Yeshiva World News

Iran plans to test about 1,000 advanced uranium enrichment centrifuges it has completed installing, a U.N. nuclear report showed, a move likely to worry Western capitals hoping for a change of course under the country’s new president.

The U.N. atomic agency’s quarterly report – the first since relative moderate Hassan Rouhani won Iran’s June presidential election – also revealed developments that could help buy time for diplomacy between Tehran and major powers, however.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Iran informed it a few days ago that the planned commissioning of the Arak research reactor – which could yield potential bomb material – had been delayed from early next year.

“This is a positive development since the reactor would produce plutonium that, if separated, could be used in nuclear weapons,” a U.S. think-tank, the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), said in a comment on the report.

Further, Iran’s most sensitive nuclear stockpile has hardly grown – remaining below its arch-enemy Israel’s stated “red line” that could provoke military action – since the previous IAEA report in May.

Growth in Iran’s reserve of uranium gas refined to 20 percent was held back as Iran stepped up conversion of the material into oxide to make fuel for a medical research reactor in Tehran. The stockpile of 186 kg compares with the 240-250 kg which experts say would be needed for a bomb if refined further.

“It is unlikely, at this point, that Iran could dash toward further enrichment to weapons-grade without the IAEA detecting Tehran’s activities,” said the Arms Control Association, a Washington-based advocacy and research group.

Iran says its nuclear energy program is for electricity generation and medical uses only. It has rejected Western accusations that it is trying to develop the capability to produce nuclear bombs, despite having hidden sensitive activities from U.N. non-proliferation inspectors in the past.

Israel has threatened to attack Iran if diplomatic pressure fails to rein in its program and it amasses enough 20 percent enriched uranium to make a nuclear weapon.

The IAEA’s findings still showed Iran pressing ahead with its nuclear program at a time when the outside world is waiting to see if Rouhani will increase transparency and reduce confrontation in its foreign relations, as he has pledged.

The top Democrat on the foreign affairs committee of the U.S. House of Representation, Eliot Engel, renewed a call for tighter sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear program after the report was released.

REACTOR DELAY

Envoys accredited to the IAEA had cautioned against reading too much into the latest inspectors’ report as it mainly covered developments before Rouhani took office in early August, succeeding the conservative hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Separately the IAEA announced a resumption on September 27 of talks with Iran over how to get it to cooperate with an agency inquiry into “possible military dimensions” to its nuclear work. There have been 10 fruitless rounds of talks since early 2012, but the next session will be the first with Rouhani in office.

Obtained by Reuters on Wednesday, the IAEA report said Iran had fully installed a total of 1,008 new-generation centrifuges at the underground Natanz complex and was planning to test their performance, without giving a timetable. Iran started installing the new centrifuges in February, stoking Western concern.

The machines were “under vacuum”, the report said, a key step towards starting them up.

Iran’s progress in introducing advanced centrifuges is under close scrutiny in the West and Israel – which is assumed to have the Middle East’s only nuclear arsenal – because this would enable Tehran to speed up its accumulation of material that could be put to producing atomic bombs.

Centrifuges spin at supersonic speed to produce enriched uranium, which Iran says it needs to fuel a planned network of nuclear power plants. But if further refined, uranium can also provide the explosive core of a nuclear bomb.

The report said Iran had begun making nuclear fuel for its planned Arak heavy-water research reactor but had put off its commissioning beyond the planned first quarter of 2014.

It was not unexpected as “many people couldn’t believe the schedule. But it was the first time that Iran acknowledged this,” an international official familiar with the issue said.

Western leaders are concerned the Arak complex could offer Iran a second path to weapons-grade fissile material by churning out plutonium. Iran denies any such intention.

(Reuters)

Iran is threatening to launch a massive missile strike against Israel if the United States attacks Syria for using chemical weapons against its own people, which could touch off a full-blown war in the region.

“The day of reckoning is near,” according to Hossein Shariatmadari, the chief editor of Keyhan newspaper, an outlet controlled by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

An Op-Ed penned by Shariatmadari Tuesday warned that the impending confrontation between the West and Syria would “provide the long-awaited opportunity for revenge against Israel and America.”

The editor recalled the U.S.-led attack on Baghdad on March 20, 2003, and President George W. Bush’s boast to reporters seven days later that the “Iraq war is over.” But when the last U.S. soldiers were leaving Iraq in December 2011, nearly 4,500 Americans had been killed and the war had cost America trillions of dollars.

Shariatmadari said that Washington, instead of open war against Syria, has been waging a proxy war against the Assad regime with the help of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan and Egypt. He said now it is ready to directly confront Syria militarily, one of the members of the Resistance Front along with Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. However, despite Syrian rebels receiving financial and military support from those Middle East countries, not only has the Assad regime not been overthrown but it has opened a “new chapter for the Resistance where it formed the forces of ‘defense of Homeland,’ a force similar to the Basij militias (in Iran).”

Iran has long drawn a red line around the Assad regime. And Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon, Israel’s neighbor, are armed with thousands of missiles. The three members of the Resistance Front have a joint war room.

“Because of the failure of the intended proxy war, America and some Arab and European countries are preparing to attack Syria on the false claims that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons,” the editor said. “However, America can certainly start the war but it won’t be the one to end it.”

Shariatmadari said that Israel is the “Achilles’ heel of America and its European allies and without a doubt with the start of an attack on Syria, thousands of missiles will rain down all over the occupied lands (Israel), which will destroy its critical facilities as it was obvious that its missile defense system (the Iron Dome) could not prevent missiles reaching Tel Aviv.”

He also warned Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey and others who support attacking Syria that they themselves will come under attack from Syria.

“Muslims should welcome the news of an attack on Syria as it will provide the long-awaited opportunity for revenge, which should destroy the enemies of Islam,” Shariatmadari concluded.

Seyed Reza Taghavai, the head of Iran’s Policy Council of Friday Prayers, hinted that Khamenei is guiding the events in Syria, Lebanon and Gaza despite Iran publicly saying that it has nothing to do with them, Fars News Agency reported Monday. “People stand tall because of (Khamenei’s) guidance and in Syria where it has resisted against the unbelievers,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Islamic regime’s reporting agency Abna.ir published images of commanders of the Zolfaghar Battalion fighting in Syria. It said that the Zolfaghar and Abolfazle Abass battalions are mostly made up of Iraqi and Lebanese Shiites in fighting the Syrian rebels.
The agency published the images of Zolfaghar’s commander, Abu Hajer, visiting the holy site in the city of Mashhad in Iran.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/08/iran-thousands-of-missiles-to-rain-on-israel/#7jXf4D7qQ7LljrxS.99

The Obama administration said Wednesday it would take action against the Syrian government even without the backing of allies or the United Nations because diplomatic paralysis must not prevent a response to the alleged chemical weapons attack outside the Syrian capital last week.

New requests for the United Nations to authorize military action in Syria may have complicated the Obama administration’s plan to take retaliatory action on the purported poison gas attack east of Damascus that U.S. officials claim was carried out by President Bashar Assad’s forces.

But a State Department spokeswoman said the U.S. would respond even in the absence of U.N. backing.

“We cannot be held up in responding by Russia’s intransigence — continued intransigence — at the United Nations,” Marie Harf said. “The situation is so serious that it demands a response.”

The U.S. has not publicly presented proof that Assad’s government used deadly chemical weapons near Damascus last week. Even so, U.S. officials, including Vice President Joe Biden, have pointed a finger squarely at Assad. The administration was planning a teleconference briefing Thursday on Syria for leaders of the House and Senate and national security committees in both parties, U.S. officials and congressional aides said.

U.S. intelligence intercepted lower-level Syrian military commanders’ communications discussing the chemical attack, but the communications don’t specifically link the attack to an official senior enough to tie the killings to Assad himself, according to three U.S. intelligence officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the intelligence publicly.

The White House ideally wants intelligence that links the attack directly to Assad or someone in his inner circle, to rule out the possibility that a rogue element of the military decided to use chemical weapons without Assad’s authorization.

That quest for added intelligence to bolster the White House’s case for a strike against Assad’s military infrastructure has delayed the release of the report by the Office of the Director for National Intelligence laying out evidence against Assad. The report was promised earlier this week by administration officials.

The CIA and the Pentagon have been working to gather more human intelligence tying Assad to the attack, relying on the intelligence services of Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Israel, the officials said.

Both the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency have their own human sources — the rebel commanders and others who cross the border to brief CIA and defense intelligence officers at training camps in Jordan and Turkey. But their operation is much smaller than some of the other intelligence services, and it takes longer for their contacts to make their way overland.

Britain added a hurdle to deliberations about a military strike on Wednesday when it went to the U.N. Security Council with a draft resolution that would authorize the use of military force against Syria. This, as momentum seemed to be building among Western allies for a strike against Syria.

The draft seemed doomed before it was proposed. As expected, the five permanent members of the security council failed to reach an agreement as Russia reiterated its objections to international intervention in the Syrian crisis. Russia, along with China, has blocked past attempts to sanction the Assad government.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said that the use of force without a sanction of the U.N. Security Council would be a “crude violation” of international law and “lead to the long-term destabilization of the situation in the country and the region.”

Syria, which sits on one of the world’s largest stockpiles of chemical weapons, has denied the charges. Moreover, Syria’s U.N. ambassador, Bashar Ja’afari, is demanding that United Nations experts investigate three alleged chemical weapons attacks against Syrian soldiers. He said the attacks occurred on Aug. 22, 24 and 25 in three suburbs of the Syrian capital and dozens of soldiers are being treated for inhaling nerve gas.

The draft U.N. resolution was an effort to bolster British Prime Minister David Cameron’s case that a military action is needed. Cameron has called an emergency meeting of the British Parliament on Thursday to vote on whether to endorse international action against Syria.

He’s promised British lawmakers he would not go to war until chemical weapons inspectors had a chance to report back to the world body about their findings. That means British involvement in any potential strike wouldn’t occur until next week at the earliest.

But British Foreign Secretary William Hague suggested that U.S. military action need not be constrained by Britain’s parliamentary timetable.

“The United States are able to make their own decisions,” he told reporters late Wednesday, just after speaking with Secretary of State John Kerry. “Of course, we will remain closely coordinated with them and in close touch with them,as we are every day.”

Certain members of Congress are expected to get a classified U.S. intelligence report laying out the case against Assad. An unclassified version is to be made public. Officials say it won’t have any detail that would jeopardize sources and methods.

Administration officials have asserted that the use and potential spread of chemical weapons are a threat to U.S. national security.

“The mass-scale use of chemical weapons, or of course the potential proliferation of those weapons, flagrantly violates an important international norm and threatens American national security,” Harf said.

Some lawmakers have argued that Congress must authorize any military action unless there has been an attack on the U.S. or the existence of an eminent threat to the U.S. Both Democrats and Republicans on Wednesday pressed the White House to provide a clear explanation of how military action would secure U.S. objectives.

Specifically, in a letter to Obama, House Speaker John Boehner asked him to make his case to Congress and the public about how military action would “secure American national security interests, preserve America’s credibility, deter the future use of chemical weapons, and, critically, be a part of our broader policy and strategy.”

Boehner said it was “essential you address on what basis any use of force would be legally justified.”

(AP)

Housing Minister (Bayit Yehudi) Uri Ariel has been visiting chareidi communities towards obtaining an understanding regarding the extent of the housing shortage. The minister made an official visit to Betar Illit, escorted by Mayor Rav Meir Rubinstein. The visit began at the entrance to the city, where Ariel planted a tree. Taking part was the minister’s delegation including the head of the Jerusalem District for the ministry Moshe Merchavia, the mayor, and senior City Hall officials.

The delegation was then taken to the city’s command center where they saw how the city addresses security and other primary areas of concern for the safety of residents. They saw a new mikve that is scheduled to open after the first rains IY”H.

When they met to get down to business, Mayor Rubinstein detailed the severity of the housing shortage, which hits young couples particularly hard. Ariel explained “If it were up to me, I would announce here and now that we are building 2,000 additional apartments here. I hope by year’s end to announce that we are moving ahead with hundreds of new apartments”.

Ariel promised to do everything in his power to assist the community and to continue building as quickly as possible.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)

Baruch Hashem a mikve was established in the secular Shomron community of Chinanit, at the behest of community residents. The community is not home to shomer Shabbos residents, but nonetheless, B”H, about a year ago residents decided it would be nice to have a mikve in the community.

The residents turned to the Taharas Habayis organization for assistance. The organization accepted the challenge and with Siyata Dishmaya raised the funds and built the mikve in a period of eight months.

Organization officials were responsible for overseeing the construction, which they explain complies with the most stringent Halachic demands as well as succeeding in building a modern attractive structure that will be accepted by residents. Officials add the construction of a mikve is such a community has special significance for them and they were pleased to play such a vital role in its establishment.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)

President Barack Obama says the U.S. has concluded that the Syrian government carried out a large-scale chemical weapons attack against civilians last week.

Obama says the U.S. has examined evidence and doesn’t believe the opposition fighting the Syrian government possessed chemical weapons or the means to deliver them.

Obama says he hasn’t made a decision about how the U.S. will respond.

The White House says it’s planning a possible military response while seeking support from international partners. But the U.S. has not yet presented concrete proof of Syrian government involvement in the attack.

Some lawmakers are calling for Obama to seek congressional approval for a military action.

(AP)

Maran HaGaon HaRav Ovadia Yosef Shlita has instructed his son Rav Moshe Yosef to bring a message to MK Meir Porush, Kikar reports. The gadol hador is reportedly angry over the candidacy of Sruly Porush in the Elad mayoral race. He decided to send his message to Sruly’s father, R’ Meir Porush, quoted saying “הוא משיב רעה תחת טובה”, basically calling Porush ungrateful.

Rav Ovadia is quoted saying five years ago the senior Porush begged him to support Meir Rubinstein’s bid for mayor in the Betar Illit race, adding “Even though this was against the desire of Rav Eliyahu, I did so. When Meir Porush ran for mayor in the Jerusalem race, I supported him with all my might because of zechus avos and my admiration for him.”

“Now he enters his son in the Elad mayoral race despite promising a number of months ago that he will not do so.”

The rav is quoted as warning Porush if he decides to have his son run in the Elad race against a Shas candidate, adding “I will speak out against him in my motzei Shabbos drasha.”

The rav is quoted adding “I will do everything possible against him including getting out of my sick bed”, explaining Porush should not be running against a Shas candidate in the primarily Sephardi community.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)

The Ministry of Health has prohibited 300 children from returning to school for the start of the 5774 school year because of their depressed immune systems. We are dealing with children who are R”L fighting difficult illness.

Ministry officials feel compelled to block them from school as the polio virus has been found in sewage systems in areas around the country. They feel this population of children would be at high risk if permitted to return to school. They are barred from school until January 2014.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)

George Zimmerman’s wife pleaded guilty Wednesday to a misdemeanor perjury charge for lying during a bail hearing after her husband’s arrest, and she was sentenced to a year’s probation and 100 hours of community service.

Shellie Zimmerman, 26, had been charged with felony perjury after she lied about the couple’s assets during a bail hearing following her husband’s arrest for the fatal 2012 shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer, was acquitted last month of second-degree murder. Shellie Zimmerman had been charged with a felony and, if convicted, had faced up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. She had given her bail-hearing testimony by telephone last year because of safety concerns for Zimmerman’s family.

As part of the deal, Shellie Zimmerman wrote a letter of apology to Judge Kenneth Lester, who presided over last year’s bail hearing.

Shellie Zimmerman misled the court because she had been told by others to say “maybe that’s not my money,” her attorney, Kelly Sims, said after the hearing.

“But in her heart, you know, if it walks like a duck and looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, it’s a duck,” Sims said. “She was calling from a phone. She was scared. Her husband was locked up. She didn’t know what was going on. So, she stood by her man, like Tammy Wynette says. She’s accepting responsibility.”

Prosecutor John Guy said he agreed to the deal because Shellie Zimmerman didn’t have a prior criminal record and the misdemeanor plea would allow her to pursue her nursing career.

“The important thing is that she apologized to Judge Lester for what she did,” said Guy, who helped prosecute Zimmerman unsuccessfully. “The proof is not in question in this case. It was only a matter of what should be done as far as the disposition.”

Court records show that in the days before the bond hearing in June 2012, Shellie Zimmerman transferred $74,000 — broken into eight smaller transfers ranging from $7,500 to $9,990 — from her husband’s credit union account to hers. It also shows that $47,000 was transferred from George Zimmerman’s account to his sister’s in the days before the bond hearing. Amounts of over $10,000 would have been reported to the Internal Revenue Service.

Four days after he was released on bond, Shellie Zimmerman transferred more than $85,500 from her account into her husband’s account, records show. They also show that the jail recorded George Zimmerman instructing her on a call to “pay off all the bills,” including an American Express and Sam’s Club card.

Most of the money had come from donations to a website that had been set up to pay for George Zimmerman’s defense.

At the bail hearing, Shellie Zimmerman testified that the couple, who married in 2007, had limited funds for bail because she was a full-time student and her husband wasn’t working. Prosecutors say they actually had then already raised $135,000 in donations from the website.

Shellie Zimmerman was asked about the website at the hearing, but she said she didn’t know how much money had been raised. A judge set George Zimmerman’s bail at $150,000 bail, and he was freed a few days later after posting $15,000 in cash — which is typical.

After Shellie Zimmerman’s false statements were discovered, the judge revoked her husband’s bail. He was later released on $1 million bond.

Shellie Zimmerman’s plea deal was one of the last loose ends left from her husband’s murder trial. A judge still has to consider defense attorneys’ request for sanctions against prosecutors for what they claim was their withholding of evidence.

(AP)

A northeast Texas woman accused of sending ricin-laced letters to President Barack Obama and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is competent to stand trial, a federal judge said Wednesday.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Caroline Craven said Shannon Guess Richardson is mentally competent for a trial during a brief hearing in Texarkana. Richardson also pleaded not guilty to two counts of mailing a threatening communication and one count of making a threat against the president of the United States.

Richardson, an actress from New Boston, Texas, was arrested June 7. She is accused of sending the threatening letters in May to Obama, Bloomberg and a third man who heads Bloomberg’s gun-control group.

A federal affidavit alleges Richardson called authorities to implicate her husband before she was arrested in June.

She was dressed in an olive-green jail jumpsuit and didn’t speak during Wednesday’s hearing, except to talk with her attorney, Tonda Curry. If convicted, Richardson faces up to five years in prison on each charge.

Richardson’s next court hearing is Sept. 11.

(AP)

Zaka leader Yehuda Meshi-Zahav and other organization officials were in Ashkelon’s Barzilai Hospital on Tuesday, 21 Elul 5773 to meet with the hospital’s director, Dr. Chezi Levi. They met to define ways in which Zaka can increase its role in assisting the hospital. Dr. Levi detailed the hospital’s efforts towards accommodating the chareidi community, boasting the level of cooperation with community leaders.

The group visited different hospital units including new areas under construction, receiving a detailed briefing on the work to raise the level of patient care. The Zaka group was impressed with the steps taken to accommodate the religious community, both chareidi and dati leumi.

Hospital officials explained that as a result of the warfare in southern Israel, a relationship has been formed between Barzilai and a number of chessed organizations, including Zaka. Meshi-Zahav stressed the vital role played by Barzilai in time of southern warfare as the only area medical center, promising to do whatever possible to enhance Zaka’s relationship with the medical center.

The walking tour included the new seven-story fortified building that is under construction which will provide total protection against rocket attacks, eliminating the need to evacuate patients.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)