Doubts on Annex to nuclear reports on Iran

Gareth Porter reports on the leaked Annex on the Iranian nuclear program and casts doubts on its allegations that Iran is conducting military activities in the nuclear field.

Oil trade in a basket of currencies

Robert Fisk reports that oil could well not be traded in US dollars anymore in the near future, but in terms of a basket of currencies.

Iran: nuclear latency option

Juan Cole argues that Iran's strategy is to achieve nuclear latency, or the "Japan Option". This means that Iran would develop the capacity to make a bomb in case of emergency, without developing a military nuclear program.

Israel #1 nuclear threat in Middle East

"Israel is the number one threat to the Middle East given the nuclear arms it possesses," ElBaradei was quoted as saying.

Gilad Shalit and Goldstone

Uri Avnery writes: The great propaganda advantage of the Israeli government, so clearly shown in the Shalit affair, is now also being tested in the matter of the Goldstone report. The efforts of the Israeli government to prevent the referral of the report to the UN Security Council or General Assembly, or to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, are now supported by President Barack Obama and the European leaders. The inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, like the Palestinians in Israeli jails, have become mere tokens, objects without a human face.

Opium in Helmand

Helmand alone produces half of the world’s opium. Much of the land under cultivation is in areas controlled by the Taleban and other insurgent groups; still more is protected by corrupt police or government officials.
Eradication programs are riddled with corruption.

Germany gives Israel nuclear submarines

Germany helps Israel again to "compensate" for Nazi atrocities:
It just gave Israel another 2 submarines that are fitted to carry nuclear missiles.

With the latest delivery, Israel now holds five state-of-the-art U212s, designed for a crew of 35 and capable of launching cruise missiles that carry nuclear warheads to a distance of 2,810 miles.

Iran nuclear program

Gareth Porter outlines a legal case in favor of Iran:

Although it has remained unreported in the news media, however, Iran has a legal case that it has remained in compliance with its Safeguards Agreement.

In March 2009, the director of the IAEA Office of Legal Affairs, Johan Rautenbach, called Iran’s reversion to implementation of the earlier version of the Code 3.1 "inconsistent with its obligations under the Subsidiary Arrangements."

But he went on to say that it was "difficult to conclude that providing information in accordance with the earlier formulation in itself constitutes non-compliance with, or a breach of, the Safeguards Agreement as such."

The Safeguards Agreement itself clearly forbids unilateral "modification" of a Subsidiary Arrangement, but it says nothing about withdrawal from such an agreement, which is what Iran is asserting it did in March 2007.

The distinction between "modification" and "withdrawal" from provisions of an international agreement is well established in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.

Unilateral withdrawal is permitted under that Convention, provided that the provision in question is separable from the remainder of the agreement, is not the essential basis of consent by the other party and continued performance of the remainder of the agreement would not be "unjust."

The head of the IAEA Legal Department appears to have accepted that those three conditions applied to the case of Iran’s "Modified Code 3.1" agreement.

Asian energy

Pepe Escobar on Asia, energy and geopolitics.

China calls for US withdrawal from Afghanistan

As reported by Asia Times online.
China also suggests that the international community work to bring a peace transition and send an international peacekeeping force to Afghanistan.
This is the first time that a Chinese commentary has openly called for the withdrawal of US and NATO troops from Afghanistan in immediate terms as a pre-requisite of peace.

Iran agrees to send some uranium to Russia and France for enrichment

As reported by the NYT.

The uranium would then be returned, enriched, to Iran, which could use it for medical applications.

Tehran also agreed to open its new facility to inspectors within 2 weeks.

Iran’s uranium is enriched to about 3.5 to 5 percent, the officials said; the Tehran reactor for making medical isotopes, last powered by Argentine-made fuel in 1993, needs uranium enriched to 19.75 percent, still far below weapons grade. And that uranium must then be fabricated into metal rods for the reactor.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon is justifying a West Coast missile defense against Iranian missiles--which in no way can reach the US.

Pentagon policy chief Michele Flournoy, appearing before the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, said the 30 ground-based interceptor missiles to be deployed in Alaska and California by the end of 2010 will "provide the United States with full protection of the homeland against an Iranian ICBM threat."

Opium in Afghanistan

"We want the international community and NATO to help more, only the UK and U.S. has helped us a lot. But a bullet that comes out of an insurgent's Kalashnikov has been paid for by opium."

A Brookings report on Obama's new drugs strategy in Afghanistan.

Scott Ritter on Iran interview

A good transcript of an interview here.

NATO propaganda kills girl

Even when NATO is not shooting and only dropping propaganda leaflets, they kill.

IAEA and Iran

ElBaradei said there is "no credible evidence" Iran has a nuclear weapon.
He said though that Iran did not have 6 months to let the IAEA know about the new facility, that it should have been informed as soon as it decided to construct the facility.