Iran cutting sensitive nuclear stocks, much work remains: IAEA | Reuters - 0 views
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Among measures Iran is taking since the interim agreement took effect on January 20 is the dilution of its stock of higher-enriched uranium to a fissile concentration less suitable for any attempt to fuel an atomic bomb.Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), indicated that Iran had made sufficient progress in this regard to receive a scheduled March 1 installment of $450 million out of a total of $4.2 billion in previously blocked overseas funds.
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Separately, the IAEA is investigating suspicions - largely believed to be based on intelligence provided by Western states and Israel - that Iran has researched how to construct an atomic bomb, a charge Tehran denies. Iran says it is Israel's assumed nuclear arsenal that threatens Middle East peace.
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Amano said 17 IAEA member states had so far expressed interest in contributing extra-budgetary funds to help finance the IAEA's extra workload in monitoring the implementation of the Geneva agreement in Iran, but that more was needed. "We are still short of some €1.6 million ($2.21 million)," Amano said.The U.N. agency said in January it needed about 5.5 million euros from member states to pay for its increased activities in Iran. This would cover more inspectors sent to Iran and the purchase of specialized surveillance-related equipment.
Iran and World Powers Resume Nuclear Talks as Tensions Rise Over Ukraine Crisis - 0 views
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Iran and six world powers are meeting in Vienna Tuesday resuming talks over Tehran's disputed nuclear program aiming to reach a comprehensive agreement by mid-July. However, tension between western countries and Russia over events in Ukraine and Crimea's succession vote on Sunday, which overwhelmingly approved reunification with Russia, may threaten the second round of talks.
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disagreements between the permanent U.N. Security Council member states may reduce pressure on Iran to make a deal
US encourages resolution of Western Sahara dispute - 4 views
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Clinton reiterated the U.S. commitment to facilitating an Israeli-Palestinian peace, and also singled out the Western Sahara dispute, reaffirming longstanding U.S. policy that supports autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty as the only realistic solution to end the 34-year-old conflict.
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Clinton was sharply criticized for restating what has been U.S. policy for three successive administrations.
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The Algerian-backed rebel group Polisario Front accused Clinton of misstating U.S. policy on the Sahara and over-praising Morocco for its unarguably impressive record of political reforms, social progress and economic growth over the last decade.
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Agencies Say Iran Has the Nuclear Fuel to Build a Bomb - NYTimes.com - 0 views
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In the first public acknowledgment of the intelligence findings, the American ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency declared on Wednesday that Iran now had what he called a “possible breakout capacity” if it decided to enrich its stockpile of uranium, converting it to bomb grade material.
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Iran has maintained its continuing enrichment program is for peaceful purposes, that the uranium is solely for electric power
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But in a 2007 announcement, the United States said that it had found evidence that Iran had worked on designs for making a warhead, though it determined the project was halted in late 2003.
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Secret Assault on Terrorism Widens on Two Continents - NYTimes.com - 0 views
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accelerated a transformation of the C.I.A. into a paramilitary organization as much as a spying agency, which some critics worry could lower the threshold for future quasi-military operations. In Pakistan’s mountains, the agency had broadened its drone campaign beyond selective strikes against Qaeda leaders and now regularly obliterates suspected enemy compounds and logistics convoys, just as the military would grind down an enemy force. For its part, the Pentagon is becoming more like the C.I.A. Across the Middle East and elsewhere, Special Operations troops under secret “Execute Orders” have conducted spying missions that were once the preserve of civilian intelligence agencies. With code names like Eager Pawn and Indigo Spade, such programs typically operate with even less transparency and Congressional oversight than traditional covert actions by the C.I.A. And, as American counterterrorism operations spread beyond war zones into territory hostile to the military, private contractors have taken on a prominent role, raising concerns that the United States has outsourced some of its most important missions to a sometimes unaccountable private army.
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“For the first time in our history, an entity has declared a covert war against us,” Mr. Smith said, referring to Al Qaeda. “And we are using similar elements of American power to respond to that covert war.” Some security experts draw parallels to the cold war, when the United States drew heavily on covert operations as it fought a series of proxy battles with the Soviet Union. And some of the central players of those days have returned to take on supporting roles in the shadow war. Michael G. Vickers, who helped run the C.I.A.’s campaign to funnel guns and money to the Afghanistan mujahedeen in the 1980s and was featured in the book and movie “Charlie Wilson’s War,” is now the top Pentagon official overseeing Special Operations troops around the globe. Duane R. Clarridge, a profane former C.I.A. officer who ran operations in Central America and was indicted in the Iran-contra scandal, turned up this year helping run a Pentagon-financed private spying operation in Pakistan.
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A Navy ship offshore had fired the weapon in the attack, a cruise missile loaded with cluster bombs, according to a report by Amnesty International. Unlike conventional bombs, cluster bombs disperse small munitions, some of which do not immediately explode, increasing the likelihood of civilian causalities. The use of cluster munitions, later documented by Amnesty, was condemned by human rights groups.
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Freedomhouse Report: Libya - 0 views
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al-Qadhafi has sought to promote the status of women and to encourage them to participate in his Jamahiriya project
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e directly challenged the prevailing conservatism in Libya, though his regime at times has struck a conciliatory tone with the Islamist political opposition and the conservative populace at the expense of women's rights
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al-Qadhafi has pushed for women to become equal citizens and has introduced legislation aimed at reducing discrimination between the sexes.
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FreedomHouse Report on Saudi Arabia - 0 views
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The Basic Law of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia does not guarantee gender equality.
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A vigorous progressive movement,
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Due to an enforced
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Iran puts conditions on nuclear fuel swap - Yahoo! News - 0 views
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"We accepted the proposal in principle," Foreign Minister Manochehr Mottaki told reporters at a regional security conference in Bahrain. In what is almost certain to be a deal breaker, however, he spoke of exchanging the material in phases rather than all at once as is called for in the U.N. plan. He said Iran had offered to make a first shipment of 880 pounds (400 kilograms) of enriched uranium. Carrying it out in slow stages would leave Iran in control of enough uranium to make a bomb.
Middle East News | Israel risks closing door to peace talks: Syria - 0 views
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Syria warned Israel on Thursday it risked closing the door to renewed peace talks, a day after the Israeli parliament agreed to consider a bill that would make it far more difficult to return the occupied Golan.
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"The current Israeli government of (Benjamin) Netanyahu is perfectly aware that Syria will not resume indirect talks brokered by Turkey unless this prime minister commits himself to a full withdrawal from the Golan," the foreign ministry said in a statement. "Syria's recovery of its occupied territory is non-negotiable as it is a right recognized by U.N. resolutions."
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Israeli MPs passed a bill backed by Netanyahu's right-leaning government at first reading on Wednesday which would require any withdrawal from annexed territory to be approved by an absolute majority in the 120-seat parliament and then be put to a referendum within 80 days.
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Taliban Re-emerge in Afghanistan's Once-Quiet North - NYTimes.com - 0 views
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over the last two years the Taliban have steadily staged a resurgence in Kunduz, where they now threaten a vital NATO supply line and employ more sophisticated tactics. In November, residents listened to air raids by NATO forces for five consecutive nights, the first heavy fighting since the Taliban were overthrown eight years ago.
Turkish Populism Goes to the Polls | Foreign Affairs - 0 views
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Amid the political turmoil sweeping the Middle East, there are signs that the populist and anti-Western strand in Turkey's foreign policy may have run its course
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Building on the work of its predecessors, the AKP government replaced a foreign policy based on security with one focused on engagement, soft power, and trade, in the process diffusing tensions with neighboring countries such as Iran, Iraq, and Syria (known as the "zero problems" policy).
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Never before in Turkey's modern history has foreign policy been so directly wedded to domestic politics: The architects of Turkey's foreign policy used to answer to the generals; these days, policymakers answer to the public. And never before has a Turkish government staked so much of its reputation on its international accomplishments, real or hypothetical.
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UN commissioner urges move forward on women's rights - The National Newspaper - 0 views
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Women around the world are denied fundamental freedoms according to the UN’s human rights chief, citing in particular Sudan, Afghanistan and Gulf states.“Women’s rights continue to be curtailed in too many countries,” and efforts must be made to address this,
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She highlighted recent positive developments in the Gulf, such as the election of nine women in 2006 to the UAE’s Federal National Council [FNC], the election of four women to the 50-member Kuwaiti parliament, and the recent appointment of the first female deputy minister in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.But, Ms Pillay said, the overall situation of women in the region “falls well short of international standards”.
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South African legal expert, formerly the top judge on Rwanda’s war crimes tribunal, urged Gulf governments to adopt international conventions and reject home-grown laws that discriminate against women.“A crucial step in the right direction is the ratification and implementation of key human rights conventions, as well as the removal of the numerous reservations expressed by many Gulf countries regarding those human rights treaties they have chosen to accept,”
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U.N. to inspect Iran nuclear plant this month - CNN.com - 0 views
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United Nations inspectors will visit Iran's recently disclosed nuclear power plant on October 25
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International Atomic Energy Agency
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Iran sent shock waves through the international community recently when Tehran wrote a letter to the IAEA revealing the existence of a nuclear enrichment facility near the city of Qom
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AFP: Lebanon to defend Arab interests in UN Security Council - 0 views
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President Michel Sleiman said on Thursday his country will defend Arab interests, after Lebanon was elected to the UN Security Council for the first time since 1954.
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His country would "be the spearhead for protecting its interests and those of the Arab nation, as well as the defence of human rights, and will work for the return of Palestinian refugees," he said.
U.S.-built bridge is windfall - for illegal Afghan drug trade | McClatchy - 1 views
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it's clear why the dirt-poor former Soviet Central Asian republic of Tajikistan is on the verge of becoming a narco-state.After the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the United States and other Western powers looked the other way as opium and heroin production surged to record levels, making Afghanistan by far the world's biggest producer.Much of the ballooning supply of drugs shipped across Afghanistan's northern border, up to one-fifth of the country's output, has traveled to and through Tajikistan. The opium and heroin funded rampant corruption in Tajikistan and turned the country, still hobbled by five years of civil war in the 1990s, into what at times seems like one big drug-trafficking organization.Every day last year — extrapolating from United Nations estimates — an average of more than 4 metric tons of opium, which can be made into some 1,320 pounds of heroin, moved on the northern route. Put another way, the equivalent of nearly 6 million doses of pure heroin — at 100 milligrams each — is carried across the northern Afghan border each day.
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as the Afghan drug supply has grown, Tajik seizures have fallen. In 2004, Afghanistan produced 4,200 metric tons of opium, and some 5 metric tons of heroin or its equivalent in opium were seized in Tajikistan, according to U.N. figures. Last year, with Afghan cultivation rising to 7,700 metric tons of opium, Tajik authorities seized less than 2 metric tons of heroin.
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The U.S.-financed bridge has made drug trafficking even easier
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Iran Hints at Cooperation on U.N. Nuclear Deal - NYTimes.com - 0 views
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After days of uncertain signals, the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, hinted Thursday that Iran would accept a United Nations-sponsored plan to send the country’s uranium abroad for processing, saying, “We welcome cooperation on nuclear fuel, power plants and technology, and we are ready to cooperate.”
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But it remained unclear whether Iran would insist on shipping the material in installments, which would undercut the intent of the plan: to leave Iran without enough nuclear material to build a weapon for at least a year, time in which the West would work toward an international agreement on Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
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The uranium would be returned to Iran in the form of fuel rods, usable only in a civilian nuclear facility and not for weapons.
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Some Palestinians doubt Abbas will really step down | McClatchy - 0 views
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"What Abbas is doing is sending out a message to the Israelis, the Americans, and the Europeans: 'I'm not a president for life,' " Kukali says. "The alternative is a leadership which represents a more radical side of Palestinian politics. Abbas has a very clear agenda for peace and it has a shelf life, and unfortunately the Israelis don't understand that."
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"We cannot go to negotiations without a framework," Abbas said. "And we say the framework is U.N. resolutions, meaning a return to the 1967 borders," he said, referring to the 1967 war in which Israel occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. "What's new in this demand? We want a full stop to settlements, including natural growth and in Jerusalem," Abbas said.Abbas said that resuming negotiations requires an Israeli halt to all settlement activity, including natural growth and settlement activity in Jerusalem, which Israel has annexed and considers its eternal capital.
Iran tested advanced nuclear warhead - report - Yahoo!Xtra News - 0 views
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The U.N. nuclear watchdog has asked Iran to explain evidence suggesting the Islamic Republic's scientists have experimented with an advanced nuclear warhead design, the Guardian reported in its Friday edition.The newspaper, citing what it describes as "previously unpublished documentation" from an International Atomic Energy Agency compiled dossier, said Iranian scientists may have tested high-explosive components of a "two-point implosion" device.The IAEA said in September it has no proof Iran has or once had a covert atomic bomb program.The Vienna-based IAEA was not immediately available for comment on Thursday.Iran's Foreign Ministry and the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI) were also unavailable for comment when contacted by Reuters.
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