Iran Nuclear Framework (MOU) Achieved

Posted on April 2, 2015April 2, 2015 by Denise Simon

This is NOT a final deal, it is only a Memorandum of Understanding that has a date of June 30 attached to it. That of course is an organic date also. There are ‘snap-back’ sanctions threats in place IF the IAEA determines that Iran has violated conditions. What major question that remains is what are the real cures to Iran violating the conditions by the IAEA.

Iran still will have 5000-6000 centrifuges spinning and those provide Iran less than a year for a break-out condition, meaning a weapon can still be gained.

• The basis for an agreement for a peaceful Iranian nuclear program and a lifting of sanctions against that nation has been reached, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini announced Thursday in Switzerland. “We have reached solutions on key parameters of a joint comprehensive plan of action,” she said.

• Iran’s enrichment capacity and stockpile would be limited, and Iran’s sole enrichment facility would be at the Natanz nuclear facility, Mogherini said. Other nuclear facilities would be converted for other uses, she said.

• Under the agreement, the nuclear facility at Fordow would be converted to a nuclear physics and technology center and the facility at Arak would be redesigned as a heavy-water research reactor that will not produce weapons-grade plutonium.

• The European Union would terminate all nuclear-related economic and financial sanctions against Iran, and the United States would do the same once Iran’s implementation of the agreement is confirmed, according to announcements of the deal.

• The United Nations would terminate all previous resolutions sanctioning Iran, and would incorporate other restrictions for an agreed-upon period, according to Thursday’s announcements.

Lausanne, Switzerland (CNN)The United States and other world powers have agreed on the general terms of a deal meant to keep Iran’s nuclear program peaceful, a major breakthrough after months of high-stakes negotiations.

The deal, announced Thursday evening in Switzerland, calls for Iran to limits its enrichment capacity and stockpile in exchange for the European Union lifting economic sanctions that have hobbled Iran’s economy.

Iran also agreed to enrich nuclear materials only at one plant, with other nuclear facilities converted for other uses, said Federica Mogherini, foreign policy chief for the European Union.

The United States would lift many sanctions on Iran after Iran’s implementation of the agreement is confirmed.

Leading negotiators announced the deal in a news conference in Lausanne, Switzerland, where they have been meeting for months.

Negotiators must resolve additional details of a final deal by the end of June. The announcement marks the end of a round of talks that started last week.

They were supposed to reach a framework for a deal by Tuesday but stretched the talks into Thursday.

The world powers involved in the talks were the United States, Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom and Germany.

The talks, aimed at reaching a preliminary political deal on Iran’s nuclear program, blew past their initial, self-imposed deadline of late Tuesday as Iranian and U.S. negotiators struggled to find compromises on key issues.

But the negotiators doggedly continued their work in Lausanne, trying to overcome decades of mistrust between Tehran and Washington.

The mutual mistrust has been a serious problem in the talks, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said earlier Thursday.

“I believe respect is something that needs to be exercised in practice and in deeds, and I hope that everyone is engaging in that in mutual respect,” he said.

‘A few meters from the finishing line’

Iran wants swift relief from punishing sanctions that have throttled its economy. And Western countries want to make sure any deal holds Iran back from being able to rapidly develop a nuclear weapon.

The Obama administration needed something solid enough it can sell to a skeptical Congress, which has threatened to impose new sanctions on Iran. The potential deal is also coming under sustained attack from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

One Generation Until Muslim Population Rules

Posted on April 2, 2015April 2, 2015 by Denise Simon

It is not only about the lack of birthrate versus that of Islamists, it is also about the current genocide going on killing Christians.

Study Projects Growth, Shifts in World’s Muslim, Christian Populations

Pew forecast shows number of Muslims will nearly equal that of Christians world-wide by 2050

The world’s Islamic population is growing so rapidly that by 2050, the number of Muslims will be nearly equal to the number of Christians across the planet—possibly for the first time in history.

The new forecast is part of a sweeping religious-population study released Thursday by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center that projects significant demographic shifts across the global religious landscape.

Most major religions—including Christianity—will see their numbers increase. But the exceptional growth of Islam, as well as the rise of those unaffiliated with any religion, is poised to alter historic religious balances across Europe, the U.S. and Africa over the next four decades, the study suggests.

By 2050, the study says, there will be more Muslims than Jews in the U.S.—though both groups will remain small minorities. Researchers note that their count only includes those who identify as Jewish by religion, not those who may consider themselves culturally Jewish but decline to claim it as a religion.

The U.S. will remain a majority Christian nation, though the number of people identifying themselves as Christian is expected to decline from more than three-quarters of the population to two-thirds, the study says. The number of Christians in Europe is expected to decrease by about 100 million people to 454 million.

Christians will remain a large or even the largest group in countries including France, the U.K. and Australia, but they will no longer make up the majority. Many European countries will experience a rise in the number of people unaffiliated with any religion, as well as nearly a doubling of the Muslim share of Europe’s population—to 10% from 5.9%.

The study, based primarily on census and survey data, takes into account the effects of migration, conversion and the ages of religious populations, but “fertility is the single most important factor driving outcomes,” said Conrad Hackett, the study’s demographer.

Muslims have an average of 3.1 children per woman—the highest rate of all religious groups, he said. Christians are second, with 2.7 children per woman. Hindus have 2.4 children per woman, and Jews have an average of 2.3 children per woman.

The projections come as Europe struggles to assimilate its burgeoning Muslim minorities, amid tensions spurred by economic forces and the rise of the terrorist group known as Islamic State.

It also comes as Americans battle over the claims of religious believers who say their rights need protection as society becomes more accepting of gay rights, and as more people in the U.S. turn away from religion.

By 2050, Muslims will make up 30% of the global population, with 2.8 billion adherents, while Christians will comprise 31%, with 2.9 billion followers.

The only other time in history the population figures may have been as close to parity is between the years 1000 and 1600, as Islam expanded and deadly plague ravaged Christian populations in Europe, according to scholars cited in the study.

If population trends continue, Muslims could outnumber Christians by 2100, the study says.

Researchers said that although the Muslim population is expected to increase by more than 70% by 2050, Muslims will still be in the minority in Western Europe and the U.S. Although India will remain a Hindu majority nation, they said, it will also be the country with the largest number of Muslims.

By comparison, Christianity is expected to see an increase of 35% over the same period, enough to hold its current share of the global population as it grows to a projected 9.3 billion from 6.8 billion.

As Islam grows in the U.S. and Europe, Christianity is expected to become more prominent in Africa. By 2050, the Pew study projects, four out of 10 Christians will live in sub-Saharan Africa.

Such global shifts may already be visible on a smaller scale.

In the Quad Cities, a cluster of communities straddling Iowa and Illinois, the small, aging Jewish community of about 500 seems to be getting smaller as people die or leave the area, says Allan Ross, the executive director of the Jewish Federation there.

Funerals are too common, he says, and as children—including his son—grow up and move away to larger cities “they don’t come back to work in daddy’s store.”

Meanwhile, Muslim congregations recently built two mosques in the area.

Homeland at Risk by Putin’s Nukes?

Posted on April 2, 2015April 2, 2015 by Denise Simon

Russian analyst urges nuclear attack on Yellowstone National Park and San Andreas fault line

A Russian geopolitical analyst says the best way to attack the United States is to detonate nuclear weapons to trigger a supervolcano at Yellowstone National Park or along the San Andreas fault line on California’s coast.

The president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems based in Moscow, Konstantin Sivkov said in an article for a Russian trade newspaper on Wednesday, VPK News, that Russia needed to increase its military weapons and strategies against the “West” which was “moving to the borders or Russia”.

He has a conspiracy theory that NATO – a political and military alliance which counts the US, UK, Canada and many countries in western Europe as members – was amassing strength against Russia and the only way to combat that problem was to attack America’s vulnerabilities to ensure a “complete destruction of the enemy”.

Conspiracy theory: The president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems based in Moscow, Konstantin Sivkov.

“Geologists believe that the Yellowstone supervolcano could explode at any moment. There are signs of growing activity there. Therefore it suffices to push the relatively small, for example the impact of the munition megaton class to initiate an eruption. The consequences will be catastrophic for the United States – a country just disappears,” he said.

“Another vulnerable area of the United States from the geophysical point of view, is the San Andreas fault – 1300 kilometers between the Pacific and North American plates … a detonation of a nuclear weapon there can trigger catastrophic events like a coast-scale tsunami which can completely destroy the infrastructure of the United States.”

He said the Russian geography on the other hand would protect it from a tsunami or a volcano attack. Few people live on the coast in Russia and Siberia which rests on basalt would withstand similar attacks.

Russian target number 2: The San Andreas fault line, here pictured on the Carrizo Plain in California.

Mr Sivkov, who spoke at the 2013 Moscow Economic Forum, said by 2020 to 2025 Russia would have amassed “asymmetric weapons” in its arsenal for the attack.

“The situation for us today is comparably worse than half a century ago,” he said.

“The weakened economic potential in Russia, the loss of the ‘spiritual core of what was the communist idea’, and the lack of large-scale community allies in Europe such as the Warsaw Pact, Russia simply cannot compete against the NATO and its allies.”

In December last year, the vocal military strategist told Russian newspaper, Pravda.ru that there is a “developing standoff between Russia and the West” and the US’s ultimate goal was to “destroy Russia”.

Mr Sivkov accused American politicians of committing several crimes including causing the deaths of 1,200,000 people in Iraq. He believed the only way for the “American elite” to be held accountable was for its military forces to be destroyed.

“American politicians have committed a variety of crimes. Will anyone be held accountable for those crimes? What about the international law, the UN and other organisations? Are they doing anything?” he asked.

Mr Sivkov told Pravda that the idea of the US preparing for a serious war against Russia using cruise missiles was plausible given that it had already launched a thousand missiles in Yugoslavia and Iraq.

*** Putin has issued nuclear weapons threats in several regions.

Russia Threatens Danish Warships With Nuclear Weapons

Danish warships could become targets for Russian nuclear missiles if Denmark joins NATO’s missile defence system, Russia has warned, in comments that have sparked outrage in Copenhagen.

Russia’s ambassador to Denmark, Mikhail Vanin, made the comments in an opinion piece published by the Danish national newspaper Jyllands-Posten, on Saturday.

“I don’t think the Danes fully understand the consequences of what will happen if Denmark joins the American-controlled missile defence. If it happens, Danish warships will become targets for Russian atomic missiles,” Vanin wrote.

*** There is more:

Putin threatens nuclear war: Russian leader will take any necessary step to drive Nato out of Baltics and defend Crimea

Vladimir Putin is planning to exploit the threat of nuclear war to force Nato out of countries bordering Russia, it has been claimed.

A secret meeting between intelligence figures in Moscow and Washington reportedly revealed Putin will consider any attempt to return the Crimean peninsula to Ukraine as declaration of war and will take any necessary step – including using nuclear weapons – to retain control of the region.

Notes from the meeting are also said to have revealed that Putin is planning imminent ‘destabilising actions’ in pro-Western Baltic states in a direct challenge to Nato’s promise to defend the countries from Soviet-style Russian expansionism.

These disturbances are thought to likely involve cyber attacks or ramping up local ethnic tensions in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania intended to unsettle the region.

U.S. Prisons are Radical Recruiting Centers

Posted on April 1, 2015April 1, 2015 by Denise Simon

The Justice Department will begin accepting clemency applications for nonviolent, low-level criminals who have served out at least 10 years of their sentence under new guidelines outlined Wednesday.
At the request of the White House, the Justice Department will put a priority on six new factors when evaluating clemency applications. The changes are expected to result in a surge of letters to President Obama, with many coming from people serving drug sentences.

Those being considered should be serving out a term that would have likely been lower if sentenced under current guidelines. They cannot have ties to criminal organizations, possess a significant criminal history, or have a violent background. The inmates must also have served out at least 10 years of their sentence and maintained good conduct while there.

*** Now for the real chilling facts.

America’s Academies for Jihad

A radical imam threatened me with death—and was later hired to preach in U.S. prisons. I was surprised, but I shouldn’t have been.

By Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Less than a year after I moved to the United States in 2006, I was asked to speak at the University of Pittsburgh. Among those who objected to my appearance was a local imam, Fouad El Bayly, of the Johnstown Islamic Center. Mr. Bayly was born in Egypt but has lived in the U.S. since 1976. In his own words, I had “been identified as one who has defamed the faith.” As he explained at the time: “If you come into the faith, you must abide by the laws, and when you decide to defame it deliberately, the sentence is death.”

After a local newspaper reported Mr. Bayly’s comments, he was forced to resign from the Islamic Center. That was the last I would hear of him—or so I thought.

Imagine my surprise when I learned recently that the man who threatened me with death for apostasy is being paid by the U.S. Justice Department to teach Islam in American jails.

According to records on the federal site USASpending.gov and first reported by Chuck Ross of the Daily Caller, the Federal Bureau of Prisons awarded Mr. Bayly a $10,500 contract in February 2014 to provide “religious services, leadership and guidance” to inmates at the Federal Correctional Institution in Cumberland, Md. Ten months later he received another federal contract, worth $2,400, to provide “Muslim classes for inmates” at the same prison.

This isn’t a story about one problematic imam, or about the misguided administration of a solitary prison. Several U.S. prison chaplains have been exposed in recent years as sympathetic to radical Islam, including Warith Deen Umar, who helped run the New York State Department of Correctional Services’ Islamic prison program for two decades, until 2000, and who praised the 9/11 hijackers in a 2003 interview with this newspaper.

That same year, the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism held hearings on radical Islamic clerics in U.S. prisons. Committee members voiced serious concerns over the vetting of Muslim prison chaplains and the extent of radical Islamist influences. Harley Lappin, director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons at the time, said that “inmates are particularly vulnerable to recruitment by terrorists,” and that “we must guard against the spread of terrorism and extremist ideologies.”

Yet it is not clear what measures—if any—were taken in response to those concerns.

Testifying in 2011 before the House Committee on Homeland Security, Michael P. Downing, head of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Counterterrorism and Special Operations Bureau, said that in 2003 it was estimated that 17%-20% of the U.S. prison population, some 350,000 inmates, were Muslims, and that “80% of the prisoners who convert while in prison, convert to Islam.” He estimated that “35,000 inmates convert to Islam annually.”

Patrick Dunleavy, retired deputy inspector of the Criminal Intelligence Division at the New York State Department of Corrections, said in testimony that prison authorities often rely on groups such as the Islamic Leadership Council or the Islamic Society of North America for advice about Islamic chaplains. Yet those groups can and have referred individuals not suited to positions of influence over prisoners. As Mr. Dunleavy pointedly testified: “There is certainly no vetting of volunteers who provide religious instruction, and who, although not paid, wield considerable influence in the prison Muslim communities.”

The problem isn’t limited to radical clerics infiltrating prisons. Radical inmates proselytize and do their utmost to recruit others to their cause. Once released, they may seek to take their radicalization to the next level.

Kevin James formed the Assembly of Authentic Islam while in New Folsom State Prison in California. In 2004 James recruited fellow prisoner Levar Washington to his cause. After being released, James developed a list of possible targets including an Israeli consulate, a Jewish children’s camp in Malibu, Los Angeles International Airport and a U.S. military recruiting station in Santa Monica. The two men pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges; Washington was sentenced to 22 years in 2008, James to 16 years in 2009.

Michael Finton converted and radicalized in an Illinois state prison while serving time for aggravated assault. Finton wanted to attack a federal government building and spoke of the need to attack members of Congress. He pleaded guilty to attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and was sentenced to 28 years in prison in 2011.

In 2009 the “Newburgh Four”—James Cromitie, Laguerre Payen, David Williams and Onta Williams—were arrested for plotting to bomb synagogues in New York City. The men also intended to shoot down military aircraft with Stinger missiles. All four had converted to Islam in prison, where they developed radical sympathies. The men didn’t know each other while in prison but met after their release while attending a local mosque connected to a prison ministry. All four were convicted on conspiracy charges and received 25-year sentences in 2011.

In January 2010 John Kerry, who was then chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, released a report warning that “three dozen U.S. citizens who converted to Islam while in prison have traveled to Yemen, possibly for al Qaeda training.”

Europeans have known for some time that prisons can be breeding grounds for Islamists. The British “shoe bomber,” Richard Reid, is thought to have been radicalized while in prison for smaller crimes. Two of the gunmen in the Paris terror attacks in January—Chérif Kouachi and Amedy Coulibaly—came under the religious influence of Djamel Beghal, a convicted terrorist and charismatic Islamist, when serving prison sentences. Mohamed Merah, who killed three soldiers, three small children and a rabbi at a Jewish school near Toulouse, France, in 2012, apparently became a jihadist while in jail. The list is depressingly long.

The problem is that experts tend to be concerned about prison radicalization only to the extent that it ultimately results in some type of violent attack. Yet there are good reasons to be concerned about the inmates who come to cherish a radical interpretation of Islam while refraining—for the time being—from the use of violence. The boundary between nonviolent and violent extremism is much more porous than conventional wisdom allows.

What can be done to stop prisons from becoming academies of jihad? Here are four suggestions:

1) Choose better partners than the Islamic Society of North America and the Islamic Leadership Council to screen prison chaplains. The American Islamic Forum for Democracy, founded and led by M. Zuhdi Jasser, a medical doctor and former lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy, would be a good choice.

2) Prevent radical clerics from coming into prisons to spread their message to susceptible inmates.

3) Ban radical Islamist literature from being disseminated in U.S. prisons.

4) Stop placing inmates in proximity to radicalized mentors.

The fact that Fouad El Bayly, an imam who publicly called for my death, was chosen to provide “religious services, leadership and guidance” at a federal prison shows that U.S. authorities haven’t learned the right lessons from a growing list of prison-convert terrorists. Bringing in radical imams to mentor vulnerable inmates will not do anyone any good—least of all prisoners looking for a better path in life.

Boehner in Israel During Successful Missile Test

Posted on April 1, 2015April 1, 2015 by Denise Simon

JERUSALEM (AP) – Israeli officials announced Wednesday that a joint U.S.-Israeli missile-defense system has successfully passed a new test and is expected to be operational next year – a development that would provide an important tool in protecting the country against Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.

The Defense Ministry said the David’s Sling system had successfully intercepted targets in a series of tests conducted with the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, calling it a “major milestone.”

“We believe that next year it’s going to be operational,” Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon told journalists at an appearance with visiting U.S. House Speaker John Boehner. With Boehner nodding in agreement, Yaalon said the project was an example of strong U.S.-Israeli relations.

David’s Sling is meant to counter medium-range missiles possessed by enemies throughout the region, most notably Hezbollah. The militant group, which battled Israel during a monthlong war in 2006, is believed to possess tens of thousands of rockets and missiles. The system also aims to protect against low-altitude cruise missiles fired from longer distances.

David’s Sling is part of what Israel calls a “multi-layer” missile defense system that includes the Arrow, which is being developed to intercept longer-range missiles from Iran, and the Iron Dome rocket-defense system, which is already operational.

The test was announced as world powers were trying to wrap up a nuclear agreement with Iran. Israel has objected to the emerging agreement, saying much of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure would remain intact. It also has said Iran’s continued development of long-range missiles is a sign of Iran’s bad intentions.

Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.

David’s Sling is being developed by Israeli defense company Rafael with American defense giant Raytheon as sub-contractor. Israel Aerospace Industries’ Elta subsidiary and Israeli defense contractor Elbit Systems are also involved in the project.

*** Meanwhile, it is important to understand what Saudi Arabia is doing

CAIRO — As America talks to Iran, Saudi Arabia is lashing out against it.
The kingdom, Iran’s chief regional rival, is leading airstrikes against an Iranian-backed faction in Yemen; backing a blitz in Idlib, Syria, by jihadists fighting the Iranian-backed Assad regime; and warning Washington not to allow the Iranian-backed militia to capture too much of Iraq during the fight to roll back the Islamic State, according to Arab diplomats familiar with the talks.
Through Egypt, a major beneficiary of Saudi aid, the kingdom is backing plans for a combined Arab military force to combat Iranian influence around the region. With another major aid recipient, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia is also expected to step up its efforts to develop a nuclear bomb, potentially setting off an arms race in the region.

All this comes just a few weeks after the death of King Abdullah and the passing of the throne to a new ruler, King Salman, who then installed his 34-year-old son Mohamed in the powerful dual roles of defense minister and chief of the royal court.
“Taking matters into our own hands is the name of the game today,” said Jamal Khashoggi, a veteran Saudi journalist and former adviser to the government. “A deal will open up the Saudi appetite and the Turkish appetite for more nuclear programs. But for the time being Saudi Arabia is moving ahead with its operations to pull the carpet out from underneath the Iranians in our region.”

With the approach of a self-imposed Tuesday night deadline for the framework of a nuclear deal between Iran and the Western powers, the talks themselves are already changing the dynamics of regional politics.

The proposed deal would trade relief from economic sanctions on Iran for insurance against the risk that Iran might rapidly develop a nuclear bomb. But many Arab analysts and diplomats say that security against the nuclear risk may come at the cost of worsening ongoing conflicts around the Middle East as Saudi Arabia and its Sunni Muslim allies push back against what they see as efforts by Shiite-led Iran to impose its influence — often on sectarian battle lines.

Unless Iran pulls back, “you will see more direct Arab responses and you will see a higher level of geopolitical tension in the whole region,” argued Nabil Fahmy, a veteran Egyptian diplomat and former foreign minister.

In Yemen, where a bombing campaign by a Saudi-led coalition killed dozens of civilians in an errant strike on a camp for displaced families, the Saudis accuse Iran of supporting the Houthi movement, which follows a form of Shiite Islam and recently came close to taking control of the country’s four largest cities. (Western diplomats say Iran has provided money to the group but does not control it.) In Bahrain, across a short causeway from Saudi Arabia, the kingdom and its allies accuse Iran of backing opposition from the Shiite majority against the Sunni monarchy.

And Iran has also cultivated clients in government in the great Arab capitals of Damascus, Baghdad and Beirut, the last through its proxy, Hezbollah.
Even if the proposed deal constrains Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the Saudis and their allies note, the pact would do nothing to stop Iran from projecting its influence through such local proxies and conventional arms. Sanctions relief from the deal could even revive the Iranian economy with a flood of new oil revenues.

“The Americans seem nonchalant about this, like, ‘This is your sectarian problem, you deal with it,’ ” Mr. Khashoggi said. “So the Saudis went ahead with this Yemen operation.”

Watching Secretary of State John Kerry pursue a deal in Lausanne, Switzerland, many in Saudi Arabia and other Arab states say their ultimate fear is that the talks could lead to a broader détente or even alliance between Washington and Tehran.
Washington is already tacitly coordinating with Iran in its fight against ISIS in Iraq. As a result, the American-led military campaign is effectively strengthening the Iranian-backed government in Syria by weakening its most dangerous foe, Arab diplomats and analysts say.
So they wonder what else Mr. Kerry is talking about with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, “on those long walks together” in Lausanne, said Salman Shaikh, director of the Brookings Doha Center, in Qatar. “Is there something going on underneath the table?”
Easing the hostility between the United States and Iran would tear up what has been a bedrock principle of regional politics since the Iranian revolution and the storming of the American embassy in 1979. “But let’s not forget that we are still dealing with the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Mr. Shaikh said, reflecting the skeptical views of many in the Saudi Arabian camp.

“There is a disbelief in the Arab world that these negotiations are only about the nuclear file, and a frequent complaint here is that we are kept in the dark, we are not consulted,” said Gamal Abdel Gawad Soltan, a political scientist at the American University in Cairo. “The U.S. is much less trusted as an ally, as an insurance policy towards the security threats facing the governments in the region, and so those governments decide to act on their own.”
President Obama has argued that a verifiable deal is the best way to secure the Arab states because it is the most effective way to ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear bomb. Even military action to take out Iran’s nuclear facilities, the Obama administration argues, would set it back only temporarily.

To read the full summary from the NYT’s, go here.