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Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Monday, November 7, 2011
IAEA report on Iran set to raise Middle East tension (Reuters)
VIENNA (Reuters) ? The U.N. nuclear watchdog is expected this week to issue its most detailed report yet on research in Iran seen as geared to developing atomic bombs, heightening international suspicions of Tehran's agenda and stoking Middle East tensions.
Western powers are likely to seize on the International Atomic Energy Agency document, which has been preceded by media speculation in Israel of military strikes against Iranian nuclear sites, to press for more sanctions on the oil producer.
But Russia and China fear the publication now of the IAEA's findings could hurt any chance of diplomacy resolving the long-running nuclear row and they have lobbied against it, signaling opposition to any new punitive U.N. measures against Iran.
Iran rejects allegations of atomic weapons ambitions, saying its nuclear program is aimed at producing electricity.
The report is tentatively scheduled to be submitted to IAEA member states on November 9 before a quarterly meeting the following week of the agency's 35-nation board of governors in Vienna.
It "will be followed by a U.S.-European Union push for harsher sanctions against Iran at the U.N. Security Council, where Western powers will meet stiff resistance from Russia and China," said Trita Parsi, an expert on U.S.-Iran relations.
The document is expected to give fresh evidence of research and other activities with little other application than atomic bomb-making, including studies linked to the development of an atom bomb trigger and computer modeling of a nuclear weapon.
Sources briefed on the report also say it will include information from both before and after 2003 -- the year in which U.S. spy services estimated, in a controversial 2007 assessment, that Iran had halted outright "weaponization" work.
Many conservative experts criticized the 2007 findings as inaccurate and naive, and U.S. intelligence agencies now believe Iranian leaders have resumed closed-door debates over the last four years about whether to build a nuclear bomb.
"The primary new information is likely to be any work that Iran has engaged in after 2003 ... Iran is understood to have continued or restarted some research and development since then," said Peter Crail of the Arms Control Association, a U.S.-based advocacy group.
The sources familiar with the document said that among other things it would support allegations that Iran built a large steel container for the purpose of carrying out tests with high explosives applicable to nuclear weapons.
"This is not a country that is sitting down just doing some theoretical stuff on a computer," a Western official said about the IAEA's body of evidence, which is based on Western intelligence as well as the agency's own investigations.
"Saber RATTLING"
The report will flesh out and expand on concerns voiced by the IAEA for several years over allegations that Iran had a linked program of projects to process uranium, test high explosives and modify a missile cone to take a nuclear payload.
It is not believed to contain an explicit assessment that Iran is developing a nuclear weapons capability. "The IAEA's report will not likely contain any smoking guns," said Mark Hibbs of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
But Western diplomats say the dossier will be incriminating for the Islamic Republic and present a compelling case that it is carrying out weapons-relevant work.
Iran says the accusations of military nuclear activity are forged and baseless, showing no sign of backing down in the face of intensified international pressure.
Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said he did not fear possible revelations, saying on Saturday:
"They are claiming that they are going to publish new documents. We know what the truth is -- let them publish them and we'll see what happens. Will they not be called into question as an agency that is under pressure by foreign powers?"
But Iran's history of concealing sensitive nuclear activity and its refusal to suspend work that can potentially yield atomic bombs have already been punished by four rounds of U.N. sanctions, and separate U.S. and European punitive steps.
In the run-up to the report there has been an escalation of rhetoric on both sides.
A senior U.S. military official said Friday Iran had become the biggest threat to the United States and Israel's president said the military option to prevent Iran obtaining nuclear weapons was nearer.
Ayatollah Mahmoud Alavi, a senior Iranian cleric, Sunday dismissed talk of a military strike by Israel as empty propaganda, taunting the Jewish state for screaming "like a cornered cat" rather than roaring like a lion.
Alavi, a member of the Assembly of Experts, a body that appoints and supervises Iran's supreme leader, said Israel would not dare attack Iran. "If they make such a mistake they will receive a crushing response from the Islamic Republic," he told the official IRNA news agency.
Israel bombed an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981 and launched a similar strike against Syria in 2007 -- precedents lending weight to its veiled threats to take similar action against Iran if foreign pressure fails to curb its atomic activities.
But many independent analysts see any such mission as too much for Israel to take on alone. Israel lacks long-range bombers that could inflict lasting damage on Iran's widely dispersed and fortified facilities.
Parsi said U.S. officials tended to view Israeli threats of military action as a pressure tactic to get Washington and Europe to adopt tougher sanctions against Iran.
But he said it would be dangerous to dismiss Israel's "saber-rattling" out of hand.
"How much longer can this game of brinkmanship ... be pursued before it turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy?" Parsi wrote in an article posted on the website of CNN.
(Additional reporting by Sylvia Westall in Vienna and Robin Pomeroy in Tehran; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
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Adam Lambert Being Sued By Colwel Platinum Entertainment
Adam Lambert Being Sued By Colwel Platinum Entertainment
Former American Idol contestant Adam Lambert is facing legal action over claims he violated the show’s rules by auditioning while he was under a record [...]
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Source: http://stupidcelebrities.net/2011/11/06/adam-lambert-being-sued-by-colwel-platinum-entertainment/
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'Food Challenges' Provide Best Allergy Diagnoses: Study (HealthDay)
SATURDAY, Nov. 5 (HealthDay News) -- Too few American doctors use oral food challenges to diagnose food allergies even though this type of test is considered the gold standard, according to a new study.
In an oral food challenge, a patient consumes foods to see if it causes an allergic reaction. This is done under close medical supervision.
Researchers surveyed about 40,000 children and identified 3,339 cases of food allergy. However, only 61.5 percent of the cases were formally diagnosed by a doctor and only about 15 percent of those children underwent an oral food challenge.
Children with severe symptoms such as anaphylaxis (life-threatening allergic reaction), wheezing, breathing difficulties and low blood pressure were most likely to be diagnosed by a doctor and most likely to undergo an oral food challenge.
The findings that many children with food allergy are not diagnosed by a doctor and not given a food challenge suggest that food allergy may be underdiagnosed in the United States, the researchers concluded.
The study was scheduled to be presented at this week's annual meeting of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology in Boston.
"Oral food challenge provides a definitive diagnosis which is critical to providing proper disease management and prevents unnecessary avoidance of certain foods," Dr. Ruchi Gupta of Children's Memorial Hospital, in Chicago, said in an ACAAI news release. "Physicians may not be conducting the test due to the length of time it takes, three to six hours, and the low reimbursement for a food challenge."
Because this study was presented at a medical meeting, the data and conclusions should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.
In suspected cases of food allergy, patients should be referred to an allergist, according to the ACAAI.
More information
The U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has more about food allergy.
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Sunday, November 6, 2011
Greek president to host talks with PM, opposition (AP)
ATHENS, Greece ? Greece's political leaders struggled on Sunday to find common ground on forming an interim government amid a political crisis that threatened the country's ability to avoid a catastrophic bankruptcy and to retain its cherished eurozone membership.
The country's president, Karolos Papoulias, was to convene a meeting between Prime Minister George Papandreou and the head of the main opposition conservatives, Antonis Samaras, Sunday night to try to hammer out a solution.
Faced with mounting pressure from both the opposition and his party, Papandreou, who survived a confidence vote in his government Saturday, has said he will step aside if agreement can be reached on the formation of an interim government that will secure a new European debt deal for Greece and the disbursement of a vital bailout loan installment without which the country will default within weeks.
Samaras, who has been pressing for snap elections, has set Papandreou's resignation as a condition for participating in any talks, saying earlier Sunday he considered the prime minister to be "dangerous" for the country.
The crisis began after Papandreou's shock announcement Monday night that he wanted to put a new European debt deal aimed at rescuing his country's economy to a referendum. That plan caused an uproar in Europe, with the leaders of France and Germany saying any popular vote in Greece would decide whether the country would remain in the euro. European officials also said the country would not receive the vital euro8 billion euro installment of its existing euro110 billion bailout until the uncertainty in Athens was over.
Papandreou's announcement also spooked international markets, leading stock markets to tumble and led to calls in Greece for Papandreou's resignation ? even from among his own Socialist lawmakers and ministers ? with many saying he had endangered Greece's bailout.
The prime minister withdrew the referendum plan on Thursday, after Samaras indicated his party would back the new debt deal, which was agreed upon after marathon negotiations in Europe on Oct. 27.
Greek officials are hoping to have a deal on a new interim government by Monday, when the country has to attend a meeting of eurozone finance ministers in Brussels.
Greece has been surviving since May 2010 on its initial bailout. But its financial crisis was so severe that a second rescue was needed as the country remained locked out of international bond markets by sky-high interest rates and faced an unsustainable national debt increase.
The new European deal, agreed on by the 27-nation bloc on Oct. 27 after marathon negotiations, would give Greece an additional euro130 billion ($179 billion) in rescue loans and bank support. It would also see banks write off 50 percent of Greek debt, worth some euro100 billion ($138 billion). The goal is to reduce Greece's debts to the point where the country is able to handle its finances without relying on constant bailouts.
Greece's lawmakers must now approve the new rescue deal, putting intense pressure on the country's leaders to swiftly end the political crisis so parliament can convene and put the debt agreement to a vote.
"We know that there can be no elections now," Papandreou said during an emergency Cabinet meeting Sunday, noting that snap polls would delay the approval of the new debt deal. "This cooperation, however, is necessary and will be beneficial for the climate in our country and internationally."
He said the new government would focus on passing the new debt deal and ensuring the disbursement of the bailout tranche.
"In these critical moments, the two (main) parties are merely wasting time," said lawmaker Giorgos Kontoyannis, a former opposition New Democracy legislator who has joined splinter group Democratic Alliance. "I want to say to my former New Democracy colleagues that our responsibility to our country is individual and not bound by party allegiance."
In return for bailout money, Greece was forced to embark on a punishing program of tax increases and cuts in pensions and salaries that sent Papandreou's popularity plummeting and his majority in parliament whittled down from a comfortable 10 seats to just three.
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Saturday, November 5, 2011
Officials: 67 dead in northeast Nigeria attacks (AP)
LAGOS, Nigeria ? At least 67 people died in a wave of bombings and shootings carried out in northeast Nigeria overnight, officials said Saturday, as frightened mourners left their homes to begin burying their dead.
A radical Muslim sect known locally as Boko Haram claimed responsibility Saturday for the attacks, which represent the most coordinated and wide-ranging assault yet in their increasingly bloody sectarian fight with Nigeria's weak central government. The sect, which wants the strict implementation of Shariah law across the nation of more than 160 million people, promised to carry out more attacks.
The fighting centered around Damaturu, the capital of Yobe state, Nigerian Red Cross official Ibrahim Bulama said. The attack started Friday with a car bomb exploding outside a three-story building used as a military office and barracks in the city, with many uniformed security agents dying in the blast, Bulama said.
Gunmen then went through the town, blowing up a First Bank PLC branch and attacking at least three police stations and some churches, leaving them in rubble, he said. Gunfire continued through the night and gunmen raided the village of Potiskum near the capital as well, witnesses said, leaving at least two people dead there.
On Saturday morning, people began hesitantly leaving their homes, seeing the destruction left behind, including military and police vehicles burned by the gunmen, with the burned corpses of the drivers who died in their seats.
Bulama spoke to The Associated Press by telephone Saturday morning from a common Muslim burial ground in the city as his family buried a relative and friend, a police officer who died after suffering a gunshot wound to the head in the fighting.
"There's that fear that something might possibly happen again," he said.
State government officials did not respond to repeated requests for comment Saturday.
The attacks around Damaturu came after four separate bombings struck Maiduguri, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) east. One blast detonated around noon outside the El-Kanemi Theological College where parents had gathered. Police said others had entered the college grounds to attend Friday prayers at a mosque located on its campus.
Witnesses who spoke to the AP said they saw ambulances carry away at least six wounded people from the site. Another bombing alongside a road in Maiduguri killed four people, local police commissioner Simeon Midenda said.
A short time later, suicide bombers driving a black SUV attempted to enter a base for the military unit charged with protecting the city from Boko Haram fighters, military spokesman Lt. Col. Hassan Ifijeh Mohammed said. The SUV couldn't enter the gate and the explosives were detonated outside of the base, which damaged several buildings in the military's compound, Mohammed said.
Mohammed said blasts occurred at three other places in Maiduguri besides the base, with no one being killed. However, government officials routinely downplay such attacks in Nigeria over political considerations.
On Saturday, a Boko Haram spokesman claimed responsibility for the attacks in an interview with The Daily Trust, the newspaper of record across Nigeria's Muslim north. A Boko Haram spokesman using the nom de guerre Abul-Qaqa promised that "more attacks are on the way."
"We will continue attacking federal government formations until security forces stop their excesses on our members and vulnerable civilians," the spokesman said.
His comments come as human rights activists say soldiers have beaten and killed civilians while trying to search for the sect in Maiduguri.
Boko Haram's attacks occurred ahead of Eid al-Adha, or the feast of sacrifice, when Muslims around the world slaughter sheep and cattle in remembrance of Abraham's near-sacrifice of his son. Police elsewhere in the country had warned of violence ahead of the celebration in Nigeria, a country largely split between a Christian south and a Muslim north. On Wednesday, police in Maiduguri had said they broke up a plot to bomb the city over the holiday.
Boko Haram apparently has split into three factions, increasing the danger for Nigeria, the AP has learned. One faction remains moderate and welcomes an end to the violence, another wants a peace agreement with rewards similar to those offered to a different militant group in 2009.
The third faction, though, refuses to negotiate and remains the most radical. This faction is in contact with al-Qaida's North Africa branch and likely the Somalia-based terror group al-Shabab, a diplomat said on condition of anonymity according to embassy orders.
That sect likely is responsible for the increasingly violent and sophisticated attacks carried out in the sect's name. In August, Boko Haram claimed responsibility for a suicide car bombing at the United Nations headquarters in Nigeria's capital, which killed 24 people and left another 116 wounded.
___
Njadvara Musa reported from Maiduguri, Nigeria.
___
Jon Gambrell can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.
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Doncaster player scores 3 days after son's death
Sharp calls his goal the most important of his career
updated 12:46 p.m. ET Nov. 2, 2011
DONCASTER, England - Three days after the death of his baby son, Billy Sharp scored the opening goal for his English soccer team.
Calling it the most important goal of his career, Sharp's goal put Doncaster ahead early in a 3-1 loss to Middlesbrough in a second-tier Championship game.
After firing a left-footed volley over Middlesbrough goalkeeper Jasen Steele in the 14th minute Tuesday night, Sharp lifted his jersey to reveal a red T-shirt with the message "That's For You Son." He spread his arms wide and looked to the sky.Sharp's son, Luey Jacob, died on Saturday. He was just 2 days old.
Before kickoff, the home crowd commemorated the infant's life with a minute's applause.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/45135208/ns/sports-soccer/
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