Iran Eyes 30 Nuclear Bombs a Year: Israel Minister

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Photo Credit: France24

Iran is working round the clock to enlarge its nuclear infrastructure with the eventual aim of developing an industry capable of building up to 30 bombs a year, an Israeli minister charged on Monday.

Speaking to reporters in Jerusalem, Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz said Tehran was “very close” to crossing the red line laid out by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last year.

But he said it was biding its time and building uranium-enrichment facilities before making the final push for weapons-grade material.

“The Iranians are getting very close now to the red line… They have close to 200 kilos — 190 kilos (418 pounds) — of 20 percent enriched uranium,” Steinitz said.

“Once they have 250 kilos, this is enough to make the final rush to 90 percent,” the level of enrichment required for a nuclear warhead, he said in a presentation to the Foreign Press Association.

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Rising Red tide: China Encircles U.S. by Sailing Warships in American Waters, Arming Neighbors

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Photo Credit: Andy Wong

China has been quietly taking steps to encircle the United States by arming western hemisphere states, seeking closer military, economic, and diplomatic ties to U.S. neighbors, and sailing warships into U.S. maritime zones.

The strategy is a Chinese version of what Beijing has charged is a U.S. strategy designed to encircle and “contain” China. It is also directed at countering the Obama administration’s new strategy called the pivot to Asia. The pivot calls for closer economic, diplomatic, and military ties to Asian states that are increasingly concerned about Chinese encroachment throughout that region.

“The Chinese are deftly parrying our ‘Pivot to the Pacific’ with their own elegant countermoves,” said John Tkacik, a former State Department Asia hand.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to question President Barack Obama about the U.S. pivot during the summit meeting set to begin Friday afternoon in California. Chinese state-run media have denounced the new U.S. policy as an effort to “contain” China and limit its growing power.

The Chinese strategy is highlighted by Xi’s current visit to Trinidad, Costa Rica, and Mexico where he announced major loans of hundreds of millions of dollars that analysts say is part of buying influence in the hemisphere.

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Nicaragua Gives China Rights to Build Alternative to Panama Canal; Columbia Accuses Nicaragua of Bribing International Court of Justice

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Photo Credit: Danny Lehman/Corbis

Nicaragua has awarded a Chinese company a 100-year concession to build an alternative to the Panama Canal, in a step that looks set to have profound geopolitical ramifications.

The president of the country’s national assembly, Rene Nuñez, announced the $40 billion project, which will reinforce Beijing’s growing influence on global trade and weaken US dominance over the key shipping route between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans . . .

Two former Colombian officials recently accused China of influencing the international court of justice to secure the territorial waters that Nicaragua needs for the project.

In an op-ed piece for the magazine Semana, Noemí Sanín, a former Colombian foreign secretary, and Miguel Ceballos, a former vice-minister of justice, said a Chinese judge had settled in Nicaragua’s favour on a 13-year-old dispute over 75,000 square kilometres of sea.

They said this took place soon after Nicaraguan officials signed a memorandum of understanding last September with Wang Jing, the chairman of Xinwei Telecom and president of the newly established Hong Kong firm HK Nicaragua Canal Development Investment Company, to build and operate the canal.

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China Hacked Into Obama, McCain Campaigns

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Hackers, who penetrated the 2008 presidential campaigns of President Barack Obama and his GOP challenger Sen. John McCain, were not the work of a dirty tricks brigade, but rather sophisticated computer spies employed by the Chinese government.

NBC’s “Nightly News” reported the revelation on Thursday’s broadcast, including the fact that the McCain campaign had been “spooked” by a surprising call from a top Chinese diplomat at the time about a letter McCain had written on a campaign computer to the new president of Taiwan.

“The problem was that letter had not yet been delivered,” reported NBC’s Michael Isikoff.

Meanwhile, in Chicago at then Sen. Obama’s campaign headquarters, a “phony” meeting agenda email had been circulated among top campaign staffers with a hidden computer virus.

Obama told reporters at the time: “Hackers gained access to emails and a range of campaign files from policy position papers to travel plans.”

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Admiral on China: ‘We’re in Another Cold War with Another Communist, Totalitarian Regime’

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China is claiming control over the vast majority of the South China Sea in its latest effort to challenge U.S. authority, and President Obama must make it clear that cannot happen, warns retired U.S. Navy Admiral James “Ace” Lyons.

The New York Times recently reported that China is quietly distributing official maps to foreign diplomats showing it controls 80 percent of the South China Sea, considerably more than it has publicly claimed in the past. Six different nations have competing claims for various parts of the sea, which is rich in oil, gas and minerals. If China were recognized as controlling 80 percent of the sea, foreign planes and ships would have to seek permission to enter those critical waters.

Lyons, who served 36 years in the U.S. Navy and completed his career as commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, told WND this simply cannot be allowed to happen, and it’s incumbent upon President Obama to stop it.

“President Obama has to be very clear and let China know we will not tolerate their illegal claims to these vast ocean areas that have been recognized for centuries as international waters,” said Lyons, who argued that Obama has a golden opportunity to set things straight this week when he meets with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in California. “This will probably be one of the first issues discussed at the summit, and I’m sure that our allies will be watching carefully how President Obama handles this issue.”

According to Lyons, the U.S. Navy policy on the South China Sea has been consistent from the beginning of our nation, and he said China benefits from the longstanding policy as well.

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U.S. Gives Saudi Airlines ‘Unrestricted’ Access to American Skies

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The United States and Saudi Arabia have signed an Open Skies agreement that will “permit unrestricted air service by the airlines of both countries between and beyond the other’s territory.”

The agreement means Saudi airlines may fly from any point in the kingdom to any point in the United States, and that U.S. airlines may fly from any point here to any airport in Saudi Arabia.

The deal was signed May 28 in Jeddah by U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia James B. Smith and Dr. Faisal bin Hamad Al-Sugair, Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Director of the General Authority of Civil Aviation.

In addition to permitting each nations’ airlines to provide unrestricted air service to any point in the other country, the agreement also eliminates restrictions on how often the carriers can fly, the kind of aircraft they can use and the prices they charge.

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US Gov’t Still Hasn’t Released Ambassador Steven’s Autopsy, Won’t Deny Terrorist’s Claim that He was Killed by Lethal Injection

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Photo Credit: Ben Curtis

An al Qaeda terrorist stated in a recent online posting that U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens was killed by lethal injection after plans to kidnap him during the Sept. 11 attacks in Benghazi went bad.

The veracity of the claim by Abdallah Dhu-al-Bajadin, who was identified by U.S. officials as a weapons expert for al Qaeda, could not be determined. However, U.S. officials have not dismissed the terrorist’s assertion. [Editor’s Note: in September 2012, Restoring Liberty publicized the need HERE for the US Government to release the autopsy report to address allegations that the Ambassador had been sexually assaulted and suffered other abuses after capture]

An FBI spokeswoman indicated that the bureau is aware of the claim but declined to comment because of the ongoing investigation into the Benghazi attacks.

“While there is a great deal of information in the media and on the Internet about the attack in Benghazi, the FBI is not in a position at this time to comment on anything specific with regard to the investigation,” spokeswoman Kathy Wright said.

A State Department spokesman had no comment.

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The Rotten Heart of Europe: Continent-Wide Collapse Imminent? (+video)

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Photo Credit: Irish Times

Europe’s failing currency union … has been in crisis for more than three years, and there is a frighteningly high probability that it will end in continent-wide financial collapse and depression.

Nobody was more against the creation of the euro than Bernard Connolly, a senior European Commission official when the single currency’s foundations were being laid. He saw such danger in abolishing national currencies that he wrote a book warning against doing so in 1995. He has now republished the book (which cost him his job) with a new introductory essay [watch his engaging interview with Rick Santelli here]:

It is a timely contribution from someone who can lay more claim than most to foreseeing the long-unfolding crisis. Back in 1995 he wrote: “Trying to lock countries like France and Germany together via their currencies turns domestic monetary questions into international political conflicts. It damages the economic and political well-being of every country involved.” This now appears remarkably prescient.

Connolly’s argument was based on two pillars. The first was that Europe’s elites had become so obsessed with integration that they ignored all the risks and dangers of currency union in order to further their project. To this political argument he added an economic one: that the euro would not work because any and all attempts by governments to interfere in how markets determine exchange rates are economically and politically damaging…

Connolly dismisses as a “propaganda slogan” the claim that the EU has prevented war in Europe and describes those who talk of “building Europe” as being akin to Bolsheviks in their ideological single-mindedness.

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Gitmo Offers ‘Resume Writing’ Class for Terrorists

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The 166 terrorist detainees at Guantanamo Bay are offered a course in “interviewing and resume writing” as part of their indefinite stay at the prison camp.

Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO) lists the variety of classes and activities it offers to the terrorist trainers, financiers, bomb makers, recruiters and facilitators who are housed at Gitmo.

Among them: “Interviewing and Resume Writing “and “Writing Success.”

The classes are part of “The Instructional Program” at Gitmo, which teaches literacy, English as a second language and art.

The prison that houses 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, also offers prisoners a “Life Skills” class, “Computer Familiarity,” “Personal Health and Wellness,” and “Personal Finance and Business.”

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Struggle for China Continues

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Photo Credit: Weekly Standard

Deng’s economic reforms … opened China to foreign investment and freed thousands of Chinese students to travel abroad, exposing them to the subversive influence of Western ideas. Deng knew the risks he was taking, given the dramatic events unfolding in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Yet, he bravely pushed forward.

The Chinese people responded enthusiastically to Deng’s initiatives. In the spring of 1989, millions gathered peacefully to support his program and urge further political reforms. Led at first by students, the demonstrations soon drew in peasants, workers, professionals, people from across Chinese society. They called for evolutionary change, not political revolution.

But frightened Communist Party hardliners knew that real political reform would lead China inexorably along a democratic path and end their monopoly on power. The symbol the students erected in Tiananmen Square, the paper-mache Goddess of Democracy with torch held aloft, bore an unmistakable resemblance to America’s Statue of Liberty.

Deng was China’s paramount leader in name and in fact. He had bested the old-line Communists who opposed his economic reforms and was now at the peak of his popularity and power. As Party leader, he enjoyed the loyalty of the People’s Liberation Army. The entire nation was poised to take the next historic step with him.

But then Deng flinched, disastrously. He would not cross the democratic Rubicon, and ordered the People’s Army to violate its sacred tradition of never turning its guns on the Chinese people. The attacks in Tiananmen Square and in other cities killed thousands of demonstrators and denied subsequent generations of Chinese their long-sought chance for equal democratic citizenship in the international community.

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