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A CRISIS meeting of Pakistan's new coalition Government has been warned that it could lose control of the North West Frontier Province, which is believed to hold most of its nuclear arsenal. The warning came yesterday from the coalition leader, who, although he is part of the new Government, is regarded as having the closest links to al-Qa'ida and Taliban militants sweeping through the region. Maulana Fazlur Rehman bluntly told his colleagues: "The North West Frontier province is breaking away from Pakistan. That is what is happening. That is the reality." This came just days before new Prime Minister Yousuf...

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said Iran now possesses 6,000 centrifuges for enriching uranium - nearly twice the number of only a few months ago. He has claimed the West has accepted the increase. Iran is under UN sanctions, with the demand that it suspend the enrichment programme, which the West fears may be used for nuclear bombs His announcement is likely to be met with a degree of scepticism by the outside world. The Iranian president has often exaggerated the programme, as a deliberate challenge to the world powers who are trying to restrict Iran's ability to enrich uranium. This...

Most recent news of suicide bombings’ tragic harvest that shows Iraq as number 1, Pakistan number 2 and Afghanistan number 3 (In the number of attacks, Afghans are a little ahead but in number deaths Pakistan is second to Iraq): A region that once stifled renaissance is now on the verge of silencing its second chance of enlightenment. Will these lands ever come out of ignominy? Pakistan, after Iraq and Afghanistan, has become both a target and a staging ground for terrorism. Pakistan has become as blood-soaked and as dangerous as Iraq. The bombing of Jirga, funeral procession and prayer...

ALGIERS (AFP) - The price of oil could drop to between 70 and 80 dollars a barrel if the dollar strengthens and concerns over Iran are reduced, OPEC chief Chakib Khelil said Saturday.

KABUL (Reuters) - NATO countries have agreed to send more troops to the volatile south of Afghanistan, Canada's foreign minister said on Saturday, and another 200 Canadian troops could also be deployed. Canada has some 2,500 soldiers in Afghanistan, most of them stationed in the southern province of Kandahar where they have suffered one of the worst casualty rates fighting a resilient Taliban insurgency. "We've been talking with our NATO allies and in fact we do now have commitments to increase the number of troops particularly in the Kandahar region," Canadian Foreign Minister David Emerson told a news conference in...

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Saturday that Iran has boosted the number of uranium-enriching centrifuges to up to 6,000, in an expansion of its nuclear drive that defies international calls for a freeze. "Today they (the West) have agreed that the existing 5,000 to 6,000 centrifuges do not increase and that there is no problem if this number of centrifuges work," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by state radio. Ahmadinejad said in April that Iran was working to install 6,000 more centrifuges at an underground hall in a plant at its nuclear facility in Natanz, where it already had 3,000...

Iran says oil could reach $500 on dollar, politics Sat Jul 26, 6:43 AM ET Iran's OPEC governor said world oil prices could reach as high as $500 per barrel in a few years' time if the dollar falls further and political tension worsens, an Iranian weekly said. "If the dollar's value continues to decrease and if the political crisis becomes worse, the oil price would reach up to $500," Mohammad Ali Khatibi told Shahrvand-e Emrooz in an interview published on Saturday. He was asked about predictions that oil prices could reach up to $200 per barrel in the next...

In today’s edition of Time, there was an interesting analysis of the potential problems of an Israeli strike on Iran.

Iran's OPEC governor said world oil prices could reach as high as $500 per barrel in a few years' time if the dollar falls further and political tension worsens, an Iranian weekly said.

via translation - ALERT - Nuclear: Iran has 5,000 to 6,000 centrifuges TEHRAN - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Saturday that Iran had 5,000 to 6,000 centrifuges for uranium enrichment activities, confirming that the Islamic Republic has expanded its controversial nuclear programme, reported state radio.

For those do not know much about the apocalyptic President of Iran, he is a true believer of Islam. He is awaiting for the return of the Mahdi(the 12th Imam) who went missing in the 9th century. For him to return there has to be world chaos with blood running on the planet. The President of Iran has already been making preparations for the Mahdi's return.

The success of the surge offensive resulted in an intelligence windfall. Documents and prisoner interrogations (as well as identifying the dead) provided a lot more information on hostile Sunni and Shia groups, as well as interesting observations about the factions currently controlling the government. All this clarified and confirmed the very factious nature of Iraqi society. Seems anybody with a quick mouth and a lot of guns can form their own little army. This factionalism is accompanied by a self-righteousness that seems to justify a wide range of bad behavior. This includes corruption, but also murder, torture, rape, theft and...

Would it be a great disaster if Iran had nuclear weapons? As a habitual contrarian, I pose the question because almost everyone seems to believe that it would, and that it must be prevented at all costs. But is that true? John Bolton, the former United States ambassador to the United Nations, said in April that "if the choice is [Iran] continuing [toward a nuclear bomb] or the use of force, I think you're at a Hitler marching into the Rhineland point." Bush, too, has compared Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Hitler. But these so-called statesmen never consider what might...

Geopolitics: As Barack Obama luxuriated in the adoration of Europeans, a less charming leader was also making his way across the Continent, seeking arms and military bases to direct toward the United States.What happened under the radar last week ought to have gotten more attention, because it's the beginning of a problem that will carry well into the next administration. While Obama was drawing applause in Germany, Venezuela's hostile and anti-American president, Hugo Chavez, was conducting a stealthy parallel trip across Europe spending billions of petrodollars on weapons of war he doesn't need. In Russia, he vowed to buy $1...

VIENNA - Diplomatic masques are coming off. The Jerusalem Post/AP have just reported Tehran has announced the end of any further cooperation with the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) based in Vienna. The angry announcement was made by Iran Vice-President Gholam Reza Aghazadeh today, Thursday, in response to allegations by some of the IAEA thirty-five board members, based on U.S. and other intelligence, that the uranium Iran is enriching can make nuclear warheads for ballistic missiles. Knowing Tehran's offensive foreign policy this should not be a revelation. It was known Iran's nuclear program was revived in the early...

Bitter rifts within Iran's leadership came to the surface on Friday when the authorities banned the evening edition of a newspaper controlled by Tehran's mayor, a leading rival of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "Hamshahri", a daily owned by Tehran's municipality, angered the president by reporting an argument between his ministers and the central bank governor, Tahmasb Mazaheri. Faced with inflation of about 30 per cent, Mr Mazaheri wants to raise interest rates but "Hamshahri" reports that Mr Ahmadinejad's cabinet allies have opposed this move. The story struck a nerve because it highlighted the reasons behind the president's acute political vulnerability. One...

What we really need from the climate modelers is an accurate 50-year projection of global politics. Will people believe the computer's dire prophecy enough to change their lifestyles? While we wait for 50 million lines of code to reveal the supposed future, consider how things look to one very knowledgeable energy analyst, Vinod K. Dar, who runs Dar & Company, a consultant to the energy industry, in Bethesda, Md. What follows is my own gloss on Dar's analysis. Everything he says, however, squares with all that I've seen and learned in the 30 years I've watched energy markets here and...

That face-to-facer in Geneva’s really paying dividends, huh? This calls for more diplomacy. The [UN] investigation ran into trouble just months after being launched [last year]. Deadline after deadline was extended because of Iranian foot-dragging. The probe, originally meant to be completed late last year, spilled into the first months of 2008, and beyond… Officials say that among the evidence given to the IAEA are what seem to be Iranian draft plans to refit missiles with nuclear warheads; explosives tests that could be used to develop a nuclear detonator, and a drawing showing how to mold uranium metal into the...

A mysterious explosion in a suburb of Teheran that killed 15 people last Saturday was likely an attack on a Iranian military convoy carrying arms to Hizbullah, the Telegraph reported Friday. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards imposed a news black-out immediately after the blast, but the UK newspaper reported that it looked like sabotage was responsible for destroying the convoy as it traveled through Khavarshahar. The newspaper noted that the company responsible for moving the military equipment, LTK, was owned by the Revolutionary Guards and was allegedly involved in shipping arms to Hizbullah. Last Saturday's incident was the latest in a...

As the mainstream media is dominated by its attention to the preparations for Beijing Olympics being held August 8-24 this year, an obvious truth is being ignored or going unaddressed. The more important story is that China is on a mission to dominate the United States and the rest of the world militarily by building nuclear weaponry meant to defeat the United States on the world stage. The actual Olympics pale in comparison to this upcoming event. And while our people continue to be distracted by a variety of “shiny things” meant to divert their attention, the Chinese continue their...

Libya's state shipping company says it has halted oil shipments to Switzerland in protest at the brief arrest of leader Muammar Gaddafi's youngest son. It threatened further action if the Swiss did not apologise for the arrest. Geneva police held Hannibal Gaddafi for two days after he and his pregnant wife allegedly hit two of their staff. The couple face charges of bodily harm, threatening behaviour and coercion. They have denied any wrongdoing over the alleged incident on 15 July. COSTLY ROW? The stopping of oil shipments comes a day after the Swiss foreign ministry complained of Libya taking "retaliatory...

In a stunning upset, Barack Obama this week won the Iraq primary. When Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki not once but several times expressed support for a U.S. troop withdrawal on a timetable that accorded roughly with Obama's 16-month proposal, he not only legitimized the plan. He relieved Obama of a major political liability by blunting the charge that, in order to appease the MoveOn left, Obama was willing to jeopardize the astonishing success of the surge and risk losing a war that is finally being won. Maliki's endorsement left the McCain campaign and the Bush administration deeply discomfited. They underestimated...

'Still time for peace deal this year' Rice says Israel, PA negotiating seriously, 2-state solution common wisdom since Bush came to office US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said there was still hope that Israel and the Palestinians could reach a deal before US President George W. Bush leaves the White House at the end of his second term early next year. "There is still time for them to, in accordance with Annapolis, reach agreement by the end of the year," Rice told reporters in Australia. "We will keep working toward that goal." Rice is to sit down with senior...

Saeed Jalili, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, handed a two-page letter riddled with typing errors - and mysteriously titled the "None Paper" - to diplomats from the world's six leading powers in Geneva last weekend. For the first time, America had sent the State Department's third highest-ranking official, William Burns, to join the talks. Mr Jalili had been expected to give Iran's formal response to last month's offer of technical and economic help if Tehran stopped enriching uranium. Instead, he only bemused his interlocutors. "His discourse was rambling. He had a lot to say about Iranian history...

LONDON (AFP) — The United States risks starting a new Cold War by proposing to build a missile shield in central and eastern Europe, former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev said in comments published here Wednesday. Washington claims that the anti-missile system for Poland and the Czech Republic is aimed exclusively at countering the threat from so-called "rogue states" like Iran, but Gorbachev said those assertions could not be trusted. Instead he said the military build-up -- plus the eastward expansion of NATO into Russia's traditional sphere of influence -- was aimed at containing a resurgent Russia, where Dmitry Medvedev is...

The ayatollahs continue to enrich uranium, despite the high profile meeting on July 19, in Geneva between Tehran's top nuclear negotiator and senior western diplomats representing the Group of 5+1. No surprise there. They are banking their regime's survival on nuclear capability. Ali Larijani, Iran's former nuclear negotiator, once said that giving in to the West's demands that Iran suspend its enrichment would be suicide. But, however much their regional role is tied to developing a nuclear weapon, domestically their grip is being challenged on a daily basis. Indeed, the backbone of the ayatollah's regime, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps...

MOSCOW - Russian strategic bombers may soon be deployed at airbases in Cuba, Venezuela and Algeria as a response to the U.S. missile shield in Europe and NATO's expansion, Russian daily Izvestia said on Thursday. Moscow has strongly opposed the possible deployment by the U.S. of 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and an accompanying tracking radar in the Czech RFepublic as a treat to its national security. Washington says the defenses are needed to deter a possible strike from Iran, or other "rogue" states...

After her brief visit to Perth, the United States Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, will fly to New Zealand tonight. Dr Rice will fly into Auckland tonight and her minders will need to be on alert after a student group announced a reward for anyone who could arrest her. Auckland University's Student Association is offering $5,000 to anyone who can make a citizen's arrest. Association president David Do says Ms Rice should be ashamed of her role in the Iraq war. "I think New Zealanders have an inherent sense of fairness and justice and they understand why we are doing...

Much of the attention on PRC’s aircraft carrier programme has been previously focused on the ex-Soviet Navy Admiral Kuznetsov class carrier Varyag, which was 70% competed when its construction stopped in 1992 and later bought by a Chinese company based in Macau for commercial purpose. The 67,500t vessel has been docked at the Dalian Shipyard in northern China since 2002, reportedly to be commissioned by the PLA Navy as a training carrier after its refurbishment finished. However, despite the completion of the hull restoration and removal of the scaffolding on the ship bridge in late 2006, the installation of weapons,...

N.Korea ‘to Stay on Terror List Until Verification Is Agreed’ The U.S. has told North Korea that it will not strike it from the list of state sponsors of terrorism until it agrees on a verification protocol for its nuclear programs and stockpiles, it emerged on Thursday. A reliable source in Washington said Wednesday the U.S. reaffirmed its position that it will not remove North Korea from the terrorism list until it agrees on a detailed verification procedure. The U.S. was expected to strike the North off the list on Aug. 11 but will hold off however long it takes...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration has proposed shifting $226.5 million in U.S. counterterrorism aid to Pakistan to upgrade Pakistani F-16 fighters, U.S. officials said on Thursday. The plan has provoked some opposition in the U.S. Congress, where an influential lawmaker questioned how upgraded F-16s, which are widely seen as aimed at countering any threat from India, would be used against al Qaeda and Taliban forces. U.S. officials have long been frustrated at what they view as Pakistan's failure to do enough to combat militants along its border with Afghanistan, where the United States has some 35,000 troops, many of...

24 July 2008 Pristina _ The Islamic Community of Kosovo says that many Muslim states are to recognise Pristina’s independence from Serbia in the very near future. Naim Ternava, the head of Kosovo’s Islamic Community, said Thursday that this organisation is lobbying for the further recognition of Kosovo’s independence. “We are working hard, together with Kosovo’s institutions, to make sure many Islamic countries recognise Kosovo,� Ternava said. He made the comment after meeting Kosovo’s Parliament speaker Jakup Krasniqi. Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on February 17, an act that has been recognised by 43 countries so far. However recognitions have...

For an organisation that prides itself on being a well-run administrative machine, the leadership of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards is having a rather testing time. It’s not just last Saturday’s mysterious explosion in a suburb of Tehran that killed 15 people that is causing the leadership sleepless nights, although the nationwide news black-out imposed immediately afterwards does suggest the Revolutionary Guards, the storm troops of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, are rattled. Details are only now starting to reach the outside world, and it looks increasingly like sabotage was responsible for devastating a military convoy as it travelled through Khavarshahar. The company responsible...

Iran has signalled it will no longer co-operate with International Atomic Energy Agency experts investigating for signs of nuclear weapons programmes, confirming that the probe - launched a year ago with great expectations - was at a dead end. Coming from Iranian Vice President Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, the announcement compounded international scepticism about denting Tehran's nuclear defiance just five days after Tehran stonewalled demands from six world powers to suspend activities that can produce the fissile core of warheads. Besides demanding a stop to uranium enrichment - which can create both fuel and the nuclear missile payloads - the international...

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday that the United States' participation in the latest round of nuclear talks is a step toward recognizing Tehran's right to acquire nuclear technology. A senior diplomat from the U.S. joined envoys from five other world powers in Switzerland at Saturday's talks on Iran's nuclear program. Ahmadinejad told thousands of supporters gathered in the southern Iranian town of Yasouj that U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns spoke politely and in a dignified manner. "It was a step toward recognizing the rights of the Iranian nation, toward justice, toward repairing your image in the world, toward...

American officials in Belgrade have delivered a diplomatic note to the Serbian government, demanding that the towering fugitive charged with pummeling a college classmate be returned to the U.S. within 10 days. The note, excerpts of which were obtained by the Daily News, represents the first time the U.S. government has set a deadline for the return of Miladin Kovacevic, 21. The U.S. has been pressing the Serbian government to hand over Kovacevic after he fled the country last month with a passport issued by a consulate member, Igor Milosevic. "It is imperative that the [Serbian government] remedy these outrageous...

Senator Barack Obama, the visiting Democratic presidential candidate who is leading the race for the White House, told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday evening that, if elected president, he would do "everything in my power" to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Asked about concerns that the Iranians would abuse his stated readiness for "tough diplomacy" to play for time and keep moving ahead toward the bomb, Obama said that his "willingness to negotiate" had "very clear and direct goals" and "a sense of urgency." So "if the Iranians fail to respond, we've stripped away whatever excuses they may have,...

Russia will supply to Iran advanced anti-aircraft systems by the end of 2008 or early 2009, Reuters reported with reference to a source with Israel's Ministry of Defense. According to the source, Russia will supply advanced S-300 anti-aircraft systems to Iran. The delivery of first consignment has been slated for September, but deploying and making the systems operable will take from six to 12 months...

Russia said on Thursday it opposed any artificial deadlines being issued to Iran to force it to respond to incentives from world powers on suspending its nuclear activities. But it also warned Tehran against dragging out the process. Western powers suspect Iran is seeking to build atomic bombs. The Islamic Republic says its nuclear program is a peaceful drive aimed at generating electricity so that it can export more of its oil and gas.

Egypt has banned a book by a British journalist about Egyptian politics and society entitled "Inside Egypt: The Land of the Pharaohs on the Brink of a Revolution," the author said on Wednesday. "According to my publisher, The American University in Cairo bookstore ordered 50 copies of Inside Egypt a few days ago, only to cancel the order a few hours later after being informed by Egyptian government censors that the book is banned in Egypt," John R. Bradley said. The book's New York-based publishers Palgrave Macmillan confirmed the book had been banned in Egypt. The book "examines the junctions...

Egypt Shuts Iranian TV Station Office in Cairo July 24, 2008 Reuters Cynthia Johnston CAIRO -- Egypt, irritated with Iran over a film on the assassination of President Anwar Sadat, shut down the Cairo offices of an Iranian television station that it said was not properly licensed, security sources said on Thursday. The sources said police closed the offices of Iran's state-owned Arabic Al-Alam television on Tuesday because it did not have a broadcasting licence, and confiscated computers and photo equipment. They gave no further explanation for the move. But the closure came weeks after Egypt summoned the head of...

  Senior Fellow  John R. Bolton   "The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated," once wrote Mark Twain. "Greatly exaggerated" also described the repeated, periodic predictions of American decline. Indeed, from the very moment of Independence, there have been those predicting America's demise, decline or irrelevance. The only variation is whether the eclipse of the United States will be produced by its own shortcomings or the unmatchable superiority of those doing the eclipsing. Betting against the United States--a sport even many Americans engage in--may be popular, but is has never proven profitable. Nor will it as long...

Tehran's Winning Streak July 24, 2008 The Washington Times To no one's surprise, international talks about Iran's nuclear program ended in failure again on July 19 despite the Bush administration's decision to reverse course and send the No. 3 official in the State Department, Undersecretary of State William Burns, to Geneva to negotiate. American, European and even Iranian negotiators all praised the talks. Western diplomats pointed to what the New York Times referred to as "a rare show of unity" among the United States and its five negotiating partners - Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China - in urging Iran...

Russia to give Iran new anti-aircraft defenses John VI Cantacuzenes Alert: "Iran to get new Russian air defences by '09 -Israel," by Dan Williams for Reuters, July 23 (thanks to Mackie):TEL AVIV, July 23 (Reuters) - Iran is set to receive an advanced Russian-made anti-aircraft system by year-end that could help fend off any preemptive strikes against its nuclear facilities, senior Israeli defence sources said on Wednesday. First delivery of the S-300 missile batteries was expected as soon as early September, one source said, though it could take six to 12 months for them to be deployed and operable --...

Stirring the Pot July 24, 2008 The New Republic Shmuel Rosner Will Israel bomb its way to the table? Israeli politicians have suggested for years that they might attack Iran, but, lately, they seem to be dropping more hints than usual. At the beginning of June, Israel's deputy prime minister, Shaul Mofaz, flatly told the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth that, if Iran continues its nuclear program, Israel "will attack it." Mofaz's comments struck many observers as more political than substantial--one of the things an ambitious Israeli leader does to bolster his odds of becoming the next prime minister. But the...

Taiwan's national athletics team will withdraw from the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games if it is referred to as "Taipei, China" rather than "Chinese Taipei". Tai Shia-ling, minister of Taiwan's Sports Affairs Council, said the country's athletes would withdraw from the Games if China's officials call Taiwan "Taipei, China." This would downgrade Taiwan's independent status and imply that Taiwan is part of China. Some Taiwanese lawmakers have also called for boycotting the Beijing Olympics unless the dispute over Taiwan's name is resolved. Several lawmakers of the ruling Kuomintang said China must not attempt to change the name under which Taiwan will...

Why Bother with Iran Negotiations? July 24, 2008 crosswalk.com Cal Thomas The so-called international community and the American left had pressured the Bush administration to talk to Iran about its nuclear program. Barack Obama says he would negotiate with leaders of regimes like Iran and North Korea. The futility, even stupidity, of such a move was revealed following a meeting with the head of Iran’s nuclear program by the State Department’s William Burns. The Iranians rejected any and all offers to change their nuclear objectives. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said yesterday Iran would not yield in pursuit of its nuclear ambitions...

Advanced S-300 on way to Iran July 24, 2008 The Jerusalem Post Yaakov Katz Iran is likely to begin receiving advanced S-300 anti-aircraft systems by the end of the year, defense officials said Wednesday. The S-300 is one of the best multi-target anti-aircraft-missile systems in the world today and has a reported ability to track up to 100 targets simultaneously while engaging up to 12 at the same time. Iran has already procured several S-300 systems to protect its nuclear facilities although reports have differed as to whether the systems have already been supplied by Russia. The systems will likely...

The Israeli army chief of staff has said in Washington that all options must be prepared to counter Iran's controversial nuclear programme, in remarks relayed on Thursday. "We are all united over the understanding that Iran must not be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon and that there is no doubt that diplomacy must be given priority," Major General Gabi Ashkenazi said on Israeli public radio. "But we all realise, both the Americans and us, that all options must be prepared," said the chief of staff, who is on his first visit to Washington since taking office last year.

NEW DELHI: India is hopeful that despite Pakistan's objection the safeguards agreement it plans to sign with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) next week will be done without more countries joining in to resist it. "The overwhelming mood in the IAEA Board of Governors is to support the Indian safeguards agreement," a senior official in the External Affairs Ministry said. The Indian safeguards agreement will come up for discussion and approval by the 35-member Board of Governors of the IAEA on August 1. India and Pakistan are both members of the Board. India needs to get the safeguards agreement...