(September 29, 2024)
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian stated that the assurances given by American and European leaders to establish a ceasefire in return for Iran‘s non-response to the killing of Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the political bureau of the Hamas, were outright lies, according to a report by the Associated Press.
(September 25, 2024)
Iran is ready to end its nuclear standoff with the West, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, while calling for an end to Russia‘s war in Ukraine through dialogue.
(September 24, 2024)
Recalling the “historic” 2015 nuclear deal, he noted that Iran, under the Joint Comprehensive Programme of Action (JCPOA), had agreed to the highest level of nuclear oversight in return for the recognition of its rights and the lifting of sanctions.
However, former US President Donald Trump’s unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA represented a “threat-ridden approach” to politics, Mr. Pezeshkian added, stressing that unilateral sanctions targeted innocent people and weakened the Iranian economy.
“We are ready to engage with JCPOA participants. If JCPOA commitments are implemented fully and in good faith, dialogue on other issues can follow,” he said.
“We have the opportunity to transcend limitations and enter a new era, commencing with the acknowledgment of Iran‘s security concerns and cooperation on mutual challenges,” he said.
Reiterating the destructive impact of sanctions, he emphasized that Iran is ready to foster meaningful economic, social, political and security partnerships with its neighbours and global partners, “based on equal footing.”
(24 April 2024)
The preservation of a temperate climate and liquid water on early Earth depends critically upon the strength of the magnetosphere (Sterenborg et al., 2011; Tarduno et al., 2014). Recent atmospheric escape models have suggested that both weak (<10 μT) and strong (>1 mT) magnetic fields could substantially enhance atmospheric escape under present-day solar wind conditions via the polar wind or cusp escape, respectively (Gronoff et al., 2020; Gunell et al., 2018; Lundin et al., 2007). During the Archean, the Sun was rotating faster, generating a stronger stellar dynamo and therefore the solar wind was more intense than today (Vidotto, 2021). An increased solar wind strength causes greater interaction with the upper atmosphere and greater escape of ions assuming a constant level of protection from Earth‘s magnetosphere. Previous magnetohydrodynamic simulations have suggested that if Earth‘s magnetic field was half its present day strength 3.5 Ga ago, the area of the polar cap (the area containing open dipolar magnetic field lines, allowing atmospheric escape via the polar wind) could increase by up to 50% (Sterenborg et al., 2011).
The age of the Earth’s magnetic field remains under question in part because we don’t fully understand what causes it today. We know it is a product of movements in the molten outer core, whose high iron content turns convection currents into a dynamo, and these currents in turn are produced by the solidification of the inner core.
(24 April 2024)
Today, the magnetic field is driven by the churning of the liquid part of the core and the transfer of heat from the solid inner core to the convective outer core as the former cools. But researchers think the core didn‘t solidify until about a billion years ago.
The Earth‘s outer core is in a state of turbulent convection as the result of radioactive heating and chemical differentiation. This sets up a process that is a bit like a naturally occurring electrical generator, where the convective kinetic energy is converted to electrical and magnetic energy. Basically, the motion of the electrically conducting iron in the presence of the Earth‘s magnetic field induces electric currents. Those electric currents generate their own magnetic field, and as the result of this internal feedback, the process is self-sustaining so long as there is an energy source sufficient to maintain convection.
Israeli fighter jets have bombed two homes in Rafah in overnight strikes, killing a total of 10 people, including six children and women.
(today)
An Israeli airstrike on a house in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah killed at least nine people, six of them children, hospital authorities said Saturday, as Israel pursued its nearly seven-month offensive in the besieged Palestinian territory.
(18.04.2024)
The US has approved a potential Israeli Rafah operation in exchange for the Jewish state not conducting counterstrikes on Iran, according to a Thursday report from the Qatari newspaper The New Arab.
A senior official told The New Arab that „Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu managed to obtain American approval for a military operation in Rafah, in exchange for [Israel] refraining from carrying out a wide military operation against Iran in response to its recent attack.“
The Natanz uranium enrichment plant is located close to the region where the strikes are understood to have taken place.
A separate uranium conversion plant is located in Zerdenjan, a southwestern region of Isfahan. The site has been previously targeted by suspected Israeli sabotage attacks.
Earlier General Siavash Mihandoost, the Army’s senior official in Isfahan province, said the relatively loud sound of the explosion that was heard in the eastern parts of Isfahan on Friday morning was the result of shots fired at “suspicious” objects by the air defense units, Tasnim reported.
He said there have been no damages or specific incidents.
„The sound was related to Isfahan‘s air defense systems firing at suspicious objects and we have not had any damage or accident,“ Mihandoust said.
Officials also said important facilities in Isfahan province, especially nuclear sites, are completely safe.
(today)
The Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center is Iran’s largest nuclear research complex and employs approximately 3,000 scientists, according to the nonprofit Nuclear Threat Initiative. It was built with Chinese assistance and opened in 1984. It operates three small Chinese-supplied research reactors, the NTI says, adding that the facility is also the target of both U.S. and U.N. sanctions.
(18-04-2024)
“If the Zionist regime (Israel) wants to take action against our nuclear centres and facilities, it will definitely and surely face our reaction,” the official news agency IRNA quoted Haghtalab as saying.
“For the counterattack, the nuclear facilities of the (Israeli) regime will be targeted and operated upon with advanced weaponry.”
(22. März 2011)
Am 19.März, dem Tag des Angriffs von Frankreich, Großbritannien, Kanada, Italien und den USA auf Libyen, wurde in Moskau eine der erbärmlichsten Erklärungen in der russischen Geschichte veröffentlicht (Angriffskrieg gegen Libyen beginnt: Ticker). Das russische Außenministerium von Sergei Lawrow:
“In Moskau bedauern wir diese bewaffnete Intervention im Rahmen der UN Resolution 1973, die hastig beschlossen wurde.”
Die Weltöffentlichkeit konstatiert: Russlands Staatsführung ist ein Haufen Tölpel, dem – wenn er schon nicht lesen kann und deshalb nicht weiss was vor sich geht – selbst das Wort „Veto“ mit einem einfachen Armhochhalten schon zu viel ist. Das Gleiche gilt für die Atomschwachmacht China, deren leseunkundige kommunistische Staatspartei immerhin 1.3 Milliarden Menschen herumkommandiert. In der Parteizeitung „People´s Daily“ redete man sich heute nun selbst in ein Gewissen, was man nicht hat (1):
„Die blutgetränkten Gewitter, denen Irak seit acht Jahren unterzogen wurde und das unaussprechliche Leiden seines Volkes sind ein Spiegel und eine Warnung. Die militärischen Attacken auf Libyen, folgend den Kriegen in Afghanisten und Irak, sind das das dritte Mal, dass einige Länder bewaffnete Aktionen gegen souveräne Staaten gestartet haben. Es sollte augenscheinlich sein, dass jedes Mal, wenn militärische Mittel benutzt werden um Krisen zu begegnen, dies ein Schlag gegen die Charta der Vereinten Nationen und die Regeln der internationalen Beziehungen sind.“
Die Weltöffentlichkeit versteht: früher hiess es in China „Bombardiert das Hauptquartier“, letzten Freitag hiess es „Bombardiert Libyen“ und heute wieder anders herum. Mal sehen, zu was sich Chinas Staatsführung am Donnerstag entscheidet. Vielleicht der Einfachheit halber zu „Bombardiert irgendwas“.
Many speculated as to what caused such a severe deterioration in Farouq’s condition. Was it torture? Starvation? Medical neglect? All tactics that have been widely reported by human rights groups and Palestinians recently released from Israeli custody.
According to his family, Farouq was subjected to everything: beatings, the deprivation of food, and medical neglect. It was the medical neglect, however, that they say is what led Farouq to where he is now: receiving palliative care at a Ramallah hospital, waiting for death to knock on his door.
(Today, 4:47 pm)
“In recent days I’ve heard a question: Will Israel return to fighting after this stage of returning our hostages is over? My response is an unequivocal yes,” the premier says. “There is no way we won’t return to fighting until the end.”
(Nov. 29, 2023, 9:34 a.m. ET)
“Stopping the war = breaking apart the government,” said Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right national security minister, who threatened to leave the governing coalition.
(13.11.2023)
(November 9, 2023)
Some speculate the ambitious Braverman’s sole aim was to upset left-wing opinion and so enhance her standing with the grassroots Tory members — a famously right-wing cohort — who will decide a future Tory leadership contest.
If so, she likely succeeded.
(25.10.2023)
New satellite images released by Maxar show significant damage to sites across Gaza.
(today)
(05.10.2023)
The Biden administration hopes Israeli opposition parties will consider joining the coalition in place of its far-right members in case the latter opposes any concessions towards the Palestinians as part of a potential Saudi agreement
(August 31, 2023)
Shahabuddin Dilawar, the Taliban minister of mines and petroleum, said the seven contracts cover the extraction and processing of gold, copper, iron, lead and zinc in four Afghan provinces — Takhar, Ghor, Herat and Logar.
The nationally televised signing ceremony occurred as the de facto Afghan authorities marked the second anniversary of the withdrawal of all U.S.-led NATO troops from the country after nearly 20 years of war with the then-insurgent Taliban.
(August 19, 2021)
Afghanistan is one of the poorest nations in the world. But in 2010, US military officials and geologists revealed that the country, which lies at the crossroads of Central and South Asia, was sitting on mineral deposits worth nearly $1 trillion.
Supplies of minerals such as iron, copper and gold are scattered across provinces. There are also rare earth minerals and, perhaps most importantly, what could be one of the world’s biggest deposits of lithium –
(29. November 2006)
Im Süden werden demnächst die Abbau-Rechte für Kupfererz im Werte von 1.6 Billionen Dollar an internationale Konzerne vergeben.
Aynak (Ainak), nördliches Ende der Provinz Logar, 35 Kilometer südlich von Kabul: hier im wüsten Landes des Kriegsgebietes von Südafghanistan sind nicht nur Opium, Waffen und Krieg als Geld-oder Gewinnquelle zu haben – hier liegen laut Sondierungen durch US- und britischen Behörden 240 Millionen Tonnen Kupfererz mit einem Kupfergehalt von 2.3%, dicht unter der Erdoberfläche und leicht abzubauen.
Welche Firmen den Zuschlag erhielten und aus welchen Ländern die Investitionen genau stammen, war nicht klar. Laut einer Mitteilung des Taliban-Wirtschaftsministeriums handelt es sich um den Abbau von Gold, Kupfer, Blei und Eisenerz. Die Investitionen stammen demzufolge aus Asien und Europa. Genauere Details nannte das Ministerium zunächst nicht.
(June 15, 2023)
But it may well be a Pyrrhic victory, writes @noa_landau
(Jun 12, 2023)
A compromise agreement between coalition and opposition lawmakers over the government‘s judicial overhaul is expected to be reached as early as Wednesday, opposition MK Avigdor Lieberman said on Monday.
According to the Yisrael Beitenu chairman, the agreement will come after the opposition candidate for the Judicial Appointments Committee, MK Karine Elharrar of Yesh Atid, is elected to the position.
(03.03.2023)
(06.12.2022)
“And we’re working to make sure that the Ukrainians get those systems as quickly as possible but also as effectively as possible, making sure that they are trained on them, making sure they have the ability to maintain them and all of that has to come together and it is. We have a very deliberate process established by the Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in Ramstein, Germany, that meets regularly to make sure that the Ukrainians are getting what they need, when they need it.”
(March 10, 2022)
“There‘s no discussion about putting a Patriot battery in Ukraine. In order to do that you have to put U.S. troops with it to operate it,” a senior defense official said Thursday.
(today)
– China sees widespread protests against Covid curbs
– Public anger focuses on deadly fire in Xinjiang
– Censors scrub social media of mentions of unrest
– Chinese stocks and yuan slump amid investor concern
(November 23, 2022)
– Reopening could see 5.8 million in ICU: Bloomberg Intelligence
– ‘No way an uncontrolled wave of infections can be managed’
(today)
At least 12 people were killed when al Qaeda-linked militants attacked a hotel in Somalia‘s capital Mogadishu, seizing hostages who authorities were still battling to free 24 hours later, an intelligence officer said on Saturday.
(May 18, 2022)
A senior U.S. defense official has confirmed to Fox News on Monday that President Joe Biden has authorized the deployment of hundreds of Special Operations troops inside Somalia.
The decision comes alongside approval of a Pentagon request for standing authority to target about a dozen suspected leaders of the al-Shabab terrorist group that operates inside the east African country’s borders, the official said.