In The News: Saturday Edition

Iran Readies Secret Salt Desert Bunkers For Clandestine Nuclear Facilities

Iran had by the end of 2009 early 2012 completed the construction of a new chain of underground facilities deep inside the Dasht e-Kavir (Great Salt Desert) - all linked together by huge tunnels.

Nevertheless, Tehran keeps on putting off nuclear watchdog inspections at Parchin for three reasons:

1. To carry on squeezing concessions from the US in private talks between the Obama administration and Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as from the Six Powers at their formal negotiations. Iran has won permission to enriching uranium up to 5 percent purity and is after approval for the 20 percent which is close to weapon grade.

2. The Iranians can’t be sure they have scrubbed out every last trace of the nuclear explosives and detonators tested at the Parchin military base – even after clearing away the evidence and relocating the facility in the salt desert wastelands.

3. To guarantee that the IAEA inspection at Parchin will be the last and there will no further demands for visits to any more suspect sites.

To arrest the perilous slide toward letting Iran off the hook, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu sent his National Security Advisers Yaacov Amidror to the capitals of four of the six powers, Moscow, Berlin, London and Paris last week. His mission was to persuade their governments not to allow international inspections to stop at Parchin but to keep Iran’s nuclear activities under tight supervision.

Israeli leaders battling Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapon therefore find themselves fighting to keep their military option from being snatched off the table by antagonists at home.

Tehran is cannily exploiting the diplomatic track to get rid of international inspections after Parchin and so gain the freedom to proceed with building a nuclear arsenal in the Salt Desert far from the world’s sight.

The Israeli ex-security chiefs and former politicians are focusing on preventing an Israeli attack to pre-empt a nuclear Iran. They know exactly what is at stake but are so eager to topple Netanyahu and Barak that they are more than ready to pay the price of letting Iran get away with acquiring a nuclear bomb.

The following story is important because we know that Ahmadinejad considers himself as the key person who will set the stage for the Mahdi's arrival, a stage that involved full scale war with Israel. His clock is officially ticking:

Ahmadinejad Suffers Setbacks In Run-Off Elections

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, now out of favor with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, suffered more setbacks in a run-off parliamentary election seen as a pointer for next year's presidential race, results showed on Saturday.

Results announced by the Interior Ministry showed the United Principalist Front, closely linked with Khamenei and critical of Ahmadinejad, leading Friday's vote, but with the hardline Resistance Front of the Islamic Revolution close behind.

Gloom Builds For Euro Zone, United States

The euro zone economy worsened markedly last month and U.S. employers cut back on hiring, according to two reports on Friday that dampened hopes for gradual recovery on either side of the Atlantic.

In Europe, the purchasing managers indexes (PMIs), which primarily cover services, suggested a recession across the continent's currency union could now extend to mid-year and be deeper than previously thought.

The gloomy surveys clashed with the picture painted by European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, who on Thursday spoke of a gradual recovery taking place in the euro zone during the course of the year - although he did speak about risks.

With unemployment already at a 15-year high in the euro zone, the surveys suggested there will be no let-up in the number of job losses soon.

Hiring in the United States has now slowed for a third straight month, and the slump could open the door slightly wider for the U.S. Federal Reserve to do more to help the economy.

The report showed that the participation rate, a measure of how many Americans are looking for work, fell to a 30-year low at 63.6 percent of the population, as more people dropped out.

U.S. government bonds declined on Friday, while the dollar slid against the yen.

Security Plan Shuts Down Roads, South Loop For NATO Summit Weekend

A large security zone around McCormick Place will be off limits to Chicagoans, and the Museum Campus, Lake Shore Drive and several major expressways and streets will be shut down before or during the NATO Summit, under a plan revealed on Friday.

All of this comes on top of a large restricted air space zone above the city. Anybody violating that airspace could be shot down.

They may be subject to TSA-style pat downs and screenings and they can expect delays for security sweeps. Service may be reduced during the summit, but those details are not yet available. Metra officials said they hoped to have a plan finalized next week.

Context And Analysis: Internment Camps And Re-Education Report

Following is an initial take by a trusted Citizen intelligence researcher and analyst, Denise Simon, given the Gulag at our request. It tends to imply a reason that the Department of Homeland Security is concerned aboutmilitary veterans siding with constitutionalists.

And considering the degree to which these three have bought into the government aggression into and therefore, power over the private lives of Sovereign Citizens of America (for just one example, see their “aye” votes on CISPA, April 26) where does that leave us?

Consider further that the CISPA bill comes under a context of “Global Governance 2025” goals for an endemically compromised United States Intelligence set.

The facts of what our United States’ government (plus those which operate through or bypass it, such as but hardly limited to Agenda 21′s ICLEI) reveal tells of a plan for a controlled population of subjects, not sovereigns, in our country made a vassal state in the suzerainty of inevitably corrupt one-world government. As Lord Acton reflected, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Sinai: The New Egyptian Plague

Since the Egyptian Revolution more than a year ago, there has been a complete breakdown of law and order in the Sinai Peninsula, and Islamic terrorists from Egypt and Gaza have filled the vacuum. The natural gas pipeline from Egypt to Israel has been blown up 14 times. On the eve of Passover, several rockets were fired across the border from Sinai into Israel’s Red Sea resort of Eilat, as the city prepared to host thousands of visitors for the holiday.

The Israeli military says a number of terror groups are active in Sinai, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad and al-Qaeda, and they are planning cross-border attacks. This poses a dilemma for Israel because it cannot freely operate in Sinai, as it would in neighboring Gaza, for fear of further harming the already fragile peace treaty with Egypt.

The Egyptian government has lost control of Sinai, and Bedouin tribes now call the shots in the desert where the children of Israel wandered for 40 years in biblical times. The Bedouin economy thrives on smuggling to Hamas-ruled Gaza.

“One Bedouin source estimates the overall number of weapons in the peninsula at no less than 100,000 pieces of all sorts,” he writes. So Israel has little choice but to allow Egypt to place seven additional battalions in Sinai to secure the 250-kilometer (150-mile) long border. According to the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt, no Egyptian troops are allowed to cross the Suez Canal and be stationed in Sinai, but the regulation was already softened last year. The risk for Israel is high because once Egyptian troops deploy in Sinai they will never leave.

Some Israeli security experts see this as a ploy by Egypt, not to keep the peace but rather to be better prepared for a war with Israel. The United States plays an important role in this situation because it alone has leverage—in the form of nearly $2 billion in annual aid to Egypt. While Islamists now control Egypt, the economy is in shambles, and the US must make it clear that allowing Sinai to become a new launching pad for terrorist attacks on Israel could threaten the financial package. “The danger of a flare-up on that frontier has become a constant concern, with the added risk that local developments in the Sinai could break a fragile bilateral peace,” writes Yaari.

The writing is on the wall. “If I had something to say, our army would already be prepared for a confrontation inSinai,” saidKnesset (parliament) member Benjamin Ben Eliezer, a former general. If anyone knows the Egyptians, then it is Ben Eliezer, who was a personal friend of toppled President Hosni Mubara