Former Military Intelligence chief Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amos Yadlin said Tuesday that Iran had enough material to develop "four or five" nuclear bombs, adding that it was imperative for Israel to maintain good relations with members of the international community capable of dealing with that threat.
"Once Iran decides finally to move forward in developing a nuclear weapon, a whole new range of opportunities will open up for a fight which the international community will fight," Yadlin said in an address at the Institute for National Security Studies, where he is beginning a term as director.
"Israel is not alone in the game," Yadlin said. "When the Iranians publicly reveal that they are pushing toward a nuclear weapon, Israel will no longer be the central player in the game."
"This situation requires us to maintain good channels of dialogue and understanding with those who have better operational abilities than us," Yadlin added.
The former MI chief said there was a good chance that sources within Western intelligence bodies would know in advance should the Iranian spiritual leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, order the country to advance toward a nuclear weapon.
A general in Iran's Revolutionary Guard, Yadollah Javani, over the weekend threatened retaliation against Israel if any of its nuclear or security sites are attacked.
"If Israeli missiles hit one of our nuclear facilities or other vital centers, then they should know that any part of Israeli territory would be target of our missiles, including their nuclear sites," told ISNA news agency."They [Israel] know that we have the capability to do so."
Javani, the former head of the military's political department, was referring to mounting speculation that Israel would strike Iran's nuclear facilities after the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran had tested designs used to make nuclear warheads.
Iranian political and military officials have warned Israel that it would face retaliation from Shahab-3 missiles that can reach any part of Israel.
Iranian volunteers affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards have held several gatherings in recent days and vowed a harsh reply to any military attacks on nuclear sites.
Haaretz
Faced with an unrelenting debt crisis that has reached the heart of Europe, eurozone finance ministers unveiled a larger, revamped version of the bailout fund they hope will buy them enough time to salvage their battered currency union.
The Europeans also signalled they will seek more help from the International Monetary Fund in an effort to thwart bond-market attacks that have driven the cost of government financing to unmanageable levels across much of the region. Italy’s borrowing costs soared to nearly 8 per cent on Tuesday, well above the 7 per cent considered sustainable and a record for its dozen years in the euro.
The bailout fund would be boosted through new investment structures involving public and private money. The ministers also agreed to guarantee up to 30 per cent of new debt issued by troubled governments.
But European officials could not say how much more firepower the bailout fund, known as the European Financial Stability Facility, would be able to deploy. The IMF has warned that more resources to tackle the debt crisis would have to come from Europe. And skeptical analysts doubt the changes will be enough to stem the speculative attacks in the market that have driven the most fiscally troubled governments to the brink of collapse.
“It’s impossible to give one number, it’s a process,” EFSF chief executive Klaus Regling said, refusing to be pinned down to an earlier stated goal of €1-trillion. “We will need money if countries make a request, and market conditions change over time.”
Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, who heads the eurozone ministers’ group, said: “We haven’t lowered our ambitions, but the conditions have changed, so it will probably not be €1-trillion but less.”
Early reaction in the markets was muted. The euro was largely unchanged, reflecting a view that the Europeans repeatedly talk a better game than they have delivered throughout the course of the two-year-old crisis.
“Juncker came out and stated what analysts have known for a long time, which is that if you start with nothing, and you multiply it by a gazillion, you still come up with nothing,” said Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics in Valhalla, N.Y.
The worry is that even the new larger, leveraged version of the bailout fund and an accompanying bond-insurance scheme simply will not be big enough to stop the speculative attacks in the bond market that have raised the spectre of debt restructurings or defaults that could spell the death knell for the common currency.
“We’re no further forward because we don’t know who is going to invest [in the bailout fund] and how much the IMF will be involved,” said Michael Hewson, a market analyst in London at CMC Markets. Officials “were deliberately short on detail on this point. As such, the credibility gap remains and wasn’t helped by German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble admitting that it [the EFSF] wouldn’t be able to contain the debt crisis.”
Economists have repeatedly argued that the solution lies in turning the European Central Bank into a lender of last resort with unlimited capacity to buy euro-zone sovereign debt and in replacing the unloved debt of various governments with eurobonds guaranteed by the strongest countries in the union. Germany flatly rejects both avenues.
The Globe and mail
Italy's borrowing costs hit a euro lifetime peak of nearly eight per cent Tuesday as pressure on eurozone finance ministers intensified to staunch a two-year-old debt crisis that is blighting the world economy.
Rome had to offer a record 7.89 per cent yield to sell 3-year bonds, a huge leap from the 4.93 per cent it paid in late October, and 7.56 per cent for 10-year bonds, compared with 6.06 per cent at that time.
The borrowing costs were above the levels at which Greece, Ireland and Portugal applied for international bailouts, but European stocks and bonds rallied in apparent relief at the strong demand, with the maximum 7.5 billion euros sold.
"In an ideal world, these yields, and the fact that the 3-year was above 8 per cent in the grey market this morning, would serve to give the Ecofin/Eurogroup a sense of added urgency, but this is a far from ideal world," said Peter Chatwell, rate strategist at Credit Agricole in London.
The euro and European markets had earlier dipped on a report in business daily La Tribune that ratings agency Standard & Poor's would downgrade France's AAA credit rating within 10 days, dealing a body blow to the eurozone's ability to rescue heavily indebted countries.
New Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti is due to outline his fiscal and economic reform plans to finance ministers of the 17-nation currency area later Tuesday amid reports, denied in Washington and Rome, of a possible approach to the IMF.
Italy, with a 1.9 trillion euro debt pile -- equivalent to 120 per cent of economic output -- needs to refinance some 340 billion euros of maturing debt next year with big redemptions starting in late January. It has promised to balance its budget in 2013 but Tuesday's auction suggested it will struggle to keep borrowing costs under control without international help.
Italian daily La Repubblica said EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn would tell eurozone ministers that Italy needs to introduce fiscal measures worth 11 billion euros immediately to meet its target.
In Brussels, Eurogroup ministers are expected to approve detailed plans to bolster their bailout fund to help prevent contagion in bond markets, under pressure from the United States and ratings agencies to stop the crisis spreading.
The newspaper report about France's credit rating came at a delicate time. France is the second largest guarantor of the EFSF bailout fund, and one of only six AAA states in the eurozone. S&P declined comment. French Finance Minister Francois Baroin, asked about the report, said the focus should not be solely on France.
The eurozone ministers are also set to release a long-delayed 8 billion euro loan instalment for Greece, vital to stave off bankruptcy in December and buy time for negotiations on an uncertain second bailout program for Athens.
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Italy+borrowing+costs+lifetime+high/5783181/story.html#ixzz1fCDVdqra
The Senate passed a bill today allowing indefinite detention of American citizens living within the U.S.
While some have claimed that this is incorrect, and that American citizens would be exempted from the indefinite detention within U.S. borders authorized by the Act, the Committee chairman who co-sponsored the bill – Carl Levin – stated today in Senate debate that it could apply to American citizens.
Levin cited the Supreme Court case of Hamdi which ruled that American citizens can be treated as enemy combatants:
“The Supreme Court has recently ruled there is no bar to the United States holding one of its own citizens as an enemy combatant,” said Levin. “This is the Supreme Court speaking.“
Under questioning from Rand Paul, co-sponsor John McCain said that Americans suspected of terrorism could be sent to Guantanamo.
You can hear the statements from Levin and McCain on today’s broadcast of KFPA’s Letters and Politics.
As Raw Story notes:
The provision would authorize the military to indefinitely detain individuals — including U.S. citizens — without charge or trial.
“If these provisions pass, we could see American citizens being sent to Guantanamo Bay,” Rand said in the video. “This should be alarming to everyone watching this proceeding today. Because it puts every single American citizen at risk.”
“There is one thing and one thing only protecting innocent Americans from being detained at will at the hands of a too-powerful state — our Constitution, and the checks we put on government power,” he continued. “Should we err today and remove some of the most important checks on state power in the name of fighting terrorism, well, then the terrorists have won.”
“Detaining citizens without a court trial is not American. In fact, this alarming arbitrary power is reminiscent of Egypt’s ‘permanent’ Emergency Law authorizing preventive indefinite detention, a law that provoked ordinary Egyptians to tear their country apart last spring and risk their lives to fight.”
The debate is also being streamed live on CSpan-2.
While passage of the bill would make the Founding Fathers roll in their grave, it might not change that much. As former constitutional lawyer Glenn Greenwald notes:
With very few exceptions, the McCain-Levin bill, awful though it is, doesn’t create any powers beyond what the O Admin thinks it now has.
Indeed, the U.S. has been a de facto police state for many years.“A MIDDLE EAST DICTATORSHIP HAS MORE DEMOCRATIC ACCOUNTABILITY FOR ABUSE OF POWER, INCLUDING TORTURE, THAN THE US UNDER OBAMA”
The same Senate is now considering a bill to repeal the prohibitions against torture:
The ACLU and over 30 other organizations sent a letter to the Senate asking them to oppose an effort in Congress that threatens to revive the use of torture and other inhumane interrogation techniques. If passed, an amendment introduced by Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) to the Defense Authorization bill would roll back torture prevention measures that Congress overwhelmingly approved in the 2005 McCain Anti-Torture Amendment, as well as a 2009 Executive Order on ensuring lawful interrogations. It would also require the administration to create a secret list of approved interrogation techniques in a classified annex to the existing interrogation field manual.
In a related development, republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann renewed her attack on the prohibition of waterboarding and other forms of torture
Glenn Greenwald pointed out last week:
Andrew Sullivan … today noted that the U.S. under Obama imposes even less accountability for abuse of power and war crimes than does Bahrain:
Bahrain’s Sunni government promised “no immunity” for anyone suspected of abuses and said it would propose creating a permanent human rights watchdog commission. “All those who have broken the law or ignored lawful orders and instructions will be held accountable,” said a government statement, which says the report acknowledges that the “systematic practice of mistreatment” ended shortly after martial law was repealed on June 1.
As Andrew put it: “So a Middle East dictatorship has more democratic accountability for abuse of power, including torture, than the US under Obama.” Beyond things like this and the facts set forth in the last paragraph here, perhaps Andrew could use today’s post of his to help clear up the towering mystery he raised yesterday of liberal disenchantment with Obama. That American war criminals are being aggressively shielded from any and all accountability is not an ancillary matter but one of enduring historical significance.
Zero Hedge
JERUSALEM — Multiple eyewitnesses reported seeing Israeli military trucks in recent days transport and station large missiles at the periphery of Jerusalem and in locations inside the West Bank.
The descriptions of the projectiles are consistent with the Jewish state’s mid-to-long range Jericho ballistic missiles.
The missile movement, if confirmed, would be considered unusual.
One of the eyewitnesses was a member of the Palestinian Authority security services. He claimed to me that a large missile was stationed five days ago near Neve Yaacov, a Jewish neighborhood in northeast Jerusalem. That neighborhood is adjacent to several Palestinian-inhabited towns.
Four other eyewitnesses, Israeli and Palestinian, reported seeing similar sights during the past week – large missiles being transported by the Israeli military at the periphery of Jerusalem and in the West Bank.
Reached for comment, the spokesperson’s unit of the Israel Defense Forces could not confirm the information, referring me instead to Israel’s national police.
Mickey Rosenfeld, the national police spokesperson here, told me today he has no information on any such movements.
Apparently, I’m not the only reporter to receive such reports.
Rosenfeld said another foreign correspondent contacted him earlier today for comment on the same matter.
The PA security member, speaking on condition of anonymity, speculated the missiles were related to a possible Israeli offensive against Iran. He commented that such missiles were offensive in nature, and usually not meant to serve as defensive posture.
While the possibility of an attack on Iran cannot be immediately discounted, there are several other scenarios that make some sense:
1) It’s possible such missile transport is part of an internal military drill or to test various locations for the future deployment of projectiles.
The drill, however, would not include test firings. Such testing is almost always conducted at a military base and usually involves one missile fired from one location. Any such test is difficult to keep under wraps.
Earlier this month, the IDF did test fire a long-range ballistic missile, believed to be a Jericho III, at the country’s Palmachim Air & Space test center. Israel’s Ministry of Defense confirmed the test was successful, indicating the purpose of the launch was the testing of a new advanced propulsion system.
Jericho III’s are believed to be guided by radar and reportedly give Israel nuclear strike capabilities within the entire Middle East, Africa, Europe, Asia and almost all parts of North America, as well as within large parts of South America and North Oceania.
2) Any missile placement could be related to the unstable situation in Syria, including fears of a future NATO military campaign there that could have ramifications for Israel, such as firing of missiles into the Jewish state by Syria or Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Just yesterday, in an unprecedented move against a fellow Arab nation, the Arab League approved economic sanctions on Syria to pressure Damascus to end its suppression of an 8-month-old uprising against Assad’s regime.
Arab League diplomats, speaking last week to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity, said that if Syria does not adhere to its demands for immediate reform, the organization will work to unify Syrian opposition groups into a coalition similar to that of Libya’s National Transitional Council.
A next step, the diplomats said, would be to recognize the opposition as the sole representative of the Syrian people in a move that would symbolically isolate the Assad’s regime.
The moves mimic the diplomatic initiatives taken to isolate Muammar Gadhafi’s regime before the NATO campaign in Libya.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad warned in an interview with a U.K. newspaper earlier this month that foreign intervention in Syria would cause an “earthquake” across the region and create another Afghanistan, while directly threatening the Jewish state.
Assad reportedly made similar comments in a meeting in early October with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmad Davutoglu.
He was quoted stating, “If a crazy measure is taken against Damascus, I will need not more than six hours to transfer hundreds of rockets and missiles to the Golan Heights to fire them at Tel Aviv.”
Assad also reportedly warned that “all these events will happen in three hours, but in the second three hours, Iran will attack the U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf and the U.S. and European interests will be targeted simultaneously.”
Klein Online
The U.S. lost its last stable outlook from the three biggest credit-ranking companies after Fitch Ratings lowered the nation to negative following a congressional committee’s failure to agree on deficit cuts.
Fitch’s outlook on the U.S., which it still assigns its top AAA grade, reflects “declining confidence that timely fiscal measures necessary to place U.S. public finances on a sustainable path will be forthcoming,” making the probability of a downgrade greater than 50 percent over two years, the company said yesterday in a statement. Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s Investors Service said Nov. 21 that the so-called supercommittee’s inability to reach an agreement didn’t merit downgrades because the inaction will trigger $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts.
U.S. government debt rallied the most since the end of 2008 during the third quarter after Standard & Poor’s stripped the U.S. of its AAA ranking on Aug. 5, while global equities lost $9.7 trillion in market value during that period. Even with lawmakers reluctant to embrace the automatic cutbacks that helped prevent downgrades, President Barack Obama has pledged to veto any efforts to undermine the spending reductions.
“There’s a much broader recognition out there that you can’t just cut discretionary spending, you have to actually cut into the meat and bone of the programs driving the deficit,” Noel Hebert, a credit strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities USA Inc. in New York, said yesterday in a telephone interview. Fitch is “catching up to the dysfunction that’s been widely perceived by the American electorate for the last decade.”
Treasuries Outperform
Treasuries have returned 3.8 percent through yesterday since S&P made its rating cut, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch indexes. German bunds gained 1.9 percent, Japanese bonds rose 0.1 percent, and U.S. corporate debt handed investors a 0.4 percent loss, the indexes show.
The MSCI All Country World Index dropped 6 percent, and the Standard & Poor’s GSCI Total Return Index (MXWD) of commodities was little changed.
Treasuries due in 10 years and more have returned almost 28 percent in 2011, the most among 144 bond indexes compiled by Bloomberg and the European Federation of Financial Analysts Societies after accounting for changes in currency rates.
Bloomberg
