Daily Headlines:

Top Commander Reiterates Iran's Commitment To Full Annihilation Of Israel

Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Hassan Firouzabadi said threats and pressures cannot deter Iran from its revolutionary causes and ideals, and stressed that the Iranian nation will remain committed to the full annihilation of the Zionist regime of Israel to the end.

Iran Attack Decision Nears, Israeli Elite Locks Down

In in-depth overview Reuters tries to explain Israeli officials' silence on possible Iran strike. 'They've gone into lockdown mode now,' senior Western diplomat says. 'Whatever happens next, we won't find out until it happens'

"The top of the government has gone into lockdown," one official said. "Nobody is saying anything publicly. That in itself tells you a lot about where things stand."

"I think they have made a decision to attack," said one senior Israeli figure with close ties to the leadership. "It is going to happen. The window of opportunity is before the US presidential election in November. This way they will bounce the Americans into supporting them."

Syrian Revolution Will Not Bring Peace With Israel

There was early hope and speculation as the "Arab Spring" kicked off last year that the ostensibly pro-democracy uprisings would lead to better relations between Israel and its neighbors.

Israeli officials from the beginning cautioned skepticism, and the outcome of Egyptian elections have certainly justified their concerns. With a parliament and possibly a presidency controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt is more hostile toward Israel today than any time since the death of Gamal Abdel Nasser, the nation's second president who launched two wars against the Jewish state.

Syria is now following a similar path, with leading rebel officials making clear that should they seize control of the country, Israel will continue to be regarded as Syria's number one enemy.

Israel is "the main enemy of the Syrian revolution," Syrian opposition leader Burhan Ghalioun told Saudi newspaper al-Youm at the weekend.

Syria's revolution has seen thousands killed as the regime of dictator Bashar Assad brutally clings to power. But the West's blind backing of the opposition forces has come under recent criticism. A number of Christian sources reported that the Sunni Muslim-dominated Syrian opposition has massacred and exiled huge numbers of Christians in the towns it controls.

Netanyahu: Israel Will Not, It Cannot Cede Jerusalem

In his Jerusalem Day speech on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared emphatically that he will never divide Jerusalem, a key Palestinian peace demand.

Speaking at Ammunition Hill, site of a key battle for Jerusalem in the 1967 Six Day War, Netanyahu explained that, contrary to Palestinian claims, dividing Jerusalem will only lead to more conflict.

"Israel without Jerusalem is like a body without a heart. And our heart will never be divided again," Netanyahu promised. "A nation willing to sacrifice its heart will convince its enemies that it is willing to give up on everything."

The Palestinian Authority insists it will not make peace with Israel unless it receives the eastern half of Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount, as its capital. When the Palestinians point to "Jewish settlement activity" as an obstacle to peace, they are also talking about the large Jewish neighborhoods in eastern Jerusalem.

"Bleeding Across The Border": Syria Crisis Reportedly Spilling Over Into Lebanon

Gunmen fired rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns early Monday in intense street battles in the Lebanese capital, wounding six people as fears mounted that the conflict in neighboring Syria was bleeding across the border.

The fighting appeared to be among the worst clashes in Beirut since 2008, erupting hours after an anti-Syrian cleric and his bodyguard were shot dead in northern Lebanon.

Lebanon and Syria share a complex web of political and sectarian ties and rivalries, which are easily enflamed. Last week, clashes sparked by the Syrian crisis killed at least eight people and wounded dozens in the northern city of Tripoli.

The revolt in Syria began 15 months ago, and there are fears the unrest will lead to a regional conflagration that could draw in neighboring countries.

Fukushima Poses Massive Global Risk

More than a year after a devastating earthquake and tsunami triggered a massive nuclear disaster, experts are warning that Japan isn't out of the woods yet and the worst nuclear storm the world has ever seen could be just one earthquake away from reality.

The troubled Reactor 4 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is at the centre of this potential catastrophe.

Reactor 4 -- and to a lesser extent Reactor 3 -- still hold large quantities of cooling waters surrounding spent nuclear fuel, all bound by a fragile concrete pool located 30 metres above the ground, and exposed to the elements.

A magnitude 7 or 7.5 earthquake would likely fracture that pool, and disaster would ensue, says Arnie Gundersen, a nuclear engineer with Fairewinds Energy Education who has visited the site.

The 1,535 spent fuel rods would become exposed to the air and would likely catch fire, with the most-recently added fuel rods igniting first.

The incredible heat generated from that blaze, Gundersen said, could then ignite the older fuel in the cooling pool, causing a massive oxygen-eating radiological fire that could not be extinguished with water.

"So the fear is the newest fuel could begin to burn and then we'd have a conflagration of the whole pool because it would become hotter and hotter. The health consequences of that are beyond where science has ever gone before," Gundersen told CTVNews.ca in an interview from his home in Vermont.

"The No. 4 pool is about 100 feet above ground, is structurally damaged and is exposed to the open elements," Alvarez said in his response. "If an earthquake or other event were to cause this pool to drain this could result in a catastrophic radiological fire involving nearly 10 times the amount of Cesium-137 released by the Chernobyl accident."

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