Amano dangerous to world peace' 'Amano dangerous to world peace' Director General of International Atomic Energy Agency Yukiya Amano An Iranian lawmaker says the Director General of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is endangering global peace through his biased approach towards Iran's nuclear program. “It appears that [Yukiya] Amano has become an anti-peace element who is dangerous to global peace,” Member of the Majlis (parliament) National Security and Foreign Policy Committee Javad Jahangirzadeh said. The lawmaker advised the IAEA to reconsider its communiques and statements and to speak based on accurate information, Mehr News Agency reported on Monday. “Naturally, if the Agency continues on the current path, [if it still] releases political reports which do not conform to realities and [if] the agency [continues to] act as a [US] State Department think tank, we will definitely see new decisions with regards to [our] relationship with the IAEA,” he added.
Meet the Mainstream Press By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com Nothing is more emblematic of the mainstream media (MSM) than NBC’s “Meet the Press.” I wonder if it should be renamed “Meet the Corporate Mainstream Press” because that is exactly what it was on Sunday. Before the first vote was cast, Sunday’s panel anointed Mitt Romney as the Republican candidate to face Barack Obama this fall. I really wonder why we have caucuses or primaries at all. The MSM doesn’t tell reporters or guests what to say; they just pick the people who will say what they want. You could not have gotten a more Romney biased panel on “Meet the Press” if you would have gone to Mitt’s campaign headquarters. I think the Democrats and President Obama would like nothing more than to run against the man who thinks “corporations are people too.” Paul, on the other hand, would be unpredictable and difficult to corner. If you would have said Ron Paul would be a close third in Iowa a year ago, I am sure you would have been laughed out of the room.
SACSIS.org.za » News » The World » Why Iceland Should Be in the News, But Is Not Picture credit: may15internationalorganization.blogspot An Italian radio program's story about Iceland’s on-going revolution is a stunning example of how little our media tells us about the rest of the world. Americans may remember that at the start of the 2008 financial crisis, Iceland literally went bankrupt. The reasons were mentioned only in passing, and since then, this little-known member of the European Union fell back into oblivion. As one European country after another fails or risks failing, imperiling the Euro, with repercussions for the entire world, the last thing the powers that be want is for Iceland to become an example. Five years of a pure neo-liberal regime had made Iceland, (population 320 thousand, no army), one of the richest countries in the world. Contrary to what could be expected, the crisis resulted in Icelanders recovering their sovereign rights, through a process of direct participatory democracy that eventually led to a new Constitution.
Iran crushed US intelligence hegemony Iran crushed US intelligence hegemony Spokesman for the Majlis (parliament) National Security and Foreign Policy Committee Kazem Jalali A senior Iranian lawmaker has praised the country's intelligence achievement in apprehending a CIA agent as a major blow to US intelligence domination in the world. “The intelligence supremacy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in controlling and steering the US spy drone and the detention of a CIA agent have seriously damaged US intelligence hegemony,” Kazem Jalali said on Tuesday. He added that the US can no longer portray its political and intelligence apparatus as being all powerful. The spokesman for the Majlis (parliament) National Security and Foreign Policy Committee pointed to the attempts made by Western media outlets to downplay Iran's intelligence achievements as a natural effort to reduce the mounting psychological pressure on the US and its allies.
Fukushima Forever | Charles Perrow Recent disclosures of tons of radioactive water from the damaged Fukushima reactors spilling into the ocean are just the latest evidence of the continuing incompetence of the Japanese utility, TEPCO. The announcement that the Japanese government will step in is also not reassuring since it was the Japanese government that failed to regulate the utility for decades. But, bad as it is, the current contamination of the ocean should be the least of our worries. The radioactive poisons are expected to form a plume that will be carried by currents to coast of North America. But the effects will be small, adding an unfortunate bit to our background radiation. Much more serious is the danger that the spent fuel rod pool at the top of the nuclear plant number four will collapse in a storm or an earthquake, or in a failed attempt to carefully remove each of the 1,535 rods and safely transport them to the common storage pool 50 meters away. Initially the U.S.
U.S., China, Russia make Iran pledge | POLITICO 44 HONOLULU -- President Obama said Saturday that he and the leaders of two other key nuclear powers -- Russia and China -- will work together to combat the development of nuclear weapons by Iran. Meeting at the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit here, he and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev "reaffirmed our intention to work and shape a common response so we can move Iran to follow its international obligations when it comes to its nuclear program,"” Obama said. After a second meeting, with Chinese President Hu Jintao, Obama said that the United States and China both want to ensure that Iran sticks to "international rules and norms" about its alleged secret work to build nuclear weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency warned in a report released this week that Iranian scientists have made significant progress toward developing nuclear weapons, though the government in Tehran has countered that its nuclear program is exclusively for energy production and research.
Michele Bachmann Drops Out of Presidential Race Jan 4, 2012 10:58am Chris Carlson/AP Photo Rep. Michele Bachmann suspended her presidential campaign after placing sixth in Tuesday’s Iowa Republican caucuses, she announced today. “Last night, the people of Iowa spoke with a very clear voice, so I have decided to stand aside,” Bachmann said at a news conference, flanked by her parents, husband and five children. Bachmann said she will continue to fight the policies of President Obama, particularly his health care legislation, calling the 2012 election “the last chance to turn our country around, before we go down the road of socialism.” She said she was motivated to stop Obama and not by a thirst for power. Bachmann had staked her candidacy on Iowa, the state in which she was born and raised. Bachmann placed last out of the six candidates competing here in Tuesday’s first-in-the-nation caucuses, receiving only 5 percent of the vote and losing in Waterloo, the town where she was born. She claimed that Texas Gov.
Wall Street Aristocracy Got $1.2 Trillion in Fed’s Secret Loans Citigroup Inc. (C) and Bank of America Corp. (BAC) were the reigning champions of finance in 2006 as home prices peaked, leading the 10 biggest U.S. banks and brokerage firms to their best year ever with $104 billion of profits. By 2008, the housing market’s collapse forced those companies to take more than six times as much, $669 billion, in emergency loans from the U.S. Federal Reserve. The loans dwarfed the $160 billion in public bailouts the top 10 got from the U.S. Fed Chairman Ben S. “These are all whopping numbers,” said Robert Litan, a former Justice Department official who in the 1990s served on a commission probing the causes of the savings and loan crisis. (View the Bloomberg interactive graphic to chart the Fed’s financial bailout.) Foreign Borrowers It wasn’t just American finance. Peak Balance Odds of Recession Bank of America’s bond-insurance prices last week surged to a rate of $342,040 a year for coverage on $10 million of debt, above where Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.
Senator Kruger pleads guilty to taking $1m in bribes Senator Kruger pleads guilty to taking $1m in bribes Former New York State Senator Carl Kruger arrives at Manhattan Federal Court to plead guilty to corruption charges. State Senator Carl Kruger who for months had insisted on his innocence, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to federal corruption charges, admitting that he conspired to accept at least $1 million in bribes, which prosecutors have said supported a lavish lifestyle. Kruger, an influential Democrat and 16-year legislator, stood before Judge Jed S. Before his plea, Kruger submitted a letter of resignation to the Senate, saying, "I hereby resign my office as state senator for the 27th District, , effective immediately." The broad corruption investigation, which also resulted in the arrests of Assemblyman William F. One of the brothers, Michael Turano, was also charged with all five counts, but pleaded guilty to a single bribery conspiracy count, for which he would face a maximum of five years in prison. nytimes.com
PN Iran nuclear work will survive sanctions' 'Iran nuclear work will survive sanctions' Iran's Ambassador to Italy Seyyed Mohammad-Ali Hosseini The Iranian envoy to Rome says threats and sanctions will not affect Iran's peaceful nuclear activities and Tehran will not give up its legitimate right to nuclear energy. “The technical reports [submitted after] thousands of [International Atomic Energy] Agency inspections confirm that Iran's nuclear activities have never diverted towards military [objectives],” IRIB quoted Seyyed Mohammad-Ali Hosseini as saying. He added that Iran will continue its nuclear activities within the framework of the IAEA and Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) safeguards. Hosseini said that the political pressure exerted by the US and a number of other Western countries is apparent in IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano's latest report on Iran. Hosseini advised countries calling for more sanctions against Iran to try and resolve their own financial and economic crises which stems from their mismanagement.