COLD WAR RETURNS AND OTHER WORLD NEWS

Russia tests out new lethal nuke
By GEORGE PASCOE-WATSON
Political Editor - The Sun (

Published: 29 Aug 2008

RUSSIA last night provoked fresh fears of a Cold War by boasting it has tested a new long-range nuclear missile.

Moscow’s military chiefs revealed their Topol intercontinental stealth rocket had been fired successfully.

The chilling declaration was aimed at sparking international alarm about the conflict in the Caucasus, diplomats claimed.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband tried to calm the crisis by saying no country wants “all-out war” with Russia.

But he admitted the invasion of Georgia has brought an end to peace in Europe.

Russia’s Interfax agency said: “The experimental warhead section of the rocket hit its pre-determined target with high accuracy at the firing range.”

The RS-12M Topol, designed to dodge defence systems, has a range of 6,125 miles — enough to reach Britain — with a 550-kiloton warhead capable of devastating a 14-mile wide area.

It was launched from the spaceport at Plesetsk to the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia’s Far East. But Russia’s own allies condemned leaders Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation slammed the Kremlin for its aggression against neighbouring Georgia.

The SCO, made up of China and Black Sea states, said: “Relying on the use of force has no prospects and hinders a settlement of local conflicts.

“We urge the sides to solve problems peacefully.”

The EU talked of sanctions unless Moscow backs down.

Britain postponed September’s military exercises in Georgia — a day after Moscow warned such moves could be tantamount to a declaration of war.

But Russia last night accused the UK of direct involvement in helping Georgia’s armed forces.

General Anatoly Nogovitsyn alleged the charity Halo Trust, once linked to Princess Diana, is training bomb technicians.

The conflict in Georgia continues with South Ossetia claiming to have shot down an unmanned Georgian spy plane.

Russian leader's Cold War boast

By GEORGE PASCOE-WATSON
Political Editor

Published: 27 Aug 2008

RUSSIAN bullyboy Dmitry Medvedev last night warned he could plunge the world into a new Cold War.

The bolshy President received global condemnation as he backed independence for two states belonging to Georgia.

The move flouted international law and his own pledges to the United Nations Security Council.

And he threatened military attacks if the US goes ahead with plans to build an anti-missile shield in Poland, close to Russia’s borders.

He said: “We will have to react, of course, in a military way,”

Medvedev spoke as Cindy McCain, 54, wife of US presidential candidate John, visited Georgia to meet refugees caught up in Russia’s recent raids.

The bombings have stopped but the war of words has continued — as Medvedev signed a decree recognising the independence of rebel states Abkhazia and South Ossetia, at the centre of recent troubles.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband said: “This further inflames an already tense situation in the region. It is unacceptable.”

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said it was “regrettable”.

But Russia hit back by scrapping military cooperation with Nato — and threatened more action.

g.pascoewatson@the-sun.co.uk

Have Yanks rumbled their own Tony Blair?
by Fergus Shanahan
Published: 26 Aug 2008

IT’S January 21, 2009, and the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, has been in office one day. Iran nukes Israel. Over to you, Mr President.

You can nuke Iran. If you do that, the Russians will threaten to nuke America. You can do nothing. In which case the Russians will laugh at you and roll more tanks into eastern Europe.

And by the way, the Taliban have just taken power in Pakistan and seized its nuclear weapons. Your instructions please, Mr President.

Is this all too fanciful? No. Anyone who thinks Barack Obama is a Messiah to heal the world is in the grip of serious delusion.

I'm here in Denver, Colorado, to see the man many believe will be the next President accept his nomination as candidate from his party, the Democrats — the equivalent of our Labour Party.

Nobody can deny his self-belief, his determination to overcome American prejudice and become the first black President.

He’s an inspirational performer with a Hollywood story of amazing personal achievement — the brilliant child of a poor black father who ran off when Obama was just two.

His chiselled features stare at you from every magazine cover and front page across the US, almost daring you not to vote for him. Bookstores reverently showcase his autobiography and it seems almost churlish not to leap on his bandwagon.

He’s a good guy. Don’t we want good guys to be our leaders?

But being President demands more than the Tinseltown gloss and X Factor hero worship on offer this week. America’s commander-in-chief has to make appallingly hard decisions that impact on us all. This calls for experience and judgment.

Obama’s experience is limited to a relentless pursuit of his own political ambitions. He’s barely been a senator five minutes. His judgment can be suspect, as when he wouldn’t condemn his local priest for wildly accusing Obama’s opponents of racism.

He waffles. When his plain-speaking Republican rival, the Vietnam war hero John McCain, is asked a tricky question he bluntly says Yes or No.

Fatal

On abortion, McCain opposes it — a position unpopular with the civil liberties lobby but they respect his honesty.

Obama gives a hair-splitting lawyer’s answer designed to avoid upsetting anybody. Trying to be all things to all voters is fatal, and you can see the consequences for the “unstoppable” Obama Express.

Six months ago you couldn’t get a price on him losing. Not now.

I have been taken aback by the number of people here who tell me they DON’T think he will win.

So what’s changed?

First, Russia’s brutal steamrollering of Georgia. It put Obama on the spot. His first response was seen as weak, asking Russia to show restraint. He soon started talking tougher, but the damage was done.

Americans can be an odd lot. They want Bush out because they want an end to the Iraq war. But in the same breath they demand a strong military leadership. Obama’s triumphalist European tour, including a mass rally in Berlin, played well in London and Germany but dismayed voters in America.

Europe saw a charismatic, uplifting young man offering a better way than Bush. America saw pride before a fall.

Obama’s rival McCain observed: “I would rather wait until I was elected President before acting Presidential.”

Credit-crunched Americans are wearying of Obama’s grandstanding. They want hard facts about what he will do to better their lives.

I said just now that Europe has seen Obama as a charismatic fresh face who could woo birds out of the trees.

Remind you of anyone?

In America, Tony Blair would be elected by a landslide. He’s the one British politician they all know and they still love him.

He and Obama — and Dave Cameron — are soulmates with their glib platitudes.

Look at Blair’s ludicrous Labour conference soundbite: “We are the change-makers.”

Look at Obama’s favourite catchphrase: “We are the ones we have been waiting for.”

Look at a Dave Cameron favourite slogan: “It’s time for change.”

What does any of this piffle mean in hard terms to people having their houses repossessed, their jobs axed and their power cut off?

Here at home we have a habit of being seduced by smoothie politicians serving their own ambitions.

Americans are more hard-headed about picking their leader. They like honesty, plain speaking and courage.

So where does this leave America? The election will be close. Most voters don’t make up their minds until after the big conferences, and it’s McCain’s turn next week.

Obama has a dream. But what exactly is it?

From The Times
August 30, 2008
Kremlin announces that South Ossetia will join 'one united Russian state'

Tony Halpin in Moscow

The Kremlin moved swiftly to tighten its grip on Georgia’s breakaway regions yesterday as South Ossetia announced that it would soon become part of Russia, which will open military bases in the province under an agreement to be signed on Tuesday.

Tarzan Kokoity, the province’s Deputy Speaker of parliament, announced that South Ossetia would be absorbed into Russia soon so that its people could live in “one united Russian state” with their ethnic kin in North Ossetia.

The declaration came only three days after Russia defied international criticism and recognised South Ossetia and Georgia’s other separatist region of Abkhazia as independent states. Eduard Kokoity, South Ossetia’s leader, agreed that it would form part of Russia within “several years” during talks with Dmitri Medvedev, the Russian President, in Moscow.

The disclosure will expose Russia to accusations that it is annexing land regarded internationally as part of Georgia. Until now, the Kremlin has insisted that its troops intervened solely to protect South Ossetia and Abkhazia from Georgian “aggression”.

Interfax news quoted an unidentified Russian official as saying that Moscow also planned to establish two bases in Abkhazia. Sergei Shamba, Abkhazia’s Foreign Minister, said that an agreement on military co-operation would be signed within a month.

The Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed that agreements on “peace, co-operation and mutual assistance with Abkhazia and South Ossetia” were being prepared on the orders of President Medvedev. Abkhazia said that it would ask Russia to represent its interests abroad.

Georgia announced that it was recalling all diplomatic staff from its embassy in Moscow in protest at the continued Russian occupation of its land in defiance of a ceasefire agreement brokered by President Sarkozy of France. The parliament in Tbilisi declared Abkhazia and South Ossetia to be under Russian occupation.

Gigi Tsereteli, the Vice-Speaker, dismissed the threat of South Ossetia becoming part of Russia, saying: “The world has already become different and Russia will not long be able to occupy sovereign Georgian territory.

“The regimes of Abkhazia and South Ossetia should think about the fact that if they become part of Russia, they will be assimilated, and in this way they will disappear.”

Lado Gurgenidze, the Prime Minister of Georgia, scrapped agreements that had permitted Russian peacekeepers to operate in the two regions after wars in the early 1990s. He called for their replacement by international troops.

Vyacheslav Kovalenko, Moscow’s Ambassador to Georgia, described Tbilisi’s decision to sever relations as “a step towards further escalation of tensions with Russia and the desire to drive the situation into an even worse deadlock”.

Russia attacked the G7 after the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan condemned its “excessive use of military force in Georgia”. In a joint statement, they had called on Russia to “implement in full” the French ceasefire agreement.

The Foreign Ministry said that the G7 was “justifying Georgian acts of aggression” and insisted that Moscow had met its obligations under the six-point agreement.

Having been rebuffed on Thursday by China and four Central Asian states, Russia will seek support next week from the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) for its recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The CSTO comprises Russia and the former Soviet republics of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

The signing of the military agreement with South Ossetia will take place the day after an emergency summit of European Union leaders to discuss the crisis. The French presidency of the EU said that sanctions against Russia were not being considered, contradicting an earlier statement by Bernard Kouchner, the Foreign Minister.

Russia told the EU that any sanctions would be damaging to both sides. Andrei Nesterenko, a Foreign Ministry official, said: “We hope that common sense will prevail over emotions and that EU leaders will find the strength to reject a one-sided assessment of the conflict . . . Neither party needs the confrontation towards which some countries are being energetically pushed by the EU.”

Russia also lashed out at Nato, saying that it had “no moral right” to pass judgment on the recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The Foreign Ministry said: “Further sliding to confrontation with Russia and attempts to put pressure on us are unacceptable, as they can entail irreversible consequences in the military-political climate and in stability on the continent.”

The US confirmed that the flagship of its Sixth Fleet, the USS Mount Whitney, would deliver aid to Georgia next week. Two other warships are moored off Georgia’s Black Sea port of Batumi, and Russia has ordered its fleet to take “precautionary measures”.

Mr Medvedev has accused the US of shipping weapons to Georgia along with aid, a claim dismissed as “ridiculous” by the White House.

Aug 29, 2008 11:13 | Updated Aug 30, 2008 16:50
Report: Israel won't allow a nuclear Iran
By JPOST.COM STAFF

Israel will not allow Iran to attain nuclear capability and if time begins to run out, Jerusalem will not hesitate to take whatever means necessary to prevent Iran from achieving its nuclear goals, the government has recently decided in a special discussion.

According to the Israeli daily Ma'ariv, whether the United States and Western countries succeed in thwarting the Islamic Republic's nuclear ambitions diplomatically, through sanctions, or whether a US strike on Iran is eventually decided upon, Jerusalem has begun preparing for a separate, independent military strike.

So far, Israel has not received American authorization to use US-controlled Iraqi airspace, nor has the defense establishment been successful in securing the purchase of advanced US-made warplanes which could facilitate an Israeli strike.

The Americans have offered Israel permission to use a global early warning radar system, implying that the US is pushing Israel to settle for defensive measures only.

Iran warns any attack would start 'world war'
Aug 30 05:48 AM US/Eastern

Quote :

A senior Iranian military commander has warned that any US or Israeli attack on the Islamic republic would start a new world war, the state news agency IRNA reported on Saturday.

click on title to read story.

Iran says it has 4,000 centrifuges working on enrichment

The Associated Press
Published: August 29, 2008

TEHRAN: Iran has increased the number of operating centrifuges at its uranium enrichment plant to 4,000, a top official said Friday, pushing ahead with its nuclear program despite threats of new UN sanctions.

The number was up from the 3,000 centrifuges that Iran announced in November that it was operating at its plant in the central city of Natanz. Still, it is well below the 6,000 it said last year that it would operate by summer 2008, suggesting the program may be behind schedule.

Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Reza Sheikh Attar, who visited Natanz last week, said Friday that Iran was preparing to install more centrifuges, though he did not offer a timeframe.

"Right now, nearly 4,000 centrifuges are operating at Natanz," Attar told the state news agency IRNA. "Currently, 3,000 other centrifuges are being installed."

The United Nations has already imposed three rounds of sanctions on Iran for its refusal to freeze its enrichment program, which can be used to produce either fuel for a nuclear reactor or the material needed for a nuclear warhead.

In the process, uranium gas is spun in a series of centrifuges known as "cascades" to purify it. Lower levels of enrichment produce reactor fuel - which Iran says is the sole purpose of the program - but higher grades can build a weapon.

The United States and its allies are likely to press the United Nations later this year for a new round of sanctions after Iran rejected a package of economic and technological incentives in return for suspending enrichment. But they could face strong resistance from Russia after the crisis this month in Georgia deeply damaged ties between Washington and Moscow.

Russia, which has close ties to Tehran, has long been reluctant to impose harsh sanctions - though it backed the past three rounds of limited financial sanctions.

The United States and some of its allies accuse Iran of seeking to build a nuclear weapon, a claim Iran denies. Tehran insists it has the right under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to develop reactor fuel using enrichment.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear monitoring agency, declined to comment on the latest Iranian announcement.

In reaching 4,000 centrifuges, the program is moving into an industrial-scale program that could churn out enough enriched material for dozens of nuclear weapons.

Experts, however, say Iran would need to change the way the centrifuges are operating to enrich uranium to high, weapons-grade levels, something that would be difficult, since the Natanz facility is under video surveillance by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Last month, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran said his country possessed 6,000 centrifuges, though he did not specify how many were operating. He also suggested that negotiations with the United Nations had raised a possible compromise whereby the enrichment program could continue as long as it was not expanded beyond 6,000 centrifuges. However, the agency and the countries involved in the nuclear issue - the United States, Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia - have not shown any public sign that such a compromise was on the table.

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana presented Iran with the incentives offer in June. Iran finally sent a reply in August, but the United States and its allies said the response had not directly addressed the offer and considered it a rejection.

The workhorse of Iran's enrichment program is the P-1 centrifuge, which is run in cascades of 164 machines. But Iranian officials confirmed in February that they had started using the IR-2 centrifuge, which can churn out enriched uranium at more than double the rate.

Iran says it plans to move toward large-scale uranium enrichment that will ultimately involve 54,000 centrifuges.

This is one reason why we can't elect Obama as President

I thought it would be beneficial to post the above "world newspaper" articles so we could get a better picture of what is really happening around the world.

Our "Free Speach Newspapers" are not even covering what is really out there. They just feed us what they feel fits their agenda!

Well um, fuck Russia. We already have the War against Terrorism, and Operation Free Iraq, or whatever it is, we dont need anymore war like conflicts.

gdennis59 wrote:

Well um, fuck Russia. We already have the War against Terrorism, and Operation Free Iraq, or whatever it is, we dont need anymore war like conflicts.