China rejects US limits on Iran trade
Press TV – January 10, 2012
China has rejected the US trade restrictions on Iran’s oil industry, saying it has nothing to do with Tehran’s nuclear energy program.
A Chinese deputy foreign minister, Cui Tiankai, said on Monday that Beijing is against mixing the issues with different natures, rejecting linking Iran’s nuclear program to trade.
Tiankai made the remarks on the eve of a visit by US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to seek Beijing’s support for anti-Iran sanctions.
“The normal trade relations and energy cooperation between China and Iran have nothing to do with the nuclear issue… We should not mix issues with different natures, and China’s legitimate concerns and demands should be respected,” he said.
Tiankai went on to say that Beijing supports nuclear nonproliferation efforts but believes Iran is entitled to develop peaceful nuclear energy, and called for talks between Iran and the West in order to build mutual trust.
“We believe… the normal economic ties between countries in the world and Iran should not be affected,” he said.
Earlier in the day, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, Liu Weimin, said China is against unilateral sanctions against Iran, noting that dialog is the only way to resolve the remaining issues over Tehran’s nuclear energy program.
“China opposes placing domestic law above international law and does not favor unilateral sanctions against other countries,” he said.
The unilateral sanctions on Iran have led to a clash of interests between Washington and its key commercial partners, including China.
Iran exported about 622,000 barrels of oil per day to China in November, maintaining its place as the third largest crude supplier to the East Asian country.
Fordo atomic site runs under IAEA watch
Press TV – January 10, 2012
Iran’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says all of the country’s nuclear activities, including those at Fordo enrichment site, are under the supervision of the UN atomic body, Press TV reports.
“This site [Fordo] was declared more than two years ago and since then the agency is continuously monitoring… all the activities,” Ali Asghar Soltanieh told Press TV late on Monday.
Soltanieh made the remarks after some Western sources reported the start of enrichment activities in Fordo, located in Qom province, 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of capital Tehran, claiming that the work is being done without informing the IAEA.
US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said that Iran’s enriching uranium to 20 percent at the Fordo site was “a further escalation of their ongoing violations with regard to their nuclear obligations.”
However, IAEA spokeswoman Gill Tudor said that all nuclear material “remains under the Agency’s containment and surveillance” at Fordo.
Soltanieh also rejected France’s claim that the enrichment work at Fordo violates international law, saying that the Islamic Republic needs the 20-percent-enriched uranium for the production of nuclear fuel plates required at the Tehran Research Reactor for producing radioisotopes for cancer treatment.
The French Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Monday, saying, “This new provocation… leaves us with no other choice but to reinforce international sanctions and to adopt, with our European partners and all willing countries, measures of an intensity and severity without precedent.”
However, Soltanieh highlighted that “Every step we have taken so far and every step we will take in the future has been and will be under the IAEA containment and surveillance,” adding that “now with the 24-hour [surveillance] cameras and inspections, the enrichment activities in Natanz and Fordo are under the control of the IAEA.”
On Sunday, August 21, 2011, head of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Fereydoun Abbasi, announced the Islamic Republic has started transferring the centrifuges of its Natanz nuclear facility to the Fordo atomic site under the supervision of the IAEA.
The US and its allies accuse Iran of pursuing a military nuclear program and have pressured the UN Security Council to impose four rounds of sanctions against the country.
As a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Tehran insists it is entitled to utilize nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
A look ahead to 2012 BDS campaigns
By Nora Barrows-Friedman | The Electronic Intifada | January 9, 2012
Though 2011 was a success, BDS activists are gearing up for a full year of cultural boycott campaigns on the agenda. Australians for Palestine has put up this comprehensive list of all the upcoming international performers scheduled to play in Israel through August, with contact email addresses and Facebook groups.
This month, Kenny Baron, Janis Ian, the Uri Caine Ensemble, the Karl Seglem Quintet, Bad Plus, Anonymous 4, the Kora Jazz Band, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Ana Moura, James Blake, K’s Choice and Arch Enemy are all scheduled to perform. Campaigns are already under way to encourage the artists to respect the BDS call and cancel their performances. A facebook group has been set up to address eclectic pop artist James Blake, for example, urging him to “Love music, hate apartheid.”
And for the metal band Arch Enemy, a facebook page has been set up in an effort to encourage the band to cancel their performance later this month. The Arch Enemy: Resist Playing Apartheid Israel boycott group has been at the forefront of the campaign, and say that the band’s current tour as part of Amnesty Internatonal’s “Freedom of Expression” campaign is clearly hypocritical if they agree to perform in Israel. There have also been a deluge of threats directed against the boycott campaigners — even from a member of the band itself, who stated on the band’s facebook page that:
“i am making amnesty international aware of your criminal methods and your breach of freedom of choice, freedom of expression and freedom of art. it is up to us (and only us!) to chose in which countries we perform and bring our message to. it is NOT yours to tell us what to do and to force your will upon us. you are hurting our rights of freedom and you make us fear for our safety. SHAME ON YOU! Music should transcend all races, political issues and borders – we will not be instrumentalised, neither by you or any other organization or government. who are you to tell us what to do?!”
PACBI has made a statement to Arch Enemy, expressing their disappointment in their refusal to heed the BDS call.
SOPA-Supporting News Outlets Aren’t Covering SOPA
By Dave Copeland | Read Write Web | January 6, 2012
MSNBC, Fox News, ABC, CBS and NBC have dedicated no time to covering the Stop Online Piracy Act in their evening newscasts since Oct. 1, according to a report by Ben Dimiero of Media Matters For America.
CNN, meanwhile, has dedicated a single evening news segment to the issue. All of the companies covered in the report have either publicly supported SOPA or have parent companies that have done so.
Dimiero based his report on Lexis-Nexis searches which includes transcripts of nighttime newscasts.
Comcast/NBCUniversal (which owns MSNBC and NBC News), Viacom (CBS), News Corporation (Fox News), Time Warner (CNN) and Disney (ABC) are all listed as supporters of the bill. ABC and CBS are also listed as separate supporters of the bill.
SOPA would block access to sites accused of violating U.S. copyright laws. The measure has been called Draconian by opponents who say it would fundamentally change the free-flow of information across the Internet. Proponents, ranging from the NBA to Universal, say the measure is needed to block sites which flagrantly flaunt copyright laws and make content available for free without paying copyright owners.
Traditional media companies have been key players in lobbying for SOPA’s passage, with more than half of that funding coming from cable television providers, commercial TV and radio stations, and the entertainment industry. Opponents of the legislation have been developing apps to help voters track how their legislators stand on SOPA and how much they have received in campaign donations from SOPA-supporting entities.
Jewish Agency: goal of Israeli government plan to block Bedouin “incursion”
By Ben White – The Electronic Intifada – 01/09/2012
An article in Ha’aretz today (‘Judaization of the Negev at any cost’) covers the recently announced plan by the Israeli government to establish 10 new communities not far south of the Green Line in the north of al-Naqab (Negev).
While officially the initiative is about ‘developing the periphery’ and lowering house prices, a moment of candour by a high-ranking Jewish Agency (JA) official confirms what has already been suspected. Quoted in a report by the Knesset’s Research and Information Centre, the JA’s director-general of settlement division Yaron Ben Ezra said:
The goal of the plan is to grab the last remaining piece of land and thereby prevent further Bedouin incursion into any more state land and the development of an Arab belt from the south of Mount Hebron toward Arad and approaching Dimona and Yeruham, and the area extending toward Be’er Sheva.
Last year, the government was not quite as explicit, instead describing the new towns as part of a “Zionist vision for making the Negev flourish”. But it should be no surprise that the proposal targets Bedouin citizens, given that it was drawn up by the Prime Minister’s Office and the Housing and Construction Ministry. Netanyahu has described Palestinians in Israel as a “demographic problem”, while Housing Minister Ariel Atias sees it as “a national duty” to “prevent the spread” of the Arab minority.
It is not the first time that JA officials have been honest about this sort of ‘development’. In 2002, the body announced its aim of securing a “Zionist majority” in the Negev and Galilee, with the then-JA treasurer Shai Hermesh admitting that the reason for the Negev plan is
to get around the problem that the government must act on behalf of all citizens of the State of Israel while the WZO is entitled to act for the sake of the Jewish people.
And all of this in the Middle East’s only democracy.