BREAKING LEAK - BREAKING LEAK
The Islamic regime of Iran has set into escalated motion a project to acquire/coerce then infiltrate some 200,000 people within family groups and use religious persecution as their excuse as their entry into the West - partly Europe as a stepping stone then the USA and as much as possible directly into the USA.
The central members of the family units will be existing or still in training Intelligence agents of the Ministry of Information and Bassiji/Ghods special forces, who will become head of households for Bahai, Christian and Zoroastrian Iranians. And similarly for Lebanese, Hezbollah, Syrian, Jordanian and Palestinian families of Christian or other minority faiths.
Reportedly, this strategy emanated from Obama's planned and already BUDGETED plan to bring in around 100,000 Palestinians, mostly from Jordan, Gaza and the West Bank (with nearly a BILLION dollar budget for travel, lodging and a monthly stipend while they live here as REFUGEES.
To achieve this, the Obama Administration and our State department has increasingly softened regulations to allow Iranians and other Middle East nationals to come to the USA under a variety of guises, provide little or no permananet record like finger prints and photographing on arrival as was the case till fairly recently. And issuing them multiple entry visas in case they needed to go back and forth!
With this newly opened gate through our border, wide enough to drive a truck through, Islamic Iran barely hesitated to infiltrate hundreds and hundred of their agents UNHINDERED into our universities, where they overtly activate for the Islamic regime and Islamic ideals. Vehemently protected by Obama and Eric Holder as "Moslems" and therefore virtual "untouchable by existing laws" in this Administration. Except for the occasional exception that proves the rule of a highly publicised trial to make them look as "unbiased' as possible.
Islamic Iran is spending fortunes on hiring Immigration lawyers for the infiltrators and lobbying in Persian and local Press/Media. Each infiltration adds a trained agent - and often a suicider Palestinian - into our midst, on call for when needed.
The agent and applicant training includes learning details and tenets of the chosen religion to handle Immigration interviews as the applicants may be pretending or not know enough about the religion for which they are claiming to be in danger. Even if they are actually followers of that religion.
With Obama in charge and in reality doing exactly the same in a narrower plahing field, with tax payer money, Hillary Clinton is his accessory and General Petraeus in no position to prevent the influx of a much larger stream of Islamists
WAKE UP AMERICA before you are devoured and digested in the Obama political entrails.
Iran Using Israeli Spyware
A company in Denmark (where palestinian/islamic influence is embedded ) has been redistributing Israeli Internet-monitoring software to Iran.
By Gavriel Queenann
Cyberwarfare
WikicommonsInternet-monitoring software produced in Israel is being used by the Islamic Republic of Iran, Bloomberg reported on Friday.
According to the report, software distributor RanTek in Denmark has been stripping away packaging and labels from products produced by the Israeli company Allot and then re-selling the software to Iran.
Israeli officials say their they were unaware domestically produced systems for tracking Internet traffic were being used by Iran.
The sales violate a strict Israeli ban that prohibits “trading with the enemy,” including any shipments that reach Iran, Syria and Lebanon.
“This covers everything,” Gavriel Bar of Israel’s Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor told Bloomberg. “Imports, exports, direct, indirect. An Israeli company is not allowed to trade with Iran in any way.”
Allot officials say they didn't know their software was being redistributed to Iran.
“We do not authorize any sales to Iran,” a spokesman for Allot told Bloomberg, adding that if its products were shipped to Iran by RanTek it would constitute a “breach of contract.”
The spokesman said it is challenging to track where its products go after they’ve been sold - noting they sometimes appear on eBay.
Technology experts, however, say scanning the Internet for systems running technologies like those produced by Allot is rapidly becoming an industry standard. Western companies have uncovered numerous cases where their software was redistributed to countries that used it to track and spy on dissidents – including Iran, Bahrain, Syria and Tunisia.
Remote shut-downs for such systems have also started to come into vogue as a means of combating software piracy and use of deep-packet inspection (DPI) and email snooping systems by oppressive regimes.
Allot executives say the software that reached Iran was best suited for managing a company’s internal Internet traffic and lacked the capacity for wide-scale Internet surveillance.
But industry observers say the widespread abuse of such software in violating human rights by dictatorial regimes is well-known. Any such software should be designed with safe-guards in place, they say.
“I cannot conceive a way that DPI could be exported to Iran without a concern,” Ben Wagner, of the European University Institute in Italy, told Bloomberg.
Security analysts say the honor system Israeli software companies are on isn't working and a system of export licensing with tighter restrictions - like the one that exists for weapons sales - may be necessary to fix the problem.
ARMY - ZARDARI MUST RESIGN NOT BE OVERTHROWN
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan's powerful army is fed up with unpopular President Asif Ali Zardari and wants him out of office, but through legal means and without a repeat of the coups that are a hallmark of the country's 64 years of independence, military sources said.
Tensions are rising between Pakistan's civilian leaders and its generals over a memo that accused the army of plotting a coup after the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May.
"Who isn't fed up with Zardari? It's not just the opposition and the man on the street but people within the government too," said one military source who asked not to be named.
"But there has to be a proper way. No action is being planned by the army. Even if we tried, it would be very unpopular and not just with the government and the opposition but most Pakistanis too."
The Pakistani military spokesman declined comment.
General Ashfaq Kayani has pledged to keep the military out of Pakistani politics since taking over as army chief in 2007.
Any coup -- Pakistan has had three since independence in 1947 -- could further tarnish the military's public image which has already taken a battering after the bin Laden operation, widely seen in Pakistan as a violation of sovereignty.
But the army remains the arbiter of power and analysts say it has plenty of ways to pressure Zardari to step down, especially if a link is established between him and the memo, which sought the Pentagon's help in averting a feared coup.
Businessman Mansoor Ijaz, writing in a column in the Financial Times on October 10, said a senior Pakistani diplomat had asked that a memo be delivered to the Pentagon with a plea for U.S. help to stave off a military coup in the days after the raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in May.
Ijaz later identified the diplomat as Pakistan's ambassador to Washington, Husain Haqqani, who denied involvement but resigned over the controversy. No evidence has emerged that the military was plotting a coup and the Pentagon at the time dismissed the memo as not credible.
Friction between Pakistan's civilian government and military have bedeviled the nuclear-armed South Asian country for almost its entire existence, with the military ruling for more than half its 64-year history after a series of coups.
In the past the army has asked Pakistani civilian leaders to resign and influenced judicial proceedings against them.
Haqqani's resignation was seen by many analysts as further weakening the civilian government, which is already beset by allegations of corruption and incompetence in the face of many challenges, including a weak economy and a Taliban insurgency.
MEMOGATE
Zardari returned to Pakistan this week from medical treatment in Dubai that raised speculation he would resign under pressure from the military over what has been dubbed "memogate."
Although his position is largely ceremonial, he wields considerable influence as leader of the ruling party and his forced departure would be a humiliation for the civilian leadership and could throw the country into turmoil.
One of the military sources suggested that no direct action would be needed against the government because it had already made so many mistakes.
"If the government is digging its own grave, we are not going to look for spades," the source said.
The military has reasserted itself after a November 26 NATO cross-border air attack killed 24 Pakistani soldiers and the memo has also given it political ammunition.
In a statement submitted to the Supreme Court, which is looking into a petition demanding an inquiry into who may have been behind the memo, Kayani said it was a serious matter which required an investigation.
"We want anyone involved, be they in government or elsewhere, to be punished. But it is not for us to do anything. If the army moves to do anything it would have national as well as international repercussions," said another military source.
"So that is not likely. Anything that has to be done has to be done by the Supreme Court."
Officials from Zardari's ruling party have played down friction with the military and say they don't fear a coup.
But they fear that some judges in the increasingly aggressive Supreme Court dislike Zardari and could move against him.
"I am not bothered about the army. I think they are acting very sensibly and would not derail the system at the moment," a senior ruling party leader told Reuters.
"The worry probably would be what the Supreme Court does. They look in a mood to manipulate things."
The government's anxiety over memogate was highlighted in comments made by Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani on Thursday.
"Let me make clear to you today that there are intrigues, conspiracies afoot to pack up the elected government," he said in a speech at the National Art Gallery.
IRANIAN SHIA INFLUENCE SHOWING IN IRAQ
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's Sunni Muslim minority rejected a call for all-party talks on Wednesday, ignoring U.S. pressure for dialogue to resolve a sectarian crisis that has erupted since American forces left the country this week. With fears mounting that the nation of 30 million might one day fragment in chaos in the absence of the U.S. troops who toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003, Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki warned Saddam's fellow Sunnis they faced exclusion from power if they walked out on his ruling coalition. ...
SYRIA
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian forces killed 111 people ahead of the start of a mission to monitor President Bashar al-Assad's implementation of an Arab League peace plan, activists said on Wednesday, and France branded the killings an "unprecedented massacre." Rami Abdulrahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 111 civilians and activists were killed on Tuesday when Assad's forces surrounded them in the foothills of the northern Jabal al-Zawiyah region in Idlib province and unleashed two hours of bombardment and heavy gunfire. ...
NewsCore: "The U.S. State Department offered a $10 million reward Thursday for information that helps authorities find Ezedin Abdel Aziz Khalil, better known as Yasin al Suri, an Iran-based senior financier of Al Qaeda. Suri, operating under an agreement between Al Qaeda and the Iranian government since 2005, allegedly moves money and recruits through Iran and on to Pakistan and Afghanistan, the department said in its announcement. He is an important fundraiser for the terrorist network and has collected money from donors throughout the Persian Gulf region, the department said." http://t.uani.com/sudOFb
TOP STORIES
AP: "A federal judge has signed a default judgment finding Iran, the Taliban and al-Qaida liable in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Judge George Daniels in Manhattan signed the judgment Thursday, a week after hearing testimony in the 10-year-old case. The signed ruling, which he promised last week, came in a $100 billion lawsuit brought by family members of victims of the attacks. He directed a magistrate judge to preside over remaining issues, including fixing compensatory and punitive damages. Daniels signed findings of fact saying the plaintiffs had established that the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were caused by the support the defendants provided to al-Qaida. The findings also said Iran continues to provide material support and resources to al-Qaida by providing a safe haven for al-Qaida leadership and rank-and-file al-Qaida members." http://t.uani.com/ujBnz3
NYT: "Iran put neighbors on notice Thursday that it was about to conduct vast naval exercises in the Arabian Sea, including war games near the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping lane for international oil traffic. The exercises, to start Saturday and last 10 days, are Iran's first since May 2010 and were described by the official news media as the largest the country ever planned. The scale of the maneuvers appeared intended to demonstrate Iran's military capabilities as it faces increased isolation over its suspect nuclear energy program. The exercises are bound to put Iranian warships close to vessels of the United States Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain, which patrols some of the same waters, including the Strait of Hormuz." http://t.uani.com/u1Lbtu
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
Bloomberg: "The clandestine arrangement worked smoothly for years. The Israeli company shipped its Internet- monitoring equipment to a distributor in Denmark. Once there, workers stripped away the packaging and removed the labels. Then they sent it to a man named 'Hossein' in Iran, an amiable technology distributor known to them only by his first name and impeccable English, say his partners in Israel and Denmark. Israeli trade, customs and defense officials say their departments didn't know that the systems for peering into Internet traffic, sold under the brand name NetEnforcer, had gone to a country whose leaders have called for the destruction of the Jewish state. Israel's ban on trade with its enemy failed, even though a paper trail on the deals was available in Denmark. The transactions illustrate how ineffective governments have been in blocking a global trade in new, intrusive surveillance technologies that authoritarian regimes can use as weapons for repression." http://t.uani.com/ukXDTY
WSJ: "Alibaba.com Ltd.'s trade website was inaccessible Thursday to people in Iran, according to a person familiar with the matter, just one day after the Chinese government publicly complained that Chinese buyers of Iran's iron ore had problems doing business there. It is unclear what caused the site outage or even whether the incidents are related, but it marks the latest business hiccup between two countries that have long shared a close diplomatic relationship, as the Iranian government comes under mounting international pressure over its alleged nuclear efforts. On Wednesday, China's Ministry of Commerce published a report saying that Chinese companies have had difficulty conducting business in Iran, and that iron-ore importers have been victims of fraud and 'shoddy business practices.' A ministry spokesman referred questions to China's Foreign Ministry, which didn't respond for comment." http://t.uani.com/sy90bh
Reuters: "China has bought enough spot crude from the Middle East, Africa and Russia in January to replace lost Iranian oil supply, trade sources said on Friday, putting it in a strong position as it tussles with the Islamic Republic over payment terms for 2012 contracts. China will load an additional 12.43 million barrels of crude from Iraq, Russia and West Africa in January, more than covering 285,000 barrels per day (bpd) supply cut from Iran, according to trade sources and shipping data. Sinopec Corp, the country's top refiner, cut its crude shipments from Iran for January as the two haggle over terms for next year's supplies. A long-term decline in exports to the world's second-largest oil consumer would be a major blow for Iran, as China is the largest customer for its crude sales, which are under increasing threat from growing U.S. and EU sanctions." http://t.uani.com/vZ8sJ3
Bloomberg: "Europe's threat to ban cargoes from Iran over the nation's nuclear ambitions is helping push Middle East oil-tanker hiring to a record on concern shipments from the region will be disrupted, consultant FACTS Global Energy said. The CHART OF THE DAY shows how oil tankers booked to load 2 million-barrel cargoes of Gulf crude climbed to 140 in December, the most since at least January 2005, according to data from London-based shipbroker Galbraith's Ltd. European Union foreign ministers will meet Jan. 30 to discuss possible sanctions to pressure Iran to abandon a suspected nuclear weapons program." http://t.uani.com/txYTgR
Foreign Affairs
WT: "Iraq's vice president says that Iran is 'definitely' behind Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's move to jail him on terror charges, saying it is 'not a coincidence' that his arrest warrant was announced the day after the last U.S. troops left Iraq. 'Definitely Iran was involved,' Tariq al-Hashemi told The Washington Times in an exclusive interview, speaking by phone late Wednesday from a Kurdish town in northern Iraq. 'My dear friend, they have ... staff now in the government and in the parliament. They are representing Iran.' Mr. al-Hashemi said he has been a consistent critic of the 'intervention of Iran in every respect of my country.'" http://t.uani.com/vyaknU
Opinion & Analysis
Dennis Ross in WSJ: "President Barack Obama, like President George W. Bush before him, has stated that it would be unacceptable for Iran to have nuclear weapons. Recently, Mr. Obama has taken this a step further by declaring that he is determined to prevent the Iranians from acquiring the bomb. Does that mean that the use of force against the Iranian nuclear program is inevitable? No, nor should it be. I don't say this because I believe we can live with a nuclear-armed Iran; I do not. An Iran with nuclear weapons would confront the world with many dangers, including the very real danger that it will trigger a nuclear war in the Middle East. Consider that once Iran has nuclear weapons, nearly all of its neighbors will seek them as well to counter Iranian power and coercion. Israel, given Iranian declarations that it should be wiped off the map, will feel it has no margin for error and cannot afford to strike second in the event of a war. But Israel won't be the only country operating on a hair trigger. Each country, lacking the ability to absorb a nuclear strike, will adopt a launch-on-warning posture in a region that has many local triggers for conflict and enormous potential for miscalculation. Containment does not address that risk. Even the offer of a nuclear umbrella, with its implicit promise to obliterate the Iranians after a strike, can provide small comfort for any country in the Middle East, particularly Israel. I do not doubt that the Iranians are making progress on their nuclear program. According to the most recent International Atomic Energy Agency report, released last month, the Iranians have accumulated roughly 4,900 kilograms of low enriched uranium (LEU), enough for three to four bombs if enriched further. They have 6,200 centrifuges operating at Natanz, with a production rate of about 125 kilograms a month, and have now installed 174 centrifuges in two tandem cascades and 64 in a third in their facility near Qom. And, while the bulk of their LEU is enriched to 3.5%, the Iranians are now enriching some of their material to nearly 20%-a move that would shorten the time they would need to create weapons-grade highly enriched uranium (HEU)." http://t.uani.com/vDEOe7
The Islamic regime of Iran has set into escalated motion a project to acquire/coerce then infiltrate some 200,000 people within family groups and use religious persecution as their excuse as their entry into the West - partly Europe as a stepping stone then the USA and as much as possible directly into the USA.
The central members of the family units will be existing or still in training Intelligence agents of the Ministry of Information and Bassiji/Ghods special forces, who will become head of households for Bahai, Christian and Zoroastrian Iranians. And similarly for Lebanese, Hezbollah, Syrian, Jordanian and Palestinian families of Christian or other minority faiths.
Reportedly, this strategy emanated from Obama's planned and already BUDGETED plan to bring in around 100,000 Palestinians, mostly from Jordan, Gaza and the West Bank (with nearly a BILLION dollar budget for travel, lodging and a monthly stipend while they live here as REFUGEES.
To achieve this, the Obama Administration and our State department has increasingly softened regulations to allow Iranians and other Middle East nationals to come to the USA under a variety of guises, provide little or no permananet record like finger prints and photographing on arrival as was the case till fairly recently. And issuing them multiple entry visas in case they needed to go back and forth!
With this newly opened gate through our border, wide enough to drive a truck through, Islamic Iran barely hesitated to infiltrate hundreds and hundred of their agents UNHINDERED into our universities, where they overtly activate for the Islamic regime and Islamic ideals. Vehemently protected by Obama and Eric Holder as "Moslems" and therefore virtual "untouchable by existing laws" in this Administration. Except for the occasional exception that proves the rule of a highly publicised trial to make them look as "unbiased' as possible.
Islamic Iran is spending fortunes on hiring Immigration lawyers for the infiltrators and lobbying in Persian and local Press/Media. Each infiltration adds a trained agent - and often a suicider Palestinian - into our midst, on call for when needed.
The agent and applicant training includes learning details and tenets of the chosen religion to handle Immigration interviews as the applicants may be pretending or not know enough about the religion for which they are claiming to be in danger. Even if they are actually followers of that religion.
With Obama in charge and in reality doing exactly the same in a narrower plahing field, with tax payer money, Hillary Clinton is his accessory and General Petraeus in no position to prevent the influx of a much larger stream of Islamists
WAKE UP AMERICA before you are devoured and digested in the Obama political entrails.
Iran Using Israeli Spyware
A company in Denmark (where palestinian/islamic influence is embedded ) has been redistributing Israeli Internet-monitoring software to Iran.
By Gavriel Queenann
Cyberwarfare
WikicommonsInternet-monitoring software produced in Israel is being used by the Islamic Republic of Iran, Bloomberg reported on Friday.
According to the report, software distributor RanTek in Denmark has been stripping away packaging and labels from products produced by the Israeli company Allot and then re-selling the software to Iran.
Israeli officials say their they were unaware domestically produced systems for tracking Internet traffic were being used by Iran.
The sales violate a strict Israeli ban that prohibits “trading with the enemy,” including any shipments that reach Iran, Syria and Lebanon.
“This covers everything,” Gavriel Bar of Israel’s Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor told Bloomberg. “Imports, exports, direct, indirect. An Israeli company is not allowed to trade with Iran in any way.”
Allot officials say they didn't know their software was being redistributed to Iran.
“We do not authorize any sales to Iran,” a spokesman for Allot told Bloomberg, adding that if its products were shipped to Iran by RanTek it would constitute a “breach of contract.”
The spokesman said it is challenging to track where its products go after they’ve been sold - noting they sometimes appear on eBay.
Technology experts, however, say scanning the Internet for systems running technologies like those produced by Allot is rapidly becoming an industry standard. Western companies have uncovered numerous cases where their software was redistributed to countries that used it to track and spy on dissidents – including Iran, Bahrain, Syria and Tunisia.
Remote shut-downs for such systems have also started to come into vogue as a means of combating software piracy and use of deep-packet inspection (DPI) and email snooping systems by oppressive regimes.
Allot executives say the software that reached Iran was best suited for managing a company’s internal Internet traffic and lacked the capacity for wide-scale Internet surveillance.
But industry observers say the widespread abuse of such software in violating human rights by dictatorial regimes is well-known. Any such software should be designed with safe-guards in place, they say.
“I cannot conceive a way that DPI could be exported to Iran without a concern,” Ben Wagner, of the European University Institute in Italy, told Bloomberg.
Security analysts say the honor system Israeli software companies are on isn't working and a system of export licensing with tighter restrictions - like the one that exists for weapons sales - may be necessary to fix the problem.
ARMY - ZARDARI MUST RESIGN NOT BE OVERTHROWN
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan's powerful army is fed up with unpopular President Asif Ali Zardari and wants him out of office, but through legal means and without a repeat of the coups that are a hallmark of the country's 64 years of independence, military sources said.
Tensions are rising between Pakistan's civilian leaders and its generals over a memo that accused the army of plotting a coup after the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May.
"Who isn't fed up with Zardari? It's not just the opposition and the man on the street but people within the government too," said one military source who asked not to be named.
"But there has to be a proper way. No action is being planned by the army. Even if we tried, it would be very unpopular and not just with the government and the opposition but most Pakistanis too."
The Pakistani military spokesman declined comment.
General Ashfaq Kayani has pledged to keep the military out of Pakistani politics since taking over as army chief in 2007.
Any coup -- Pakistan has had three since independence in 1947 -- could further tarnish the military's public image which has already taken a battering after the bin Laden operation, widely seen in Pakistan as a violation of sovereignty.
But the army remains the arbiter of power and analysts say it has plenty of ways to pressure Zardari to step down, especially if a link is established between him and the memo, which sought the Pentagon's help in averting a feared coup.
Businessman Mansoor Ijaz, writing in a column in the Financial Times on October 10, said a senior Pakistani diplomat had asked that a memo be delivered to the Pentagon with a plea for U.S. help to stave off a military coup in the days after the raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in May.
Ijaz later identified the diplomat as Pakistan's ambassador to Washington, Husain Haqqani, who denied involvement but resigned over the controversy. No evidence has emerged that the military was plotting a coup and the Pentagon at the time dismissed the memo as not credible.
Friction between Pakistan's civilian government and military have bedeviled the nuclear-armed South Asian country for almost its entire existence, with the military ruling for more than half its 64-year history after a series of coups.
In the past the army has asked Pakistani civilian leaders to resign and influenced judicial proceedings against them.
Haqqani's resignation was seen by many analysts as further weakening the civilian government, which is already beset by allegations of corruption and incompetence in the face of many challenges, including a weak economy and a Taliban insurgency.
MEMOGATE
Zardari returned to Pakistan this week from medical treatment in Dubai that raised speculation he would resign under pressure from the military over what has been dubbed "memogate."
Although his position is largely ceremonial, he wields considerable influence as leader of the ruling party and his forced departure would be a humiliation for the civilian leadership and could throw the country into turmoil.
One of the military sources suggested that no direct action would be needed against the government because it had already made so many mistakes.
"If the government is digging its own grave, we are not going to look for spades," the source said.
The military has reasserted itself after a November 26 NATO cross-border air attack killed 24 Pakistani soldiers and the memo has also given it political ammunition.
In a statement submitted to the Supreme Court, which is looking into a petition demanding an inquiry into who may have been behind the memo, Kayani said it was a serious matter which required an investigation.
"We want anyone involved, be they in government or elsewhere, to be punished. But it is not for us to do anything. If the army moves to do anything it would have national as well as international repercussions," said another military source.
"So that is not likely. Anything that has to be done has to be done by the Supreme Court."
Officials from Zardari's ruling party have played down friction with the military and say they don't fear a coup.
But they fear that some judges in the increasingly aggressive Supreme Court dislike Zardari and could move against him.
"I am not bothered about the army. I think they are acting very sensibly and would not derail the system at the moment," a senior ruling party leader told Reuters.
"The worry probably would be what the Supreme Court does. They look in a mood to manipulate things."
The government's anxiety over memogate was highlighted in comments made by Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani on Thursday.
"Let me make clear to you today that there are intrigues, conspiracies afoot to pack up the elected government," he said in a speech at the National Art Gallery.
IRANIAN SHIA INFLUENCE SHOWING IN IRAQ
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's Sunni Muslim minority rejected a call for all-party talks on Wednesday, ignoring U.S. pressure for dialogue to resolve a sectarian crisis that has erupted since American forces left the country this week. With fears mounting that the nation of 30 million might one day fragment in chaos in the absence of the U.S. troops who toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003, Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki warned Saddam's fellow Sunnis they faced exclusion from power if they walked out on his ruling coalition. ...
SYRIA
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian forces killed 111 people ahead of the start of a mission to monitor President Bashar al-Assad's implementation of an Arab League peace plan, activists said on Wednesday, and France branded the killings an "unprecedented massacre." Rami Abdulrahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 111 civilians and activists were killed on Tuesday when Assad's forces surrounded them in the foothills of the northern Jabal al-Zawiyah region in Idlib province and unleashed two hours of bombardment and heavy gunfire. ...
NewsCore: "The U.S. State Department offered a $10 million reward Thursday for information that helps authorities find Ezedin Abdel Aziz Khalil, better known as Yasin al Suri, an Iran-based senior financier of Al Qaeda. Suri, operating under an agreement between Al Qaeda and the Iranian government since 2005, allegedly moves money and recruits through Iran and on to Pakistan and Afghanistan, the department said in its announcement. He is an important fundraiser for the terrorist network and has collected money from donors throughout the Persian Gulf region, the department said." http://t.uani.com/sudOFb
TOP STORIES
AP: "A federal judge has signed a default judgment finding Iran, the Taliban and al-Qaida liable in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Judge George Daniels in Manhattan signed the judgment Thursday, a week after hearing testimony in the 10-year-old case. The signed ruling, which he promised last week, came in a $100 billion lawsuit brought by family members of victims of the attacks. He directed a magistrate judge to preside over remaining issues, including fixing compensatory and punitive damages. Daniels signed findings of fact saying the plaintiffs had established that the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were caused by the support the defendants provided to al-Qaida. The findings also said Iran continues to provide material support and resources to al-Qaida by providing a safe haven for al-Qaida leadership and rank-and-file al-Qaida members." http://t.uani.com/ujBnz3
NYT: "Iran put neighbors on notice Thursday that it was about to conduct vast naval exercises in the Arabian Sea, including war games near the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping lane for international oil traffic. The exercises, to start Saturday and last 10 days, are Iran's first since May 2010 and were described by the official news media as the largest the country ever planned. The scale of the maneuvers appeared intended to demonstrate Iran's military capabilities as it faces increased isolation over its suspect nuclear energy program. The exercises are bound to put Iranian warships close to vessels of the United States Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain, which patrols some of the same waters, including the Strait of Hormuz." http://t.uani.com/u1Lbtu
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
Bloomberg: "The clandestine arrangement worked smoothly for years. The Israeli company shipped its Internet- monitoring equipment to a distributor in Denmark. Once there, workers stripped away the packaging and removed the labels. Then they sent it to a man named 'Hossein' in Iran, an amiable technology distributor known to them only by his first name and impeccable English, say his partners in Israel and Denmark. Israeli trade, customs and defense officials say their departments didn't know that the systems for peering into Internet traffic, sold under the brand name NetEnforcer, had gone to a country whose leaders have called for the destruction of the Jewish state. Israel's ban on trade with its enemy failed, even though a paper trail on the deals was available in Denmark. The transactions illustrate how ineffective governments have been in blocking a global trade in new, intrusive surveillance technologies that authoritarian regimes can use as weapons for repression." http://t.uani.com/ukXDTY
WSJ: "Alibaba.com Ltd.'s trade website was inaccessible Thursday to people in Iran, according to a person familiar with the matter, just one day after the Chinese government publicly complained that Chinese buyers of Iran's iron ore had problems doing business there. It is unclear what caused the site outage or even whether the incidents are related, but it marks the latest business hiccup between two countries that have long shared a close diplomatic relationship, as the Iranian government comes under mounting international pressure over its alleged nuclear efforts. On Wednesday, China's Ministry of Commerce published a report saying that Chinese companies have had difficulty conducting business in Iran, and that iron-ore importers have been victims of fraud and 'shoddy business practices.' A ministry spokesman referred questions to China's Foreign Ministry, which didn't respond for comment." http://t.uani.com/sy90bh
Reuters: "China has bought enough spot crude from the Middle East, Africa and Russia in January to replace lost Iranian oil supply, trade sources said on Friday, putting it in a strong position as it tussles with the Islamic Republic over payment terms for 2012 contracts. China will load an additional 12.43 million barrels of crude from Iraq, Russia and West Africa in January, more than covering 285,000 barrels per day (bpd) supply cut from Iran, according to trade sources and shipping data. Sinopec Corp, the country's top refiner, cut its crude shipments from Iran for January as the two haggle over terms for next year's supplies. A long-term decline in exports to the world's second-largest oil consumer would be a major blow for Iran, as China is the largest customer for its crude sales, which are under increasing threat from growing U.S. and EU sanctions." http://t.uani.com/vZ8sJ3
Bloomberg: "Europe's threat to ban cargoes from Iran over the nation's nuclear ambitions is helping push Middle East oil-tanker hiring to a record on concern shipments from the region will be disrupted, consultant FACTS Global Energy said. The CHART OF THE DAY shows how oil tankers booked to load 2 million-barrel cargoes of Gulf crude climbed to 140 in December, the most since at least January 2005, according to data from London-based shipbroker Galbraith's Ltd. European Union foreign ministers will meet Jan. 30 to discuss possible sanctions to pressure Iran to abandon a suspected nuclear weapons program." http://t.uani.com/txYTgR
Foreign Affairs
WT: "Iraq's vice president says that Iran is 'definitely' behind Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's move to jail him on terror charges, saying it is 'not a coincidence' that his arrest warrant was announced the day after the last U.S. troops left Iraq. 'Definitely Iran was involved,' Tariq al-Hashemi told The Washington Times in an exclusive interview, speaking by phone late Wednesday from a Kurdish town in northern Iraq. 'My dear friend, they have ... staff now in the government and in the parliament. They are representing Iran.' Mr. al-Hashemi said he has been a consistent critic of the 'intervention of Iran in every respect of my country.'" http://t.uani.com/vyaknU
Opinion & Analysis
Dennis Ross in WSJ: "President Barack Obama, like President George W. Bush before him, has stated that it would be unacceptable for Iran to have nuclear weapons. Recently, Mr. Obama has taken this a step further by declaring that he is determined to prevent the Iranians from acquiring the bomb. Does that mean that the use of force against the Iranian nuclear program is inevitable? No, nor should it be. I don't say this because I believe we can live with a nuclear-armed Iran; I do not. An Iran with nuclear weapons would confront the world with many dangers, including the very real danger that it will trigger a nuclear war in the Middle East. Consider that once Iran has nuclear weapons, nearly all of its neighbors will seek them as well to counter Iranian power and coercion. Israel, given Iranian declarations that it should be wiped off the map, will feel it has no margin for error and cannot afford to strike second in the event of a war. But Israel won't be the only country operating on a hair trigger. Each country, lacking the ability to absorb a nuclear strike, will adopt a launch-on-warning posture in a region that has many local triggers for conflict and enormous potential for miscalculation. Containment does not address that risk. Even the offer of a nuclear umbrella, with its implicit promise to obliterate the Iranians after a strike, can provide small comfort for any country in the Middle East, particularly Israel. I do not doubt that the Iranians are making progress on their nuclear program. According to the most recent International Atomic Energy Agency report, released last month, the Iranians have accumulated roughly 4,900 kilograms of low enriched uranium (LEU), enough for three to four bombs if enriched further. They have 6,200 centrifuges operating at Natanz, with a production rate of about 125 kilograms a month, and have now installed 174 centrifuges in two tandem cascades and 64 in a third in their facility near Qom. And, while the bulk of their LEU is enriched to 3.5%, the Iranians are now enriching some of their material to nearly 20%-a move that would shorten the time they would need to create weapons-grade highly enriched uranium (HEU)." http://t.uani.com/vDEOe7
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