Iran lifts a veil: Tehran gives IAEA access to strategic Parchin site

A general view of Bushehr nuclear power plant, 1,200 km (746 miles) south of Tehran (Reuters / Raheb Homavandi)

Iran says it will allow the UN nuclear watchdog to inspect the facility where the West suspects work is under way to develop nuclear warheads. Meanwhile, the world’s major powers have agreed to a new round of six-party talks with Iran.

"Given that Parchin is a military site, access to this facility is a time-consuming process and it can't be visited repeatedly," said Iran's diplomatic mission in Vienna, as cited by the Iranian semi-official ISNA news agency. However, the spokesperson then added that following IAEA demands, Tehran “will allow the IAEA to visit it one more time." 

The statement comes as fears grow that Israel may soon strike Iran in an attempt to destroy its nuclear facilities. 

However, before such a visit can take place, the report says Tehran and the IAEA need to agree on "modalities”.

A date for the visit was not given. There have also been no comments so far from Iranian diplomats or IAEA officials. 

Following the report, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said that six world powers – the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany – have agreed to a new round of talks with Iran. 

She said that the EU hopes that there will be constructive dialogue which “will deliver real progress in resolving the international community's long-standing concerns on Iran’s nuclear program.”

Ashton’s statement comes in response to the letter that Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, sent to her in February, offering to resume negotiations on the country’s nuclear issues. 

Talking at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Pentagon’s Chief, US defense secretary Leon Panetta vowed that if diplomacy fails to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, the US “will act”. "Military action is the last alternative when all else fails," he said.

Speaking on Monday in Vienna, IAEA chief Yukiya Amano said that "going there sooner is better than later” as there are "serious concerns" about activities “ongoing at the Parchin site."

Iran denies its atomic activity is aimed at developing nuclear weapons, stressing it has only peaceful intentions. Tehran asserts it is ready to continue discussions and has "new initiatives" to bring to the table. 

The Iranian diplomatic mission’s statement echoes the statement Ali Asghar Soltani, Iran’s envoy to the IAEA, made earlier while talking exclusively to RT.  

In the interview he gave at the end of February, Soltani said that “Iran is not ruling out access to any military sites, including Parchin." On that occasion he also mentioned that there were conditions that Iran wanted the IAEA to follow.

Visiting a military site in Parchin was a key request made by senior IAEA teams which visited Tehran in January and February, only to be denied access both times.

Political analyst Shabbir Razvi believes Iran is being remarkably open in permitting the inspectors to visit the Parchin military base. “Iran is not obliged under the Non-Proliferation Treaty to allow IAEA inspectors to come to its military areas.”

He told RT that Israel has to understand that if it goes down the route of military action against Iran it would “ask for its own demise.”

Watch RT's interview with Shabbir Razvi

This idea is echoed by political analyst Kamel Al Wazne who warns that a war with Iran could have a devastating economic impact and would cost the global economy over a trillion dollars in the first day alone.

He believes that it is in Iran’s interests to cooperate with the international community as they have said that they have nothing to hide. “It’s a good start for the Europeans and the Iranians to start that dialogue because we need peace, diplomacy and not more war.”

However Iran is determined to carry on with its nuclear program, he added.

Investigative journalist Gareth Porter told RT that all political forces within Iran agree that Iran should not give up its right to enrich uranium. “There is full agreement here not only between the two major political forces, Ahmadinejad and the Supreme Leader, but also the Green movement, the opposition movement.”

Porter says the IAEA has no definite evidence that the alleged bomb container chamber exists at the Parchin military base or that it was ever used to test nuclear weapons.

Even if they find nothing at the military site they will move on to the next piece of alleged evidence of a covert nuclear weapons program and “the show will continue” asthe IAEA is aligned with the United States in assuming that Iran has to prove its innocence over its alleged nuclear weapons program.

Watch RT's interview with Kamel Al Wazne

Source: Russia Today

Stratfor leaks: NATO commandos in illegal special ops in Syria

Undercover NATO troops are already in Syria despite denials from their parent governments, according to a leaked brief from a highly-placed analyst.

The information comes from a hacked email from leading private US intelligence agency Stratfor, whose correspondence has been released by Wikileaks since February 27. The email appears to be written from the address of Reva Bhalla (bhalla@stratfor.com), the company’s director of analysis, for internal use, and details a confidential Pentagon meeting in December. The consultation is alleged to have been attended by senior analysts from the US Air Force, and representatives from its chief allies, France and the United Kingdom.

Western powers have categorically denied military involvement in Syria’s internal conflict, for which they have no international mandate. But if the information contained in the letter is reliable, a radically different picture of Western activity in Syria emerges.

The author of the letter claims that US officials “said without saying that SOF [special operation forces] teams (presumably from the US, UK, France, Jordan and Turkey) are already on the ground, focused on recce [reconnaissance] missions and training opposition forces.” A little later the US army experts expand on the role of the undercover commandos:  “the idea 'hypothetically' is to commit guerrilla attacks, assassination campaigns, try to break the back of the Alawite forces, elicit collapse from within.”

Alawites are a minority Islamic sect, to which Syrian President Bashar Assad and his support base belong. For the past year he has battled an insurrection that has united a range of opponents, from pro-democracy activists to radical Sunni Muslims.

There have been previous allegations of a Western presence on the side of the rebels and on Monday 13 French officers were reportedly captured by the loyalist forces.

Despite the commandos’ already wide remit, the email states that the US experts “stress that this is all being done as contingency planning, not as a move toward escalation.”

If confirmed, the information will give ammunition to Russia and China, who have accused Western powers of paving the way for an invasion of Syria. These fears have already been cited as the reasons the two countries vetoed the US-backed UN resolution on Syria in February.

US and allies wary about air strikes

The majority of the December meeting was dedicated to discussing the possibility of a US aerial attack on Syria, and offers an unvarnished glimpse into US foreign policy thinking.

The letter reports military experts as saying that the US has a “high tolerance for killings” and will not execute air strikes on Assad’s regime “unless there was enough media attention on a massacre, like the Gaddafi move against Benghazi.”

The strikes themselves would be “doable” but “the air campaign in Syria makes Libya look like a piece of cake.” All the same, a US Air Force intelligence officer is described as “obsessed with the challenge of taking out Syria's ballistic missile capabilities and chem [chemical] weapons.”

On Monday, Republican Senator John McCain called for an air strike on Syria, But the following day, President Obama spoke out against "unilateral action", noting that the situation in Syria was not as clear cut as in Libya.

If the US does end up staging another military intervention, it is not clear how much support it would receive. The French representative said to the author that “Syria won't be a Libya-type [sic] situation in that France would be gung-ho about going in. Not in an election year.” Meanwhile, Britain would be “reluctant” on the one hand, but on the other is“looking for ways to reassert itself on the continent [Europe]” following the renegotiation of the EU treaty.

This is the latest in a line of revelations from the 5 million emails obtained by Internet hacker group Anonymous in December and passed to Wikileaks, which is currently publishing them on a drip-drip basis. While Stratfor refuses to comment on the emails, it has not been able to refute their authenticity.

Source: Russia Today

Eastern Libya declares autonomy

Cyrenaica, the eastern region of Libya, has elected a regional congress and declared semi-autonomy from the capital Tripoli. The “blatant call for fragmentation” of the country was condemned by Libya's ruling NTC.

Thousands of major tribal leaders and militia commanders attended a celebratory ceremony in the region’s center Benghazi on Tuesday.

The congress stated that Cyrenaica had suffered decades of marginalization under the ouster ruler Muammar Gaddafi. Now the oil-rich region extending from the coastal city of Sirte to Egyptian border is taking its fortunes into its own hands.

The congress appointed Ahmed al-Zubair Ahmed, who was a political prisoner under Gaddafi and currently is a member of NTC, as leader of its governing council. Despite being a part of the Libya’s official ruling body, Al-Zubair pledged to protect the rights of the eastern region.

Libya’s National Transitional Council, which started uprising against Gaddafi in Benghazi and moved to Tripoli after his overthrow, repeatedly voiced objection to the planned autonomy. They said Libya’s transformation into a federal state paves the way to eventual split-up of the North African country.

“This is a blatant call for fragmentation,” said Fathi Baja, the head of political committee of the NTC. “We reject it in its entirety. We are against divisions and against any move that hurts the unity of the Libyan people.”

The head of the NTC, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, said the call for autonomy is a foreign plot. "I regret to say that these (foreign) countries have financed and supported this plot that has arisen in the east," he told reporters. "I call on my brothers, the Libyan people, to be aware and alert to the conspiracies that are being plotted against them and to be aware that some people are dragging the country back down into a deep pit."

The East, however, is pushing for a return to a system of rule that existed before the coup of 1967 which brought Gaddafi to power. At the time Libya was divided into three states – western Tripolitania, south-western Fezzan and the eastern Cyrenaica (or Barqa in Arabic).

A co-founder of the move for autonomy, Abu Bakr Baaira, pointed out that a federal system did not lead to a division of such countries as the US and Germany. 

“Are the US, Switzerland and Germany divided?” Baaira said. “We hope they don't force us to a new war and new bloodshed. This is the last thing we look for.”

Barqa will follow a peaceful way of making Tripoli and the NTC recognize its autonomy. Baaira does not rule out a possibility of going to the UN for such recognition.

The Easterners have already formed their own army, the Barqa Supreme Military Council, which is independent from the NTC. The army is made up from revolutionaries who fought against Gaddafi rule last year. And now the forces are ready to fight for autonomy, Barqa commander Col. Hamid Al-Hassi says.

“Even if we had to take over the oil fields by deploying our forces there or risk another war, we will not hesitate for the sake of Barqa,” Hassi told the Associated Press.

It is unclear how many Easterners really support the idea of autonomy. Although some 5,000 people have reportedly taken part in the “Congress of the People of Cyrenaica” ceremony, several thousand were protesting against it in Benghazi on Monday.

Libya seems to be falling apart as the NTC is trying to work out a new electoral law ahead of the parliamentary elections in June. The latest draft of the law allocates only 60 seats in the country’s 200-member National Council to the East, while the West will have 102 representatives. The “Congress of the People of Cyrenaica” has rejected this latest draft, apparently due to its discriminatory nature.

Libya’s east-west divide: Breakup inevitable?

A painful breakup between eastern and western Libya is a real threat to the future of the country, believes Eric Denece, the director and founder of the French Centre for Intelligence Studies.

“From the very beginning Abdul al-Jalil, the head of the National Transitional Council, and his crew have done everything to create such a breakup between western and eastern Libya,” he said.

But this kind of outcome was written a long time ago even before the revolution began, Denece believes.

For a long time Cyrenaica ruled the country under King Idris, before Gaddafi came to power and the people of eastern Libya wanted to take revenge and lead the country, Denece says. But after ousting Gaddafi they understood they are unable to hold power over the entire country and decided to “keep their riches” to themselves.

“They don’t want to share the oil with the people of Fezzan and Tripolitania,” Denece says.

Denece believes that the whole world is closely watching the situation in Libya, especially Egypt and the Gulf countries, which have always had their own interests in oil-rich Cyrenaica.

“Egypt always had an ambition for this part of Libya and it’s only because of Italian colonization that Cyrenaica belongs to Libya and not to Egypt,” he explained. “And on the other side I believe that countries like Qatar and Saudi Arabia will be very pleased if they can create a new oil monarchy in Cyrenaica.”

Abayomi Azikiwe, the editor of Pan-African News Wire, believes that there will never be unity in war-torn Libya. He told RT there was no political program that would reunite all the various opposition groups led by anti-Gaddafi forces and backed by the US and NATO.

“The only program they really had was removing Gaddafi from power. So there is nothing really to forge any type of national unity inside of Libya right now.”

The journalist blames Western interference for the unstable situation Libya now finds itself in and believes that the war has done more to destabilize Libya and all of North Africa. “The West intervened in sectional conflict that was taking place inside the country. They had, in fact, armed the opposition groups for decades just waiting for the opportunity to come in and engineer this type of regime change.”

Watch RT's interview with Abayomi Azikiwe

Source: Russia Today

Barely a scuffle: FEMEN girl attacks MP (VIDEO)

A brawl between a FEMEN activist - not topless this time incidentally - and a Ukranian MP occurred during a live TV show in Ukraine. The host asked the girl to comment on the protest group’s naked action during the presidential election in Russia.

The girl instead called on her countrymen to renew protest actions against Ukrainian authorities, a suggestion which made the parliamentary deputy from the ruling party call her a “prostitute”.

However the blonde was no shrinking violet. Rather she is an experienced protester. She assaulted the statesman, who argued she is a “mentally-ill drunk slut” who should get of the studio as she “dishonors Ukraine”. As the host tried to calm the polemic down, the girl managed however to spit at the deputy’s face and was finally shown out the studio by security.

The latest scandalous action by FEMEN was performed in Moscow during Sunday’s presidential election. Three young women entered the polling station where Vladimir Putin had cast his ballot 20 minutes earlier. They bared their chests, which were emblazoned with anti-Putin messages, chanted obscene slogans and almost brought the voting to a halt. The activists were detained by police and remain in custody in Russia.

Ukrainian protest group FEMEN is known for its politically-loaded displays, mostly because the women prefer to strip to the waist to gain attention. They act topless while fighting for the rights of oppressed women in particular, as well as against Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko, Russia-Ukraine gas deals, members of the Davos Economic Forum and for the rights of humanity as a whole.

Source: Russia Today

Lady Gaga in the Twitter world champion with 20 million observer

Became the American pop singer Lady Gaga over the weekend, the first person toexceed twenty million subscribers in their account on the service Twitter to Blogs Minor.
And recorded "little monster" as like to call the star of the watched, which raised thenumber to twenty million, over the weekend. The number of those who follow the starMonday at the expense of 20.12 million.
Resolution of the Canadian teen idol Justin Bieber, second with 18.11 million subscribers, followed by singers Katie Perry (15.75 million) and Shakira (14.56 million)and Rihanna (14.49 million).
Resolution of U.S. President Barack Obama in eighth place with 12.84 one millionobserver.

Source: 

Death of a Saudi diplomat shot dead in Bangladesh

Deputy police chief of Dhaka, told AFP that a Saudi diplomat was shot in the chest andhe died early Tuesday morning in the capital of Bangladesh.
Great kindness and said that police found on the back of Ali with injuries at an intersection two blocks away from his home in the area of ​​Gulshan, and transferred him to the hospital where he died three hours later.
He said the diplomat, 45-year-old, who was chairing department affairs; Saudi nationalsat the Embassy of the Kingdom, "was shot in the left side of his chest."
Police did not give any details about the organization that may be behind the attack.
He said the Saudi Embassy in Bangladesh, killing the diplomat, but declined to give anydetails.
Ally, Saudi Arabia, an important and major donor to Bangladesh.

Source:

Libya: Cyrenaica tribal leaders claim the province has a semi-self-governing

Said tribal leaders and militia leaders in eastern Libya's oil-rich area of ​​the semi-autonomous.They said the area gently neglected for decades, and will from now on a federal state in the country.The announcement came during a meeting attended by at least a thousand people near the city of Benghazi.The news agency quoted the French participants saying "it was favored by Shaykh al-Zubayr Ahmad al-Sharif al-Sanusi president of his council the top"The first area gently declares "federal federal provinces" autonomous since the overthrow of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.Supporters say that the autonomy of the Government of the Territory will manage the affairs of housing and education, while the central government shall supervise the affairs of security and defense.Opposed to the Transitional National Assembly in Libya this step for fear of the disintegration of the country.Abdullah Idris was a member of the local council in the town of Gallo-eastern Libya has said he opposes the idea, and threatened to cut off the supply of oil from Benghazi in the event of implementation of this idea, where they pass through pipelines transporting crude oil from his home town.He described the BBC's Gabriel Gatehouse, who attended the meeting this step as a "declaration of intent by the leaders of the tribes of Cyrenaica."He said it was not clear until now with any kind of autonomy demanded by tribal leaders in the region.The federal system has prevailed in Libya for a period of ten years after independence, with divided the country into regions, three are Tripoli in the west and Cyrenaica in the east and Vazen in the south, then turned into Libya to central rule in the late era of ownership, quick Gaddafi process when he came to power.
Source: BBC Arabic

"Facebook" forbidden sexual connotation and nude pictures

Revealed a former employee was working to remove the blocked content on the social networking site Facebook some of the details of the controversial prohibitions on the assessment that must be removed from the site.
The former employee that the instructions were provided to remove any content that shows sexually suggestive pictures or naked in all its forms, even if simple, while allowing for images of murder and dead bodies and even distorted them, and allows racist statements and activities of all kinds. The site allows the deployment of images deep wounds and body parts and blood scattered on condition that the liquid does not show the viscera.
The page, which is one of the leaked 17-page sent by the social networking site Facebook, which have rules and laws imposed by Facebook on taboos, which helps employees based on the filtering of the image, comments, and videos published.
Facebook says, he wants users to take part in their own lives, but in this way determines the allowed images to be published, and it leaves users the opportunity to infer what is appropriate for publication.
And works more than 50 employees from the third world such as Mexico, Turkey and India to the Philippines from their homes on the filtering site content is prohibited in shifts of four hours of time, of which one dollar, plus a certain percentage, which raises the value of remuneration in the best four dollars per hour.

Source: Seventh Day