Henry Kissinger Says Iran Nuclear Crisis Near

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Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has warned that a crisis involving a nuclear Iran is in the “foreseeable future”.

The Nobel Peace laureate, 89, was speaking about prospects in the Middle East at the World Economic Forum.

He said nuclear proliferation in the region triggered by an armed Iran would increase the chances of an atomic war – “a turning point in human history”.

He also urged the US and Russia to co-operate in resolving Syria’s conflict.

“There has emerged in the region, the current and most urgent issue of nuclear proliferation. For 15 years, the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) have declared that a nuclear Iran is unacceptable, but it has been approaching,” he said.

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European Cap-and-Trade Market Takes a Nose Dive

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The European Union’s cap-and-trade system took a huge hit on Thursday, with carbon prices plummeting a record 40 percent after a panel rejected a plan to delay emission permit sales to alleviate the overabundance of permits already in the system.

“The market is panicking, really,” Daniel Rossetto, managing director of Climate Mundial, told Bloomberg, adding that traders fear that Europe’s carbon emissions market won’t continue past 2020.

An excess of carbon emission permits in the 54 billion euro trading system drove the price down 91 percent from its record high in April 2006. Carbon permit prices sank to a record low of 2.81 euros ($3.75) per metric ton immediately after the panel rejected the EU plan. However, prices slightly rebounded to 4.33 euros per metric ton.

“This should be the final wake-up call,” said EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard in a statement. “Something has to be done urgently. I can therefore only appeal to the governments and the European Parliament to act responsibly.”

The Financial Times reports that the carbon market has seen two record-low prices within the last four days, causing some analysts to say carbon permits are “worthless.”

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Google Earth Exposes North Korea’s Secret Prison Camps

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Rights groups are pushing the United Nations high commissioner for human rights to open an international investigation into Pyongyang’s “deplorable” record on its citizens’ rights, including a system of political prisons that has operated for more than 50 years.

Pyongyang insists that the camps do not exist and are merely foreign propaganda, but the advent of high-resolution, free images from outer space has disproved that claim.

On January 18, the North Korean Economy Watch website announced that a new camp had been identified alongside an existing detention facility in Kaechon, South Pyongan Province.

Using newly provided Google Earth images, analyst Curtis Melvin was able to conclude that the new camp sits alongside Camp 14 and has a perimeter fence that stretches nearly 13 miles.

The facility was built since the last images of the site were released, in December 2006.

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Obama Wants 100,000 American Students to Study in Communist China

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(CNSNews.com) – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday will celebrate the launch of a newly rebranded organization called the “100,000 Strong Foundation,” which aims to have 100,000 American students studying in China by 2014.

Thursday’s event will “underscore the importance of study abroad in China and the benefits to our strategic relationship with China as well as the personal benefits individuals receive through these exciting experiences,” the news release said.

Until now, the 100,000 Strong Initiative — announced by President Obama on his trip to China in 2009 — has operated inside the State Department. Thursday’s 1 p.m. ceremony marks its transition to a non-profit, nongovernmental organization operating independently.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton officially launched the Obama initiative in May 2010 in Beijing. “China has established dozens of Confucius Institutes across the United States that offer Chinese language instruction and cultural programs to help Americans better understand China,” Clinton said at the time. “We would like to see similar American language and culture centers on the campuses of Chinese universities.”

According to State Department statistics, in the 2010/11 academic year, 14,596 U.S. students were studying in China, which was number five on the list of study-abroad destinations, behind the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain and France.

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North Korea to Carry Out Third Nuclear Test ‘Aimed at US’

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Defying a resolution issued by the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday that condemned Pyongyang for test-firing a missile in December and tightened existing sanctions on the regime, North Korea’s National Defence Commission said the new nuclear test would be part of its action against the “sworn enemy of the Korean people”.

North Korea also vowed to push ahead with launches of more long-range rockets.

“We do not hide that a variety of satellites and long-range rockets which will be launched by the DPRK one after another and a nuclear test of higher level which will be carried out by it in the upcoming all-out action, a new phase of the anti-US struggle that has lasted century after century, will target against the US, the sworn enemy of the Korean people,” the commission said.

“Settling accounts with the US needs to be done with force, not with words, as it regards jungle law as the rule of its survival.”

Describing the UN Security Council as “a marionette of the US,” North Korean state media claimed the resolutions are “products of its blind pursuance of the hostile policy of the US.

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Manila Challenges Beijing’s South China Sea Hegemony

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photo credit: jun acullador

The Philippines said Tuesday that it is taking its feud with China over competing territorial claims in the South China Sea to an international tribunal.

Philippines Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario’s office summoned Chinese Ambassador Ma Keqing in Manila and challenged the assertion that China’s sovereignty extends over “virtually the entire South China Sea.”

Manila says China seized control of the Scarborough Shoal, a rocky outcrop, last year and then illegally barred the Philippines from the area. China calls the shoal Huangyan Island.

Manila wants a tribunal operating under the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea to declare as “unlawful” Beijing’s actions in the disputed waters.

“The Philippines has exhausted almost all political and diplomatic avenues for a peaceful, negotiated settlement of its maritime disputes with China,” Mr. del Rosario said at a news conference in Manila, according to a report by The Associated Press. “To this day, a solution is still elusive.”

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N. Korea Makes Nuclear Threat After Security Council’s Condemnation of Rocket Launch

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photo credit: petersnoopy

North Korea swiftly lashed out against the U.N. Security Council’s condemnation of its December launch of a long-range rocket, saying Wednesday that it will strengthen its military defenses, including its nuclear weaponry, in response.

The defiant statement from North Korea’s Foreign Ministry was issued hours after the Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution condemning Pyongyang’s Dec. 12 rocket launch as a violation of a ban against nuclear and missile activity. The resolution, which required approval from Pyongyang’s ally China, also added to sanctions against the North.

The Foreign Ministry called the launch a peaceful bid to send a satellite into space rather than a test of long-range missile technology. It said North Korea “should counter the U.S. hostile policy with strength, not with words.”

The statement ominously warned that North Korea will “bolster the military capabilities for self-defense including the nuclear deterrence.”

The wording “considerably and strongly hints at the possibility of a nuclear test,” analyst Hong Hyun-ik at the private Sejong Institute think tank near Seoul said Wednesday.

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Netanyahu, Allies Cling to Narrow Victory in Israeli Election (+video)

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JERUSALEM – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his hard-line allies fared far worse than expected in a parliamentary election Tuesday, likely forcing him to reach across the aisle to court a popular political newcomer to cobble together a new coalition.

While Netanyahu appeared positioned to serve a third term as prime minister, the results marked a major setback for his policies and could force him to make new concessions to restart long-stalled peace talks with the Palestinians.

More than 99 percent of the votes had been counted by Wednesday morning and results showed the hawkish and dovish blocs were split about evenly.

Netanyahu’s most likely partner was Yesh Atid, or There is a Future, a party headed by political newcomer Yair Lapid that showed surprising strength. Lapid has said he would only join a government committed to sweeping economic changes and a resumption of peace talks with the Palestinians.

Addressing his supporters early Wednesday, Netanyahu vowed to form as broad a coalition as possible. He said the next government would be built on principles that include reforming the contentious system of granting draft exemptions to ultra-Orthodox Jewish men and the pursuit of a “genuine peace” with the Palestinians. He did not elaborate, but the message seemed aimed at Lapid.

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Sesame Street Songs As Instruments Of Torture?

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Songs of War, a recent documentary produced for Arabic news agency Al Jazeera, explores claims that music from Sesame Street as well as heavy metal and rap songs were used in the torture of prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay.

After being alerted that some of his educational children’s music was used as a weapon of war, GRAMMY award-winning songwriter Christopher Cerf set out on a mission to learn more about what he believed to be an “inhumane” use of his work. Al Jazeera’s cameras followed as Cerf personally interviewed former soldiers and detainees.

According to the report, prisoners, shackled and held in private cells, were subjected to near-deafening music from Metallica, AC/DC, Marilyn Manson, Drowning Pool, Eminem, Bruce Springsteen and Rage Against The Machine in addition to popular children’s classics from Sesame Street and Barney the purple dinosaur.

Loud music played repetitively over many hours or even days would induce sleep deprivation, resulting in weakness, disorientation and feelings of powerlessness. The technique, put to use by American soldiers in 2003, was reported to have been first used on American soldiers during the Korean War in the early 1950s. Tortures employed by the U.S. psychological operations units included stripping detainees of their clothing, placing them in stress positions, putting hoods over their heads, disrupting their sleep, treating them like animals, subjecting them to loud music and flashing lights, and exposing them to extreme temperatures.

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Russia Moves to Enact Anti-Gay Law Nationwide

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MOSCOW (AP) – Kissing his boyfriend during a protest in front of Russia’s parliament earned Pavel Samburov 30 hours of detention and the equivalent of a $16 fine on a charge of “hooliganism.” But if a bill that comes up for a first vote later this month becomes law, such a public kiss could be defined as illegal “homosexual propaganda” and bring a fine of up to $16,000.

The legislation being pushed by the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church would make it illegal nationwide to provide minors with information that is defined as “propaganda of sodomy, lesbianism, bisexuality and transgenderism.” It includes a ban on holding public events that promote gay rights. St. Petersburg and a number of other Russian cities already have similar laws on their books.

The bill is part of an effort to promote traditional Russian values as opposed to Western liberalism, which the Kremlin and church see as corrupting Russian youth and by extension contributing to a wave of protest against President Vladimir Putin’s rule.

Samburov describes the anti-gay bill as part of a Kremlin crackdown on minorities of any kind – political and religious as well as sexual – designed to divert public attention from growing discontent with Putin’s rule.

The lanky and longhaired Samburov is the founder of the Rainbow Association, which unites gay activists throughout Russia. The gay rights group has joined anti-Putin marches in Moscow over the past year, its rainbow flag waving along with those of other opposition groups.

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