of hopelessness, to
let the long and dark December nights lull us into a mood of depression and
despair.
Joseph and Mary no doubt felt this way as they found themselves preparing for the birth of their son in a cold barn on the road to Jerusalem. Those were dark days. But with the birth of one tiny child, hope was restored to a broken world.
Joseph and Mary no doubt felt this way as they found themselves preparing for the birth of their son in a cold barn on the road to Jerusalem. Those were dark days. But with the birth of one tiny child, hope was restored to a broken world.
Fr.
Tom Simmons, rector of St. Peter's, explained why the birth of Jesus changed
everything on a cold winter's night two millennia ago, and why it changes
everything for us today:
"Jesus was in Isaiah's words, 'despised and rejected, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.' We cannot gather at the manger with the grimy shepherds and see this tiny baby without acknowledging that over Jesus' manger lies the shadow of the cross.
"Jesus was in Isaiah's words, 'despised and rejected, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.' We cannot gather at the manger with the grimy shepherds and see this tiny baby without acknowledging that over Jesus' manger lies the shadow of the cross.
It's
NOT the most wonderful time of the year in all the ways we measure wonderful,
and yet in a strange way it is! It is the most wonderful time of the year not
because you have to be cheery and happy and merry, but because you
don't.
You
can have heavy hearts, and shattered dreams, broken spirits and deep wounds.
And that's right where God comes to meet you. To comfort you, to restore you,
to strengthen you, to give you peace. To die for you. To walk out of the grave
for you, to hold you in the communion of the saints with those you have loved
and lost. To offer you life that lasts forever. It's the most wonderful time
of the year, for Christ is born! Light and love have come. God is with
us!"
Immanuel, the Lord is with us indeed. No matter what life throws at us, God's love is unfailing and never-changing. So to all who are in danger, sorrow, or any kind of trouble this Christmas season, to the sick, the friendless, and the needy, may the peace of the Lord be always with you. Amen.
Immanuel, the Lord is with us indeed. No matter what life throws at us, God's love is unfailing and never-changing. So to all who are in danger, sorrow, or any kind of trouble this Christmas season, to the sick, the friendless, and the needy, may the peace of the Lord be always with you. Amen.
Syria opposition leader rejects Moscow invitation
ALEPPO PROVINCE, Syria/BEIRUT (Reuters) -- Syria's opposition leader has rejected an invitation from Russia for peace talks, dealing another blow to international hopes that diplomacy can be resurrected to end a 21-month civil war.
Russia, President Bashar Assad's main international protector, said on Friday it had sent an invitation for a visit to Moaz Alkhatib, whose six-week-old National Coalition opposition group has been recognized by most Western and Arab states as the legitimate voice of the Syrian people.
But in an interview on Al Jazeera television, Alkhatib said he had already ruled out such a trip and wanted an apology from Moscow for its support for Assad.
"We have clearly said we will not go to Moscow. We could meet in an Arab country if there was a clear agenda," he said.
"Now we also want an apology from (Russian Foreign Minister Sergei) Lavrov because all this time he said that the people will decide their destiny, without foreign intervention. Russia is intervening and meanwhile all these massacres of the Syrian people have happened, treated as if they were a picnic."
"If we don't represent the Syrian people, why do they invite us?" Alkhatib said. "And if we do represent the Syrian people why doesn't Russia respond and issue a clear condemnation of the barbarity of the regime and make a clear call for Assad to step down? This is the basic condition for any negotiations."
With the rebels advancing steadily over the second half of 2012, diplomats have been searching for months for signs that Moscow's willingness to protect Assad is faltering.
So far Russia has stuck to its position that rebels must negotiate with Assad's government, which has ruled since his father seized power in a coup 42 years ago.
"I think a realistic and detailed assessment of the situation inside Syria will prompt reasonable opposition members to seek ways to start a political dialogue," Lavrov said on Friday.
That was immediately dismissed by the opposition: "The coalition is ready for political talks with anyone ... but it will not negotiate with the Assad regime," spokesman Walid al-Bunni told Reuters. "Everything can happen after the Assad regime and all its foundations have gone. After that we can sit down with all Syrians to set out the future."
Brahimi to Moscow
Russia says it is behind the efforts of UN mediator Lakhdar Brahimi, fresh from a five-day trip to Damascus where he met Assad. Brahimi, due in Moscow for talks on Saturday, is touting a months-old peace plan for a transitional government.
That UN plan was long seen as a dead letter, foundering from the outset over the question of whether the transitional body would include Assad or his allies. Brahimi's predecessor, Kofi Annan, quit in frustration shortly after negotiating it.
But with rebels having seized control of large sections of the country in recent months, Russia and the United States have been working with Brahimi to resurrect the plan as the only internationally recognized diplomatic negotiating track.
Russia's Middle East envoy, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, who announced the invitation to Alkhatib, said Russian officials were ready to meet him in another country. He said further talks were scheduled between the "three Bs" - himself, Brahimi and US Undersecretary of State William Burns.
Speaking in Damascus on Thursday, Brahimi called for a transitional government with "all the powers of the state", a phrase interpreted by the opposition as potentially signalling tolerance of Assad remaining in some ceremonial role.
The United Nations press office in New York said Brahimi had not specifically said Assad should remain in office until the end of his presidential term in 2014.
Brahimi had said the transition "should start as soon as possible, that a government should be established as soon as possible, and that he hopes that the crisis can be solved in 2013 because it cannot wait until 2014", it said in a statement.
But such a plan is anathema to the surging rebels, who now believe they can drive Assad out with a military victory, despite long being outgunned by his forces.
"We do not agree at all with Brahimi's initiative. We do not agree with anything Brahimi says," Colonel Abdel-Jabbar Oqaidi, who heads the rebels' military council in Aleppo province, told reporters at his headquarters there.
Oqaidi said the rebels want Assad and his allies tried in Syria for crimes. Assad says he will stay on and fight to the death if necessary.
In the rebel-held town of Kafranbel, demonstrators held up cartoons showing Brahimi speaking to a news conference with toilet bowls in front of him, in place of microphones. Banners denounced the UN envoy with obscenities in English.
Diplomats impotent
Diplomacy has largely been irrelevant to the conflict so far, with Western states ruling out military intervention like the NATO bombing that helped topple Libya's Moammar Gadhafi last year, and Russia and China blocking UN action against Assad.
Meanwhile, the fighting has grown fiercer and more sectarian, with rebels mainly from the Sunni Muslim majority battling Assad's government and allied militia dominated by his Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
Still, Western diplomats repeatedly have touted signs of a change in policy from Russia, which they hope could prove decisive, much as Moscow's withdrawal of support for Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic heralded his downfall a decade ago.
Bogdanov said earlier this month that Assad's forces were losing ground and rebels might win the war, but Russia has since rowed back, with Lavrov last week reiterating Moscow's position that neither side could win through force.
Still, some Moscow-based analysts see the Kremlin coming to accept it must adapt to the possibility of rebel victory.
"As the situation changes on the battlefield, more incentives emerge for seeking a way to stop the military action and move to a phase of political regulation," said Dmitry Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center.
Meanwhile, on the ground the bloodshed that has killed some 44,000 people continues unabated. According to the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group based in Britain, at least 120 people were killed on Friday, a typical toll as fighting has escalated in recent months.
Activists said at least 13 people, including seven children aged five under, were killed in an air strike on the town of Safira southeast of Aleppo city. Video footage released by the activists showed several collapsed concrete buildings and at least 20 people searching through the rubble for survivors.
Government war planes bombarded the town of Assal al-Ward in the Qalamoun district of Damascus province for the first time, killing one person and wounding dozens, the observatory said.
In Aleppo, Syria's northern commercial hub, clashes took place between rebel fighters and army forces around an air force intelligence building in the Zahra quarter, a neighborhood that has been surrounded by rebels for weeks.
Russia, President Bashar Assad's main international protector, said on Friday it had sent an invitation for a visit to Moaz Alkhatib, whose six-week-old National Coalition opposition group has been recognized by most Western and Arab states as the legitimate voice of the Syrian people.
But in an interview on Al Jazeera television, Alkhatib said he had already ruled out such a trip and wanted an apology from Moscow for its support for Assad.
"We have clearly said we will not go to Moscow. We could meet in an Arab country if there was a clear agenda," he said.
"Now we also want an apology from (Russian Foreign Minister Sergei) Lavrov because all this time he said that the people will decide their destiny, without foreign intervention. Russia is intervening and meanwhile all these massacres of the Syrian people have happened, treated as if they were a picnic."
"If we don't represent the Syrian people, why do they invite us?" Alkhatib said. "And if we do represent the Syrian people why doesn't Russia respond and issue a clear condemnation of the barbarity of the regime and make a clear call for Assad to step down? This is the basic condition for any negotiations."
With the rebels advancing steadily over the second half of 2012, diplomats have been searching for months for signs that Moscow's willingness to protect Assad is faltering.
So far Russia has stuck to its position that rebels must negotiate with Assad's government, which has ruled since his father seized power in a coup 42 years ago.
"I think a realistic and detailed assessment of the situation inside Syria will prompt reasonable opposition members to seek ways to start a political dialogue," Lavrov said on Friday.
That was immediately dismissed by the opposition: "The coalition is ready for political talks with anyone ... but it will not negotiate with the Assad regime," spokesman Walid al-Bunni told Reuters. "Everything can happen after the Assad regime and all its foundations have gone. After that we can sit down with all Syrians to set out the future."
Brahimi to Moscow
Russia says it is behind the efforts of UN mediator Lakhdar Brahimi, fresh from a five-day trip to Damascus where he met Assad. Brahimi, due in Moscow for talks on Saturday, is touting a months-old peace plan for a transitional government.
That UN plan was long seen as a dead letter, foundering from the outset over the question of whether the transitional body would include Assad or his allies. Brahimi's predecessor, Kofi Annan, quit in frustration shortly after negotiating it.
But with rebels having seized control of large sections of the country in recent months, Russia and the United States have been working with Brahimi to resurrect the plan as the only internationally recognized diplomatic negotiating track.
Russia's Middle East envoy, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, who announced the invitation to Alkhatib, said Russian officials were ready to meet him in another country. He said further talks were scheduled between the "three Bs" - himself, Brahimi and US Undersecretary of State William Burns.
Speaking in Damascus on Thursday, Brahimi called for a transitional government with "all the powers of the state", a phrase interpreted by the opposition as potentially signalling tolerance of Assad remaining in some ceremonial role.
The United Nations press office in New York said Brahimi had not specifically said Assad should remain in office until the end of his presidential term in 2014.
Brahimi had said the transition "should start as soon as possible, that a government should be established as soon as possible, and that he hopes that the crisis can be solved in 2013 because it cannot wait until 2014", it said in a statement.
But such a plan is anathema to the surging rebels, who now believe they can drive Assad out with a military victory, despite long being outgunned by his forces.
"We do not agree at all with Brahimi's initiative. We do not agree with anything Brahimi says," Colonel Abdel-Jabbar Oqaidi, who heads the rebels' military council in Aleppo province, told reporters at his headquarters there.
Oqaidi said the rebels want Assad and his allies tried in Syria for crimes. Assad says he will stay on and fight to the death if necessary.
In the rebel-held town of Kafranbel, demonstrators held up cartoons showing Brahimi speaking to a news conference with toilet bowls in front of him, in place of microphones. Banners denounced the UN envoy with obscenities in English.
Diplomats impotent
Diplomacy has largely been irrelevant to the conflict so far, with Western states ruling out military intervention like the NATO bombing that helped topple Libya's Moammar Gadhafi last year, and Russia and China blocking UN action against Assad.
Meanwhile, the fighting has grown fiercer and more sectarian, with rebels mainly from the Sunni Muslim majority battling Assad's government and allied militia dominated by his Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
Still, Western diplomats repeatedly have touted signs of a change in policy from Russia, which they hope could prove decisive, much as Moscow's withdrawal of support for Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic heralded his downfall a decade ago.
Bogdanov said earlier this month that Assad's forces were losing ground and rebels might win the war, but Russia has since rowed back, with Lavrov last week reiterating Moscow's position that neither side could win through force.
Still, some Moscow-based analysts see the Kremlin coming to accept it must adapt to the possibility of rebel victory.
"As the situation changes on the battlefield, more incentives emerge for seeking a way to stop the military action and move to a phase of political regulation," said Dmitry Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center.
Meanwhile, on the ground the bloodshed that has killed some 44,000 people continues unabated. According to the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group based in Britain, at least 120 people were killed on Friday, a typical toll as fighting has escalated in recent months.
Activists said at least 13 people, including seven children aged five under, were killed in an air strike on the town of Safira southeast of Aleppo city. Video footage released by the activists showed several collapsed concrete buildings and at least 20 people searching through the rubble for survivors.
Government war planes bombarded the town of Assal al-Ward in the Qalamoun district of Damascus province for the first time, killing one person and wounding dozens, the observatory said.
In Aleppo, Syria's northern commercial hub, clashes took place between rebel fighters and army forces around an air force intelligence building in the Zahra quarter, a neighborhood that has been surrounded by rebels for weeks.
NRA goes up against UN over Arms Trade Treaty
The UN has put aside 10 days in March 2013 to negotiate terms of the Arms Trade Treaty, an international agreement that would forbid member states from exporting firearms to countries either under an arms embargo or in instances where exporting weapons would facilitate “the commission of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes” or other violations of humanitarian law. Only three days after the General Assembly agreed to hold discussions in the new year, though, the NRA announced that it intends on keeping any such measure from being enacted.
Speaking to journalists on Thursday, NRA President David Keene said, "We're as opposed to it today as we were when it first appeared.”
"We do not see anything in terms of the language and the preamble as being any kind of guarantee of the American people's rights under the Second Amendment,” Keene said.
The Obama White House insists that the proposed arms treaty would not impact the sale of arms within the United States in its current form, but would instead require other UN member states to sign on to restrictions on par with America’s own regulations regarding the export of guns. The NRA, however, is adamant with their claims that any changes to gun laws, federal or international, would pose a problem to the constitutional right to bear arms under the Second Amendment.
Considered by-and-large to be the most powerful gun lobby in America, the NRA could very well influence any attempts at changing firearm policy in the US and, in turn, the world.
“I have not seen anywhere else in the world a gun lobby that has the same level of influence on its own government as the NRA does in the United States,” author Andrew Feinstein explains to Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman. “The US buys and sells almost as much weaponry as the rest of the world combined. So what happens in the US is going to have enormous impact on the rest of the world.”
Should any efforts by the NRA hinder an approval of the Arms Trade Treaty, the UN is unlikely to reconvene in the near future to try and introduce international gun laws again. In fact, Dr. Natalie Goldring, a senior research fellow at the Center for Security Studies at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, tells IPS that the March 2013 conference probably represents the last chance for the UN to reach an Arms Trade Treaty.
“If this conference fails, supporters of an ATT are likely to look outside the UN for the next stage of negotiations, as was the case with the Landmine Treaty,” claims Dr. Goldring.
The IPS adds that all six major arms-exporting countries – China, France, Germany, Russia, the UK and the United States – voted for the resolution. Even with such strong support, however, an instant approval of the ATT isn’t all that likely. The majority of US senators have already asked President Barack Obama to oppose the treaty, and a single veto from any of those nations would end negotiations.
If the treaty is shot down in March, UN delegations can ask for the 193-nation General Assembly to vote on the ATT at a later date, where a two-thirds majority would be required to enact the bill. Even then, though, the NRA is all but certain to ask the US to avoid signing on.
The Liberal God Delusion
Our government has been hijacked by a party obsessed with a higher power. But I’m not talking about GOP. I’m talking about the left and their worship of government
As Washington staggers into a new year, one side of the political spectrum polarizes and paralyzes all ongoing debates due to its irrational reliance on a higher power.
The problem isn’t religious conservatives and their abiding faith in God; it’s mainstream liberals and their blind confidence in government.
Consider the current dispute over the right response to gun violence. At its core, this argument comes down to a visceral disagreement between relying on self-defense or on government protection. Gun-rights enthusiasts insist that the best security for law-abiding citizens comes from placing formidable firearms into their hands; gun-control advocates believe we can protect the public far more effectively by taking guns away from as many Americans as possible. In other words, conservatives want to address the threat of gun violence by giving individuals more power while liberals seek to improve the situation by concentrating more power in the hands of the government. The right preaches self-reliance while the left places its trust in the higher power of government.
The same dynamic characterizes most of today’s foreign-policy and defense debates. Right-wingers passionately proclaim the ideal of “peace through strength,” arguing that a powerful, self-confident America with dominant military resources remains the only guarantee of national security. Progressives, on the other hand, dream of multilateral consensus, comprehensive treaties, disarmament, grand peace deals, and vastly enhanced authority for the United Nations. Once again, liberals place a touching and naive faith in the ideal of a higher power—potential world government—while conservatives insist that the United States, like any nation, must ultimately rely only on itself.
Regarding the great tax-and-spend battles presently pushing the nation ever closer toward the dreaded fiscal cliff, the right argues that the economy will perform better if money is controlled by those who earn it while the left wants to government to make better, more generous decisions on how to invest that money. Despite abundant evidence to the contrary from the failed welfare states of Western Europe, liberals maintain unwavering devotion to the notion that taking funds out of the private sector will miraculously generate more private-sector economic growth. Republicans trust the private decisions of prosperous people to make the best use of the money that those citizens have generated; Democrats rely on the superior wisdom and broader perspective of a larger, more activist government to distribute rewards and plan for the future in a complex economy.
In selecting strategies for helping the poor and uplifting the downtrodden, the opposed approaches of left and right offer an especially sharp contrast. According to Arthur Brooks’s important book Who Really Cares and many other studies, conservatives at every income level provide disproportionate support for private charities. On my radio show, we spent the holiday season raising nearly $50,000 for the Salvation Army with its focus on rescuing substance abusers, the homeless, and disaster victims from their miserable circumstances. Liberals, on the other hand, consider such private efforts insufficient and demand governmental initiatives and interventions to supplement the private armies of compassion.
This raises an uncomfortable question for true believers of the left: if organizations like the Salvation Army have indeed done a phenomenal job over many decades in turning lives around and bringing hope to the hopeless, why wouldn’t government want to invest its resources in supporting these operations rather than launching their own bureaucratic efforts? If private charities aren’t large enough at the moment to cope with the epic dimensions of poverty-related problems, wouldn’t government funding to expand these proven organizations provide a better investment—reaching more people at lower cost—than any costly federal start-up?
The contemptuous refusal even to consider such an approach stems from two sources: a liberal belief in totally restructuring a broken society rather than merely repairing the broken lives of individuals, and the related belief in the healing, transformative power of top-down, government-instituted change.
There’s also the inevitable tendency of any fanatical faith to despise and distrust all religious alternatives: liberalism can be a jealous god. Most progressives would therefore prefer to commit trillions to purely secular (and mostly dubious) federal and state antipoverty efforts rather than spending less money for more results if those investments involved proven charities with religious agendas.
The left’s contempt for religious conservatives stems in part from the false assumption that people of faith place irrational reliance on the role of God in solving all the world’s problems. Occasional comments by Christian right-wingers—like the rightly derided suggestion that the Newtown massacre resulted from an absence of prayer in public schools—give some credence to this unflattering caricature.
But mainstream conservatism has never denied the importance of human effort or governmental leadership in addressing dire circumstances or everyday difficulties: after all, Republican heroes of history from Lincoln to Reagan have been powerful presidents, not merely passive and prayerful observers. Yes, most religious conservatives hope for divine favor for the land they love but simultaneously embrace the old saw, “God helps those who help themselves.”
Liberals, on the other hand, place their confidence in the notion that “Government helps those who can’t help themselves”—a proposition that’s questionable in both its components. First, it’s wrong and destructive to believe that any America is truly helpless and second, it’s arguable whether government reliably helps more than it hurts when it expands its power into our daily lives.
Fair-minded people of all perspectives should agree that any form of uncompromising, unquestioned, illogical faith can poison public discourse and derail important debates. There’s no effective rejoinder to the declaration that “God tells me that that I’m right and I refuse to consider other arguments.”
There is similarly no easy response to the insistence that “I know that government can fix this problem and don’t confuse me with evidence to the contrary.”
In the wake of Obama’s reelection, unreasoning reliance on federal power distorts our politics far more destructively than simple-minded faith in God. At the moment, big-government fundamentalism poses more of a threat to the republic than religious absolutism.
Praying Hitler in Warsaw ghetto sparks emotion
A STATUE of Adolf Hitler praying on his knees on display in the former Warsaw Ghetto, the place where so many Jews were killed or sent to their deaths by Hitler's regime, is provoking mixed reactions.
The work, "HIM" by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, has been drawing visitors since it was installed last month, but some are angered by it.
One Jewish group, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, this week condemned the work's placement in the former ghetto as "a senseless provocation which insults the memory of the Nazis' Jewish victims."
However, many others are also praising it, saying it has a strong emotional impact that forces them to face the nature of human evil.
Even Poland's chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich, says it could have some educational value.
The work, "HIM" by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, has been drawing visitors since it was installed last month, but some are angered by it.
One Jewish group, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, this week condemned the work's placement in the former ghetto as "a senseless provocation which insults the memory of the Nazis' Jewish victims."
However, many others are also praising it, saying it has a strong emotional impact that forces them to face the nature of human evil.
Even Poland's chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich, says it could have some educational value.
2013 – Year of the Comets
Comet Ison could draw millions out into the dark to witness what could be the brightest comet seen in many generations – brighter even than the full Moon.
It was found as a blur on an electronic image of the night sky taken through a telescope at the Kislovodsk Observatory in Russia as part of a project to survey the sky looking for comets and asteroids – chunks of rock and ice that litter space.
Astronomers Vitali Nevski and Artyom Novichonok were expecting to use the International Scientific Optical Network's (Ison) 40cm telescope on the night of 20 September but clouds halted their plans.
It was a frustrating night but about half an hour prior to the beginning of morning twilight, they noticed the sky was clearing and got the telescope and camera up and running to obtain some survey images in the constellations of Gemini and Cancer.
When the images were obtained Nevski loaded them into a computer program designed to detect asteroids and comets moving between images. He noticed a rather bright object with unusually slow movement, which he thought could only mean it was situated way beyond the orbit of Jupiter.
But he couldn't tell if the object was a comet, so Novichonok booked time on a larger telescope to take another look. Less than a day later the new images revealed that Nevski and Novichonok had discovered a comet, which was named Comet Ison.
A database search showed it has been seen in images taken by other telescopes earlier that year and in late 2011. These observations allowed its orbit to be calculated, and when astronomers did that they let out a collective "wow."
Comet Ison has taken millions of years to reach us travelling from the so-called Oort cloud – a reservoir of trillions and trillions of chunks of rock and ice, leftovers from the birth of the planets. It reaches out more than a light-year – a quarter of the way to the nearest star.
In the Oort cloud the Sun is but a distant point of light whose feeble gravity is just enough to hold onto the cloud. Every once in a while a tiny tug of gravity, perhaps from a nearby star or wandering object, disturbs the cloud sending some of its comets out into interstellar space to be lost forever and a few are scattered sunward.
Comet Ison is making its first, and perhaps only visit to us. Its life has been cold, frozen hard and unchanging, but it is moving closer to the Sun, and getting warmer.
Ison's surface is very dark – darker than asphalt – pockmarked and dusty with ice beneath the surface. It's a small body, a few tens of miles across, with a tiny pull of gravity.
If you stood upon it you could leap 20 miles into space taking over a week to come down again, watching as the comet rotated beneath you. You could walk to the equator, kneel down and gather up handfuls of comet material to make snowballs, throw them in a direction against the comet's spin and watch them hang motionless in front of you. But it will not remain quiet on Comet Ison for the Sun's heat will bring it to life.
By the end of summer it will become visible in small telescopes and binoculars. By October it will pass close to Mars and things will begin to stir. The surface will shift as the ice responds to the thermal shock, cracks will appear in the crust, tiny puffs of gas will rise from it as it is warmed. The comet's tail is forming.
Slowly at first but with increasing vigour, as it passes the orbit of Earth, the gas and dust geysers will gather force. The space around the comet becomes brilliant as the ice below the surface turns into gas and erupts, reflecting the light of the Sun.
Now Ison is surrounded by a cloud of gas called the coma, hundreds of thousands of miles from side to side. The comet's rotation curves these jets into space as they trail into spirals behind it. As they move out the gas trails are stopped and blown backwards by the Solar Wind.
By late November it will be visible to the unaided eye just after dark in the same direction as the setting Sun. Its tail could stretch like a searchlight into the sky above the horizon.
Then it will swing rapidly around the Sun, passing within two million miles of it, far closer than any planet ever does, to emerge visible in the evening sky heading northward towards the pole star.
It could be an "unaided eye" object for months. When it is close in its approach to the Sun it could become intensely brilliant but at that stage it would be difficult and dangerous to see without special instrumentation as it would be only a degree from the sun.
Remarkably Ison might not be the only spectacular comet visible next year. Another comet, called 2014 L4 (PanSTARRS), was discovered last year and in March and April it could also be a magnificent object in the evening sky. 2013 could be the year of the great comets.
As Comet Ison heads back to deep space in 2014 the sky above it would begin to clear as the dust and gas geysers loose their energy. Returning to the place where the Sun is a distant point of light, Comet Ison may never return. Its tail points outward now as the solar wind is at its back, and it fades and the comet falls quiet once more, this time forever.
Muslim Population of Britain Doubles
By any measure, what it reveals is a country undergoing seismic change. Over the course of a decade up to four million more people have entered the country to live.
In the capital, London, people identifying themselves as "white British" have for the first time become a minority. Perhaps most strikingly, the national Muslim population has doubled.
This last fact is perhaps one of the least considered of the census so far. Doubled? Surely not. This has to be the claim of Mark Steyn or some other demographics-obsessed nut.
Well no, it isn't, and it is now official: between 2001 and 2011 the Muslim population of the UK rose from 1.5 million to 2.7 million. Otherwise put, that is an increase from 3 percent to 4.8 percent of the overall population.
If in 2001 the British Prime Minister had said to the British public that over the next decade he intended to double the number of Muslims in the country, he would most likely never have been returned to office. But of course he did not say that, any more than any of his successors or predecessors did.
For the last decade, every major politician has lied about this issue. While talking tough, about putting a cap on immigrant numbers, pushing people to assimilate and much else besides, they have done nearly nothing.
As did immigration minister Phil Woolas a couple of years after that. Throughout the last decade the Labour government managed to do exactly what the Conservative and coalition governments before and after them have also managed to do: go as far as they thought they could in rhetoric while going wholly against what they said -- and the wishes of the country -- in actions.
Now we can see the fruits of their labors. The census reveals that three million people are now living in households where no adult speaks English as their primary language.
As Labour's Sadiq Khan has admitted, local councils have spent their money on translation services rather than language classes, thus actually dissuading people from learning the language. The result is communities with inter-generational language barriers. There are parts of London where a quarter of the people are in the same situation.
They have created a society where many people can speak about each other but many cannot actually speak to each other. And all the while politicians and pundits are busy trying to pretend that this is all the most wonderful result imaginable.
The London Evening Standard welcomed the news that white British-born people had become a minority in their own city, and ran a lead opinion piece accusing anybody unhappy about the doubling of the number of Muslims of being "Islamophobes."
Since then, the comments have barely gotten more enlightened. The author Will Self declared on the BBC's leading talk show Question Time that people unhappy about the direction Britain is going on are "racists."
On the BBC's Newsnight I sat alongside two very nice, wealthy, successful immigrants who explained how positive the census results were for Britain, showing a "diverse" and "multicultural" society.
I was the only one of the four panelists to point out that this wave of immigration might have any negative effects. And the only one to point out that the strange thing about a "multicultural" society of this kind is that it can celebrate every imaginable culture other than the one which allows all these cultures to co-exist alongside each other.
In other words, it is the center which is the only thing not being celebrated, and the center that is being consciously eroded. Worst of all is that this happened in defiance of the repeatedly expressed views – as tested time and again in nationwide polls – of the general public.
Of course much of this simply confirms what the last Labour government appears to have intended. Three years ago, in the same Evening Standard, Andrew Neather, a former adviser to the Blair government, said that the huge upsurge in immigration over the last decade was in part due to a politically motivated attempt by Labour ministers radically to alter the country and "rub the Right's nose in diversity.'"
He went on to say that Labour's relaxation of immigration controls was a deliberate plan to "open up the UK to mass migration," but that ministers were nervous about discussing this move publicly because they feared that it would alienate their "core working class vote."
Well, they have certainly managed to do what they wanted. The Labour government, like the Conservative governments before them, and the coalition government since, did everything it could to ignore the real concerns expressed by the majority of the public.
But with no decent mainstream party to vote for, the public kept voting for the same parties as usual. Fooled by the occasional speech saying that there was going to be some"'tough" new approach, the country got stuck in a debate that has been played on repeat. Yet all the time that debate-loop was going, the ground beneath us was changing unrecognizably.
Now, true to tradition, a couple of days after the census Labour Party leader Ed Miliband has come out to declare that immigrants to Britain should learn to speak English. It is exactly what all of his recent predecessors have also said, and it is exactly what none of them -- any more than he -- have done anything concrete about.
Britain has been changed, and more change is on the way. Some of those changes might be good, and others are likely to be not as good. There are those who wanted this change to happen, and there are those who did not. The former now occasionally notice that their plan has caused troubles of which they were barely aware when they set out.
The latter are reviled as backwards, racist, bigoted and out-of-touch with their new country. In reality they are simply people who once had a country and have seen it changed irrevocably, and simply hold on to a feeling of sadness that nobody thought about where this would take us, or whether we the people should ever be listened to in the little matter of our own future.
This is so sad!
Cop mistakes Bible for gun and shoots man
A POLICEMAN in Brazil has shot and killed a garbage collector after mistaking the Bible he was carrying for a gun.
Police on Friday told reporters that Antonio Marcos dos Santos was stopped by police as he was heading to church in the city of Avare.
When he raised his hands, a police officer saw a bulge in his pocket and, thinking it was a gun, opened fire.
The police officer will remain in detention pending the outcome of an investigation.
US stocks fall ahead of meeting!!!! Market Activity - Major indexes - Stock Market Indexes - NASDAQ.com
US stocks have opened lower as the New Year's Eve "fiscal cliff" deadline looms.
In the first few minutes of trade on Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 74.33 points (0.57 per cent) at 13,021.98.
The broad-market S&P 500 lost 8.73 points (0.62 per cent) to 1,409.37, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite dipped 19.29 points (0.65 per cent) at 2,966.62.
US President Barack Obama will host top congressional leaders on Friday in an 11th-hour bid to halt the fall over the so-called fiscal cliff, a series of steep tax hikes and spending cuts that are set to kick in from January 1.
Experts say going over the cliff could take the world's biggest economy into recession.
On Thursday, the Dow and the Nasdaq Composite slid 0.14 per cent, while the S&P 500 shed 0.12 per cent.
Putin signs ban on U.S. adoptions of Russian children
(Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin signed a law on Friday that bans Americans
from adopting Russian children and imposes other sanctions in retaliation for a
new U.S. human rights law that he says is poisoning relations.
Egypt: Syrian leadership has no future, transitional period needed
Egyptian foreign minister Mohammed Kamel Amra told his Russian counterpart
Sergei Lavrov in Moscow that the current Syrian leadership must go and a
transitional period was needed to overcome the country’s crisis. The two
ministers agreed their governments would step up trade, economic, scientific and
technical cooperation, and also in military technologies and combating terrorism.
Iranian navy drill begins in Hormuz
Iranian maneuvers involving warships, submarines and aircraft began early Friday
in the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-third of the world’s seaborne oil
exports reaches market. Naval commander Habibollah Sayyari was quoted by the
Islamic Republic News Agency as saying exercises would last until January 2 in
the Strait of Hormuz, the Gulf of Oman, and northern parts of the Indian Ocean.
Russia urges Assad to open dialogue with opposition
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday that Moscow does not back calls on
Assad to step down, but “"We actively encouraged... the Syrian leadership to
maximally put into action its declared readiness for dialogue with the
opposition.” Lavrov spoke to reporters after meeting Thursday with Syria's
Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Muqdad and before his talks Saturday with Syrian
peace mediator Lakhdar Brahimi. He made it clear that Assad must put all options
on the table after 21 months of violence that claimed more than 45,000
lives.
US media again hear positive signals from Tehran
The US media are again reporting signals that Iran is open to diplomacy for a
deal to end its nuclear standoff with the West, just one day after they cited
2013 as the year of decision. According to the New York Times of
Friday, Iran has slowed down uranium enrichment and this, according to one
American official, amounts to putting “more time on the clock to solve this.”
DEBKAfile: None of the umpteen diplomatic bouts over the years has ever caused
Iran to yield an iota on its nuclear program but were used on the contrary to
chalk up progress. According to ABC TV, an Iranian official says the
controversial military site [at Parchin] may be opened to UN inspection “if
foreign threats weaken.” DEBKAfile: Tehran has been toying with the nuclear
agency on Parchin for two years.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)