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German intelligence reports that Iranian scientists have successfully simulated the detonation of a nuclear warhead in laboratory conditions, in an effort to sidestep an underground nuclear test.

The Atomic Energy Organization (AEO) of Iran says the country needs 20 enrichment sites to fulfill its total electricity demand.

December 3, 2009 Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel09/levinson120309.htm FBI Continues to Seek Information about Robert Levinson Retired FBI Special Agent Missing for 1,000 Days Today marks 1,000 days since American citizen Robert Levinson—a retired FBI special agent—went missing on March 9, 2007 during a business trip to Kish Island, Iran. As the FBI is the lead agency in the investigation of the disappearance of Americans overseas, we continue to seek information about Mr. Levinson’s whereabouts, well-being, and the circumstances surrounding his disappearance. Although the FBI has not received any information from Iranian authorities to date about Mr....

Time is running out for Iran to avoid sanctions over its nuclear program, Reuters quoted White House spokesman Robert Gibbs as saying on Thursday. He added that Teheran's deadline is still the end of the year for responding to international demands. Iran has ignored a deal offered by the Western powers that would have Iran sending its low-enriched uranium abroad for processing into uranium for making fuel. Reuters quoted Gibbs as saying it was "pretty clear" that the Iranians were backing out of that agreement. The White House comments came a day after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared that his...

Uh oh. "German intelligence reports that Iranian scientists have successfully simulated the detonation of a nuclear warhead in laboratory conditions, in an effort to sidestep an underground nuclear test like the one that brought the world down on North Korea's head earlier this year," the website Debka reports. From Debka: DEBKAfile's Iranian and intelligence sources report that this development is alarming because detonation is one of the most difficult technological challenges in the development of a nuclear weapon. Mastering it carries Iran past one of the last major obstacles confronting its program for the manufacture of a nuclear warhead. After...

Iran's nuclear weapons program is about so much more than destroying the "Zionist Entity." Iran wants to be a super power on the scale of the United States. Iraq acts like a super power feeding little satellite countries like Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia, Senegal, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. Nothing makes Iran happier than tweaking at the United States because its leadership feels that once it develops nuclear weapons Iran will be on par with the evil Satan, the USA. In September 2008, Iranian Elite forces took charge of the Strait of Hormuz. If they close the Strait, they stop 30%...

German intelligence reports that Iranian scientists have successfully simulated the detonation of a nuclear warhead in laboratory conditions, in an effort to sidestep an underground nuclear test like the one that brought the world down on North Korea's head earlier this year.

Arms smuggling heightens Iran fears U.N. BAN IS DEFIED Tehran may be building arsenal, helping militias By Joby Warrick Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, December 3, 2009 SHARJAH, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES -- The warning came almost too late. The freighter ANL Australia had already fired its engines for a 70-mile dash to Iran when customs agents here were alerted to a possible hidden cache of weapons on board. Inspectors from the United Arab Emirates quickly swarmed the ship and uncovered a truck-size container packed with small arms made in North Korea. Concealed deeper in the ship was the real find:...

The Persian Community by Ari Bussel In Israel there are jokes from every conceivable origin, for Israel is a country made up of a diversity of Jews. They returned from the Diaspora and joined the few that have been here throughout time. The Persian community is thus no different than any other. These jokes have a grain of truth and help us laugh at ourselves and at the variations we all bring to this melting pot of Israeli society. The Persian community is characterized, in my mind’s eye, by three traits: close-knit, the value it places on education and its...

A central figure in what is supposed to be a vast international conspiracy to overthrow the Iranian regime has been officially invisible until now. The information he provided has been key to the confabulations presented in the Stalinesque show-trials in Tehran. An American scholar, a British embassy employee, a prominent economist, and leading members of former Iranian governments have been given long jail sentences. A young French researcher now languishes under house arrest in her country's Tehran embassy, and Newsweek correspondent Maziar Bahari passed four grueling months, mostly in solitary confinement, before finally he was released. All because of their...

Questions asked of Grand Ayatollah Montazeri of Iran on his website....... In your opinion: What were the achievements of the (SoG)Movement over recent months? What are the factors that could stop the movement from expansion and make the way harder for them. What are the ways that would strengthen, safe-guard and protect the movement? What do you suggest to make the movement grow and blossom?” 1. The (SoG) Movement is the real representation of the legitimate demands of the majority of the Iranian nation, over many years. Although until now it has been facing the rough and extreme retaliation of...

His first impulse was to dismiss the ominous email as a prank, says a young Iranian-American named Koosha. It warned the 29-year-old engineering student that his relatives in Tehran would be harmed if he didn't stop criticizing Iran on Facebook. Two days later, his mom called. Security agents had arrested his father in his home in Tehran and threatened him by saying his son could no longer safely return to Iran. "When they arrested my father, I realized the email was no joke," said Koosha, who asked that his full name not be used. Tehran's leadership faces its biggest crisis...

As tensions with Iran rise again, the Islamic Republic is reported to be expanding its naval power in the oil-rich Gulf and the Arabian Sea to be able to command the chokepoint Strait of Hormuz, the only way in or out of the Gulf.

The Argentinean prosecutor who ferreted out Iranian links to Argentina's largest terror attack warned Wednesday of Teheran's growing terror network in Latin America. "The Iranians are moving fast," assessed Alberto Nisman, who has secured Interpol backing for the arrest of several Iranians, including former president Hashemi Rafsanjani, for ordering the July 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community offices in Buenos Aires. "We see a much greater penetration than we did in 1994." He said that Iran, particularly through Lebanese proxy Hizbullah, has a growing presence in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua, using techniques it honed in Argentina before the...

This morning while we were going through our email we came across a notification of a comment on one of our old blog postings here on TTB. The posting that prompted the comment was our commentary on Barack Obama’s speech directed toward the leaders and people of the Islamic Republic of Iran back in March: The commenter dubbed himself “Mahdi,” which we think highly presumptuous on his part, but we suppose every man is entitled to his own delusions.

On a grainy undercover videotape recorded in a hotel room in Tbilisi, Georgia, an Iranian arms merchant chats with two Philadelphia salesmen who have brought samples of their military wares. The merchant, Amir Hossein Ardebili, who has flown from Tehran to make a deal, patiently answers the Americans' questions. The radar microchips? Needed for antimissile protection. The sophisticated computers? Essential to "launch the F-4" fighter. All of it, he says flatly, is destined for the Iranian military "because they think the war is coming." Against the United States. The videotape, recorded in October 2007 by undercover federal agents from Philadelphia,...

In 2008, the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) and its president Trita Parsi filed a defamation lawsuit against me. The discovery process has unearthed very valuable documents that clarify the working of NIAC and the relation of its president to influential people connected to the Iranian regime. Some of these documents raise serious concerns about the possible threat that Parsi's connections has on U.S. national security. Some examples follow. On September 28, 2006, Trita Parsi sent an e-mail to Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Iranian ambassador at the United Nations. The e-mail contains a press report that the "UN Envoy Bolton Unlikely...

ANDREW APOSTOLOU Slow Clean in Tehran The limits of an Iranian purge 4 December 2009 Half a year after Iran’s disputed presidential election, the Islamic regime is suffering from partial paralysis. Despite thousands of arrests, scores of killings, widely publicized show trials, and the closure of independent-minded newspapers, the regime is seemingly reluctant to launch the kind of full-scale purge that could remove its opponents, who demand a new election and an investigation into the deaths and torture of detainees. The hesitancy of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s “Supreme Leader,” and his ally, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is understandable. While a purge...

Iran just announced a radical expansion of its uranium-enrichment facilities. The news followed the recent disclosure of the country’s previously secret nuclear facility near the city of Qom — and came just two days after the International Atomic Energy Agency’s censure of Iran for its failure to halt enrichment. In other words, instead of complying with international requests to stand down, Iran has decided to step up efforts to enrich uranium, which, despite the government’s denial, is all but certainly intended for a bomb. First, remember, Iran does not need nuclear power for electrical generation. It has the world’s second-largest...

DAMASCUS, Dec 3 (Reuters) - A bomb targeted at a bus carrying Iranian pilgrims near a major Shi'ite religious shrine in Damascus on Thursday killed at least six people, witnesses said.

The Argentinean prosecutor who ferreted out Iranian links to Argentina's largest terror attack warned Wednesday of Teheran's growing terror network in Latin America. "The Iranians are moving fast," assessed Alberto Nisman, who has secured Interpol backing for the arrest of several Iranians, including former president Hashemi Rafsanjani, for ordering the July 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community offices in Buenos Aires. "We see a much greater penetration than we did in 1994." He said that Iran, particularly through Lebanese proxy Hizbullah, has a growing presence in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua, using techniques it honed in Argentina before the...

Bookmark and ShareShare Send Save Print [ Wednesday, 02 December 2009 ] State TV chief says it goes against sharia Iran bans make-up for women on TV The Islamic republic's state television has eight TV channels (File) The Islamic republic's state television has eight TV channels (File) TEHRAN (AFP) Women appearing in television programs will not be allowed to wear make-up because it is against Islamic law, or sharia, media on Wednesday quoted the head of Iran’s state television as saying. "Make-up by women during television programs is illegal and against Islamic sharia law ... There should not be a...

U.S. Secretly Arrested Iranian Agent Two Years Ago After Sting and Extradited to U.S An Iranian government agent, who was secretly arrested two years ago and extradited to the U.S. for trying to export high tech American military equipment to Iran, told U.S. undercover agents he was helping his country prepare for a war with the United States that Iran was convinced was coming. The agent, Amir Hossein Ardebili, was secretly arrested overseas in Central Asia in October 2007 and pleaded guilty to charges that he violated the Arms Export Control Act, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, smuggling conspiracy...

Click Link for article....I think AP articles have to have a link only.

IsraelNN.com) For the third time this week, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made it clear that his country will not curb its nuclear program regardless of international opposition. The nuclear issue has come to an end and our nation will not negotiate. Iranian government media claimed on Wednesday that Ahmadinejad addressed cheering crowds in Isfahan regarding the Islamic Republic's nuclear program. "In our opinion," he declared, "the nuclear issue has come to an end and our nation will not negotiate [it]." Instead, he continued, Iran will independently produce 20-percent enriched nuclear fuel to supply a Tehran nuclear reactor. Israel and its...

Twice In the past four days Iran has thumbed its nose to President Obama and the international community's effort to prevent the terrorist regime from developing nuclear weapons. Sunday The Iranian government approved a plan to construct 10 new uranium enrichment plants, just two days after the International Atomic Energy Agency voted to rebuke the Islamic Republic for building an enrichment plant in secret. Today the announcement was they will enrich uranium to a higher level on its own. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insisted Iran will not negotiate with the West over its nuclear program. "You should know that even if...

WASHINGTON - Federal authorities today revealed a major international undercover sting in which Philadelphia-based federal agents arrested an Iranian arms dealer in Eastern Europe and secretly extradited him to the United States. The Iranian, who has been quietly jailed in a Philadelphia-area prison for nearly two years, pleaded guilty to charges in 2008, officials disclosed today. The case had been sealed from public view while U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents scoured the dealer's laptop to pursue hundreds of leads about Iran's covert effort to acquire American military gear, law-enforcement sources said. "This guy was very prolific - there...

CAIRO, Egypt — A doctor who exposed the torture of jailed protesters in Iran died of poisoning from an overdose of a blood pressure drug in a salad, prosecutors say. The findings fueled opposition fears that he was killed because of what he knew

TEHRAN, Iran — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says Iran will enrich its uranium to a higher level in direct contravention to an international call to halt the process. Ahmadinejad expressed frustration with negotiations over a U.N.-backed deal to swap Iran's low-enriched uranium for higher-enriched fuel rods to power its medical research reactor. He told a crowd of thousands Wednesday in the southern city of Isfahan that Iran "will produce 20 percent" enriched uranium and "anything it needs" for its nuclear program.

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran freed five British sailors detained last week when their racing yacht drifted accidentally into Iranian waters in the Persian Gulf. Britain said it was delighted with Wednesday's release and praised Tehran's handling of the incident.

We must overcome our self-delusions about the enemy. When tens of thousands of Iranians took to the streets last spring and braved the most brutal repression the regime could inflict, Michael Ledeen was the least surprised man in Washington. In season and out, Ledeen has chronicled the profound weakness of the mullahocracy and its deep unpopularity with the Iranian people. Impatiently, year after year, he has identified opportunities for the United States to help the people of Iran replace their sinister and menacing rulers. After each new post on the subject, Ledeen signed off with, “Faster please.” In Accomplice to...

Israel, December 1, 2009 by Ari Bussel Israel’s Prime Minister has a viral flu, prompting his doctor to order cessation of activities for a second day in a row. The prevalent attitude is expressed in the following remark: “What type of flu does PM Netanyahu have? The Shalit Flu (about to exchange close to a thousand terrorists to bring a soldier back home to his family and country), the Swine Flu (to which several high-risk patients with other illnesses succumbed in recent days) or the Iranian Flu?” Shalit, Swine Flu, Iran – and Israel’s Prime Minister is busy, so it...

Tehran warned on Tuesday that it will take strong action against five detained British sailors if it is proven they had "bad intentions" when their racing yacht entered Iran's Persian Gulf waters and was seized.

The racing yacht, the Kingdom Of Bahrain, owned by Sail Bahrain and crewed by the five Britons, was stopped by Iranian naval vessels last Wednesday as it sailed from Bahrain to Dubai. The crew members are still in Iran and are understood to be safe and well. Their families have been informed. The Foreign Office said the yacht might have "inadvertently" strayed into Iranian waters. The sailors were heading to Dubai to join the Dubai-Muscat Offshore Sailing Race. One of the men onboard has been named as David Bloomer, believed to be a radio presenter in Bahrain. A source later...

Terror State: A dithering world has for years underestimated the costs of appeasement toward Iran. Tehran's aggressive plans for 10 new nuclear plants show they want dominance, not just a bomb or two. To any informed observer, it's no surprise that Iran is now collecting its 10-to-1 winnings in the high-stakes game Tehran's Islamofascist government has been playing with the free world for years now. There's been a United Nations censure, demands to halt the building of the newly revealed enrichment facility near the holy city of Qom, and multiple rounds of economic sanctions. The U.S., Britain, France and Germany...

Five British sailors are being held captive in Iran after they strayed into the country’s territorial waters on their way to an international yacht race. The Britons were part of the nine-strong crew of the Kingdom of Bahrain, a racing yacht, which was apprehended by the Iranian navy on Wednesday. It is thought the boat, which carried a satellite tracker, may have drifted into Iranian waters after its propeller was damaged. The newly refitted vessel was making its way from Bahrain to Dubai for a 350-mile race to Muscat, which began on Thursday. When the yacht failed to arrive, expatriate...

Mohamed ElBaradei caps his contentious and ultimately failed 12-year stint as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency today, having spent many years enabling Iran's nuclear bids only to condemn them in his final days in office. Mr. ElBaradei combined his rebuke of Iran with his familiar calls for more negotiation, but we'll take his belated realism about Iran as his tacit admission that Dick Cheney and John Bolton have been right all along. Let's hope the education of the Obama Administration doesn't take as long. As if to underscore the point, yesterday the Iranian government ordered up 10 additional...

Iran has given the Revolutionary Guards Corps command over naval operations in the oil-rich Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz as part of a strategy to block access to vital sea lanes in the event of a war, according to a US intelligence study.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Iran's plans to build 10 nuclear enrichment plants are unacceptable and may lead the international community to ratchet up the pressure on Tehran to halt the program, the U.S. envoy to the United Nations said on Monday. "We view the Iranian announcement, if it is in fact accurate and implemented, that they intend to build 10 additional facilities as completely inappropriate and further isolating Iran from the international community," Ambassador Susan Rice told reporters. Iran announced on Sunday that it intends to build 10 uranium enrichment plants in a major expansion of its atomic program, just...

During the Iran-Iraq War, the Ayatollah Khomeini imported 500,000 small plastic keys from Taiwan. The trinkets were meant to be inspirational. After Iraq invaded in September 1980, it had quickly become clear that Iran’s forces were no match for Saddam Hussein’s professional, well-armed military. To compensate for their disadvantage, Khomeini sent Iranian children, some as young as twelve years old, to the front lines. There, they marched in formation across minefields toward the enemy, clearing a path with their bodies. Before every mission, one of the Taiwanese keys would be hung around each child’s neck. It was supposed to open...

Iran’s Nuclear Ambitions Highlight Kazakhstan’s Uranium Potential One bonus of the global recession is that it wiped a lot of incompetent hedge fund managers and energy speculators from the canyons of Wall Street. As the Gordon Gecko sycophants regroup and look for the next Big Thing, maximizing profit while minimizing risk, the landscape looks very different than it did a year ago. In such a climate, it is uranium, not oil and natural gas that would seem to have the brightest future for one simple, overriding capitalist principle – supply and demand. Whatever agreements are reached at December’s global climate...

TotalitaIRANism Sarah Carlsruh, November 30, 2009 Iran has a history of bullying its own people and the international community, an attitude exemplified today under the tight-fisted rule of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. “A popular conservative newspaper critical of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been closed down for carrying a photograph of a temple of the banned Baha’i faith,” reported Reuters on November 24th, revealing the stranglehold the Iranian government has on media voice. This grip squeezes even everyday citizens with the fortitude to oppose the government. In June, more than 100 opposition figures were jailed following the election, accused of fomenting...

There is mounting evidence that the global Jihadist insurgency is fully entrenched in the USA. After the Fort Hood massacre news services seem divided between those hell-bent-for-leather on denying that it was a case of anything other than a persecuted loner “snapping” and those who proclaimed it the first “terrorist” attack on US soil since September 11th. Both were wrong. Over the last 12 months alone, we have been provided with a stack of evidence of the Jihadist insurgency inside America. Americans have largely ignored this evidence, or at least failed to “connect the dots.” I decided to go back...

We are now moving into the endgame of Iran’s decade-long drive to acquire the hardware and technology to build a nuclear bomb. What happens next could determine whether Iran becomes a nuclear-armed state, whether the region is plunged into another war, or whether Iran and the Arab world embark on a nuclear arms race. Yesterday’s announcement showed that President Ahmadinejad has once again calculated that attack is the best form of defence. After being censured by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) last week, which referred Tehran to the UN Security Council, the Iranians have decided to call the bluff...

Iran's government has approved a plan to construct ten uranium enrichment plants, according to state broadcaster IRIB, Reuters reported. The country's Atomic Energy Organization will begin construction on the plants in the next two months, Reuters reported.

Iran approved plans Sunday to build 10 new uranium enrichment facilities, a dramatic expansion in defiance of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, days after it demanded Tehran stop construction on one plant and halt all enrichment activities.

Here is video of former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations - Dan Gillerman - reacting today to the news that Iran has announced they will build 10 new Uranium Enrichment Plants. Work will begin on the new plants within two months. Gillerman said bluntly that if the world does not act to stop Iran from becoming a Nuclear Power, Israel is prepared to do it. Echoing the campaign slogan of President Obama, he said Israel's view is "Yes We Can;" "Yes We Will;" "Yes We Must." Gillerman said his message to Iranian Dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is that the "world...

Three Pastors: Life, Death, and Religion in Muslim Iran In November 1993, not far from ancient Babylon, where Daniel was thrown into the lions' den and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were pitched into Nebuchadnezzar's fiery furnace, the Rev. Mehdi Dibaj huddled in a Mazandaran Province prison cell praying about how he could defend himself from capital charges. A compactly built 60-year-old man, his short, salt-and-pepper hair bristled above dark, deep-set eyes and bunchy cheeks. His cell contained a cot, a hole-in-the-floor toilet, a line of small snapshots of his four children, and, under the high window that afforded light, a...

From the BNO Newsroom. ORLANDO, FLORIDA (BNO NEWS) -- White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on Sunday released the following statement after Iran's cabinet passed a legislation to build ten more uranium enrichment plants. "If true, this would be yet another serious violation of Iran's clear obligations under multiple UN security council resolutions, and another example of Iran choosing to isolate itself. The international community has made clear that Iran has rights, but with those rights come responsibilities. As the overwhelming IAEA board of governors vote made clear, time is running out for Iran to address the international community's growing...

Iran's parliament passed a law on Sunday earmarking $20 million to support terror groups opposing the West and investigate alleged US and British plots against the Islamic republic. The text of the legislation says the money is to "support progressive currents that resist illegal activities by by the governments of the US and Britain." Iranian officials often use such terms to describe terror groups.