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Blackbox

What? US Retired Adm. Timothy J. Keating says India, China Pose Greatest Nuclear War Threat

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© Unknown
The most worrisome possibility of a nuclear war lies on the Indian subcontinent, according to the former commander of the U.S. Pacific Command. Adm. Timothy J. Keating, USN (Ret.), told the audience at the opening keynote address for TechNet Asia-Pacific 2011 in Honolulu, Hawaii, that another terrorist attack in India could be the catalyst for an escalating conflict that leads to a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan.

Adm. Keating offered that a Mumbai-type attack that leaves hundreds dead almost certainly would trigger a military response from India. If terrorists based in Pakistan are "irrefutably" identified as the architects of the attack, then India could not sit by without responding. A series of Indian air strikes into Pakistan territory in turn would provoke a counter-response from Pakistan, leading to more action by India. With the scales tipping toward India after each exchange, Pakistan might resort to a nuclear strike as its only remaining option.

War Whore

Israeli Minister Warns Iran Strike is Possible

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© AP Photo/Ilan AssayagIn this Nov. 2, 2011 file photo, the smoke trail of a missile test-fired by the Israeli army is seen from the central Israeli town of Yavne. Among the many alliances of convenience in the Middle East, there is one so unusual that the partners can barely hint about it publicly: Israel and the Gulf Arab states linked by shared fears over Iran's nuclear program.
Israel's defense minister warned on Tuesday of a possible Israeli military strike against Iran's nuclear program and rejected suggestions the Jewish state would be devastated by an Iranian counterattack.

Ehud Barak spoke a day before the United Nations' nuclear agency was expected to release a critical report on the Iranian program. The report is expected to implicate Iran in bomb building and erase any doubts about the nature of the program, which Iran says is designed to produce energy, not weapons.

Barak told Israel Radio he didn't expect the International Atomic Energy Agency report to persuade Russia and China to impose what he called "lethal" sanctions on Iran to pressure Tehran to dismantle its nuclear installations.

"As long as no such sanctions have been imposed and proven effective, we continue to recommend to our friends in the world and to ourselves, not to take any option off the table," he said.

The "all options on the table" phrase is often used by Israeli politicians to mean a military assault.

Bad Guys

Sarkozy tells Obama Netanyahu is a "liar"

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© REUTERS/Chris Ratcliffe/PoolFrance's President Nicolas Sarkozy gestures towards President Obama during the G20 Summit of major world economies in Cannes, November 3, 2011.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy branded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "a liar" in a private conversation with U.S. President Barack Obama that was accidentally broadcast to journalists during last week's G20 summit in Cannes.

"I cannot bear Netanyahu, he's a liar," Sarkozy told Obama, unaware that the microphones in their meeting room had been switched on, enabling reporters in a separate location to listen in to a simultaneous translation.

"You're fed up with him, but I have to deal with him even more often than you," Obama replied, according to the French interpreter.

The technical gaffe is likely to cause great embarrassment to all three leaders as they look to work together to intensify international pressure on Iran over its nuclear ambitions.

Bad Guys

Israel's Barak plays down talk of war with Iran

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© REUTERS/Jeff Overs/BBC/HandoutIsrael's Defense Minister Ehud Barak (R) talks to Jeremy Vine, presenting the BBC's Andrew Marr Show, in London November 4, 2011. The pre-recorded interview was broadcast on November 6, 2011.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak played down Tuesday speculation that Israel intends to strike Iranian nuclear facilities, saying no decision had been made on embarking on a military operation.

"War is not a picnic. We want a picnic. We don't want a war," Barak told Israel Radio before the release this week of an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report on Iran's nuclear activity.

"(Israel) has not yet decided to embark on any operation," he said, dismissing as "delusional" Israeli media speculation that he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had chosen that course.

But he said Israel had to prepare for "uncomfortable situations" and ultimately bore responsibility for its own security.

All options to curb Tehran's nuclear ambitions should remain open, Barak said, repeating the official line taken by Israel, which has termed a nuclear-armed Iran a threat to its existence.

Attention

Russia Warns Against Israeli Air Strike on Iran

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© RexRussiaโ€™s foreign minister Sergei Lavov
Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavov has warned that a military strike on Iran would be a "very serious mistake" with "unpredictable consequences", after Israel's president Shimon Peres said that an attack was increasingly likely.

In comments published in the Israeli daily Hayom, Mr Peres said that "the possibility of a military attack against Iran is now closer to being applied than the application of a diplomatic option".

"We must stay calm and resist pressure so that we can consider every alternative," he added.

The drumbeat of war is expected to grow louder this week when United Nations nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, issues its most detailed report to date on nuclear research in Iran.

It will provide what Western officials and experts regard as irrefutable evidence that Tehran is compiling the capacity and skills to build a bomb. It will be used as leverage for a fifth round of sanctions at the UN, but could also provide Israel, with the tacit support of Washington, to finalise plans for an air strike.

Among its findings are that Tehran was helped by nuclear experts from two countries, believed to be Russia and Pakistan. The Washington Post reported that key assistance was provided by Vyacheslav Danilenko, a former Soviet nuclear scientist, hired by Iran's Physics Research Centre.

Dollar

Italy: Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Save?

Silvio Berlusconi
© Agence France-Presse / Getty Images / Vincenzo PintoItalian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi
Italy's economic problems took center stage Monday as its government, led by increasingly threatened Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, faced yet another key vote.

The health of the euro zone's third-largest economy has come into focus despite Berlusconi accepting IMF monitoring and surviving several confidence votes in recent months.

Italy's size makes the potential consequences if it were to fail more wide-ranging than the much smaller Greece.

"Italy has much more systemic implications," Thanos Vamvakidis, Head of European G10 FX Strategy, BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research, told CNBC Monday.

"It's too big to fail, too big to save."

The problems facing Italy include the euro zone's second-highest debt-to-GDP ratio, and the lack of a credible alternative to Berlusconi's government.

People

Greek Leaders Struggle to Agree on New Premier

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© Reuters/John KolesidisGreek Prime Minister George Papandreou stands outside the Presidential Palace in Athens
Greek party leaders are struggling to agree on a new prime minister, despite EU demands that the political class commit itself fast to the nation's financial salvation and end the chaos threatening the entire euro project.

Monday came and went without any accord on who will lead a new national unity coalition, despite plenty of talk that a former vice president of the European Central Bank, Lucas Papademos, would get the job.

The cabinet was due to hold an emergency session Tuesday and officials said negotiations were under way on the "100-day coalition" which must win parliamentary approval for a euro zone bailout and save the country from bankruptcy.

But after an early burst of compromise as the EU turned the screws on both sides, the drive by the socialist and conservative parties to create a government which will rule only until February appeared to be losing momentum.

Frustration was apparent in Brussels where officials said the new government had to show it was serious about implementing promises Athens has made to its EU and IMF lenders in return for the 130 billion-euro bailout.

Eye 2

VIDEO: Economic Dictatorship. The European Stability Mechanism (ESM)

ESM, the new European dictator!


Transcript (subtitles):

Is the EU and the euro in crisis?

The EU is planning a new fundamental law, the Treaty for the establishment of the so called European Stability Mechanism. (ESM), the Debt Union. The draft for the ESM is now to be examined by the representatives in Parliament.

Art. 8 The founding capital is 700 billion euros.

Where does this amount come from? Who has calculated it and on which basis?

Art. 9.3 ESM Members hereby irrevocably and unconditionally undertake to pay on demand any capital call made on them ... to be paid within 7 days of receipt.

When the ESM calls, then things must go fast. Indeed, seven days, that means that with the usual delays in bank transfers we must fill in the check within four days. That is feasible. Just, maybe, what means unconditional and irrevocable? When a new parliament is elected that would not want these fund transfers anymore? They can't decide that anymore?

Art. 10.1 The Board of Governors may decide to change the authorised capital stock and amend Article 8 .... accordingly.

The 700 billion are just the start? So, the ESM can demand more when they wish. Illimitably. And we are then obliged to pay -according to article 9 - irrevocably and unconditionally?

War Whore

Attack on Iran: Hitlerian Act of Aggression

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"Which Path to Persia?" Brookings Institution 2009
As the rhetoric for war with Iran begins to mount, first with the staged DEA-Saudi bomb plot, and now with an upcoming IAEA report supposedly "exposing" Iran's nuclear arms ambitions, it is important to re-read through the signed confessions by the corporate-fascist interests behind this drive for war where it is admitted that:

1. Iran poses no threat to US national security -- even if they acquired nuclear arms -- rather Iran threatens US interests throughout the Middle East, half-way across the planet.

2. Iran desperately wants to avoid armed conflict with both Israel and the West and would use nuclear weapons merely as a defensive deterrence.

3. The US and Israel are actively looking to provoke Iran into war with a combination of covert support for destabilization within Iran, supporting listed terrorist organizations, and limited unilateral military first strikes to provoke an Iranian response needed to justify a wider military confrontation.

All of this is shockingly spelled out in extreme detail within the pages of the corporate-financier funded Brooking Institution report, "Which Path to Persia?" It is essential that every American, European, and Israeli read just how malicious, callus and eager the globalist elite are to trigger a catastrophic war with the Islamic Republic for the sole purpose of protecting Wall Street and London's hegemony throughout the Middle East.

Attention

Iran will Release 100 Documents Implicating U.S. in Terrorist Acts

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Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has said that Iran has one hundred indisputable documents that prove the United States' involvement in terrorist actions and assassination plots in Iran and the region and will release them to the public.

The Leader made the remarks during a meeting with thousands of students in Tehran on Wednesday, ahead of the 13th of Aban.

The 13th of Aban in the Iranian calendar, which corresponds to November 4, is Iran's national day of struggle against the global arrogance (imperialist powers) and the anniversary of the university students' seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, which was called the Den of Spies, in 1979. It is also the anniversary of the exile of the late Imam Khomeini, the Founder of the Islamic Republic, in 1964.

"We have one hundred indisputable documents that show the role of the United States in directing assassinations and terrorists in Iran and the region. We will discredit the U.S. and the self-proclaimed supporters of human rights and the campaign against terrorism before the world," Ayatollah Khamenei said.