Russia Helping Tehran Protect Fordow Nuclear Facility

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This is rather old news until the actual deployment, yet John Kerry and Europe has not sanctioned Russia and Iran must be only doing peaceful activities at Fordow, which is built inside a mountain.

Iran began constructing the Fordow uranium enrichment facility in secret as early as 2006.  It was publicly revealed by U.S. President Barack Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in September 2009, shortly after these nations presented evidence of the facility to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).  The facility appears to be a repurposed tunnel complex, with the main enrichment halls buried within a mountain in order to harden the facility against a potential military strike.  Satellite imagery dates the construction of the facility to a period between June 2006 and July 2007, while Iran has told the IAEA that it began to build the facility during the second half of 2007.  After the disclosure of the plant’s existence, Iran downplayed its role in its nuclear program, moving slowly to install the planned number of centrifuges at the site.  In mid-2011, it announced it would install advanced centrifuges at the FFEP rather than IR-1 centrifuges. The facility is designed to hold approximately 3,000 centrifuges. It never installed advanced centrifuges in the facility, but instead deployed the IR-1 model.

The Fordow site has two enrichment halls, Units 1 and 2, each designed to hold 8 cascades of 174 centrifuges per cascade. Iran fully outfitted the facility in late 2012 – early 2013.

On June 8, 2011, Iran announced that it planned to move its production of 19.75% enriched uranium from the Natanz Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP) to the FFEP, and that it would enrich 3.5% low-enriched uranium produced at the Fuel Enrichment Plant at Natanz. Since February 2013, Iran has produced 19.75 percent enriched uranium at the FFEP using sets of tandem cascades to enrich uranium to 19.75 percent and strip the tails to natural uranium (0.711 percent). Iran claims that the 19.75 percent enriched uranium produced in this facility will be used to produce medical isotopes in the Tehran Research Reactor.

TEHRAN, Aug. 29 (MNA) – The first footage showing the deployment of S-300 missile defense system at Fordow nuclear site was aired Sunday, August 28. The footage was shown following Ayat. Khamenei’s speech in which he stressed the defensive nature of the system and the necessity for upgrading the country’s defense capabilities.

Iran deploys long-range missiles to Fordo nuclear site

Iranian students form a human chain during a protest to defend their country’s nuclear program outside the Fordo Uranium Conversion Facility in Qom in 2013 (AFP Photo/Chavosh Homavandi)

Tehran (AFP) – Tehran has deployed a recently delivered Russian-made long-range missile system to central Iran to protect its Fordo nuclear facility, state television said Sunday.

Protecting nuclear facilities is paramount “in all circumstances” General Farzad Esmaili, the commander of Iran’s air defences, told the IRIB channel.

“Today, Iran’s sky is one of the most secure in the region,” he added.

A video showed an S-300 carrier truck in Fordo, raising its missile launchers toward the sky, next to other counter-strike weaponry.

The images were aired hours after supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gave a speech to air force commanders, including Esmaili, in which he stressed that Iranian military power was for defensive purposes only.

“Continued opposition and hype on the S-300 or the Fordo site are examples of the viciousness of the enemy,” Khamenei said.

“The S-300 system is a defence system not an assault one, but the Americans did their best for Iran not to get hold of it.”

The Fordo site, built into a mountain near the city of Qom has stopped enriching uranium since the January implementation of a nuclear deal with world powers.

Under the historic accord, Iran dismantled most of its estimated 19,000 centrifuges — giant spinning machines that enrich uranium, keeping only 5,000 active for research purposes.

Iran and the United States, Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia negotiated for more than two years before signing a historic July 2015 agreement that removed some international sanctions in return for curbs on Tehran’s controversial atomic programme.

Germany: Merkel, What the Heck?

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Cant make this up, and it is an attitude and policy that is infectious especially with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

German army wants security checks for recruits after admitting more than 60 Isil suspects in its ranks

German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen (CDU) speaking with soldiers 

Telegraph: The German army has said it wants tougher security checks on recruits after admitting that more than 60 Islamists are suspected of infiltrating its ranks.

In a draft amendment seen by German newspaper Welt am Sonntag, senior Bundeswehr officials said all applicants should be screened by the intelligence services for jihadist links before they begin basic training.

And they disclosed that 64 Islamists are already feared to have embedded themselves within the armed forces, along with 268 right-wing extremists and six left-wing extremists.

Terrorists are attracted to the army because they can use the training to plot future terror attacks in Germany, the document added.

“The German army trains all of its members in the handling and usage of weapons of war,” it said, “[terrorists] could use those skills acquired in the army to carry out well-prepared acts of violence at home or abroad.”

**

The proposals would lead to a major overhaul of the country’s recruiting policy as under the current system soldiers are only checked for Islamist ties once they have enlisted.

They would  also require an extra 90 military officials to be hired in order to carry out a further 20,000 checks per year.

The reforms, which would cost an estimated 8.2 million euros (£6.9m) per year, are expected to be approved by German commanders next week, Welt am Sonntag reported.

A Defence Ministry spokesman said the government was still in the process of debating the law, which if approved would come into force in July 2017.

Germany is on high alert following a spate of deadly attacks last July, two of which were claimed by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil).

On July 18 an Afghan refugee attacked passengers with an axe on a regional train in southern Germany, injuring four people before he was shot by police.

Officials said they found an Isil flag in the 17-year-old’s room and it later emerged that he had pledged allegiance to the group in a video posted online.

A week later, on July 25th, a Syrian refugee blew himself up in the southern town of Ansbach, killing himself in the blast and wounding 12 others.

**

When police raided his flat they found violent videos, bomb making materials and a message on his mobile phone in which he said he carried out the attack on behalf of  Isil leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Thomas de Maziere, the German Interior Minister, has already called for tougher security measures which would include a ban on the burka and legal reforms that would make it easier to deport terror suspects.

He is also in favour of a Europe-wide proposal to force the developers of encrypted messaging services such as Telegram to hand over data to the security services.

Telegram has attracted controversy in the past for being popular among Isil fighters, who use the network to trade weapons and plot attacks while remaining anonymous.

Well there is more….Merkel is out of her mind…

Merkel ‘Underestimated’ Migrant Challenge: Vice Chancellor

Newsweek: German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said in an interview on Saturday that Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives had “underestimated” the challenge of integrating a record migrant influx.

08_28_germany_01 Immigrants are escorted by German police to a registration center, after crossing the Austrian-German border in Wegscheid near Passau, Germany, October 20, 2015. Reuters

Gabriel is also leader of the Social Democrats (SPD)—the junior coalition partner in Merkel’s government—and his comments come as campaigning gets underway for a federal election next year and for regional elections in Berlin and the eastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

Hundreds of thousands of migrants flocked to Germany from the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere last year. Concerns about how to integrate them all into German society and the labor market are now rife and support for the anti-immigrant party Alternative for Germany (AfD) has grown.

“I, we always said that it’s inconceivable for Germany to take in a million people every year,” Gabriel said in extracts of an interview with broadcaster ZDF released on Saturday.

The head of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees told newspaper Bild am Sonntag that Germany took in less than one million migrants last year and said he expected a maximum of 300,000 refugees to arrive in Germany this year.

At a separate news conference on Sunday, Gabriel said: “There is an upper limit to a country’s integration ability.”

He said Germany had 300,000 new schoolchildren due to the migrant influx and added that the country could not manage to integrate so many into the school system every year because there would not be enough teachers.

In the ZDF interview, Gabriel also criticized Merkel’s catchphrase “Wir schaffen das,” meaning “We can do this,” which she adopted during the migrant crisis last summer and has repeatedly used since.

Merkel used the phrase at a news conference she held in late July after a spate of attacks on civilians in Germany, including two claimed by the Islamic State militant group (ISIS), that have put her open-door migrant policy in the spotlight. Her popularity has slipped since those attacks.

Gabriel said repeating that phrase was not enough and the conservatives needed to create the conditions for Germany to be able to cope, adding that the conservatives had always blocked opportunities to do that.

Merkel’s migrant policy also drew criticism from Markus Soeder, a senior member of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party to Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU).

“Even with the best will in the world, we won’t manage to integrate so many people from totally different cultures,” Soeder told German magazine Der Spiegel.

Soeder said Germany needed to send several hundred thousand of refugees back in the next three years rather than bring their families here.

The CSU tends to talk tougher on immigration than the CDU and the two allies have often been at odds over how to respond to the migrant influx.

Iran Evaded Sanctions with Venezuela’s Help

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New evidence Iran evaded sanctions, continued nuclear weapons development with Venezuela

ForeignNewsDesk: New evidence suggests Iran received help from Venezuela with its nuclear program despite a decade of U.N.-mandated sanctions aimed at curbing the rouge regime’s controversial nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

iran_venezuela_nuclear

A 2009 document obtained by Brazil’s leading weekly, Veja magazine, shows late dictator President Hugo Chavez signing off on the release of funds to help Iran with its nuclear ambitions.

Specifically, the document states the funds were to be designated for the import of equipment for a gunpowder factory and the development of production plants for nitroglycerin and nitrocellulose, elements used in rocket propulsion for Iran’s government. There is also the suggestion that Chavez may have helped Iran produce rocket motors.

The document provides written proof that Iran successfully continued with its weapons-building program, circumventing what were perceived as ‘watertight’ sanctions.

The revelation comes as Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif is currently touring South America visiting Bolivia, Chile, Cuba, Ecuador Nicaragua and Venezuela, in what Iranian officials have billed as a “new chapter” in strengthening political and economic ties between Iran and South American countries.

“In my line of work, I can’t believe in coincidences. I can’t believe that $400 million was given to Iran in cash and now Zarif is running through Latin America. The Iranian regime understands that in Latin America corruption can be used to their advantage,” said Joseph M. Humire, executive director of the Center for a Secure Free Society, who points to the long-standing relationship between Venezuela and Hezbollah, Iran’s terror proxy.

Humire is also the co-editor of Iran’s Strategic Penetration of Latin America.

“Latin America is Hezbollah’s biggest cash cow. It would make sense that this is a very strategic visit by Zarif to continue some of Iran’s previous activities which were challenged because of sanctions,” Humire said, adding that Hezbollah has been deeply involved in drug trafficking in Latin America to offset any financial hardship brought about by the sanctions.

As a member state of the United Nations, Venezuela was obliged to cooperate with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1747 that unanimously called for a ban on arm sales to the Islamic republic.

But uncertainties were already high in 2009 when Turkey intercepted a suspicious shipment from Iran to Venezuela containing 22 containers of lab equipment capable of producing explosives but was labelled as “tractor parts.”

Humire, who has long analyzed Iran’s involvement in Latin America has studied twenty different transactions between the two countries in several areas, finding that even those dealings considered legal, were problematic due to the “dual use” that they could present.

“Iran’s secretive military programs go far beyond violating sanctions. It has to do with providing military and industrial support in these countries,” Humire said.

“At the far end of that, you can begin to speculate they are beginning to develop military assets.”

In a 2011 hearing at the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, then head of U.S. Southern command General Douglas Fraser told the committee that the U.S. was concerned about weekly flights between Venezuela and Iran dubbed the “Axis of Evil Express,” that could potentially be used to transport terrorists and weapons.

“My concern, as I look at it, is the fact that there are flights between Iran and Venezuela on a weekly basis, and visas are not required for entrance into Venezuela or Bolivia or Nicaragua,” Fraser told the hearing.

Another discrepancy in Iran’s investments in Venezuela, according to Humire, is considering that if the Iranian regime was after economic growth, they would go to “viable countries like Brazil, Colombia, not the ones that are broke, particularly with the heavy instability in Venezuela.”

Congress knows:

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Federal Land Grabbed, Now the Oceans, Stroke of the Pen

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Obama creates largest ocean reserve, takes heat for new federal decrees

FNC: President Obama, with the stroke of a pen, created the world’s largest ocean reserve on Friday off Hawaii, days after designating a massive federal monument in Maine – moves that have angered local lawmakers who accuse the president of disregarding the impact on residents.

A green sea turtle is seen off the coast of Oahu, Hawaii.

A green sea turtle is seen off the coast of Oahu, Hawaii. (Reuters)

Obama used a presidential proclamation to expand the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument off the coast of Hawaii by over 400,000 square miles. The preserve now stretches 582,578 square miles, the world’s largest marine protected area.

“The expansion provides critical protections for more than 7,000 marine species … [and] will allow scientists to monitor and explore the impacts of climate change on these fragile ecosystems,” the White House said in a statement, citing the support of Sen. Brian Schatz and “prominent Native Hawaiian leaders.”

But the decision drew sharp criticism from the fishing industry and even fellow Democrats, as it will drastically expand the area where commercial fishing and drilling is banned.

Former Democratic Gov. George Ariyoshi said at a rally last month that it came down to the question of who actually owned the ocean.

“The ocean belongs to us,” Ariyoshi reportedly said. “We ought to be the ones who decide what kind of use to make of the ocean.”

Representatives from the fishing industry warn the move will increase prices and imports, The Honolulu Star Advertiser reported. All commercial extraction activities will be prohibited within the area, though non-commercial fishing is allowed by permit.

The regional council that manages U.S. waters in the Pacific Islands said the decision “serves a political legacy” rather than a conservation benefit.

“Closing 60 percent of Hawaii’s waters to commercial fishing, when science is telling us that it will not lead to more productive local fisheries, makes no sense,” said Edwin Ebiusi Jr., chairman of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council. “Today is a sad day in the history of Hawaii’s fisheries and a negative blow to our local food security.”

 The land grab began: On August 25, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed a bill that mandated the agency “to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and wildlife therein, and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”[5] Mather became the first director of the newly formed NPS.[6] Wikipedia

*****

Celebrate National Parks’ 100th birthday by joining Obama on a (virtual) tour of Yosemite

2014: Through legislation, Congress has provided varying authorities for acquiring and disposing of

land to the federal agencies.31 With regard to acquiring land, the BLM has relatively broad

authority, the FWS has various authorities, and the FS authority is mostly limited to lands within

or contiguous to the boundaries of a national forest. DOD also has authority for acquisitions.32 By

contrast, the NPS has no general authority to acquire land to create new park units. Condemnation

for acquiring land is feasible, but rarely is used by any of the agencies and its potential use has

been controversial. The primary funding mechanism for federal land acquisition, for the four

major federal land management agencies, has been appropriations from the Land and Water

Conservation Fund (LWCF).33 For the FWS, the Migratory Bird Conservation Fund (supported

by sales of Duck Stamps and import taxes on arms and ammunition) provides a significant

additional source of mandatory spending for land acquisition. Funding for acquisitions by DOD is

provided in Department of Defense appropriations laws.

With regard to disposal, the NPS and FWS have virtually no authority to dispose of the lands they

administer, and the FS disposal authorities are restricted. The BLM has broader authority under §

203 of FLPMA. DOD lands that are excess to military needs can be disposed of under the surplus

property process administered by the General Services Administration.34 Further, it is not

uncommon for Congress to enact legislation providing for the acquisition or disposal of land

where an agency does not have standing authority to do so or providing particular procedures for

specified land transactions.

Ownership Changes, 1990-2013

Since 1990, total federal lands have generally declined. There have been many disposals of areas

of federal lands. At the same time, the federal government has acquired many new parcels of land

and there have been numerous new federal land designations, including wilderness areas, wild

and scenic rivers, and national park units. Through the numerous individual acquisitions and

disposals since 1990, the total federal land ownership has declined by 23.5 million acres, or 3.6%

of the total of the five agencies, as shown in Table 3. BLM lands declined by 24.8 million acres

(9.1%)35 while DOD lands declined by 6.1 million acres (29.8%). In contrast, the NPS, FWS, and

FS expanded their acreage during the period, with the NPS having the largest increase in both

acreage and percent growth─3.5 million acres (4.6%). In some cases, a decrease in one agency’s

acreage was tied to an increase in acreage owned by another agency.36  Read more here.

 

FBI is Holding Internet Class, Who Will Be There?

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Related reading: Child Predators The Online Threat Continues to Grow

Take the Safe Online Surfing Internet Challenge

Available Soon for 2016-2017 School Year

What do more than 870,000 students across the nation have in common?

Since 2012, they have all completed the FBI’s Safe Online Surfing (SOS) Internet Challenge. Available through a free website at https://sos.fbi.gov, this initiative promotes cyber citizenship by teaching students in third through eighth grades how to recognize and respond to online dangers through a series of fun, interactive activities.

Anyone can visit the website and learn all about cyber safety, but teachers must sign up their school to enable their students to take the exam and participate in the national competition. Once enrolled, teachers are given access to a secure webpage to enroll their students (anonymously, by numeric test keys) and request their test scores. E-mail customer support is also provided. Top-scoring schools each month are recognized by their local FBI field office when possible. All public, private, and home schools with at least five students are welcome to participate.

Now entering its fifth season, the FBI-SOS program has seen increased participation each year. From September 2015 through May 2016, nearly a half-million students nationwide finished the activities and took the exam. We look forward to even more young people completing the program in the school year ahead. The challenge begins September 1.

Kids Gathered around laptop for Safe Online Surfing Challenge.

The FBI’s Safe Online Surfing (SOS) Internet Challenge for students in third through eighth grades is available at https://sos.fbi.gov.

 

ChicagoTribune: The smartphone is the teen’s conduit to the digital world. But it’s a conduit that runs both directions. Smartphones give bad people unfiltered access to good kids. Sexual predators, pornographers, cyberbullies and scammers can reach out to children without fear of parent intervention, because teens rarely tell their parents who they are talking to or what they are doing online.

But parents are no longer helpless to defend against these digital dangers. Over one million parents have turned to TeenSafe to help them monitor their child’s cell phone activity – without their child even knowing it. Now you can know if your child has been contacted by a sexual predator or has been duped into sexting. Here are five ways that TeenSafe can help you protect your children from digital dangers.

  1. Monitor their text messages – even deleted messages. TeenSafe allows you to read all sent, received and deleted SMS and iMessages without touching your teen’s phone. Just log into your TeenSafe account to access your child’s data.
  2. Track their incoming and outgoing calls. Your TeenSafe subscription gives you access to your teen’s call logs, including contact name, number, date and duration of the call.
  3. Monitor their social media. View your teen’s Instagram posts, read comments and see who’s following your teen with TeenSafe. You can also view their activity on Whatsapp, Kik and Tinder.
  4. Review their browser history. TeenSafe makes it easy for you to see what sites your teen has visited, which ones they’ve bookmarked and who their contacts are.
  5. Follow their phone. TeenSafe can help you monitor your teen in the real world as well as the digital world. You can see the cell phone’s current location on a map, as well as a history of the phone’s location.

USA Today is an advocate of TeenSafe, reporting that “TeenSafe has kept teens out of dangerous situations.” The Memphis affiliate of NBC calls TeenSafe “the ultimate app for preventing cyberbullying.” The TeenSafe app can be downloaded directly to your phone, and is free with your subscription.

Short of taking away your teen’s smartphone, TeenSafe is the best way for parents to protect their children from a growing number of digital dangers.