Nuclear Rights and the P5+1 Talks with Iran
By Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett | Going to Tehran | November 22, 2013
Yesterday, while taping a discussion of the latest round of P5+1 nuclear talks with Iran on Russia Today’s CrossTalk that was broadcast today (see here or, on You Tube, here), Flynt said, “I hope I’m wrong, but I’m not particularly optimistic about a deal being reached this week. I don’t think that there’s been a lot of progress on the issues that kept agreement from being reached the last time the parties convened in Geneva:
–There’s the issue of Iran’s nuclear rights, and how they get acknowledged or not acknowledged in an interim agreement.
–There is disagreement about how to handle, during an interim deal, this heavy water reactor facility at Arak which the Iranians are building.
–There are still disagreements about the disposition of Iran’s stockpile of near-20 percent enriched uranium.
I don’t really see much sign that either the United States or the French are backing down from some of the positions they took on those issues ten days ago—and if there’s not some give on that, I don’t know how the Iranians will be in a position to accept the P5+1 proposal.”
On the positions that the United States and France took on these issues in the November 7-9 Geneva talks, Flynt recounts,
“Going into the last round at Geneva, I think the Iranians anticipated getting a draft from the P5+1 where they had clearly worked out understandings about how some of these contentious issues—about Arak, about the 20 percent stockpile, about some acknowledgement of Iran’s nuclear rights; the Iranians had expectations from their previous discussions about the kind of proposal they were going to see. And, basically, the United States and France reneged on those understandings. And so the draft proposal that went in front of Iran was different from what Foreign Minister Zarif and his team were expecting to see, and they weren’t in a position to accept that.
Unless the P5+1—in particular, the United States and France—are willing to stick to understandings that the Iranians thought they had reached, at least verbally, on some of these issues, I don’t think that the Iranians are going to feel, either in terms of substance or in terms of the atmosphere of trust, they’re not going to feel comfortable with going ahead with an agreement.”
Currently, the most fundamental sticking point in Geneva is—as we have long anticipated—the Obama administration’s refusal to recognize Iran’s clear legal right to enrich uranium under safeguards and to acknowledge that the Islamic Republic will have to be treated like any other NPT party. As we’ve written before, see here, Iran and all other states have a sovereign right to pursue indigenous fuel cycle capabilities—a right recognized in Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as an “inalienable right,” which non-nuclear-weapon states pledge to exercise in line with Article II (where non-weapons states commit not to build or obtain nuclear weapons) and Article III (where states commit to conducting their nuclear activities under safeguards to be negotiated with the International Atomic Energy Agency).
As Flynt explains, the Obama administration—like the George W. Bush administration before it—resists recognizing this legal reality:
“There are basically four countries in the world that try to deny that the NPT recognizes the right of a non-nuclear weapon state like Iran to enrich uranium under safeguards. Those four countries are the United States, France, the United Kingdom, and Israel, which isn’t even a signatory to the NPT. Those are the only four countries that take this position. The rest of the world—the BRICS, the Non-Aligned Movement, key U.S. allies like Germany and Japan—have held consistently that the Treaty recognizes a right to enrich. And what is so perverse is that…when the U.S. and the Soviet Union first opened the NPT for signature in 1968, senior U.S. officials testified to Congress that the NPT recognized a right to safeguarded enrichment. That was the position of the United States until the end of the Cold War—and then we decided to try to unilaterally rewrite the Treaty because we didn’t want non-Western countries getting fuel cycle capabilities.”
We’ll see if the Obama administration can do any better this weekend.
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Lavrov: Last-Minute Changes Ruined Nuclear Deal
Al-Manar | November 15, 2013
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said amendments made by a member of the six world powers to a US-proposed draft proposal during the recent Iran nuclear talks in the Swiss city of Geneva spoiled efforts to reach a deal.
Lavrov, who is on a visit to Egypt, said on Thursday that Iran and six world powers were close to reaching an agreement on a deal during their talks in Geneva, but last-minute amendments to the draft document blocked a deal, AP reported.
He expressed hope that representatives of the six countries will not abandon “agreements that already have been shaped” and strike a pact with Iran during next week’s talks.
A member of the Iranian delegation in nuclear talks with six world powers says Tehran did not block an agreement in last week’s negotiations in Geneva.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran did not prevent a final deal in Geneva,” Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for European and American Affairs Majid Takht-e Ravanchi said Friday. “We do not want to go into the details of the issues…, but it is clear who ultimately blocked a final agreement,” he added.
On November 7, Iran and the six world powers – the US, France, Britain, Russia, China and Germany – kicked off intense discussions in Geneva which stretched into a third day. The two sides did not reach an agreement, but stressed that significant progress had been made and expressed optimism about the prospect of a possible deal in the future.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said in a November 9 interview that “Israel’s concerns” must be taken into consideration in the course of the negotiations, adding that there is “no certainty” whether Iran and six powers will reach an agreement at the current stage.
French starting to see Zionist lobby pull: Analysis
By Tahmineh Bakhtiari | Press TV | November 11, 2013
Since the formation of Israel and even before that, Tel Aviv has always resorted to lobbying to pursue its illegitimate objectives, including efforts to earn recognition for its so-called government.
Israel’s most active lobby is in the US, but it is also highly active in European countries such as Britain, Germany, France and even Italy and Spain.
This article seeks to discuss the influence of the Zionist lobby and France-Israel ties.
After a book by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt about the influence of the Israeli lobby on US foreign policy was published in 2007, French daily Le Monde published an article in October that year describing the Zionist lobby in France as a non-transparent and deceitful group. From that point, the issue of the Zionist lobby in France and its influence on the country’s foreign and domestic policy has been taken into consideration.
The Zionist lobby in France has extensive influence in three areas: A: Media and their affiliate companies, including Eutelsat; B: Political parties who receive campaign funding and media sponsorship from the Zionist lobby; C: Oil and arms companies.
The history of Zionist lobby in France
The Zionist movement led by Joseph Fisher started its activities in France between the first and second World Wars. Later in 1949, Fisher became Israel’s ambassador to Belgium. France had incurred heavy losses during World War II and that laid the groundwork for the presence of affluent Jews in different economic, social, judicial, cultural, religious and political arenas of the country.
At present, there are over 100 Jewish organizations and societies in France and all of the active Israeli parties have offices in Paris. In 1977, different Jewish groups in France merged and formed the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (Le Conseil Representatif des Institutions Juives de France (CRIF)).
The group is tasked with pursuing the interests of Israel inside France and its foreign policy. The group which owns a myriad of newspapers, magazines, TV networks and satellite service providers, has extensive influence in France’s political and legal bodies. Moreover, the Zionist lobby has a lot of lucrative businesses and financial institutions under its control.
The Zionist lobby in Israel has also formed certain groups for defaming, suing and even bringing to trial the individuals and groups which do not assert Israel’s interests. The French Union of Jewish students, the union of Jewish merchants in France, the SOS Racisme (established by the French Socialist Party to curry favor with Israel), the Organization of Lawyers without Borders France and the Anti-Defamation League are some examples.
French parties and the Zionist lobby
In domestic politics, some of the political parties are in competition with each other to forge friendly ties with Israel due to their need of pro-Israeli funds for victory in elections.
One of the examples of the Zionist Lobby’s sway in France is the naming of one the key roundabouts in Paris as David Ben-Gurion by the council of the city, which is comprised of rightist and socialist parties. Interestingly, the socialist mayor of Paris performed the ceremony with Shimon Peres.
Moreover, there are other Parisian squares named after the Zionist leaders such as Theodor Herzl and Yitzhak Rabin.
In 2012, around 112 French lawmakers, both rightists and leftists, held a festival in support of Israel. The move was aimed at opposing Palestine’s UN membership. The French parliamentarians stood up singing Israel’s national anthem.
The influence of the Zionist lobby in France reaches its peak during the election campaign in the country where each candidate competes with the others to ingratiate itself with Israel.
Among the French parties, the Socialist party has the closest ties with Israel and it adjusts most of its work plans, particularly vis-à-vis foreign policy, with the officials in Tel Aviv. The recent stance of Socialist French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius regarding the nuclear talks with Iran was aligned with his illogical compliance with Tel Aviv’s policies towards Tehran.
Israel-France intelligence and security cooperation
Apart from the poisoning of Yaser Arafat, the former president of the Palestinian National Authority, and his hospitalization at a military hospital in Paris — which was a sort of French-Israeli intelligence and security coordination – the history of Paris-Tel Aviv ties is fraught with such cooperation.
From the outset of the fake Israeli regime, the French government authorized its intelligence apparatus to cooperate with the Mossad elements in assassinations of Arab and Palestinian fighters.
In 1965, under the presidency of Charles De Gaulle, Mossad abducted Mehdi Ben Barka, an opponent to King Hassan II, in cooperation with the French intelligence service. In 1972, Mossad killed Palestine Liberation Organization’s Representative to Paris, Mahmoud Al-Hamshri in cooperation with French intelligence elements.
Moreover, in the judiciary section, the French government has always acted in accordance with the interests of the Zionist lobby, the trial of Roger Garaudy, the writer of The Founding Myths of Israeli Politics, being an example.
Most of the world media are under the Zionist lobby’s sway and, using this powerful tool, they have managed to control world public opinion. That’s why when a media outlet moves in the path of actually informing the public, they spare no effort to prevent its activities.
The Zionist lobby in France puts pressure on the companies which provide services to the anti-Zionist satellite networks. The pressures by the Zionist lobby on the French Satellite service provider Eutelsat to stop the broadcasting of al-Manar, al-Alam, Press TV, Sahar and other networks is another example of such media sway.
Generally speaking, the Zionist lobby in France is enormously powerful in different spheres, despite its unpopularity among the French public. It has tried hard to portray Israelis as oppressed people. However, given the growth in public awareness, the information revolution and expansion of information dissemination tools, Zionism can no longer dominate public opinion.
The domineering and greedy nature of the Zionist regime and the futility of its claims about its opponents are being unmasked on a daily basis. This will lead to mounting pressure of public opinion’s pressure on the politicians. Nonetheless, for the time being, the majority of French politicians need the money and economic leverage of the Zionist lobby for the achievement of their objectives and the French media have to keep silent in order to survive and avoid the anti-Semitism tag.
In other words, at present France is under the domination of Zionists and their supporters, but the French public is gradually becoming aware of the fact.
~
Tahmineh Bakhtiari is an Iranian journalist and an expert on the Middle East and Latin America. Her writings have appeared in many print and online journals and newspapers including The Khorassan Daily, Jam-e Jam, Jomhuri Islami and Aftrab-e Yazd. Her book ‘The Genealogy of Zionism’ was published in 2001. Bakhtiari has a master’s degree in international relations.
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US, France playing good cop-bad cop in Iran talks
RT | November 9, 2013
America and France are playing ‘good cop-bad cop’ in the P5 + 1 talks with Iran over its nuclear program, so that Washington’s position would sound more reasonable, Robert Harneis, a journalist and political analyst has told RT.
Six major world powers and Iran are holding negotiations in Geneva over Tehran’s highly-disputed nuclear program.
RT: France seems to be the most skeptical of the negotiating nations about the outcome of the talks. What’s behind its skepticism?
Robert Harneis: It is always a little difficult to understand the position of the French here. They seem to take an extreme position all the time. There are a number of reasons for this. The first is that they are playing ‘good cop-bad cop’ with the Americans. Obama is suddenly being much more reasonable in his attitude with the Iranians, and the French are out there on the flank saying “Oh, you mustn’t agree too easily, Israel must be protected,” and so on. In a sense that’s, if you like, playing the game of the Americans so that they can sound more reasonable, the French sound more unreasonable.
There is another factor, which is that everybody knows the enormous pressure of the Israeli lobby in America. It’s not quite so well-known that it’s pretty considerable in France as well.
RT: The French Foreign Minister said Israel’s position must be taken into consideration. Why such concern for Israel when even Washington called Netanyahu’s condemnation of the deal ‘premature’?
RH: Yes, it’s interesting, isn’t it, that Mr. Netanyahu has said that the deal had been concluded. Everybody else is saying it hasn’t. At any rate, the position of the French, I think, is to say things that the Americans don’t want to say at the moment. I think that’s at the bottom of it, because frankly this posturing by the French President and the French Foreign Minister makes France look pretty ridiculous on the domestic front. There is a great deal of mockery of Laurent Fabius and his very aggressive statements internally in France.
RT: We’re used to the US being one of Tehran’s harshest opponents. Do you feel that Washington’s stance is genuinely changing?
RH: Well, one would like to hope – let’s put it this way – that this is a real diplomatic revolution. The Americans ever since 1979, when the embassy drama took place in Iran, have had this slightly ridiculous, slightly vengeful obsession about dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat.
As far as anybody can tell and as far as the American security services themselves say, there is no Iranian nuclear threat. The Israelis, on the other hand, have 300 nuclear weapons. So the situation is a trifle absurd as it often is with western foreign policies.
And there are signs Obama is trying to put American foreign policy on a more sensible track. Why not have sensible relations with Iran – this is being asked in the US after all. For years, with the threat of the Soviet Union, they had no difficulty negotiating with [Mikhail] Gorbachev and men a lot more difficult than him. So, why can’t we negotiate with Iranians? Why do we have to take this ridiculous attitude that they cannot have what France, Britain, the US have – which is nuclear protection. And the Iranians say they don’t want it anyway.
So, it’s a difficult one to quite work out. But it could be that there is a real revolution taking place and the Americans are going to change their stance because they need to do business with Iran really.
RT: Finally, what are your personal predictions? Will the sides involved manage to overcome their disagreements and strike a deal in the near future?
RH: Well, if I had to take my reputation as profit on the line, I would say that there is going to be a deal. Because they are, after all, talking only about a six-month deal, as far as we can understand it. A suspended sentence, so to speak. With the problems of gas pipelines from Iran to Europe, which Europe needs badly for its Nabucco pipeline – which has no gas without the Iranians – I think there is a very strong probability. And they’d just love to get in there and have all the contracts for rebuilding Iran. So, I hope it’s a real revolution.
Britain’s GCHQ shepherding mass surveillance operations throughout Europe
RT | November 2, 2013
British intelligence agency GCHQ has helped counterpart entities in France, Germany, Spain, and Sweden develop methods of mass surveillance of internet and phone traffic in the last five years, a new report reveals.
Documents supplied by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden to the Guardian show the UK Government Communications Headquarters’ (GCHQ) enormous influence throughout Europe. The documents detail how the agency developed and promoted spying processes, built relationships with telecommunication companies, and evaded national laws that constrain the surveillance powers of intelligence agencies.
In the wake of outrage expressed over the past week across Europe regarding newly exposed NSA surveillance of European countries – including intercepted communications and the monitoring of phones belonging to officials such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel – documents released Friday by the Guardian show major European countries’ culpability in mass surveillance efforts shepherded by the GCHQ.
The GCHQ is part of the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence-sharing partnership between Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States.
US intelligence officials said the monitoring that received so much indignation from powers like Germany and France was carried out by those countries’ own intelligence agencies and later shared with the US.
In June, the Guardian revealed the GCHQ’s Tempora program, in which the agency tapped into transatlantic fiber-optic cables to execute bulk surveillance. Germany’s justice minister, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, said at the time that the program sounded “like a Hollywood nightmare” and warned that free societies and actions hidden under “a veil of secrecy” are not compatible.
A nation-by-nation scorecard
In a 2008 survey of European partners, the GCHQ marveled at Germany’s capabilities to produce Tempora-like surveillance. The British service said the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) had “huge technological potential and good access to the heart of the internet – they are already seeing some bearers running at 40Gbps and 100Gbps.” The term ‘bearers’ refers to the fiber-optic cables. Gigabits per second (Gbps) measures the speed at which data runs through them.
The documents also show the British were advising German counterparts on how to change or evade laws that restricted advanced surveillance efforts. “We have been assisting the BND (along with SIS [Secret Intelligence Service] and Security Service) in making the case for reform or reinterpretation of the very restrictive interception legislation in Germany,” the survey says.
The report also lauds the GCHQ’s French partner, the General Directorate for External Security (DGSE), especially for its cozy relationship with an unnamed telecommunications company.
“DGSE are a highly motivated, technically competent partner, who have shown great willingness to engage on IP [internet protocol] issues, and to work with GCHQ on a ‘cooperate and share’ basis.”
The GCHQ expressed desire to benefit from the DGSE’s relationship with the company.
“We have made contact with the DGSE’s main industry partner, who has some innovative approaches to some internet challenges, raising the potential for GCHQ to make use of this company in the protocol development arena.”
The GCHQ’s work with its French counterpart led to improved capabilities to carry out bulk surveillance, despite growing commercial emphasis on encryption.
“Very friendly crypt meeting with DGSE in July,” British officials said. French intelligence officials were “clearly very keen to provide presentations on their work which included cipher detection in high-speed bearers. [GCHQ’s] challenge is to ensure that we have enough UK capability to support a longer term crypt relationship.”
New opportunities in future partnerships
GCHQ ties to Spain’s intelligence service, the National Intelligence Centre (CNI), were bolstered by Spain’s connections to an unnamed British telecom company, giving them “fresh opportunities and uncovering some surprising results.
“GCHQ has not yet engaged with CNI formally on IP exploitation, but the CNI have been making great strides through their relationship with a UK commercial partner. GCHQ and the commercial partner have been able to coordinate their approach. The commercial partner has provided the CNI some equipment whilst keeping us informed, enabling us to invite the CNI across for IP-focused discussions this autumn,” the survey said. It reported that the GCHQ “have found a very capable counterpart in CNI, particularly in the field of Covert Internet Ops.”
When Sweden passed a 2008 law allowing its National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA) to execute Tempora-like surveillance via fiber-optic cables, the GCHQ said in the report that “FRA have obtained a…probe to use as a test-bed and we expect them to make rapid progress in IP exploitation following the law change.” The GCHQ went on to express delight in future partnerships with FRA after the law passed.
The survey found strong ties between the GCHQ and Dutch external and internal intelligence services MIVD and AIVD, respectively.
“Both agencies are small, by UK standards, but are technically competent and highly motivated,” British officials said.
The GCHQ also helped AIVD in handling legal constraints to spying.
“The Dutch have some legislative issues that they need to work through before their legal environment would allow them to operate in the way that GCHQ does. We are providing legal advice on how we have tackled some of these issues to Dutch lawyers.”
Contrary to the other nations’ positive marks, the GCHQ country-by-country scorecard shows Italy’s intelligence agencies to be riddled with internal strife.
“GCHQ has had some CT [counter-terrorism] and internet-focused discussions with both the foreign intelligence agency (AISE) and the security service (AISI), but has found the Italian intelligence community to be fractured and unable/unwilling to cooperate with one another,” the report said.
A follow-up six months later noted the GCHQ still saw legal constraints in Italy as hampering AISI’s ability to cooperate.
This latest disclosure calls into question how involved the countries were in the overall surveillance of global citizens and world leaders led by the NSA and GCHQ.
Iran sanctions force historic plant closure for Peugeot
Press TV – October 25, 2013
With European auto sales near a 20-year low, it’s unthinkable that an automaker would willingly cut ties with its largest foreign client. But in February 2012 Peugeot did just that by severing ties with Iran. The move was forced by its new partner, General Motors, which had just been bailed out by the US government.
The decision has cost an estimated €4 billion in lost sales and helped force 8,000 job cuts. In France’s first such industrial closure in two decades, the last car has just rolled off the line at a plant located in a heavily-Muslim suburb of Paris.
Via a partnership with automaker Iran Khodro, in 2011 Iran accounted for 13% of Peugeot’s annual sales. The cars were assembled in Iran, giving domestic autoworkers valuable experience and helping Iran to become one of the world’s top 20 auto-producing countries.
The French press has largely remained silent on the key role Iran sanctions have played in damaging Peugeot, despite pleas from union leaders.
Ironically, giving up the Iranian market seems to have been in vain, as multiple sources have reported that GM has significantly scaled back its alliance with Peugeot. If the sanctions on Iran were designed to inflict the maximum amount of pain on Peugeot, they may have achieved their goal.
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‘Unacceptable and shocking’: France demands explanation for NSA spying
RT |October 21, 2013
France has called for an explanation for the “unacceptable” and “shocking” reports of NSA spying on French citizens. Leaked documents revealed the spy agency records millions of phone calls and monitors politicians and high-profile business people.
The US Ambassador to France Charles Rivkin was summoned by the French Foreign Ministry to account for the espionage allegations on Monday morning.
“I have immediately summoned the US ambassador and he will be received this morning at the Quai d’Orsay [the French Foreign Ministry],” French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told press. He added that “we must quickly assure that these practices aren’t repeated.”
In addition, citing the report on French publication Le Monde, Interior Minister Manuel Valls spoke out on national television against US spy practices.
“The revelations in Le Monde are shocking and demand adequate explanations from the American authorities in the coming hours,” said Valls on television channel Europe 1.
He went on to say that it is totally unacceptable for an allied country to spy on France.
Ambassador Rivkin refrained from commenting on the spy allegations on Monday morning and told Reuters that French-US ties are the “best they have been for a generation.”
Le Monde revealed in a report based on the security leaks of former CIA worker Edward Snowden that the NSA recorded 70.3 million phone calls between December 10, 2012, and January 8, 2013.
The NSA reportedly carries out its espionage in France using a program called ‘US-985D’ which is able to listen in on specific telephone calls and pick up on text messages according to key words used.
Moreover, Le Monde also wrote that it had reason to believe that the spying was not just limited to citizens suspected of being involved in terrorism. According to the data released by Snowden the NSA also eavesdropped on politicians and prominent business figures.
The newspaper did not give any indications as to the identity of the high-profile people.
France is not the only EU nation to be targeted by NSA surveillance. Germany took issue with the US government after it was revealed the NSA was tapping phone lines and recording electronic data in the country.
The EU will take steps to curtail US data mining on Monday in a vote to change data protection rules. The European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties is expected to decide on the issue that would authorize fines for violation of EU data protection.
‘Investment benefits’
The US maintains that its spying activities are in the interests of national security and protect against terrorism. However, Snowden leaks released by Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald showed the NSA had monitored Brazilian state-owned oil giant Petrobras and infiltrated the electronic communications of the Brazilian and Mexican presidents.
Mexico has also demanded an explanation for reports released by Der Spiegel on extensive spying on Mexican top officials and politicians.
Der Spiegal revealed that former President Felipe Calderon had also been a target for NSA espionage. Citing a classified internal report, it said the US monitors “diplomatic, economic and leadership communications which continue to provide insight into Mexico’s political system and internal stability.”
European companies likely to be losers in US-Iran rapprochement
RT | October 9, 2013
If the sanctions against Iran are lifted, the Iranians will look mainly towards American firms in the oil and automobile sector to fill the gap, George Malbrunot, a journalist for French newspaper Le Figaro, told RT.
RT: Both Iran and the US are signaling a thaw in their political relations – what effect will it this have on economic ties and business? Does it look like the US is attempting to force out other companies from the Iranian market?
George Malbrunot: I think already there have been some secret contacts between US firms and Iranian counterparts in order to prepare, to anticipate the political deal between Iran and the United States. Mainly these contacts have occurred in the automobile sector. For the last year or more there have been some emissaries from General Motors, for example, going to Tehran to see their Iranian counterparts from Iran Khodro, in order to prepare the ground for the [return] of General Motors to Iran, which was very important before 1979.
So there are these kind of contacts with not only GM but other big US companies, also in the oil and gas sectors, which are very important in Iran, and it has been encouraged recently by the executive order that Barack Obama signed on June, 3, which prevents subcontractors dealing with Iranian firms in the automobile sector. And in fact this executive order was deeply targeting the French who are the only one now in the automobile sector in Iran, especially Renault, and the French contractors are very upset about that. And they interpret it as an attempt to clean the Iranian market before the return of US companies in Iran.RT: In your article, you say American companies are securing their positions on the Iranian market – how is this happening?
GM: For the last six months, we’ve heard from Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomenei, that we are not any more opposed to direct contacts with the US. The businessmen are always more active in anticipating political deals and to anticipate change. During all these years of bad relations between Iran and the US there have always been some kind of secret contacts between US firms and Iranian firms. And mainly these contacts have been accelerated after the election of President Rouhani in Iran. And we’ve all seen at the last UN General Assembly in New York last month that now the Iranians are talking to the Americans. So there are preparations on the ground in order to go to Iran which is a huge market, 80 million consumers, with huge oil and gas resources, so it’s natural that US businessmen are watching very carefully the developments which happen between Iran and the US.
And not only US businessmen are very [eager] to go to Iran, but you have also the German businessmen, who have always been active, with Siemens for example, and even the British who have no diplomatic relations with Iran are now starting to [study] this market carefully. The Japanese are also very active. And unfortunately for us in France, we are perhaps the last in Europe to try to go to Iran, because for the last [few] years France was extremely active in fighting against Iran. France was exerting the pressure on Iran in order to implement the sanctions. So the French businessmen are very upset with what’s going on now, because for the last 20 years the US was [not in] Iran, and French businessmen had quite a good position in Iran – Total, Peugeot, Renault – and now they are afraid that all these years of efforts will be [wiped away] by the new deal which will happen between the US and Iran.
RT: Do you think we will be seeing an easing of sanctions against Iran soon?
GM: I think so, and the Iranians are a very proud nation and they have been always having very strange relations with Americans, love and hate, and once the sanctions will be lifted I’m quite sure the Iranians will look mainly toward American firms in the oil sector, in the automobile sector to fill the gap. So for sure European companies will be more probably losers in this kind of agreement.
I think that GM and even Chevrolet will go extremely quickly to Iran if there is a political agreement between the US and Iran, if the sanctions are lifted. I’m not sure that the Iranians will give a lot of pieces of the cake to French companies or others on this issue. And this is the reason why French companies are very worried about what’s going on in the shadow of this rapprochement between the US and Iran.
Pope calls on world leaders to abandon military options in Syria
RT | September 5, 2013
Pope Francis called on world leaders attending the G20 summit in Russia to seek peace in Syria through diplomatic means and to lay aside the “futile pursuit” of a military solution.
In a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is hosting the G20 summit, Francis said that lopsided global interests have blocked a diplomatic course in the Syrian conflict and have led to the “senseless massacre” of innocent people.
“To the leaders present, to each and every one, I make a heartfelt appeal for them to help find ways to overcome the conflicting positions and to lay aside the futile pursuit of a military solution,” Francis wrote.
The letter follows an announcement earlier this week that the Vatican will host a vigil for peace in Syria in St. Peter’s Square on Saturday.
The Vatican outlined Thursday its position on Syria to ambassadors accredited to the Holy See.
“Confronted with similar acts one cannot remain silent, and the Holy See hopes that the competent institutions make clear what happened and that those responsible face justice,” the Vatican’s Foreign Minister, Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, told the 71 ambassadors regarding the chemical weapons attack that took place outside Damascus on August 21. The US and its allies believe the attack was launched by the Syrian government.
Mamberti said the main priority was to stop the violence which he said is risking the involvement of other countries and creating “unforeseeable consequences in various parts of the world.”
He did not mention possible military strikes by the US, but stressed peace in all facets of a potential solution to the violent conflict.
In addition, Mamberti said the Vatican does not want Syria to be split up along ethnic or religious lines, and that Syrian minorities – including Christians – should have basic rights guaranteed, including freedom of religion.
The Assad regime in Syria has long supported ethnic and religious minorities including Christians, Shiite Muslims, and Kurds. The Assad family and many regime officials are Alawites, followers of an offshoot of Shiite Islam, while most rebels and their supporters are Sunni Muslims.
On Wednesday, the head of the Vatican’s Jesuit order, Rev. Adolfo Nicolas, said that military action by the US and France would ultimately punish the Syrian people.
“I cannot understand who gave the United States or France the right to act against a country in a way that will certainly increase the suffering of the citizens of that country, who, by the way, have already suffered beyond measure,” he said.
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The Zeolite Book — First Edition, 2026, Paperback
The volcanic mineral medicine will not patent — for the toxic burden medicine will not name
Lies are Unbekoming – October 30, 2026
Zeolite is old. It is in Roman concrete that has held for two thousand years. It’s in the water filters of ancient cisterns. It’s in the stomachs of Pacific livestock whose keepers knew, somehow, that this grey crumbling rock made the animals healthier. It’s in Soviet clinical protocols from the 1960s. It’s in the standard emergency response to the Chernobyl explosion.
In 1986, after the Chernobyl reactor failure, the Soviet Union manufactured and distributed natural zeolite at industrial scale — for soil remediation, for livestock feed, for human consumption, for the cleanup itself. Karl Hecht, who had been director of the Institute for Experimental and Clinical Pathophysiology at the Charité of Humboldt University Berlin, spent the six decades after that building the clinical research base — on silicon’s role in human health, on zeolite’s clinical safety, on its applications in ageing. In 2018, Pavelić and colleagues published a comprehensive clinical safety review of natural clinoptilolite in Frontiers in Pharmacology. In 2019, Mastinu analysed its binding affinities. In the Western medical literature, these works sit largely uncited.
What has not been treated at book length, until now, is how a volcanic mineral with six decades of Soviet clinical work behind it, two major peer-reviewed Western reviews, and ongoing clinical use across the former Eastern Bloc, remains almost entirely absent from Western medical practice — and what the toxic burden it’s meant to address actually is.
The Zeolite Book gathers the Soviet clinical record, the Western peer-reviewed studies, three contemporary practitioner voices, and three serious counterviews into one honest treatment. That’s why the book runs to seven appendices. 288 pages, four parts, three practitioner voices, three counterviews, seven appendices. The honest treatment is the argument.
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