'Let's nuke America'
Unfortunately,
this joke is not very funny (Hat Tip:
Jack).
Both men hugged, beamed, held hands and showered each other with praise, making macabre jokes which appeared to threaten the U.S., the principal enemy of both leaders.
Mr Chavez said that he was hiding a bomb under a grassy knoll before the steps of the presidential palace, saying: 'That hill will open up and a big atomic bomb will come out.'
As the two men laughed, he added: 'The imperialist spokesmen say Ahmadinejad and I are going into the basement now to set our sights on Washington and launch cannons and missiles... It's laughable.'
During a welcome ceremony for Mr Ahmadinejad, the speeches were mostly limited to mutual adulation and anti-U.S. snipes.
Mr Chavez said: 'The imperialist madness has been unleashed in a way that has not been seen for a long time.'
Mr Ahmadinejad called his host, who is recovering from cancer, 'the champion in the war on imperialism'.
And Obama laughs along with them, not taking the threat seriously.
What could go wrong?
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Hugo Chavez, Iranian nuclear threat, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Venezuelan nuclear plant
Iran placing ballistic missiles in Venezuela that can reach the US
If any of you in the US still think Iran is only a threat to Israel and the Gulf countries, and therefore wonder why you should be at all concerned about it, perhaps this will change your mind: Iran is placing medium-range missiles that can
reach the United States in Venezuela.
According to Die Welt, Venezuela has agreed to allow Iran to establish a military base manned by Iranian missile officers, soldiers of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Venezuelan missile officers. In addition, Iran has given permission for the missiles to be used in case of an "emergency". In return, the agreement states that Venezuela can use these facilities for "national needs" – radically increasing the threat to neighbors like Colombia. The German daily claims that according to the agreement, Iranian Shahab 3 (range 1300-1500 km), Scud-B (285-330 km) and Scud-C (300, 500 and 700 km) will be deployed in the proposed base. It says that Iran also pledged to help Venezuela in rocket technology expertise, including intensive training of officers
Venezuela has also become the country through which Iran intends to bypass UN sanctions. Following a new round of UN sanctions against the Islamic Republic, for example, Russia decided not to sell five battalions of S-300PMU-1 air defence systems to Iran. These weapons, along with a number of other weapons, were part of a deal, signed in 2007, worth $800 million. Now that these weapons cannot be delivered to Iran, Russia is looking for new customers; according to the Russian press agency Novosti[2], it found one: Venezuela.
Novosti reports the words of Igor Korotchenko, head of a Moscow-based think tank on international arms trade, saying that if the S-300 deal with Venezuela goes through, Caracas should pay cash for the missiles, rather than take another loan from Russia. "The S-300 is a very good product and Venezuela should pay the full amount in cash, as the country's budget has enough funds to cover the deal ," Korotchenko said. Moscow has already provided Caracas with several loans to buy Russian-made weaponry, including a recent $2.2-mln loan on the purchase of 92 T-72M1M tanks, the Smerch multiple-launch rocket systems and other military equipment.
If Iran, therefore, cannot get the S-300 missiles directly from Russia, it can still have them through its proxy, Venezuela, and deploy them against its staunchest enemy, the U.S..
And for those of you making the obvious comparison to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis....
Back in the 1962, thanks to the stern stance adopted by the then Kennedy administration, the crisis was defused
Nowadays, however, we do not see the same firmness from the present administration. On the contrary, we see a lax attitude, both in language and in deeds, that results in extending hands when our adversaries have no intention of shaking hands with us. Iran is soon going to have a nuclear weapon, and there are no signs that UN sanctions will in any way deter the Ayatollah's regime from completing its nuclear program. We know that Iran already has missiles that can carry an atomic warhead over Israel and over the Arabian Peninsula. Now we learn that Iran is planning to build a missile base close to the US borders. How longer do we have to wait before the Obama administration begins to understand threats?
The issue isn't that they don't understand. The issue is that they don't care.
What could go wrong?
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Hugo Chavez, intermediate range ballistic missiles, Iranian nuclear program, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Venezuelan nuclear plant
Iran mines its own uranium
Iranian nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi announced on Sunday that Iran has succeeded in manufacturing its own '
yellowcake powder' which is the type of uranium that is used in making nuclear weapons.
Nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi said the uranium ore concentrate, known as yellowcake, was produced at the Gachin uranium mine in southern Iran and delivered to the uranium conversion facility in the central city of Isfahan for reprocessing.
Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said the delivery was evidence that last week's assassination of a top Iranian nuclear scientist and the wounding of another in mysterious bombings will not hamper Iran's nuclear progress.
"Today, we witnessed the shipment of the first domestically produced yellowcake ... from Gachin mine to the Isfahan nuclear facility," said Salehi, whose comments were broadcast live on state television.
Iran is under four sets of UN Security Council sanctions that forbid the supply of nuclear materials to Tehran.
In 2009, Western nations claimed Iran was running out of raw uranium for its nuclear program. Tehran issued denials but, whatever the truth, has in recent years sought to extract uranium from its own deposits.
Iran acquired a considerable stock of yellowcake from South Africa in the 1970s under the former US-backed shah's original nuclear program, as well as unspecified quantities of yellowcake obtained from China long before the UN sanctions.
Salehi, who is also the country's vice president, said the step meant Iran was now self-sufficient over the entire nuclear fuel cycle — from extracting uranium ore to enriching it and producing nuclear fuel.
He added that the message to those meeting with Iran in Geneva on Monday and Tuesday was that they cannot stop Iran's nuclear work.
Meanwhile, Iran is helping
Bolivia and Venezuela to build nuclear plants, which will put them right on the United States' doorstep.
Bolivian President Evo Morales went to Tehran on October 24 for a three-day state visit. During it, Iran offered to help Bolivia establish a nuclear plant, but the two presidents did not discuss anything concerning uranium. Bolivia apparently wants to do studies, analyses and investigations before being able to speak about the subject. The manager of the vanishing resources division of the Mining Ministry, Luis Alberto Echazu, said there is a uranium deposit in Cotaje, Potosi; and that small quantities of the radioactive element were extracted from there in 1974.
According an Israeli government report, Bolivia, along with Venezuela is supplying Iran with uranium for its nuclear program. The document stresses that Venezuela and Bolivia are violating the United Nations Security Council's economic sanctions with their aid to Iran, concluding that "Since Ahmadinejad's rise to power, Tehran has been promoting an aggressive policy aimed at bolstering its ties with Latin American countries with the declared goal of 'bringing America to its knees.'"
Less than two months ago, Tehran extended La Paz a credit line of about $287 million as development aid, particularly for mineral exploration and the textile industry. In 2007, Iranian President Ahmadinejad became the first Iranian chief executive to visit Bolivia. During the trip, the two countries signed an agreement on conducting joint projects worth $1.1 billion over the next five years. The amount of money is significant for a country like Bolivia, whose annual GDP barely reaches $9 billion.
And Iran has a date with the P 5+1 on Monday, so that we can stop sanctioning and start 'negotiating.' What could go wrong?
Labels: Bolivian nuclear plant, Iranian nuclear program, Venezuelan nuclear plant, yellowcake uranium powder
Unfortunately, this joke is not very funny (Hat Tip: Jack). 
What could go wrong?
