Iran Nuclear Deal: Fine ‘New Chapter’ or ‘Historic Mistake’?

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By Associated Press. Iran, the United States and other world powers struck a historic deal Tuesday to curb Iranian nuclear programs and ease fears of a nuclear-armed Iran threatening the volatile Middle East. In exchange, Iran will get billions of dollars in relief from crushing international sanctions . . .

In Tehran, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said “a new chapter” had begun in his nation’s relations with the world. He maintained that Iran had never sought to build a bomb, an assertion the U.S. and its partners have long disputed.

Beyond the hopeful proclamations from the U.S., Iran and other parties to the talks, there is deep skepticism of the deal among U.S. lawmakers and Iranian hardliners. Obama’s most pressing task will be holding off efforts by Congress to levy new sanctions on Iran or block his ability to suspend existing ones. (Read more from “Iran Nuclear Deal: Fine ‘New Chapter’ or ‘Historic Mistake’?” HERE)


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The Historic Nuclear Deal With Iran: How It Works

By Ishaan Tharoor. After more than two weeks of wrangling and missed deadlines in Vienna, Iran and its international interlocutors have finally clinched a historic accord over Tehran’s nuclear program. The diplomacy with Iran, an endeavor that faced vociferous opposition throughout, was aimed at curbing the Islamic republic’s ability to produce a nuclear weapon. A tentative framework was inked in April between Iran and its negotiating partners, which include the United States, Russia, Britain, France, China and Germany.

The deal’s proponents argue that the talks have yielded the best guarantee possible that Iran won’t be able to move toward nuclear weapons, while also, for the time being, reducing the risk of yet another military escalation in the Middle East . . .

Here’s a guide to how it works.

The main benchmark by which analysts gauge Iran’s ability to produce an atomic bomb is the “breakout” time — the time needed for Iran to produce enough weapons-grade enriched uranium for one nuclear bomb. It is currently estimated at a couple of months; under the terms of the deal, that time frame has been extended to at least one year.

The implication here is key: One year gives world powers enough time to mobilize action to interrupt Iran’s pathway to a bomb. The extended breakout time also presents, in its own right, a strategic obstacle to Iran’s leadership, raising the stakes if it ever considered rushing toward building a nuclear arsenal. To be sure, Tehran has always insisted that it has no interest in obtaining a nuclear weapon, but its covert activities in the past raised the world’s suspicions and led to tough international trade, banking and financial sanctions. (Read more from “The Historic Nuclear Deal With Iran: How It Works” HERE)

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Persian Negotiators Played the West: Final Deal Reached With Iran

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By Jethro Mullen and Nic Robertson. After tortuous talks that spanned 20 months, negotiators have reached a landmark deal aimed at reining in Iran’s nuclear program.

The agreement, a focal point of U.S. President Barack Obama’s foreign policy, appears set to reshape relations between Iran and the West, with its effects likely to ripple across the volatile Middle East.

Representatives of Iran, the United States and the other nations involved in the marathon talks were holding a final meeting in Vienna on Tuesday.

Speaking ahead of the session, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called the deal a “historic moment,” although he cautioned that it was “not perfect.”

“It’s a good day for diplomacy, it’s a good day for compromise, it’s a good day for a new beginning between Iran — a pivotal state in the Middle East — and the United States,” said Fawaz Gerges, professor of Middle East studies at The London School of Economics. (Read more about the final Iran talks HERE)


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What Happened Yesterday During Negotiations

By Matthew Lee and George Jahn. Disputes over attempts to probe Tehran’s alleged work on nuclear weapons unexpectedly persisted at Iran nuclear talks on Monday, diplomats said, threatening plans to wrap up a deal by midnight — the latest in a series of deadlines for the negotiations.

The diplomats said two other issues still needed final agreement — Iran’s demand for a lifting of a U.N. arms embargo and its insistence that any U.N. Security Council resolution approving the nuclear deal be written in a way that stops describing Iran’s nuclear activities as illegal. They demanded anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the negotiations.

With a temporary deal set to expire at midnight Monday Vienna time (6 p.m. ET), diplomats said they hoped to complete and announce a final agreement before day’s end.

But they warned there was no guarantee, and some said the talks could stretch into Tuesday despite there being little appetite for what would be a fourth extension of the interim agreement since the current round began on June 27.

Grim-faced foreign ministers from the countries negotiating with Iran declined to answer questions about another possible extension as they gathered for a group meeting at the 19th Century palace that has been hosting the talks. (Read more from “Iran Talks Hit Final Stage but Deal Remains Elusive” HERE)

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Greeks See ‘Humiliation’ in Harsh Terms of Eurozone Bailout

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Greeks were bracing Monday for the effects of the tough terms of an agreement that secured the country’s third bailout in five years, with many rejecting them while others said they were necessary to stay in the euro.

Haralambos Rouliskos, a 60-year-old economist who was out walking in Athens, described the deal as “misery, humiliation and slavery”.

Katerina Katsaba, a 52-year-old working for a pharmaceutical company, said: “I am not in favour of this deal. I know they (the eurozone creditors) are trying to blackmail us.”

But, Katsaba added: “I trust our prime minister — the decisions he will take will be for the best interests of all of us.”

The outline deal thrashed out between the 19 eurozone nations in strained overnight talks calls for Greece to push through a range of reforms to secure a bailout worth up to 86 billion euros ($96 billion). Without it, the country’s economy will collapse. (Read more from “Greeks See ‘Humiliation’ in Harsh Terms of Eurozone Bailout” HERE)

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73% of British Youth Under 30 Using Drugs but 25% Want to Ban Alcohol

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Student Money Saver (SMS) polled 1,000 people under the age of 30 to get their views on alcohol and drug use and found high numbers of people were saying substances currently against the law should be made legal.

Over half said they know someone with an alcohol addiction problem and a further 250 people said alcohol should be make illegal . . .

Almost 43 per cent of people said they drink alone, 73 per cent sometimes use drugs by themselves and 63 per cent say they have had a blackout in the past year because of drugs and alcohol.

One teen – who wished to remain anonymous – thinks making drugs legal would stop illegal drug trafficking and added: “The fact that alcohol and tobacco are legal is just hypocritical. They are bad if not worse.”

Another teen believes making drugs illegal is pointless, as “it won’t stop people using them”, and a third interviewee thought the taxpayer took too much responsibility for drug abusers: “They all most likely cause serious health problems which cost us millions to fix every year.” (Read more from “Cannabis Should Be Legal but This Product Should Be Illegal, Under-30s Tell New Survey” HERE)

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Iran, Powers Nearing Nuclear Deal, But No Final Agreement Yet

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Iran and six world powers were close to nailing down a historic nuclear deal that would bring sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on Tehran’s atomic program, but the Iranian foreign minister said no agreement would be announced on Sunday.

After more than two weeks of negotiations in Vienna, Iranian and Western officials said the earliest an agreement could be ready was Monday, the self-imposed deadline for clinching a deal, though that could be extended again.

“We still have got work to do tomorrow,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told reporters from his hotel balcony. “No deal today.”

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has cautioned that “major issues” remain to be resolved, and comments from both senior Republican and Democrat Senators on Sunday suggested that any final deal would also face tough scrutiny in Congress.

Alireza Miryousefi, a spokesman for the Iranian delegation, said on Twitter that the draft agreement Iran and the powers – the United States, France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China – were working on was “a 100-page document”. (Read more from “Iran, Powers Nearing Nuclear Deal, No Agreement Seen” HERE)

[Pastor Joel Richardson talks about the role of Iran and the regional war that it will initiate soon]

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Muslim Hired as British Government Terror Watchdog Is Extremist Who Called US ‘Vicious World Empire’

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A British government worker who helped regulate the country’s anti-terror planning was fired after superiors learned of his Islamist sympathies, the Telegraph reported.

Abdullah al Andalusi said the brutal exploits of ISIS were “no different to the history of some Western armies” and supported the right of youths to venture to Syria to fight.

“If merely going to fight overseas is condemned as terrorism, shouldn’t the UK arrest British volunteers joining the Israeli Defense Force which kills civilians in Gaza in a war against the Gazan government?” al Andalusi wrote in a September 2014 article for the Muslim Debate Initiative, a group he co-founded . . .

During a Jan. 16 talk at Queen Mary University, he dismissed the 9/11 terror attacks as “the day a vicious world empire found a publicly-acceptable excuse to bomb others, invade non-threatening nations, torture political dissidents and kill at least 300,000 innocent people,” according to the Telegraph . . .

During a Jan. 16 talk at Queen Mary University, he dismissed the 9/11 terror attacks as “the day a vicious world empire found a publicly-acceptable excuse to bomb others, invade non-threatening nations, torture political dissidents and kill at least 300,000 innocent people,” according to the Telegraph. (Read more from “Muslim Hired as British Government Terror Watchdog Is Extremist Who Called US ‘Vicious World Empire'” HERE)

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Euro Zone Leaders: Greece Must Do More to Earn Rescue

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By Renee Maltezou and Andreas Rinke. Euro zone leaders told near-bankrupt Greece at an emergency summit on Sunday it must enact key reforms this week to restore trust before they will open talks on a financial rescue to keep it in the European currency area.

Leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will be required to push legislation through parliament to convince his 18 partners in the euro zone to release immediate funds to avert a state bankruptcy and start negotiations on a third bailout program estimated at up to 86 billion euros ($95.5 billion).

Six sweeping measures including tax and pension reforms must be enacted by Wednesday night and the entire package endorsed by parliament before talks can start, a draft decision by Eurogroup finance ministers sent to the leaders showed.

The document included a German proposal to make Greece take a “time-out” from the euro zone if it fails to meet the conditions. But not all ministers endorsed the idea, which a senior EU source said was illegal and would not survive in the summit statement . . .

But German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose country is the biggest contributor to euro zone bailouts, said the conditions were not yet right to start negotiations, sounding cautious in deference to mounting opposition at home to more aid for Greece. (Read more from “Euro Zone Leaders: Greece Must Do More to Earn Rescue” HERE)


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Bewildered Greeks Left Wondering What Happened to Referendum ‘No’ Vote

By Nick Squires. Less than a week after they triumphantly gave international creditors a bloody nose by rejecting a harsh austerity plan, angry and bewildered Greeks are left wondering how they now find themselves swallowing an even worse deal.

In a nationwide referendum just last Sunday, nearly 62 per cent of voters rejected an austerity deal that had been offered by the European Commission, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank.

There were scenes of wild jubilation across the country.

In Athens’ Syntagma Square, the Greek answer to Trafalgar Square, thousands of joyous ‘No’ voters hugged and kissed each other, waved Greece’s national flag and swigged cans of beer.

“It was an expression of the will of the people,” Manos Agelidis, 27, a biomedical engineering PhD student, told The Telegraph as he celebrated with friends. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Millions of Iranians March, Burn US Flag, Chant ‘Death to Israel’

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Photo Credit: Free Beacon By Adam Kredo. Millions of Iranians took to the streets on Friday to rally against the United States and Israel, burning the flags of both countries and chanting, “Death to Israel,” according to multiple regional reports.

Iranians marched across the country in support of Quds Day, an annual anti-Israel, anti-American holiday in which citizens lend their support for Palestinian violence against the Jewish state.

Hoards of Iranians could be seen in the streets in cities across the country. They waved signs advocating the destruction of Israel and America and also rallied in support of the Palestinians seizing Jerusalem.

“Demonstrators chant[ed] slogans in condemnation of the Zionists’ crimes in the occupied Palestinian lands,” Iran’s state-controlled Fars News Agency reported.

Chants of “Down with the U.S.” and “Down with Israel” could also be heard echoing through the streets, according to Fars. (Read more from “Iranians Burn US Flag, Chant ‘Death to Israel'” HERE)

[Listen to Joel Richardson predict a regional war instigated by Iran]

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Pro-Tehran Lobby Demands Iran Be Given Ballistic Missiles

By Adam Kredo. A pro-Tehran advocacy group long accused of concealing illicit ties to the Iranian regime is lobbying Congress in support of a demand that America repeal a United Nations arms embargo limiting the Islamic Republic’s ability to stockpile arms, including ballistic missiles, which could be used to carry nuclear payloads, according to a copy of an email sent by the group to various lawmakers.

The National American Iranian Council (NIAC), which has long been suspected of acting as Tehran’s lobbying shop in Washington, D.C., sent lawmakers an email on Friday asserting that “the Iranian arms embargo will need to be disposed of as part of a final agreement on Iran’s nuclear program.”

The email comes roughly a week after Iranian diplomats issued a similar demand during ongoing talks in Vienna between world powers and Iran. The new condition has been blamed for grinding negotiations to a halt, as diplomats blew through a third self-imposed deadline this weekend.

The NIAC email on ballistic missiles is in step with Iran’s potentially deal-breaking demands.

“The UN embargo imposed on Iran’s trade in certain conventional arms was specifically imposed by the Security Council to deal with the nuclear dispute,” wrote Tyler Cullis, who is identified in the email as a legal fellow at the council. (Read more from “Pro-Tehran Lobby Demands Iran Be Given Ballistic Missiles” HERE)

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Is a Mini ICE AGE on the Way? Scientists Now Warn the Sun Will ‘Go to Sleep’ in 2030

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A new study claims to have cracked predicting solar cycles – and says that between 2020 and 2030 solar cycles will cancel each other out.

This, they say, will lead to a phenomenon known as the ‘Maunder minimum’ – which has previously been known as a mini ice age when it hit between 1646 and 1715, even causing London’s River Thames to freeze over.

The new model of the Sun’s solar cycle is producing unprecedentedly accurate predictions of irregularities within the Sun’s 11-year heartbeat.

It draws on dynamo effects in two layers of the Sun, one close to the surface and one deep within its convection zone.

Predictions from the model suggest that solar activity will fall by 60 per cent during the 2030s to conditions last seen during the ‘mini ice age’ that began in 1645, according to the results presented by Prof Valentina Zharkova at the National Astronomy Meeting in Llandudno. (Read more from “Is a Mini ICE AGE on the Way? Scientists Warn the Sun Will ‘Go to Sleep’ in 2030” HERE)

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Pope Receives Crucifix in Form of Hammer and Sickle, Makes Shocking Marxist Statements in Bolivia

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By Daniel Burke. Pope Francis delivered a fiery denunciation of modern capitalism on Thursday night, calling the “unfettered pursuit of money” the “dung of the devil” and accusing world leaders of “cowardice” for refusing to defend the earth from exploitation.

Speaking to grassroots organizers in Bolivia, the Pope called on the poor and disenfranchised to rise up against “new colonialism,” including corporations, loan agencies, free trade treaties, austerity measures, and “the monopolizing of the communications media.”

Here’s what one prominent American priest had to say about the speech:

There is quite a lot to unpack in the speech, including the Pope’s apology for the “many grave sins” committed by Catholic Church against Native Americans “in the name of God.” (Read more from “Pope Receives Crucifix in Form of Hammer and Sickle, Makes Marxist Statements in Bolivia” HERE)

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Pope Receives Crucifix in form of Hammer and Sickle from Bolivian President

By Jonathan Watts. Vatican officials appear to have been flummoxed after Pope Francis was presented with a communist crucifix depicting Jesus nailed to a hammer and sickle by Bolivia’s president Evo Morales.

The gift from the leftwing leader caused an immediate stir among conservative Catholics who said the pontiff was being manipulated for ideological reasons.

The response of the pope was less clear. After being handed the wooden crucifix during a formal ceremony, he examined it for a few seconds before returning it to a Bolivian presidential aide.

His comments were largely drowned out by a flurry of camera clicks, prompting a flood of speculation. While some have claimed he expressed irritation, muttering the words “eso no está bien” (“this is not right”), Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said the pope was more likely to have uttered “eso no sabía bien” (“I didn’t know that”) in bemusement at the origins of the present.

The Bolivian government insisted there was no political motive behind the gift. Communications minister Marianela Paco said Morales had thought the “pope of the poor” would appreciate the gesture. (Read more from this story HERE)

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