Tuesday, January 27, 2009
US Failed to Stop Iran Arms Bound for Gaza
Anne Gearan reports from Washington:The nation's top military officer said Tuesday the United States did all it could to intercept a suspected arms shipment to Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, but its hands were tied.
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Separately, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other U.S. officials said it is too soon to tell whether the prospect of new U.S. engagement with Iran will bear fruit.
Mullen confirmed that a Cypriot-flagged ship intercepted in the Red Sea last week was carrying Iranian arms and that U.S. authorities suspect that the shipment was ultimately bound for the Gaza Strip, where Hamas and Israel are observing a shaky truce after three weeks of fighting.Iran's Influence in Latin America Concerns Gates
Dateline USA....
Gates got it right.
The U.S. Defense Secretary told Senators Tuesday that although much attention was given to Russia's recent courting of some Latin American countries, he is more concerned about new activities of Iran in the region. Robert Gates told the Senate Armed Services Committee he is worried about efforts by the Iranian government to gain influence in Latin America.
"I'm concerned about the level of, frankly, subversive activity the Iranians are carrying on in a number of places in Latin America, particularly South America and Central America," Gates said. "They're opening a lot of offices and a lot of fronts behind which they interfere with what is going on in some of these countries."
Russia and China
Other countries, including Russia and China, have also stepped up their presence in Latin America, where the United States has historically had the biggest influence. Russia caused concern to the region last November when it sent a fleet of ships to conduct joint naval exercises with Venezuela. In December, a Russian destroyer also passed through the Panama Canal for the first time since World War II.
But a plunge in the world's oil prices has severely curbed Russia's income and its ability to build up its navy, Gates said.
"At $40 oil, the Russian navy does not bother me very much," he said. "This is the first time they've had an out of area exercise in a decade or so; it's important for us to keep perspective about their capabilities."
Tense Relationship
Russia has had a tense relationship with the West since its troops invaded Georgia in August. Gates said the U.S. is taking Russian activity in Latin America in stride.
"I felt that our best response to the Russian ship visits to Venezuela was nonchalance," he said. "In fact, if it hadn't been for the events in Georgia in August, I probably would've tried to persuade the president to invite the Russian ships to pay a port call in Miami, because I think they would've had a lot better time than they did in Caracas."
Russian officials denied that the maneuvers were meant to provoke the United States. President Dimitri Medevedev and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez defended cooperative agreements they signed in November, saying they would help to create a "multi-polar" world that is not dominated by a single power.Our Gold and Silver Forecasts
The China Confidential near-term forecast for gold is for the precious metal to trade between $950 and $1,000 an ounce.
Silver could hit $14 an ounce.Clinton Upholds Israel's Right to Self-Defense
Dateline USA....
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Tuesday that Israel had a right to defend itself and that Palestinian rocket attacks on the Jewish territory could not go unanswered.
"We support Israel's right to self-defense. The [Palestinian] rocket barrages which are getting closer and closer to populated areas [in Israel] cannot go unanswered," Clinton said in her first news conference at the State Department.
"It is regrettable that the Hamas leadership apparently believes that it is in their interest to provoke the right of self-defense instead of building a better future for the people of Gaza," she added.
Clinton also said that U.S. President Barack Obama's first days in office have made it clear that a more open Iranian approach to the international community could benefit Iran. She said this was reflected in statements Obama made in an interview Monday with an Arab TV network.
"There is a clear opportunity for the Iranians, as the president expressed in his interview, to demonstrate some willingness to engage meaningfully with the international community," she said. "Whether or not that hand becomes less clenched is really up to them."Iran Calls Holocaust 'Big Lie'
As the Obama administration prepares for direct diplomacy with Iran over its nuclear program, Tehran's Hitlerian, Islamist regime is apparently escalating its campaign to delegitimize and demonize America's ally, Israel.
AFP reports:Iran's government spokesman on Tuesday branded the Holocaust a "big lie" created to place the Islamic republic's arch-foe Israel in the Middle East, the state IRNA news agency reported.
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"The Holocaust is a concept coming from a big lie in order to settle a rootless regime in the heart of the Islamic world," Gholam Hossein Elham told a conference on Gaza in central Iran's religious city of Qom.
Wednesday, 28 January 2009
Dateline USA....
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