In an apparent attempt to appease hardliners, Ali Akbar Salehi announced that the country is developing a new generation of more effective centrifuges for uranium enrichment

As nuclear experts from Iran and six world powers prepare to resume talks on how to roll out last month's landmark deal in Geneva, Iran's nuclear chief has announced that the country is building a new generation of centrifuges for uranium enrichment.

Ali Akbar Salehi's comments appear to be aimed at showing the country is continuing to move forward with its nuclear programme into order to counter criticism by Iranian hard-liners, who have called the deal a surrender to Western pressure. President Hassan Rouhani has argued that the agreement recognises Iran's right to enrich uranium.

Under the deal, Iran promised not to bring new centrifuges into operation for six months, part of temporary limitations on its uranium enrichment programme in return for the easing of some sanctions. It does not however stop the countries from developing centrifuges.

"The new generation of centrifuges is under development. But all tests should be carried on it before mass production," Mr Salehi was quoted as saying by state TV late Thursday. He did not elaborate on how long the building and testing would take.

The announcement comes as a group of 100 hardline Iranian lawmakers are seeking to impose a clause on the government of moderate President Rouhani, stating that uranium enrichment will be increased to 60 per cent, a level close to bomb-grade material, if any new sanctions are imposed on the Islamic Republic.

It is not clear if the bill would be debated in Iran's parliament, as the country's most powerful authority Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has repeatedly backed the Geneva talks.

Uranium can be used to build a weapon if it is enriched more than 90 per cent. At lower levels, it is used to power nuclear reactors. Under the Geneva deal, Iran agreed to limit its uranium enrichment to 5 percent and neutralise its stockpile of 20 per cent enriched uranium.

A spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who oversees diplomacy with Iran on behalf of the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany, said that the latest talk are currently scheduled to last one day.

A key sticking point appears to be what information Western governments will receive in advance to verify that Iran is meeting its end of the deal before they lift certain sanctions. Other outstanding issues include how exactly sanctions will be eased and practical details of Iranian concessions.

Some diplomats from the six nations have said they hoped the deal could be put fully in place by the second half of January.

Two rounds of negotiations have been held so far since Iran agreed in November to curb its most sensitive nuclear work, in return for relief from some economic sanctions that are damaging its oil-dependent economy.

Harvard University law professor Alan Dershowitz criticized National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden on Thursday during a debate with Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman, who published Snowden's first interview since being granted asylum in Russia earlier this year.

"He could have easily gone on 60 Minutes, and disclosed the existence of the program without disclosing the contents, some of which is extremely damaging to our national security," Dershowitz told Hardball guest host Michael Smerconish, arguing that he could have released the information he compiled while working at the agency in a classified debriefing, instead of going to the Post and The Guardian.

In particular, Dershwoitz slammed Snowden for bringing to light the agency's surveillance activities against other countries, saying they "raise some questions, but [were] not unconstitutional.

"We have an absolute right under our Constitution to listen to the prime minister of Israel, to listen to the chancellor of Germany," Dershowitz said. "That is not a constitutional issue, and yet he disclosed - or people working on his behalf - the fact that we are using surveillance abroad, outside the country, where the Constitution does not apply."

Should the United States engage in secret, covert or clandestine activity if the American public cannot be convinced of the necessity and wisdom of such activities should they be leaked or disclosed?

To intelligence professionals, that's a bizarre question. The answer is that the public's opinion shouldn't matter, because espionage, clandestine intercepts of intelligence and covert acts carried out by the United States and other governments are often, by their nature, dirty and mostly illegal operations where they are carried out.

The prime reason for secrecy is that you don't want the targets to know what you are doing. But often in democracies, another reason is that you don't want your citizens to know what their government is doing on their behalf to keep them secure, as long as it's within their country's law.

"Accountability and secrecy" were two watchwords a former senior intelligence official said guided operations during his 40-year career, not whether the public would approve of everything he was doing.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, dear Kings of Hollywood, but you have been conned.

Let me introduce myself. My name is Christina McDowell, formerly Christina Prousalis. I am the daughter of Tom Prousalis, a man the Washington Post described as "just some guy on trial for penny-stock fraud." (I had to change my name after my father stole my identity and then threatened to steal it again, but I'll get to that part later.) I was eighteen and a freshman in college when my father and his attorneys forced me to attend his trial at New York City's federal courthouse so that he "looked good" for the jury -- the consummate family man.

And you, Jordan Belfort, Wall Street's self-described Wolf: You remember my father, right? You were chosen to be the government's star witness in testifying against him. You had pleaded guilty to money laundering and securities fraud (it was the least you could do) and become a government witness in two dozen cases involving your former business associate, but my father's attorneys blocked your testimony because had you testified it would have revealed more than a half-dozen other corrupt stock offerings too. And, well, that would have been a disaster. It would have just been too many liars, and too many schemes for the jurors, attorneys or the judge to follow.

Ukrainian police have accused five suspects detained over the assault of a journalist of links to the opposition, including its leader Vitali Klitschko.

The interior ministry's chief investigator, Mykola Chynchyn, linked on Friday Klitschko, who is the leader of opposition party Udar, and his brother Wladimir Klitschko to the suspects who attacked Tetyana Chornovil earlier this week.

In addition, Chynchyn also linked several other parliamentarians as well as local lawmakers to the detained suspects.
"In the course of the investigation it was established that the detained had been in close contact with members of the party Udar," said Chynchyn.

Furthermore, Chynchyn said the police investigation had established links between one of the suspects and the leader of a criminal gang "with whom the Klitschko brothers had closely cooperated."

MSNBC.com political reporter Benjy Sarlin revealed a scoop on Tuesday. Citing unnamed officials with the Obama admiration, Sarlin reported that the White House blames Congress for their failure to pass even a symbolic item on the president's second term agenda in 2013. Why the White House would bury this earth-shattering revelation on Christmas Eve is beyond me.

"President [Barack] Obama had a fairly ambitious agenda he talked up in 2012 election," Sarlin observed while touting his most recent piece, "The Year Congress Stole."

"He thought if he won he would break the fever among Republicans and that they would suddenly be interested in helping him out on things like infrastructure, immigration, the environment," he added. "It hasn't quite turned out that way."

Sarlin noted that Republicans, who retain control of the chamber of Congress most responsive to the popular sentiment, uncompromisingly refuse to pass a Democratic president's agenda. "When I talk to former Obama administration officials, people to the White House, that's what they will mention," Sarlin revealed.

"'Look,'" the MSNBC reporter said, adopting the voice of an Obama ally. "'These guys can't keep the lights on, let alone pass major policy.'"

As if out of a Charles Dickens novel, people struggling to pay overdue fines and fees associated with court costs for even the simplest traffic infractions are being thrown in jail across the United States.

Critics are calling the practice the new "debtors' prison" -- referring to the jails that flourished in the U.S. and Western Europe over 150 years ago. Before the time of bankruptcy laws and social safety nets, poor folks and ruined business owners were locked up until their debts were paid off.

Reforms eventually outlawed the practice. But groups like the Brennan Center for Justice and the American Civil Liberties Union say it's been reborn in local courts which may not be aware it's against the law to send indigent people to jail over unpaid fines and fees -- or they just haven't been called on it until now.

Advocates are trying to convince courts that aside from the legal questions surrounding the practice, it is disproportionately jailing poor people and doesn't even boost government revenues -- in fact, governments lose money in the process.

"It's a waste of taxpayer resources, and it undermines the integrity of the justice system," Carl Takei, staff attorney for the ACLU's National Prison Project, told FoxNews.com.

"The problem is it's not actually much of a money-making proposition ... to throw people in jail for fines and fees when they can't afford it. If counties weren't spending the money jailing people for not paying debts, they could be spending the money in other ways."

Lee Harvey Oswald was your typical America-hating communist from Louisiana, and like every Russkie-loving pinko from the South he grew up watching American spy dramas, volunteered for a Civilian Air Patrol run by a CIA contract agent and joined the US Marines. Nicknamed Oswaldski for his tendency to speak Russian and spout pro-Soviet propaganda, he was given special training and assigned to one of the most sensitive facilities in the world running the radar for the U2s spying on the Russkies and the ChiComs. After contracting gonorrhea in the line of duty, Oswald was tested for Russian proficiency before being honorably discharged to take care of his mother who wasn't ill and flew to Europe using money he didn't have on planes that didn't exist to arrive at Helsinki, where he stayed at the most luxurious hotel in town before waltzing into the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War. While there he kept a detailed log of Soviet facilities, made notes about microdots, and carried a CIA standard-issue Minox camera, before getting bored and returning to the United States on a military jet using money loaned to him from the US Embassy.

A U.S. government contractor kidnapped by al-Qaeda militants in Pakistan in 2011 has recorded a video message calling on the Obama administration to negotiate with his captors, saying he feels "totally abandoned and forgotten."

Warren Weinstein looked ashen and sounded lethargic as he pleaded for renewed interest in his case and asked the U.S. government to consider releasing al-Qaeda militants in its custody. The 72-year-old development expert from Rockville, Md., began his address by urging President Obama to step up efforts to get him released.

"You are now in your second term as president of the United States and that means that you can take hard decisions without worrying about reelection," said Weinstein, who was recorded sitting against a white wall wearing a gray tracksuit top and a black woolen hat. No one else appeared in the video.

The video, which included the yellow logo of As-Sahab, al-Qaeda's media production outlet, was sent in an anonymous e-mail to several journalists who have reported from Afghanistan. Included were links to a handwritten note that purports to be from Weinstein, saying "Letter to Media" at the top. The note is dated Oct. 3. It is not clear when the video was made.

A State Department spokeswoman and a member of Weinstein's family said Wednesday night that they had not independently received the note or video. The Washington Post provided a copy to both of them.

State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf later said that U.S. officials were "working hard to authenticate" the contents of the message.

"We reiterate our call that Warren Weinstein be released and returned to his family," she said in a statement. "Particularly during this holiday season - another one away from his family - our hopes and prayers are with him and those who love and miss him."

Palestinians and Israelis have met more than twenty times since July 2013 with little progress. Israel security issues dwarfed the final status negotiators while it continued to build, at an accelerated rate, "Jewish only" colonies undermining the very peace talks.

Fearing its collapse, US Secretary of State John Kerry amassed earlier this month a team of 160 American diplomats and security specialists led by General John Allen, former commander of the U.S. forces in Afghanistan, to draft a framework "that could help both Israelis and Palestinians get to an agreement."
Inarguably, President Barak Obama and Secretary Kerry are much more serious on pushing a peace agreement than any previous U.S. administration. Nevertheless, they have proven equally powerless overcoming Israel's mercurial demands.

Since Oslo, Palestinians have endorsed all of the U.S. and Israeli pre-conditions, starting with UN resolution 242, the recognition of Israel and annulling the Palestinian National Charter without any reciprocal recognition of their rights by Israel.

Today, Israel is requesting to prequalify previous Palestinian recognition of it, not just as a nation of people, but as an ethnocentric 'Jewish state'. It is also demanding that any future peace agreement must codify its occupation of parts of the West Bank - the Jordan River valley - under a euphemism called "security arrangements."