5 Problems with the Nuclear Talks with Iran

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kerry_johnThe Obama administration was forced to punt once again at the talks on Iran’s nuclear program when the Iranians refused to budge on their maximal demands on uranium enrichment and sanctions relief.

When they failed to strike a deal by Monday’s deadline, Iran and the P5 +1 (five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany) extended the negotiations for another seven months, until June 30, 2015.
There are five major problems with the negotiations, as currently structured:

1. Iran has been able to legitimize its once-covert nuclear program.

Tehran has won the acceptance of the P5 + 1 for illicit uranium enrichment activities at Natanz and the heavy water reactor at Arak, capable of functioning as a plutonium bomb factory, that Iran sought to hide from International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors before they were exposed in 2002. Other nuclear proliferators will demand the same lax treatment if they are caught red-handed in the future.

2. Iran has won sanctions relief disproportionate to its relatively minor concessions.

Tehran has pocketed significant economic benefits from sanctions relief, about $700 million per month, as part of the interim Joint Plan of Action. As the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., has noted: “The Obama administration’s Iran nuclear negotiations have done little to advance the security of the United States and our allies, but they have benefited Iran. As these negotiations drag on, Iran continues to enrich uranium, is free to pursue some nuclear-related R&D, and has been handed access to previously frozen assets and an easing of sanctions. At the same time, the United States has received little in return but a promise to keep talking.”

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In Kenya Attack, Terrorists Killed Those Who Could Not Answer Questions on Islam

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Al-Shabaab terrorists who killed 28 people on a bus in northern Kenya selected their victims by quizzing passenger to determine if they were Muslims, then shot dead those who were unable to answer satisfactorily, officials and eyewitnesses said Sunday.

After firing at and shooting a rocket-propelled grenade at the Nairobi-bound vehicle to stop it, the terrorists ordered the 59 passengers, many of them school teachers and health workers heading home for the Christmas holidays, to alight and began to question them.

“They asked how many times I pray in a day, asked me to recite a Qur’an verse and also greeted one in Islamic,” one of the survivors of the Saturday pre-dawn attack told Kenya’s Daily Nation. “If one failed to answer these questions, then you’d be asked to lie on a muddy patch of the road facing down.”

Identification cards and mobile phones belonging to non-Muslims were confiscated. Muslim passengers were told to return to the bus before those lying on the road were shot.

“They blew off their heads. Just like that,” the passenger was quoted as saying. Afterwards, the gunmen had fired their weapons in the air “in jubilation.”

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Mexico and Central America Thank Obama for Amnesty Decree

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The presidents of Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, the leading source countries of illegal immigrants in the United States, hailed Obama’s executive decree to stop the deportation of many of their compatriots.

Obama’s unilateral measures will shield nearly five million illegal immigrant from U.S. immigration laws by granting them work permits, Social Security numbers, and deportation reprieves.

In administering the president’s overhaul of America’s immigration laws, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will prioritize the removal of certain serious criminal aliens.

Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras are the top four countries where the majority of illegal aliens in the United States originate, according to the latest DHS estimate of the unauthorized immigrant population living in the U.S. The DHS data is consistent with most recent estimates by the Pew Hispanic Center.

About 73 percent of the estimated 11.4 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. were born in Mexico (6.7 million), El Salvador (690,000), Guatemala (560,000), and Honduras (360,000), DHS data shows.

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CIA Gathered Intelligence on Weapons to Syria: Benghazi Report

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

A leading Republican wants to expand the House investigation into the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack by adding a Senate probe, as a new House Intelligence Committee report Friday concluded that the initial CIA assessment found no demonstrations prior to the assault and a primary purpose of the CIA operation in eastern Libya was to track the movement of weapons to Syria.

The report described the attack as “complex” with the attackers affiliated with Al Qaeda. It also said the initial CIA assessment concluded there were no demonstrations outside the State Department Consulate in Eastern Libya.

Referring to the House Select committee Chairman, and the Democratic ranking member, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, said the current House investigation should be expanded.

“(Republican) Trey Gowdy and (Democrat) Elijah Cummings have done a good job,” he said. “I can’t imagine the U.S. Senate not wanting to be a part of a joint select committee. We’ll bootstrap to what you’ve done, but we want to be part of discussion,” Graham told Fox News. “What I would suggest to (incoming Senate majority leader) Mitch McConnell is to call up Speaker Boehner and say ‘Listen, we want to be part of this’.”

Graham, along with his two Republican colleagues, Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, have been outspoken advocates of a special investigation, because they say then-acting director of the CIA Mike Morell misled them about his role in crafting the so-called media talking points that blamed an opportunistic protest gone awry for the assault.

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US Announces Release of 5 Guantanamo Prisoners

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

The Obama administration has released five Guantanamo Bay prisoners after an administration task force determined they no longer posed a threat.

The Department of Defense announced Thursday that three of the men were sent to Georgia and two to Slovakia for resettlement. The Pentagon identified the three now former prisoners resettled in Georgia as Abdel Ghaib Ahmad Hakim, Salah Mohammed Salih Al-Dhabi and Abdul Khaled Al-Baydani. The two sent to Slovakia were Hashim Bin Ali Bin Amor Sliti and Husayn Salim Muhammad Al-Mutari Yafai.

Hakim was the first prisoner from Yemen to be released since 2010. Yemenis make up the majority of men cleared for release because the U.S. is reluctant to send prisoners to the unstable country.

The group was among dozens of low-level prisoners at Guantanamo who were determined to no longer pose a threat by an administration task force in 2009.

Their release brings the total prison population to 143, about 100 fewer than when President Barack Obama took office pledging to close the detention center.

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ISIS Planning Gold, Silver Currency to Displace Dollar, International Banking

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Photo Credit: DailyMail

Photo Credit: DailyMail

ISIS wants to introduce its own currency and plans to bring back solid gold and silver dinar coins, it has emerged.

The Middle East terror group apparently wants to introduce its own Islamic currency as part of its attempts to solidify its makeshift caliphate.

Militants are said to want to bring back the original dinar, which is an ancient currency from early Islam, and religious figures in Mosul and Iraq’s Nineveh province have apparently announced its return in mosques.

The currency known as the dinar, which once consisted purely of gold and silver coins, is today used by a variety of countries, but the coins are created from different materials to the originals.

However, the jihadi group is understood to be planning to return to the original gold and silver coins, which were first introduced during the Caliphate of Uthman in 634 CE.

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Passenger Stuck with $1,171 Wi-Fi Bill on Singapore Airlines Flight

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Photo Credit: Singaporeair.com

Photo Credit: Singaporeair.com

A Canadian man who racked up a $1,171 Wi-Fi bill on a recent Singapore Airlines flight says it’s official: He has to pony up and pay the full amount.

Jeremy Gutsche, chief executive of Toronto-based innovation consultancy Trend Hunter, says he unwittingly accrued the charges on a flight last week from London to Singapore.

Gutsche says he signed up for a 30 megabyte Internet plan, which cost $28.99, and was aware that he would be responsible for data beyond that limit. But he was stunned when he learned upon landing that viewing some 155 pages — mostly checking email and uploading a PowerPoint document — had resulted in $1,142 of overage fees, he said in a blog post and on Twitter.

A Singapore Airlines spokesman said Monday the airline had been in contact with Switzerland-based OnAir, the provider of the WiFi service, on Gutsche’s behalf.

But the airline ultimately told him that he must pay the full amount, according to Gutsche. Asked about the apparent resolution to the charges, the Singapore Airlines spokesman said he could not provide any details about the carriers’ discussions with Gutsche.

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Defense: Guantanamo Detainee Is Soldier, Exempt From War Crimes Charges

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Photo Credit: REUTERS

Photo Credit: REUTERS

A U.S. military lawyer for a Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detainee described as an al-Qaida commander said on Monday he may be classified as a soldier under international war rules – and therefore exempt from prosecution – so charges against him should be dropped.

Marine Lt. Col. Tom Jasper asked a judge to dismiss multiple charges against Abd al Hadi al-Iraqi, accused of commanding attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan, killing civilians and conspiring to assassinate Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

Jasper said Article 5 of the Third Geneva Conventions of 1949 might classify Hadi al-Iraqi as a “lawful combatant” and, as a prisoner of war, grant him immunity from prosecution for lawful acts of war.

“The bottom line, sir, is that at this point Hadi al-Iraqi could not be tried by this tribunal,” Jasper told the judge during the hearing at the Guantanamo Bay prison that was shown over closed-circuit television at Fort Meade, Maryland, media center.

More evidence and hearings are needed to define Hadi al-Iraqi’s status, Jasper said.

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ISIS Claims Beheading US Aid Worker

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Photo Credit: © Sera / Handout, EPA

Photo Credit: © Sera / Handout, EPA

By Ramadan Al-Fatash and Anne K Walters, dpa.

The Islamic State extremist group released a video on Sunday purporting to show the aftermath of the beheading of US hostage Peter Kassig, triggering an international outcry.

The video shows a masked fighter clad in black with a severed head lying on the ground that he claims is that of Kassig, a 26-year-old US aid worker captured by militants in Syria in October last year.

US President Barack Obama later confirmed the death in a statement offering condolences to the family.

The killing is the fifth execution of a Western hostage by Islamic State militants.

Kassig, a former Army Ranger, founded the aid group SERA (Special Emergency Response and Assistance) that was focussed on operating in areas where other groups were unable to work. The group provided medical training and logistical support as well as coordinated aid deliveries, but had “temporarily ceased its operations” due to the security situation in Syria, according to the group’s website.

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Peter Kassig death: A new Isis video, but a different ending. What could it mean?

By DAVID USBORNE.

The Islamic State extremist group released a video on Sunday purporting to show the aftermath of the beheading of US hostage Peter Kassig, triggering an international outcry.

The video shows a masked fighter clad in black with a severed head lying on the ground that he claims is that of Kassig, a 26-year-old US aid worker captured by militants in Syria in October last year.

US President Barack Obama later confirmed the death in a statement offering condolences to the family.

The killing is the fifth execution of a Western hostage by Islamic State militants.

Kassig, a former Army Ranger, founded the aid group SERA (Special Emergency Response and Assistance) that was focussed on operating in areas where other groups were unable to work. The group provided medical training and logistical support as well as coordinated aid deliveries, but had “temporarily ceased its operations” due to the security situation in Syria, according to the group’s website.

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Cardinal Raymond L. Burke Demoted by Pope Francis for Orthodox, Pro-Family Views

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Photo Credit: Wikipedia

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

Cardinal Raymond L. Burke, a high-ranking Vatican Cardinal, was relegated by Pope Francis from his position of overseer of the highest judicial authority in the Roman Catholic Church, second only to the supreme ecclesiastical judge of the Pope himself, to a no-responsibility figurehead position running a charity. Suggested as being at the heart of the move is the Cardinal’s strong, conservative views, especially in opposition to gay rights and abortion.

Calling Cardinal Burke “hardly one of the Pope’s favorites,” theColumbus Dispatch on Nov. 9 said the Argentine pontiff and Holy Father reduced Burke to a “ceremonial position of chaplain for the Knights of Malta, a charity group.” Burke previously served as the Cardinal Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura.

Burke has been in the Pope’s peripheral for a few years. In late 2013, Francis passed on renewing Cardinal Burke’s position on the Congregation for Bishops council – a powerful Vatican establishment that oversees the appointment of Bishops. Burke, an outspoken opponent of abortion and same-sex marriage, once famously prevented John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate, from receiving communion because Kerry was an open advocate for abortion.

In response to his being replaced on the Bishop Congregation council last year, Burke said: “One gets the impression, or it’s interpreted this way in the media, that [Pope Francis] thinks we’re talking too much about abortion, too much about the integrity of marriage as between one man and one woman. But we can never talk enough about that.”

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