News, Prophecy and other

[airIam2worship]

AMEN brother, that was my thinking back when Ahmadinejad called for extermating Israel. But I could say that yet, if you know what I mean.

Amen Brothers.

[Soldier4Christ]

Tehran Threatens West With Homicide Attacks

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran has formed battalions of suicide bombers to strike at British and American targets if the nation’s nuclear sites are attacked. According to Iranian officials, 40,000 trained suicide bombers are ready for action.

The main force, named the Special Unit of Martyr Seekers in the Revolutionary Guards, was first seen last month when members marched in a military parade, dressed in olive-green uniforms with explosive packs around their waists and detonators held high.

Dr. Hassan Abbasi, head of the Centre for Doctrinal Strategic Studies in the Revolutionary Guards, said in a speech that 29 Western targets had been identified: “We are ready to attack American and British sensitive points if they attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.” He added that some of them were “quite close” to the Iranian border in Iraq.

In a tape recording heard by The Sunday Times, Abbasi warned the would-be martyrs to “pay close attention to wily England” and vowed that “Britain’s demise is on our agenda.”

At a recruiting station in Tehran recently, volunteers for the force had to show their birth certificates, give proof of their address and tick a box stating whether they would prefer to attack American targets in Iraq or Israeli targets.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned last Friday that Israel was heading toward “annihilation.” He was speaking at a Tehran conference on Palestinian rights aimed at promoting Iran as a new Middle Eastern superpower.

According to western intelligence documents leaked to The Sunday Times, the Revolutionary Guards are in charge of a secret nuclear weapons program designed to evade the scrutiny of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Alireza Jafarzadeh, a former spokesman for National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an opposition group, said a secret, parallel military program was under way. According to sources inside Iran, the Revolutionary Guards were constructing underground sites that could be activated if Iran’s known nuclear facilities were destroyed.

The NCRI is the political wing of the Mujaheddin-e-Khalq, which is deemed a terrorist organization in Britain and America. However, much of its information is considered to be “absolutely credible” by western intelligence sources after Jafarzadeh revealed the existence of the Natanz plant in 2002.

Within the past year, 14 large and several smaller projects have been created, according to Jafarzadeh. Several are designed to be nuclear factories; others are for the storage of weapons, he claimed.

[Shammu]

Iranian Decries Bid to Block Nuke Program

By SAMAR KASSABLI, Associated Press Writer 50 minutes ago

DAMASCUS, Syria - Iran's former president accused the United States Sunday of waging "a psychological war" against Tehran and said an American strike against the Islamic republic would not be in Washington's interests.

Former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani, who heads the Expediency Council, a powerful body that mediates between Iran's parliament and clerical hierarchy, said Western nations' attempts to block Iran's nuclear program were "unjust."

"Iran's success in uranium enrichment is for the interest of the region's countries and all Islamic countries," Rafsanjani said. He reiterated the government position that Iran's nuclear program was not intended to harm any country in the region.

"If the United States launched a military strike against Iran, that would be neither in its interests nor in the interests of the entire region," Rafsanjani told a joint news conference in Damascus with Syrian Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa.

He said he believed that the United States was "incapable of taking a risk or engaging in a new war in the region without discussing the subject seriously."

U.S. media reports have said the Bush administration was considering a military attack on Iran over its nuclear program, which Washington claims is designed to produce nuclear weapons. Iran says it is purely for generating energy.

President Bush has dismissed reports on attack plans as "wild speculation."

On Tuesday, Iran's hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, announced that Iran had successfully enriched uranium, which can be used to fuel nuclear reactors or build atomic bombs. Iran has rejected a
U.N. Security Council demand for it to stop enriching uranium by April 28.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan wants a negotiated solution to the crisis over Iran's nuclear ambitions, he said in an interview published Sunday in the ABC newspaper.

Annan told the conservative Madrid daily during a visit last week to Spain that any military operation against Iran would worsen a tense international situation.

"I think the issue is being handled properly by the International Atomic Energy Agency. I still believe that the best solution is a negotiated one, and I don't see what a military operation would resolve," ABC quoted Annan as saying.

Iranian Decries Bid to Block Nuke Program

[Shammu]

Venezuela: Diplomat Didn't Seek Protection

By CHRISTOPHER TOOTHAKER, Associated Press Writer Sun Apr 16, 7:44 PM ET

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuela denied on Sunday that it failed to uphold its obligations under international accords to provide protection for foreign diplomats, after the U.S. ambassador was harassed by supporters of President Hugo Chavez.

Information Minister Willian Lara said U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield did not formally request police protection before his convoy was pelted with eggs by pro-Chavez activists in the streets of Venezuela's capital on April 7.

"We hope there is communication in the future, and there aren't any unfavorable circumstances like that one that occurred" last week, Lara told reporters.

In response to the April 7 harassment, the Bush administration has warned that it may severely restrict the movements of Venezuela's ambassador, Bernardo Alvarez, if pro-government activists in Venezuela engage in any more "thuggish" activities against Brownfield.

"We don't want it to get to that point," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack. "We want Venezuela to fulfill its obligations under the Vienna Convention to help provide protection for our diplomats there."

Lara said Brownfield met with Venezuela's top diplomat for North America, Mari Pili Hernandez, last week to discuss plans for security coordination.

U.S. officials have said they believe the harassment of Brownfield was not spontaneous, but was planned by government officials.

Chavez, one of Latin America's most outspoken critics of the U.S. government, has threatened to expel Brownfield, accusing him of repeatedly engaging in provocative behavior and meddling in Venezuela's domestic affairs.

Relations between Venezuela — the world's fifth largest oil exporter — and the United States have been tense in recent months with U.S. officials accusing Chavez of becoming a threat to democracy in Latin America and Chavez accusing Washington of conspiring to overthrow his government.

Venezuela: Diplomat Didn't Seek Protection

[Shammu]

Rwanda survivors say Hollywood has got it wrong

By Arthur Asiimwe Sun Apr 16, 9:11 PM ET

KIGALI (Reuters) - Three films in two years about Rwanda's genocide have shocked Western audiences with the scale and savagery of the slaughter, but many survivors in the tiny central African nation are unimpressed.

They say the big-screen depictions of the carnage, when about 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus were butchered in 100 days of state-sponsored killings, have got the story wrong.

"My conclusion was that both movies are another Hollywood fiction geared at making money," said Jean Pierre Rucogoza, a 47-year-old university lecturer and genocide survivor who has watched "Sometimes in April" and "Hotel Rwanda."

Rucogoza lost 11 relatives in the killings. In an interview on the eve of the 12th anniversary of the genocide earlier this month, he said he believed the films partly represented the West's conscience rearing its head too late.

"But, unfortunately, they are also being used as a money-minting tool," he told Reuters. Many who lived through Rwanda's bloodshed say they are happy the films remind the world of the tragedy, but say the reality was different.

'NOT OUR STORY'

"'Sometimes in April' is characterized by very serious inaccuracies and omissions which made most survivors say 'it is not our story'," said Francois Ngarambe, president of a Rwandan genocide survivors' association.

Directed by Raoul Peck, "Sometimes in April" tells of the plight of a Hutu soldier who is separated from his Tutsi wife and two children as violence engulfs the capital Kigali in April 1994.

Ten years later, he learns of their deaths from his brother, who was a presenter on a hate radio station urging the killers on, and is now facing an international trial.

Ngarambe said the film wrongly portrayed the genocide as largely the work of militia, neglecting the careful planning by the Hutu extremists in the government and the military.

The latest screen take on the genocide, and the only to be filmed on location, Michael Caton-Jones's "Shooting Dogs," had its world premiere at a stadium in Kigali last month.

It was filmed at the Ecole Technique Officielle, a school in the capital where Belgian U.N. troops abandoned more than 2,000 Tutsis to be slaughtered by machete-wielding killers.

It has also been criticized by some survivors, particularly for one scene where a white Roman Catholic priest decides to stay with the refugees, rather than be evacuated along with his expatriate colleagues.

Many senior church leaders were complicit in some of Rwanda's killings and the depiction angered many who already blame the United Nations and Western powers for failing to intervene.

SYMBOLS OF HEROISM

"There was never a situation, not at that school or anywhere, where a white person refused to be evacuated. That is a pure lie," said Wilson Gabo, a coordinator of Rwanda's Survivors Fund charity.

The makers concede a degree of artistic license with the facts of what actually happened at the school, risking inflaming tempers in a society where memories are still raw.

Amid international inaction, the genocide was finally ended by Rwanda's President Paul Kagame, who led a rebel army from Uganda to seize power. He has recently joined the film debate, sharply criticizing the Oscar-nominated "Hotel Rwanda."

Released last year, Terry George's movie stars Don Cheadle as Paul Rusesabagina, the Hutu manager of a Kigali hotel where more than 1,200 people survived the killings taking place outside.

Kagame, a Tutsi, said the South African-filmed portrayal of Rusesabagina was a "falsehood," and he would not have picked him as a symbol of heroism in those tragic times.

"Some of the things actually attributed to this person are not true," Kagame told reporters last week. "Even those that are true do not merit the level of highlight."

Rwanda survivors say Hollywood has got it wrong

[Shammu]

Satellite images show reinforcement of Iran's nuclear sites
By Haaretz Service

The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), a U.S.-based think tank, said in an email with commercial satellite photos attached sent to news media that Iran has built a new tunnel entrance at an Iranian uranium conversion facility in Isfahan. Just two entry points existed in February, it said.

"This new entrance is indicative of a new underground facility or further expansion of the existing one," said ISIS, led by ex-United Nations arms inspector and nuclear expert David Albright.

ISIS also released four satellite images taken between 2002 and January 2006 it said showed Natanz's two subterranean cascade halls being buried by successive layers of earth, apparent concrete slabs and more earth and other materials.

The roofs of the halls now appear to be eight meters (26 feet) underground, ISIS said.

The revelations came one week after Iran announced it had enriched uranium for use in power stations for the first time, stoking a diplomatic row over Western suspicions of a covert Iranian atomic bomb project. Iran says it seeks only nuclear energy for its economy.

The UN Security Council, wielding the threat of sanctions against Iran, has urged Tehran to halt enrichment activity and asked U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei to report on the Iranian response on April 28. Iran stood its ground during a visit by ElBaradei last week.

President George W. Bush has dismissed reports of plans for a U.S. military strike against Iran as "wild speculation" and said he remained focused on diplomacy to defuse a standoff over Iran's nuclear activities between Tehran and Western countries.

But analysts said Iran was not taking any chances.

"Iran is taking extraordinary precautions to try to protect its nuclear assets. But the growing talk of eliminating Iran's nuclear program from the air is pretty glib," Albright told Reuters by telephone from Washington.

Despite Bush's denial, Former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said Tehran could not discount the possibility of a U.S. military strike.

"We stress at the same time that it would not be in the interest of the United States, nor us," Rafsanjani, who heads a council that arbitrates Iranian legislative disputes, said during a visit to Syria.

"Harm will not only engulf the Islamic Republic of Iran, but the region and everybody," the influential Iranian leader told a news conference with Syrian Vice President Farouq Shara.

Annan told Spain's ABC daily that the situation was already "too heated" to withstand any further aggravation.

"I still think the best solution is a negotiated one, and I don't see what would be solved by a military operation," he told the newspaper in an interview published on Sunday.

"I hope that the will to negotiate prevails and that the military option proves to be only speculation."

Report: Iran has 40,000 trained suicide bombers prepared to strike U.K., U.S. targets
The Sunday Times of London, quoting unnamed Iranian officials, reported Sunday that Iran has 40,000 trained suicide bombers prepared to strike at British and American targets if Iranian nuclear sites are attacked.

It quoted Dr Hassan Abbasi, head of the Centre for Doctrinal Strategic Studies in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, as having said in a speech that 29 western targets had been identified:

"We are ready to attack American and British sensitive points if they attack Iran's nuclear facilities." Abbasi was quoted as saying, adding that some of them were "quite close" to the Iranian border in Iraq.

The newspaper said it had heard a recording in which Abbasi warned would-be bombers to "pay close attention to wily England" and vowed that "Britain's demise is on our agenda."

"At a recruiting station in Tehran recently, volunteers for the force had to show their birth certificates, give proof of their address and tick a box stating whether they would prefer to attack American targets in Iraq, or Israeli targets," the report said.

Satellite images show reinforcement of Iran's nuclear sites

[Shammu]

Iran expands nuclear site construction

Amid growing Israeli concerns that diplomatic efforts to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear power have failed, new satellite imagery released by a US think tank on Sunday indicated that the Islamic republic has expanded one of its uranium conversion sites and reinforced another in preparation for an aerial bombing attack.

The images showed the construction of a third tunnel entrance near the uranium conversion facility in Esfahan. Mounds of earth could be seen next to the new entrance, suggesting recent excavations. In February 2005, the Institute For Science and International Security (ISIS) published satellite imagery of the construction of a tunnel facility with only two entrances.

"This new entrance is indicative of a new underground facility or further expansion of the existing one," said ISIS, led by ex-UN arms inspector David Albright.

While Israel officially continues to back diplomatic efforts to stop Iran's race to the bomb, the IDF and particularly the IAF, have been working on assault plans for an attack against the Iranian nuclear sites. With numerous sites spread throughout the country, the attack, officers have admitted, would be difficult although feasible.

In a recent interview, a high-ranking air force officer told The Jerusalem Post that the IAF would be able to overcome Iranian air defenses including the country's relatively primitive air force. According to foreign media reports, Israel has already put an F-15 squadron on standby in preparation for a military offensive against Iran.

While Israel is preparing for the possibility that military action might be the only way to stop Iran's nuclear program, officials said they preferred that America carried out the attack. "We wouldn't mind using our F-15 jets," one officer recently said, "but only if an American pilot was sitting inside." Earlier in the month, the New Yorker reported that the US was considering knocking out subterranean Iranian nuclear sites with tactical atomic bombs.

The Iranian threat, an Israeli official said Sunday, was global and not just restricted to Israel. "The whole world needs to be concerned with the Iranian developments," the official said. "And the whole world needs to join forces to stop them."

The Iranians, according to the images released with the ISIS report, have also recently made progress in construction at the Natanz site. The four satellite images taken between 2002 and January 2006 showed Natanz's two subterranean cascade halls being buried by successive layers of earth, apparent concrete slabs, more earth and other materials, showing a clear attempt to reinforce the hall from potential aerial bombing attacks. The roofs of the halls now appear to be eight meters underground, ISIS said.

The new revelations came less than a week after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that Iran had passed one of the major hurdles in its race to obtain nuclear power and had, for the first time, successfully enriched uranium.

Over the weekend, a high-ranking IDF officer told the Post that Iran, if allowed to continue enriching uranium, could have nuclear weapons already within two-and-a-half years.

While only 164 centrifuges were used to enrich the uranium to 3.5 percent last week, it was only a matter of time, the officer said, before Iran obtained technology allowing for the operation of thousands of centrifuges over a period of several months which could produce highly enriched uranium needed for a nuclear bomb. "Once they succeeded in enriching uranium at 3.5% there is nothing really technologically stopping them from enriching at 90%," the officer asserted.

Iran expands nuclear site construction

[Shammu]

The frightening truth of why Iran wants a bomb

By Amir Taheri
(Filed: 16/04/2006)

Last Monday, just before he announced that Iran had gatecrashed "the nuclear club", President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad disappeared for several hours. He was having a khalvat (tête-à-tête) with the Hidden Imam, the 12th and last of the imams of Shiism who went into "grand occultation" in 941.

According to Shia lore, the Imam is a messianic figure who, although in hiding, remains the true Sovereign of the World. In every generation, the Imam chooses 36 men, (and, for obvious reasons, no women) naming them the owtad or "nails", whose presence, hammered into mankind's existence, prevents the universe from "falling off". Although the "nails" are not known to common mortals, it is, at times, possible to identify one thanks to his deeds. It is on that basis that some of Ahmad-inejad's more passionate admirers insist that he is a "nail", a claim he has not discouraged. For example, he has claimed that last September, as he addressed the United Nations' General Assembly in New York, the "Hidden Imam drenched the place in a sweet light".

Last year, it was after another khalvat that Ahmadinejad announced his intention to stand for president. Now, he boasts that the Imam gave him the presidency for a single task: provoking a "clash of civilisations" in which the Muslim world, led by Iran, takes on the "infidel" West, led by the United States, and defeats it in a slow but prolonged contest that, in military jargon, sounds like a low intensity, asymmetrical war.

In Ahmadinejad's analysis, the rising Islamic "superpower" has decisive advantages over the infidel. Islam has four times as many young men of fighting age as the West, with its ageing populations. Hundreds of millions of Muslim "ghazis" (holy raiders) are keen to become martyrs while the infidel youths, loving life and fearing death, hate to fight. Islam also has four-fifths of the world's oil reserves, and so controls the lifeblood of the infidel. More importantly, the US, the only infidel power still capable of fighting, is hated by most other nations.

According to this analysis, spelled out in commentaries by Ahmadinejad's strategic guru, Hassan Abassi, known as the "Dr Kissinger of Islam", President George W Bush is an aberration, an exception to a rule under which all American presidents since Truman, when faced with serious setbacks abroad, have "run away". Iran's current strategy, therefore, is to wait Bush out. And that, by "divine coincidence", corresponds to the time Iran needs to develop its nuclear arsenal, thus matching the only advantage that the infidel enjoys.

Moments after Ahmadinejad announced "the atomic miracle", the head of the Iranian nuclear project, Ghulamreza Aghazadeh, unveiled plans for manufacturing 54,000 centrifuges, to enrich enough uranium for hundreds of nuclear warheads. "We are going into mass production," he boasted.

The Iranian plan is simple: playing the diplomatic game for another two years until Bush becomes a "lame-duck", unable to take military action against the mullahs, while continuing to develop nuclear weapons.

Thus do not be surprised if, by the end of the 12 days still left of the United Nations' Security Council "deadline", Ahmadinejad announces a "temporary suspension" of uranium enrichment as a "confidence building measure". Also, don't be surprised if some time in June he agrees to ask the Majlis (the Islamic parliament) to consider signing the additional protocols of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Such manoeuvres would allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director, Muhammad El-Baradei, and Britain's Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, to congratulate Iran for its "positive gestures" and denounce talk of sanctions, let alone military action. The confidence building measures would never amount to anything, but their announcement would be enough to prevent the G8 summit, hosted by Russia in July, from moving against Iran.

While waiting Bush out, the Islamic Republic is intent on doing all it can to consolidate its gains in the region. Regime changes in Kabul and Baghdad have altered the status quo in the Middle East. While Bush is determined to create a Middle East that is democratic and pro-Western, Ahmadinejad is equally determined that the region should remain Islamic but pro-Iranian. Iran is now the strongest presence in Afghanistan and Iraq, after the US. It has turned Syria and Lebanon into its outer defences, which means that, for the first time since the 7th century, Iran is militarily present on the coast of the Mediterranean. In a massive political jamboree in Teheran last week, Ahmadinejad also assumed control of the "Jerusalem Cause", which includes annihilating Israel "in one storm", while launching a take-over bid for the cash-starved Hamas government in the West Bank and Gaza.

Ahmadinejad has also reactivated Iran's network of Shia organisations in Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Yemen, while resuming contact with Sunni fundamentalist groups in Turkey, Egypt, Algeria and Morocco. From childhood, Shia boys are told to cultivate two qualities. The first is entezar, the capacity patiently to wait for the Imam to return. The second is taajil, the actions needed to hasten the return. For the Imam's return will coincide with an apocalyptic battle between the forces of evil and righteousness, with evil ultimately routed. If the infidel loses its nuclear advantage, it could be worn down in a long, low-intensity war at the end of which surrender to Islam would appear the least bad of options. And that could be a signal for the Imam to reappear.

At the same time, not to forget the task of hastening the Mahdi's second coming, Ahamdinejad will pursue his provocations. On Monday, he was as candid as ever: "To those who are angry with us, we have one thing to say: be angry until you die of anger!"

His adviser, Hassan Abassi, is rather more eloquent. "The Americans are impatient," he says, "at the first sight of a setback, they run away. We, however, know how to be patient. We have been weaving carpets for thousands of years."

• Amir Taheri is a former Executive Editor of Kayhan, Iran's largest daily newspaper, but now lives in Europe

The frightening truth of why Iran wants a bomb

[Soldier4Christ]

 Pacific cult hails second coming of its wealthy US messiah


Followers of a South Pacific cult, who worship a mythical Second World War American serviceman they hope will one day return bearing riches, believe that their prayers have been answered.

For 60 years, the bizarre John Frum movement on Tanna, in the Vanuatu archipelago, has believed that the great wealth or "cargo" that the United States military brought to their island home in wartime will one day miraculously return.

They worship a messiah-like figure, John (or Jon) Frum, thought to be a combination of an ancient spirit and wartime GIs based on Tanna who introduced themselves to locals as "John from America".

Carrying wooden "rifles", and with the letters USA daubed in red paint on their bare chests, they have paraded for decades in home-made GI uniforms beneath a tattered Stars and Stripes in the hope of somehow persuading the US government to bring back the wealth.

Now, as part of its Millennium Challenge fund - which rewards developing nations that have adopted political and economic reforms - the US is to give Vanuatu £37 million in aid, prompting cult followers to believe that their decades of prayer have not been in vain. This has caused a problem for the government of Vanuatu, which must now explain to the cult that the aid is intended for the entire nation, and not just Tanna.

Officials in the capital, Port Vila, are preparing to travel to Tanna to explain to the cult, based in a village at Sulphur Bay at the foot of an active volcano, that the money will be spent on infrastructure projects throughout Vanuatu's 80 islands.

"We're just about to embark on explaining to the John Frum leaders that the money from the Americans is a gift for the whole nation, not just for them," said John Shem, an official at the finance ministry. "It's one of their beliefs that some day John Frum will revisit them and bring a lot of money. It's absurd - a load of rubbish - but they're convinced of it."

Cargo cults emerged during the war in remote islands inundated with military supplies as US forces prepared to drive the Japanese out of the South Pacific. Islanders were mesmerised by the vehicles, weapons, medicines, tinned food and cans of Coca-Cola.

They were baffled when the "cargo" left with the Americans at the end of the war, and they developed cults devoted to enticing back the goods they had briefly enjoyed.

Over the decades most cargo cults have died out, but on Tanna, the John Frum movement lives on. Each year, villagers commemorate John Frum Day on Feb 15, raising the US flag and marching on a parade ground.

[Shammu]

Qatar says to give $50 mln funding to Hamas govt
Mon Apr 17, 2006 7:10am ET168

DOHA (Reuters) - Staunch U.S. ally Qatar said on Monday it would give $50 million in aid to the Palestinian Authority despite calls from Washington and European Union to halt funding unless the Hamas-led government recognizes Israel.

The Gulf Arab state, which hosted the command center for the U.S. military in the 2003 Iraq war, said the aid decision "stems from Qatar's support for the Palestinian people".

A Foreign Ministry official told the state-owned news agency part of the money was Qatar's contribution to the $55 million a month pledged by Arab leaders to Hamas at a March summit.

It did not say how or when the money would reach the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority. Fearing U.S. sanctions, many banks are refusing to do business with Hamas.

Since taking office on March 29, the Hamas-led authority has been under intense financial and diplomatic pressure from Israel and the West, which have cut off hundreds of millions of dollars of funding until it renounces violence, recognizes the Jewish state and abides by existing peace deals.

Qatar, a political maverick in the largely conservative Gulf region, has hosted Hamas leaders in the past. It was one of the countries a Hamas delegation visited earlier this year during a tour aimed at drumming up funds for the Palestinian Authority.

On Sunday, Iran said it was giving the Hamas government $50 million to fill in gaps left by Western aid cuts and frozen Israeli tax transfers.

Qatar says to give $50 mln funding to Hamas govt

[Shammu]

Russia, US slipping into familiar 'chill'?

By Fred Weir, Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor Mon Apr 17, 4:00 AM ET

MOSCOW - Call it cold war II, the sequel.

An intensifying shouting match between the US and Russia has stirred fears that the two former adversaries could be drifting back to a familiar ideologically charged rivalry.

Most experts play down the new mood as a worrisome "chill," and some suggest that a change in leadership - slated for 2008 in both countries - might reverse the slide in mutual ties. But many Russians, who have watched as Western influence has thrust decisively into the former Soviet heartland since the USSR's 1991 demise, see it in darker, more visceral tones.

The US is bent on spreading its power by "buying leaders and organizing state coups" throughout the former USSR, says Yevgeny Ivanov, chief ideologist for the pro-Kremlin group Nashi, Russia's biggest political youth movement. He's referring to the recent wave of pro-democracy "colored revolutions" that wrenched Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan from Moscow's orbit. "Their type of globalization is aimed at having the right to decide the world's destiny," he says.

At the other end of the age spectrum, Fyodor Suvorov, a retired military officer, agrees. "What is the US doing [in the former USSR]? It's as if Russia went to 'protect its interests' in Mexico. While we give in to their pressure, the Americans have pushed NATO right to our doorstep," he says.

A January poll conducted by the independent Levada Center in Moscow found that 57 percent of Russians regard the US as a "threat to global security," while just 33 percent think it isn't.

As in the original cold war, which lasted from the end of World War II until the 1991 Soviet collapse, each of the two sides blames the other for the rift.

A report issued last month by the bipartisan US Council on Foreign Relations faulted "Russia's wrong direction" under President Vladimir Putin, and listed a catalog of alleged Muscovite sins that included growing authoritarianism, use of Russian energy supplies to bully neighbors such as Ukraine, and anti-American policies in areas such as
Iran and former Soviet Central Asia.

A US State Department human rights report accuses the Kremlin of sidelining parliament, straitjacketing the media, pressuring the judiciary, and harassing nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The White House National Security Strategy, a policy blueprint released in mid-March, warned that "efforts to prevent democratic development at home and abroad will hamper the development of Russia's relations with the US, Europe, and its neighbors."

"There is clearly a policy shift underway," says Masha Lipman, an analyst with the Carnegie Center in Moscow. "We're talking about a bad trend; not just a cooling but a deterioration in relations."

The crunch could come in July, when Russia is set to host a Group of Eight wealthy democracies summit in St. Petersburg - a moment that experts say Mr. Putin sees as crucial to his efforts to gain Russia's acceptance into the club of Western nations. A growing number of US politicians, including Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record) (R) of Arizona, are urging President Bush to boycott the event. "The glimmerings of democracy are very faint in Russia today, so I would be very harsh," Mr. McCain told a TV interviewer recently.

Russia's 12-year-old bid to join the
World Trade Organization, which awaits only US agreement to become official, has already fallen victim to the new chill, Russian officials complain. "The negotiation process is being artificially set back," Putin told Russian business leaders this month, citing US demands over issues "we thought had been settled long ago."

Experts say the Russian security establishment was stunned by a report in the current issue of the US journal Foreign Affairs which suggests that due to the post-Soviet decay of Russia's nuclear forces coupled with key advances in America's strategic weaponry Russia has "become vulnerable to a US disarming attack." Russian officials have attacked the article as a "provocation."

"There is no doubt that such articles influence security thinking in the opposite country," says Natalia Narochnitskaya, vice chair of the Duma's International Affairs Committee. "Inevitably, it makes us think about how to respond. That's a dangerous thing to start."

The first cold war erupted amid Western alarm over the march of Soviet power into Eastern Europe after WWII, as Moscow staged coups against democratic governments and encouraged local Communist Parties to turn their countries into Soviet "satellites." Ironically, Russians today report similar feelings of outrage at what they view as Western incursions into the post-Soviet region through pro-democracy revolts. "Russians feel that these [neighboring] countries are part of us, and they can't accept that someone else wants to control them," says Yevgeny Bazhanov, vice rector of the Diplomatic Academy, which trains Russian diplomats.

Mr. Bazhanov argues that Washington is misreading Russia's efforts to restore national pride as "some kind of reversion" to the USSR. "There is no doubt that under Putin, Russia is more stable and better organized," he says. "What we had in the 90s was chaos. When we hear US criticism of what's going on here, it sounds to Russians as if Americans want us to be weak. They want to provoke chaos - not to democratize, but to destroy."

Russia, US slipping into familiar 'chill'?

[Shammu]

Iran Has Raised Efforts to Obtain U.S. Arms Illegally, Officials Say

By John Pomfret
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 17, 2006; A14

LOS ANGELES -- The Iranian government has intensified efforts to illegally obtain weapons technology from the United States, contracting with dealers across the country for spare parts to maintain its aging American-made air force planes, its missile forces and its alleged nuclear weapons program, according to federal law enforcement authorities.

Over the past two years, arms dealers have exported or attempted to export to Iran experimental aircraft; machines used for measuring the strength of steel, which is critical in the development of nuclear weapons; assembly kits for F-14 Tomcat fighter jets; and a range of components used in missile systems and fighter-jet engines.

"Iran's weapons acquisition program is becoming more organized," said Stephen Bogni, acting chief of the Arms and Strategic Technology Investigations Unit of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). "They are looking for more varied and sophisticated technology. Night-vision equipment, unmanned aircraft, missile technology" and weapons of mass destruction.

Federal agents say that as tensions increase over Tehran's alleged nuclear weapons program, so does the concern that Iran might strike at U.S. forces and personnel stationed in Iraq and other countries if the United States or its allies take military action against that program. In recent weeks, Tehran has announced new weapons systems, including missiles it claims to be invisible to radar and torpedoes too fast to be avoided, although U.S. experts have questioned Iran's assertions about its capabilities.

The Bush administration says it is committed to a diplomatic solution to address its concerns that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons. Iran contends that it wants only to generate electricity. But, in recent months, it has flouted U.N. Security Council demands that it abandon key parts of its program, and, last week, it announced that it had successfully enriched uranium.

Calls for comment to the Iranian Mission to the United Nations were not returned.

"Most of the material the Iranians are seeking is aging technology, but it's technology that could still hurt the United States and its allies today," said Serge Duarte, acting special agent in charge of ICE investigations in San Diego. That city and Los Angeles are believed to be the two centers of the illicit Iranian weapons trade.

In the 1960s and '70s, the United States sold some of its most advanced weapons systems to Iran, when it was led by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Iran's air force received F-14 Tomcats, F-5 Tigers, F-4 Phantoms, C-130 transport planes and helicopters manufactured by Bell, Boeing and Sikorsky. U.S. sales ended with the 1979 Iranian revolution. Iran's war with Iraq from 1980 to 1988 helped deplete Iran's forces. U.S. contacts with Iran were further restricted in 1995 when President Bill Clinton signed an order effectively prohibiting almost all trade and investment between the two countries.

Since that time, businesses with ties to Iran have been on a hunt in the United States for anything that can keep Iran's military machine moving, federal agents said. Since 2002, there have been 17 major cases involving the illegal shipment of weapons technology to Iran, outpacing the 15 cases involving China, the other main nation seeking U.S. military goods, according to data provided by the Department of Homeland Security. Since 2000, the U.S. government has instituted 800 export investigations involving Iran.

Although arms dealers work nationwide, many of the Iranian cases have connections to Southern California, which remains a center for aeronautics and is home to the biggest concentration of Iranians outside of Tehran. Some neighborhoods of Los Angeles, such as Brentwood on the west side and parts of the San Fernando Valley, are jokingly referred to as "Irangeles."

Federal agents said the main method for obtaining U.S. technology is not through espionage but through simple business deals. "We're not talking about 007 running around trying to steal these parts," Bogni said. "We're talking about the Iranian government putting out shopping lists to brokers and greedy businessmen."

Two recent cases illustrate the challenges facing federal agents.

ICE agents on March 16 arrested Mohammad Fazeli, an American of Iranian descent, after he allegedly tried to export a box of pressure sensors to Iran via the United Arab Emirates. The small sensors, manufactured by Honeywell, are normally used in black-box, data-recording devices for aircraft. Federal agents said they can also be used in bombs and missile-guidance systems.

Fazeli was captured as he allegedly sought to mail the package out of the United States.

"It's not illegal to possess these parts. It's only illegal to export them. That's the challenge," said Louis Rodi III, chief of ICE's national security unit in Los Angeles. "Arms dealers take possession of the products here and then ship them themselves. So we have to be on them like a glove."

Bogni said many weapons dealers are still not aware of U.S. regulations prohibiting the export of controlled technology. Thus, since fall 2002, ICE agents have conducted 12,500 seminars with U.S. weapons manufacturers and exporters.

A day after Fazeli was arrested, another man, Arif Ali Durrani, a Pakistani, was convicted in federal court in San Diego on five counts involving the illegal export of fighter-jet components to Iran.

Durrani was indicted for selling, among other things, nozzles for engines used in the F-5s, the workhorses of the Iranian air force. David Pinchetti, an agent with the Pentagon's Defense Criminal Investigative Service who worked on the case, said Durrani purchased the nozzles for $1,500 apiece and sold them to Iranian Aircraft Industries Co. for $48,000 each.

Of interest to federal authorities since the 1980s, Durrani was a flamboyant dealmaker with a house in California valued at $2.5 million and a fleet of fine cars, on both the West and East coasts, according to Steven Arruda, a former ICE agent. Durrani once showed up in a Porsche to receive delivery of a helicopter part from a manufacturer in Connecticut. When the crate would not fit in his car, he junked the crate and threw the part in the back of his roadster, taking it directly to a freight forwarder at Kennedy International Airport, Arruda said.

Durrani was arrested in 1986 for illegally exporting Hawk missile parts to Iran. A few weeks later, while Durrani was in jail awaiting trial, the Iran-contra scandal broke, revealing that Reagan administration officials had approved weapons sales to Iran and were using the proceeds to fund guerrillas fighting the leftist government in Nicaragua.

Durrani's defense contended that he had been working for the U.S. government. The jury convicted him anyway in April 1987, and he was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Durrani left the United States in the late 1990s for France and then resurfaced in a Mexican beach community near the U.S. border, where his U.S.-born wife opened a Mexican restaurant and he started a furniture factory. Durrani also resumed his weapons technology business, using two partners in the United States to buy and ship products wanted by Iran's air force, federal agents said.

On June 15, in the middle of the U.S. investigation of Durrani, the Mexican government deported him to Pakistan, federal agents said. Acting on a tip, they met his plane, which was going through Los Angeles, and arrested him. Durrani's two co-conspirators subsequently pleaded guilty to violating U.S. arms export guidelines. Durrani, who was found guilty by a federal jury of those charges, is scheduled to be sentenced in June and could face 45 years in prison.

Durrani's attorney, Moe Nadim, vowed to appeal the verdict.

Iran Has Raised Efforts to Obtain U.S. Arms Illegally, Officials Say

[Shammu]

Jihad says suicide attacks to continue
JPost Staff and AP, THE JERUSALEM POST    Apr. 16, 2006

The leader of the Islamic Jihad terrorist group on Sunday said rocket attacks and suicide bombings against Israeli targets will continue, despite an Israeli offensive in the northern Gaza Strip.

In a statement posted on the Islamic Jihad Web site, Ramadan Shalah said Islamic Jihad considers rocket fire a "direct threat" to Israel. "Therefore firing rockets will continue," he said.

He also said the organization was making efforts to infiltrate Israel with suicide bombers from the West Bank. "The nonstop crackdown against our resistance might limit this effort, but it's not going to stop it," he said.

Israel has stepped up an offensive in northern Gaza aimed at halting the rocket fire. Shalah, who lives in exile in Syria, spoke while attending a conference in Iran. His comments were published ahead of a meeting in Gaza between Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and rival factions, including Islamic Jihad.

On Saturday, Secretary of the Islamic Jihad Ramadan Shalah said that any threat to Iran was a threat to the Palestinians.

In an interview to Iranian television, Shalah vowed that Teheran "would not stand alone" in face of international action.

Jihad says suicide attacks to continue

[Shammu]

Mexican aliens seek to retake 'stolen' land
By Valerie Richardson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published April 16, 2006

DENVER -- La reconquista, a radical movement calling for Mexico to "reconquer" America's Southwest, has stepped out of the shadows at recent immigration-reform protests nationwide as marchers held signs saying, "Uncle Sam Stole Our Land!" and waved Mexico's flag.
    Even as organizers urged marchers to display U.S. flags, the theme of reclaiming "stolen" land remained strong. One popular banner read: "If you think I'm illegal because I'm a Mexican, learn the true history because I'm in my homeland."
    "We need to change direction," said Jose Lugo, an instructor in Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder at a campus march last week. "And by allowing these 50,000, 50 million [immigrants] to come in here, we can do that."
    The revolutionary tone has surprised even longtime immigration watchers such as Ira Mehlman, the Los Angeles-based spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform.
    "I've always been skeptical myself about this [reconquista], but what I've seen over the last few weeks leads me to believe that there's more there than I thought," Mr. Mehlman said.
    "You're seeing people marching with Mexican flags chanting, 'This is our country.' I don't think that we can dismiss this as youthful exuberance or a bunch of hotheads," he said.
    Hispanic rights leaders insist there's nothing to the so-called reconquista, sometimes referred to as Aztlan, the mythical ancestral homeland of the Aztecs that reportedly stretches from the border to southern Oregon and Colorado.
    Nativo Lopez, president of the Mexican American Political Association in Los Angeles, one of the march organizers, was infuriated when a reporter asked him about the reconquista.
    "I can't believe you're bothering me with questions about this. You're not serious," Mr. Lopez said. "I can't believe you're bothering with such a minuscule, fringe element that has no resonance with this populous."
    At the same time, some analysts say the seismic demographic shifts brought on by unchecked border crossings and birth rates are resulting in a de facto reconquista.
    "Demographically, socially and culturally, the reconquista of the Southwest United States by Mexico is well under way," Harvard University professor Samuel P. Huntington said in 2004.
    "No other immigrant group in U.S. history has asserted or could assert a historical claim to U.S. territory. Mexicans and Mexican-Americans can and do make that claim," he said.
    A three-minute videotape made by the Immigration Watchdog Web site plays speeches by Hispanic professors and elected officials making references to Aztlan and the idea of a demographic takeover.
    "We are millions. We just have to survive. We have an aging white America. They are not making babies. They are dying. It's a matter of time. The explosion is in our population," Jose Angel Gutierrez, political science professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, said on the videotape.
    In an interview, Mr. Gutierrez said there was "no viable" reconquista movement. He blamed interest in the issue on closed-border groups and "right-wing blogs" such as American Patrol and L.A. Watchdog, but those Web sites are getting plenty of ammunition from groups like La Voz de Aztlan, a Whittier, Calif.-based news service that advocates a separatist state while criticizing Jews and "gringos."
    Then there's the Mexica Movement, which wants to "reconstruct" the United States as an "indigenous" nation called Anahuac. Professor Charles Truxillo of the University of New Mexico envisions a sovereign Hispanic nation called the Republica del Norte that would encompass Northern Mexico, Baja California, California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.
    MEChA, an acronym for the Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan, has come under fire for revolutionary language in its "El Plan de Aztlan," a founding document that declares "the independence of our mestizo nation," decries the "brutal gringo invasion," and says that land "rightfully ours will be fought for and defended."
    What's notable about MEChA is its otherwise mainstream image. Most Hispanic leaders, including Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, belonged to MEChA in high school or college. Former Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante came under fire from conservatives for refusing to renounce his membership during the 2003 gubernatorial race.
    Federico Rangel, a University of Colorado graduate student and MEChA officer, said most students view Aztlan as part of their history, not as a rallying cry for revolution.
    "Aztlan isn't what people say it is, like the reconquista," said Mr. Rangel, who carried a MEChA sign at Monday's rally. "It's a spiritual homeland to Chicanos."

Mexican aliens seek to retake 'stolen' land

My Note; Seems that they forgot Santa Ana sold the land, to the United States.

[Shammu]

 US `Warm War' policy, a threat to global security
Tehran, April 17, IRNA

Iran-US-Nuclear
Iranian political expert, Shapour Jom'e Farsangi, in an interview with the international radio broadcast, Radio Islam on Monday, said that after the collapse of the ex-Soviet Union and end of Cold War, the US has turned to the policy of Warm War, thus posing a threat to global security.

As the head of IRNA representative office in South Africa, Jom'e Farsangi said, in response to a question about the US real intentions on Iran, that the US administration openly talks of changing the Middle East geopolitical map to secure its own interests in the region, the most important of which is that of the Zionist regime.

"Domination over the Middle East oil has always been a priority in the US foreign policy.

"Since the victory of the Islamic Revolution, the US foreign policy on Iran has always been contradictory," he added.

Turning to remarks of the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last week about the reasons for US attack on Iraq, he quoted Rice as saying that since Saddam Hussein assaulted its neighboring countries he turned into a threat to the international community.

"Now, the basic question is why the US administration supported Saddam, known to be a threat to the world, against Iran in eight years of Iraqi-imposed war.

"The truth is that the US cannot put up with a free and independent Iran. It rather considers Iran as an obstacle in the region to its own interests, particularly given that Iran with its 70 million population and high economic and military potentials is not an easy target for the US," added the official.

Concerning Iran's insistence to continue its nuclear activities, he said that while many countries enjoy exercising such a right, it does not find it rational to surrender its nuclear program with peaceful purposes intended for economic development of the country as well as for a more secure and healthy world.

"That the Zionist regime is able to proceed producing nuclear weapons without any restriction, which poses a threat to the world, despite not having signed the NPT, is unacceptable," he added.

He pointed to Iran's commitment to international treaties and said that it is unfair to question Iran for its acceptance of strict inspection by the relevant international authorities, while others have been exempted from responding.

"Iran has always been cooperating with the UN nuclear watchdog as the only world body authorized to inspect Iran's nuclear program.

Iranian officials have repeatedly declared that they do not have any plan to produce nuclear weapons," he added.

He referred to the speech of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad about the Zionist regime's downfall and said that the ideal concept of his remark should be interpreted.

"The president's reference goes along with the fact that as far as the racist Zionist regime, which does not even recognize officially the entity of the nation called Palestine, continues its approach in the region, there will be no hope for promotion of peace and tranquility.

"This is comparable to the same attitude encountered during the apartheid era in South Africa," he added.

About the possible trend of Iran's nuclear dossier in the coming days, he said that one should wait for the upcoming 5+1 meeting in Moscow on Tuesday and the IAEA Chief Mohamed ElBaradei's report on Iran by the end of April.

"What is certain is that the world governments, with the exception of US, will support a political and diplomatic solution to the issue.

"The US will undoubtedly attempt to attract the support of the members of the US Security Council to apply the rules listed under Article 7 of the UN Charter, which includes various stages. In case it succeeds in doing so, new conditions will certainly appear," concluded Jom'e Farsangi.

US `Warm War' policy, a threat to global security

My note; This is out of The Islamic News Agency