Free Republic

Days before North Korea's latest nuclear-bomb test, the Obama administration secretly agreed to talks to try to formally end the Korean War, dropping a longstanding condition that Pyongyang first take steps to curtail its nuclear arsenal. Instead the U.S. called for North Korea's atomic-weapons program to be simply part of the talks. Pyongyang declined the counter-proposal, according to U.S. officials familiar with the events. Its nuclear test on Jan. 6 ended the diplomatic gambit.

Iran's economy minister said his country is seeking $45 billion in foreign investment following the implementation of a landmark nuclear deal with world powers last month. Ali Tayebnia told reporters Saturday that Iran expects $15 billion in direct foreign investment alone in the next Iranian calendar year, which begins March 20. ...

Gwynne Dyer: Turks and Saudis know any Russia fight will be lonely one 9:32 AM Wednesday Feb 17, 2016 Between last Thursday and Monday, the Turkish government, in league with Saudi Arabia, made a tentative decision to enter the war on the ground in Syria - and then got cold feet about it. Or more likely, the Turkish army simply told the government that it would not invade Syria and risk the possibility of a shooting war with the Russians. The Turkish government bears a large share of the responsibility for the devastating Syrian civil war. From the start, Turkey's...

Exclusive: President Obama, who once called the idea of “moderate” Syrian rebels a “fantasy,” has maintained the fiction to conceal the fact that many “moderates” are fighting alongside Al Qaeda’s jihadists, an inconvenient truth that is complicating an end to Syria’s civil war, explains Gareth Porter. By Gareth Porter Secretary of State John Kerry insisted at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday that the agreement with Russia on a temporary halt in the war in Syria can only be carried out if Russia stops its airstrikes against what Kerry is now calling “legitimate opposition groups.” But what Kerry did not...

RAF Typhoon jets scrambled to intercept Russian bombers By WMNDavidWells | Posted: February 17, 2016 Read more: http://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/RAF-Typhoon-jets-scrambled-intercept-Russian/story-28754813-detail

Last year’s controversial Iran nuclear deal has sparked an atomic arms race, claimed Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon following a meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah. Ya’alon revealed that Israel had indications suggesting that certain Arab countries were now actively pursuing nuclear weapons, reports the Telegraph. The Defense Minister declined to specify which countries or how Israel had ascertained they were working to create their own atomic arsenals. The Sunni Arab world has long feared the specter of a nuclear capable Iran, and now that the Iran deal effectively permits the Islamic Republic to resume its atomic program with no limits...

... If the European Union were a patient, its survival would be seen as threatened by multiple organ failure. That's the view of many experts as EU chiefs prepare for a Brussels summit that starts Thursday. Analysts believe the combined strain of these challenges may be unbearable for a political union and trading bloc that just 20 years ago seemed to be growing in stature as it proudly offered freedom and democracy - along with lucrative subsidies, military alliances and billions in foreign investment - to newly freed former Soviet satellites. Ian Kearns, director of the European Leadership Network research...

The commander of the Basij paramilitary force of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mohammad Reza Naqdi, vowed that Tehran "will not make any compromises with our enemies in the Middle East." Speaking in a press conference in honor of the anniversary of the 1979 Iranian revolution, Naqdi emphasized that "the hundreds of Revolutionary Guards generals fighting in Syria will never repeat the mistake of the Shi'ite Caliph Hassan bin Ali who surrendered leadership of the Muslim world to Muawiyyah bin Abi Sufyan." Naqdi added that "it is impossible to compare Iran to Iran under the Shah's rule, since back then,...

In what would be a milestone for advanced nuclear power, China's Nuclear Engineering Construction Corporation plans to start up a high-temperature, gas-cooled pebble-bed nuclear plant next year in Shandong province, south of Beijing. The twin 105-megawatt reactors--so-called Generation IV reactors that would be immune to meltdown--would be the first of their type built at commercial scale in the world. Construction of the plant is nearly complete, and the next 18 months will be spent installing the reactor components, running tests, and loading the fuel before the reactors go critical in November 2017, said Zhang Zuoyi, director of the Institute of...

In what would be a milestone for advanced nuclear power, China’s Nuclear Engineering Construction Corporation plans to start up a high-temperature, gas-cooled pebble-bed nuclear plant next year in Shandong province, south of Beijing. The twin 105-megawatt reactors—so-called Generation IV reactors that would be immune to meltdown—would be the first of their type built at commercial scale in the world.

Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that military units were put on combat alert early Monday, marking the launch of the exercise that involves troops of the Southern Military District. The district includes troops stationed in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, as well as forces in the North Caucasus and southwestern regions near the border with Ukraine. ... According to Shoigu, who spoke at a meeting with the top military brass, the war games would include redeployment of air force units to advance air bases and bombing runs at shooting ranges. The maneuvers will...

North Korea's new satellite cruised over Levi's Stadium after Super Bowl 50 BY Nicole Hensley / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS / Monday, February 8, 2016, 5:29 AM Kim Kwang Hyon/AP North Korea's satellite, which was launched on Feb. 7, passed over the Super Bowl 50 game. Pictured is the country's Unha 3 at the Sci-Tech Complex in Pyongyang in 2012. A "Shining Star" was watching over Levi's Stadium after the Broncos 24-10 win. As football fans poured out of the Bay Area stadium, North Korea's observational satellite zipped by the field at an orbit 300 miles above the Earth at...

TOKYO (AP) -- Here's a bit of Super Bowl trivia: North Korea's newest satellite passed almost right over the stadium just an hour after it ended. Whatever motives Pyongyang may have about using its rocket launches to develop nuclear-tipped long-range missiles, it now has two satellites circling the Earth, according to NORAD, the North American Aerospace Command, which monitors all satellites in orbit. Both of the Kwangmyongsong, or "Shining Star," satellites complete their orbits in about 94 minutes and based on data released by international organizations tracking them, the new one passed almost right over Levi's Stadium about an hour...

Two years after being fined for falsifying safety records, nine months after a transformer exploded at the Indian Point Nuclear Reactor just 37 miles from midtown Manhattan, and two months after Entergy - the plant's operator - shut down the Unit 2 reactor after a major power outage cut power to several control rods (when the company assured that no radioactivity was released into the environment), this afternoon NY Governor Andrew Cuomo said he learned that "radioactive tritium-contaminated water" had leaked into the groundwater at the nuclear facility in Westchester County. Cuomo, in a letter Saturday to the state Health...

When Russian planes carried out a simulated attack against Sweden in 2013, it included nuclear warfare, a Nato report has revealed. The training mission by the Russian military took place just beyond the eastern edge of the Stockholm archipelago three years ago. It grabbed global headlines because Sweden's military was slow to react due to staff being on vacation and had to rely on help from Nato. Several Swedish media outlets had previously speculated that the exercises also included a simulated nuclear attack, but this was never confirmed. Now, Nato's Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has revealed that this was indeed...

Tue Jan 26, 2016 12:30pm EST Iraq says Saudi, Russia change tone on possible oil deal KUWAIT | By Rania El Gamal OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia and top non-OPEC producer Russia are showing signs of flexibility about agreeing to tackle an oil glut that has pushed prices to 12-year lows, the oil minister of Iraq said on Tuesday. "We have seen some flexibility from the brothers in Saudi and a change in tone from Russia," Adel Abdel Mahdi, whose country is the second-largest producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, said. His comments, made in Kuwait, boosted Brent...

Days after Iran received hundreds of billions of dollars in sanctions relief from the controversial nuclear deal, US Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday admitted a good portion of the massive funds will go to terror. Speaking at the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Kerry spoke about the massive kickback Tehran is receiving after nuclear sanctions were lifted last weekend. "I think that some of it will end up in the hands of the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) or other entities, some of which are labeled terrorists," he acknowledged to CNBC. "You know, to...

The head of Iran's atomic energy organization announced on Tuesday that the Islamic Republic, with assistance from Russia and China, will move forward on the construction of two new nuclear power plants, according to comments published in Iranian state-controlled media. Ali Akbar Salehi, who heads the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, told Iranian reporters that construction on these new nuclear plants will begin in the "near future," according to Fars News Agency. "Construction of two 1000-MW power plants will start soon," Salehi was quoted as saying. "We will build two other small power plants too in cooperation with China," he...

The July 2015 agreement officially entered into force after key United Nations confirmation that Tehran has shrunk its atomic program, triggering the lifting of painful international sanctions on the Islamic republic. "The Iranian nuclear program will now for many years be subjected to strict technical restrictions and close monitoring," said Steinmeier, whose country was among the six world powers that negotiated the landmark deal with Tehran. ...

'It has been a good day': Obama applauds his own 'smart' diplomacy with Iran claiming the country will NEVER get a nuclear bomb as plane carrying released prisoners heads home President Barack Obama is crediting his 'smart' diplomacy for recent breakthroughs in the U.S. relationship with Iran. Obama says a 'smart, patient and disciplined approached to the world' has seen results that, he claims, will block Iran from ever obtaining a nuclear bomb. He spoke from the White House on Sunday, one day after the United Nations certified that Iran had curbed its nuclear program as promised. Minutes earlier, three...