Iran’s Ahmadinejad Seems to Believe Romney Will Lose; Like Putin, Thinks 2nd Obama Term Will Be Good

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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said talks over his country’s development of enriched uranium will be more productive after the U.S. election and expressed optimism the two sides will “be able to take some steps forward.”

“We have seen during many years that as we approach the United States presidential election, no important decisions are made,” Ahmadinejad said on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS” program. “Following the election, certainly the atmosphere will be much more stable, and important decisions can be made and announced.”

Ahmadinejad, who is completing his second and last term as president, said meetings over Iran’s nuclear program with the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, plus Germany, will result in “a very important decision” following the U.S. November election. Iran contends its nuclear facilities are for peaceful civilian purposes.

“We have set forth proposals, we are holding dialogue,” he said in the CNN interview, according to a transcript of the program scheduled to air today. “We do hope to be able to take some steps forward.”

U.S. President Barack Obama, in Sept. 25 speech before the General Assembly, said that time “is not unlimited” to reach a diplomatic resolution and vowed that the U.S. “will do what we must to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.”

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Venezuela’s Chavez May Lose Election Next Week

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The crowds are bigger, his speeches slicker, and Venezuela’s young opposition leader, Henrique Capriles, is on a roll in a final, frenzied push to end President Hugo Chavez’s socialist rule. With just one week left before the Opec nation’s presidential election, the 40-year-old state governor is whipping up crowds like never before, creeping up in the polls and becoming increasingly aggressive in his attacks on Chavez’s policies.

“We’ve never had a candidate like him,” gushes shopkeeper Andrea Gomez, 42, screaming at Capriles like a teenage fan at a pop concert, as the passing politician blows kisses from an open-top cavalcade on the Caribbean coast north of Caracas.

Capriles has made big inroads among the working class where Chavez has his power-base, but still faces suspicions that he is too much of a rich kid and will end Chavez’s popular welfare programmes.

The 58-year-old incumbent remains a formidable campaigner and has a strong connection with many Venezuelans, especially the poor. Yet while a majority of big pollsters still put Chavez in front, two – Consultores 21 and Varianzas – have Capriles just ahead.

Opposition activists insist the poll numbers are distorted by a “fear factor” – government employees wary of reprisals if they show support for Capriles, for instance – and therefore underestimate their man’s real popularity. Either way, Capriles seems certain to have the best tilt at Chavez that anyone has managed during his 14-year rule.

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Sen. Durbin Attempts to Sneak Through UN Disability Treaty Through Unanimous Consent

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A surprise attempt to pass the UN Disability treaty in the U.S. Senate last week was thwarted when Senator Mike Lee announced he and 36 other senators object to passing any treaty at this time. The 37 senators are enough to block treaties.

Several senators anticipated that controversial measures like UN treaties would be pushed through in a “lame duck” session between the U.S. elections in November and when a new Congress convenes in January. On Thursday morning, Senators Lee and Pat Toomey circulated a letter for senators to sign stating, “The writers of the Constitution clearly believed that all treaties presented to the Senate should undergo the most thorough scrutiny before being agreed upon.”

With just a few people on the senate floor Thursday evening, Senator Dick Durban tried to pass the Disability treaty by unanimous consent. Sen. Lee responded, “If it is true that it is too fast to move a treaty through during a lame duck, then it’s also too fast to move it through now.”

Supporters and opponents agree the treaty does not improve existing U.S. laws. Some people with disabilities see it as a step to gaining acceptance and view opposition as a personal insult.

Others fear that a treaty intended to integrate disabled people into communities could exclude pre-born babies – particularly those with a disability – by permitting abortion.

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Ahmadinejad’s Men Go on NYC Shopping Spree, Occupy Two Full Floors at Luxurious Warwick Hotel

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After stirring up controversy at the United Nations after unveiling his vision for a ‘new world order’, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad decided to spend some time socking up the Manhattan high-life.

But as the dictator made himself at home at the luxurious Warwick hotel, his hired underlings were rushing around town to snap up bargains and products they can’t get back home at discount stores.

Meanwhile, his fellow Iranian delegates were visiting American chains including the Payless shoe store, Costco, Walgreens and Duane Reade to stock up on shampoo, soap, vitamins and cheap clothing.

A man assigned to work with the Iranians told the Daily News: ‘Since they are under sanctions, they can’t get this stuff. Their money is weak compared to the dollar.’

Tough sanctions have been imposed on Iran as punishment for its failure to cooperate with the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency to prove the peaceful nature of its drive to enrich uranium to levels that could be used to build a nuclear weapon.

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Video: Netanyahu’s anti-Iran UN Speech-`The Hour is Getting Late . . . Very Late’

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Prime Minister Netanyahu lays out his case against a nuclear-armed Iran. No one could have said it better:

China Launches Its First Aircraft Carrier, Experts Doubt Its Strategic Value

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In a ceremony attended by the country’s top leaders, China put its first aircraft carrier into service on Tuesday, a move intended to signal its growing military might as tensions escalate between Beijing and its neighbors over islands in nearby seas.

Officials said the carrier, a discarded vessel bought from Ukraine in 1998 and refurbished by China, would protect national sovereignty, an issue that has become a touchstone of the government’s dispute with Japan over ownership of islands in the East China Sea.

But despite the triumphant tone of the launching, which was watched by President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, and despite rousing assessments by Chinese military experts about the importance of the carrier, the vessel will be used only for training and testing for the foreseeable future.

The mark “16” on the carrier’s side indicates that it is limited to training, Chinese and other military experts said. China does not have planes capable of landing on the carrier and so far training for such landings has been carried out on land, they said.

Even so, the public appearance of the carrier at the northeastern port of Dalian was used as an occasion to stir patriotic feelings, which have run at fever pitch in the last 10 days over the dispute between China and Japan over the East China Sea islands, called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.

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Ahmadinejad Meets With Farrakhan, New Black Panther Party While in NYC

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By Jason Howerton. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is in the U.S. for the United Nations General Assembly this week, met with Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan and other religious “leaders” on Tuesday, according to a photo posted on an English translation of Ahmadinejad’s website.

In the photo [above], Farrakhan can be seen sitting and smiling in front of an Iranian flag, just one seat away from Ahmadinejad (Second from the left).

Farrakhan is one of the most controversial religious figures in all of America. He is openly anti-Semitic and anti-American and harbors extremist views. He has claimed that Jesus was black, accused Barack Obama of being a “murderer” after Libyan dictator Muammar Gadaffi was killed and called Jews “bloodsuckers” — just to name a few.

Ahmadinejad’s website says the Iranian president “made the remarks in a meeting with leaders of Abrahamic religions and peace activists” who share his same views on a new and just world order. Read more from this story HERE.

Click HERE for the source material from the Iranian president’s website.

Spain’s Economic Implosion Pushing Outlying Regions to Consider Secession

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The government’s drive to rein in regional overspending as part of its austerity measures has prompted a flare-up in independence fervor in Catalonia, the wealthy northeastern region that generates one-fifth of Spain’s economic output.

Just as the euro zone crisis has strained relations between wealthier nations of the north and heavily indebted countries to the south, Spain’s crisis has aggravated tensions between the central government and its self-governing regions.

Catalonia needs a 5 billion euros bailout from the central state to meet debt payments this year, but Catalans are convinced they bear an unfairly large share of the country’s tax burden.

More than half say they want independence from Spain, the highest level ever.

Artur Mas, the conservative president of Catalonia, announced on Tuesday he would hold early elections in November after Rajoy rejected his call for more tax autonomy. Mas’s Convergence and Union, or CiU, party is likely to win an absolute majority in the regional parliament, which he can use to battle Rajoy over spending cuts.

On Wednesday Mas took things further, saying Catalonia should also hold a referendum on independence, which the central government says would be unconstitutional.

Although an independent Catalonia is a remote possibility, the political instability sends a worrying message to investors. Rajoy’s People’s Party has threatened to take control of the budgets of regions that fail to meet deficit reduction targets despite Catalonia already having made tough austerity measures.

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Spain Recoils, as Its Hungry Forage Trash Bins for a Next Meal; Youth Unemployment at 50%

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On a recent evening, a hip-looking young woman was sorting through a stack of crates outside a fruit and vegetable store here in the working-class neighborhood of Vallecas as it shut down for the night.

At first glance, she looked as if she might be a store employee. But no. The young woman was looking through the day’s trash for her next meal. Already, she had found a dozen aging potatoes she deemed edible and loaded them onto a luggage cart parked nearby.

“When you don’t have enough money,” she said, declining to give her name, “this is what there is.”

The woman, 33, said that she had once worked at the post office but that her unemployment benefits had run out and she was living now on 400 euros a month, about $520. She was squatting with some friends in a building that still had water and electricity, while collecting “a little of everything” from the garbage after stores closed and the streets were dark and quiet.

Such survival tactics are becoming increasingly commonplace here, with an unemployment rate over 50 percent among young people and more and more households having adults without jobs. So pervasive is the problem of scavenging that one Spanish city has resorted to installing locks on supermarket trash bins as a public health precaution.

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Ahmadinejad Joins Russia’s Call for a New World Order Free of US Domination

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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that a new world order needs to emerge, away from years of what he called American bullying and domination.

Ahmadinejad spoke to The Associated Press in a wide-ranging interview on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly – his last as president of Iran. He was to address the assembly Wednesday morning.

The Iranian leader also discussed solutions for the Syrian civil war, dismissed the question of Iran’s nuclear ambition and claimed that despite Western sanctions his country is better off than it was when he took office in 2005.

“God willing, a new order will come together and we’ll do away with everything that distances us,” Ahmadinejad said, speaking through a translator. “I do believe the system of empires has reached the end of the road. The world can no longer see an emperor commanding it.”

“Now even elementary school kids throughout the world have understood that the United States government is following an international policy of bullying,” he said.

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