Daily Archives: September 20, 2015

Here is a big fucking surprise for you: Iran all of the sudden has a large amount of nuclear material

Iran says finds unexpectedly high uranium reserve

Iran has discovered an unexpectedly high reserve of uranium and will soon begin extracting the radioactive element at a new mine, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization said on Saturday.

The comments cast doubt on previous assessments from some Western analysts who said the country had a low supply and sooner or later would need to import uranium, the raw material needed for its nuclear program.

Any indication Iran could become more self-sufficient will be closely watched by world powers, which reached a landmark deal with Tehran in July over its program. They had feared the nuclear activities were aimed at acquiring the capability to produce atomic weapons – something denied by Tehran.

“I cannot announce (the level of) Iran’s uranium mine reserves. The important thing is that before aerial prospecting for uranium ores we were not too optimistic, but the new discoveries have made us confident about our reserves,” Iranian nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA.

Salehi said uranium exploration had covered almost two-thirds of Iran and would be complete in the next four years.

Uranium can be used for civilian power production and scientific purposes, but is also a key ingredient in nuclear weapons.

The July deal between Iran and world powers will lift international sanctions on Iran in exchange for at least a decade of curbs on the country’s nuclear activity.

The U.S. State Department said any new reserves of uranium discovered in Iran will be under the same monitoring as existing mines under the nuclear agreement.

“Any violation of that commitment would be met with the appropriate response,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement.

After decades of effort, Iran – which has consistently said its program is for peaceful purposes – has achieved a full nuclear fuel cycle, ranging from the extraction of uranium ore to enrichment and production of fuel rods for nuclear reactors.

Sanctions on companies taking part in Iran’s uranium mining industry will be lifted when the agreement is implemented.

Salehi said uranium extraction was set to begin at a new mine in the central province of Yazd, according to IRNA.

Some Western analysts have previously said that Iran was close to exhausting its supply of yellowcake – or raw uranium – and that mining it domestically was not cost-efficient.

A report published in 2013 by U.S. think-tanks Carnegie Endowment and the Federation of American Scientists said the scarcity and low quality of Iran’s uranium resources compelled it “to rely on external sources of natural and processed uranium”.

It added: “Despite the Iranian leadership’s assertions to the contrary, Iran’s estimated uranium endowments are nowhere near sufficient to supply its planned nuclear program.”

Iran has repeatedly denied overseas media reports that it has tried to import uranium from countries like Kazakhstan and Zimbabwe.

OBAMA: Do it my way or we will blame you totally again

As Congress debates a spending bill that would strip away federal money from Planned Parenthood and could trigger a government shutdown, President Obama is weighing in on the funding battle.

“If Republicans want to help, they can choose, right now, to pass a budget that helps us grow our economy even faster, create jobs even faster, lift people’s incomes and prospects even faster,” Mr. Obama said in a video released Saturday. “But they’ve only got until the end of the month to do it – or they’ll shut down our government for the second time in two years.”

The president urged discussion on a spending bill but said that the real issues to focus on included education, job training and infrastructure problems — not, he said, “unrelated ideological issues like Planned Parenthood.”

“We need to set our sights higher than that,” Mr. Obama added.

The House voted Friday to block funds for the women’s health organization for one year, but it’s a bill that doesn’t have many legs to stand on in the Senate.

Highlighting a Republican divide on the issue, Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-New Hampshire, expressed skepticism for the chances of defunding Planned Parenthood on Thursday.

“How do we get 60 votes?” Ayotte asked presidential candidate and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in a letter. “And if for some reason there were 60 votes, how do we get 67 votes in the Senate to overcome a presidential veto?”

And as for tying a measure defunding Planned Parenthood to the spending bill, the Republicans’ No. 2 in the Senate, John Cornyn, admitted that it would likely be a futile battle.

“I think there will be a vote on that. I just don’t think Democrats will let that pass,” Cornyn, R-Texas, said Thursday. “We will vote on defunding (Planned Parenthood) on the (continuing resolution) in some form or another.”

“There’s nothing principled about the idea of another government shutdown,” Mr. Obama said in the video. “There’s nothing patriotic about denying the progress you’ve worked so hard to make.”

In their own video, Republicans continued to criticize the Iran nuclear deal, which Senate Republicans failed to block earlier this week.

“This is a deal that fails to meet even the administration’s own objectives,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-West Virginia, said in a message released Saturday. “Because the president operated from a position of concession and not of strength, the American people are left with a bad deal.”

The West Virginia Republican asserted that reversing sanctions relief on Tehran will now be “next to impossible,” even if the country chooses to violate the agreement.

“The regime has already signaled it will defy attempts by the U.S. and other nations who aim to enforce this agreement,” Capito said. The senator added that the blame for the deal should be laid at the feet of Democrats, saying that “a partisan minority in the Senate blocked a bipartisan majority from even taking a true up or down vote on whether the nuclear agreement should be approved.”

The Senate voted twice on Thursday: once on a measure that would prevent the Obama administration from lifting sanctions against Iran unless it recognizes Israel as a state and releases American hostages, and another time on a disapproval resolution of the deal. Both failed to reach the 60 votes necessary to pass.

The Republicans have plenty to be ashamed of in Congress, The talk big and boast a lot and make plenty of false promises.

But we also have a president who is continually baiting them and his ego will not allow him to ty to resolve issues, he just demands his way. And that is not what a leader does he leads and provides opportunity for progress not make threats to throw more blame around.

Former Nobel chief: Obama Peace Prize a failure

Remember that Nobel Peace Prize that President Obama got in 2009? Well, maybe it wasn’t such a good idea after all, a former top Nobel official said.

In a just-released book, Geir Lundestad, director of the Nobel Institute for 25 years until stepping down last year, said the prize committee had expected the honor to deliver a boost to Obama, something he believes did not happen.

Speaking to The Associated Press, Lundestad, who sat in on the secretive committee’s meetings but did not have a vote, said the committee “thought it would strengthen Obama and it didn’t have this effect.”

“In hindsight, we could say that the argument of giving Obama a helping hand was only partially correct,” he wrote, according to VG, a Norwegian newspaper.

The award, made by the committee in response to Obama’s stated aim of ridding the world of nuclear weapons, came nine months after he took office.

“Even many of Obama’s supporters believed that the prize was a mistake,” Lundestad wrote in “Secretary of Peace. 25 years with the Nobel Prize”.

“In that sense the committee didn’t achieve what it had hoped for,” he said, noting that Obama himself rarely mentions the prize.


Geir Lundestad, right, former director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo, during ceremonies in 2007. (Photo: Bjorn Sigurdson, AFP/Getty Images)

Lundestad also claims the White House even used back channels to find out if the award could accepted in absentia.

“His cabinet … asked whether anyone had previously refused to travel to Oslo to receive the prize,” Lundestad said. “In broad strokes, the answer was no.”

“In the White House they quickly realized that they needed to travel to Oslo,” he added.

Meanwhile, when the institute announced the award, it was met with fierce criticism in the U.S., where many argued that Obama had not been president long enough to have an impact worthy of the Nobel.

Following several headlines that said Lundestad thought it was a “mistake” to have awarded the prize to Obama, he called a press conference on Thursday to deny that was what he had implied. “Several of you have written that I believe the prize to Obama a mistake, but then you cannot have read the book,” Lundestad told reporters,according to VG. “It says nowhere that it was a mistake to give Obama the Peace Prize.”

“We plan to read the book first before making any comment,” said Annika Pontikis, spokeswoman for the Nobel Foundation, told Reuters.

Definition of award:

award; plural noun: awards

  1. 1.

    a prize or other mark of recognition given in honor of an achievement.

    “the company’s annual award for high-quality service”

    Is this “award” something to help someone achieve a proposed goal or for achievement? Nine months in office and they give him an award. Sounds like the Nobel people have an agenda and not a recognition of deeds or services.

    In my book they have lost a lot of credibility with this.