Iran’s foreign minister said Wednesday that his country could imminently resume enriching uranium to 20 percent should Western powers fail to uphold their end of an interim nuclear deal inked last month in Geneva.
“The structure of our nuclear program has been maintained and the 20 percent enrichment can be resumed in less than 24 hours,” Mohammad Javad Zarif told a gathering of Iranian students in Tehran.He added that “the structure of the sanctions and the antagonistic atmosphere created by the West against Iran is falling apart,” according to the semi-official Fars news agency.As part of the November 24 interim agreement, Iran agreed to dilute or convert to uranium oxide all uranium enriched beyond 5 percent. The blending down of Iran’s stock of 20 percent enriched uranium is expected to lengthen the time required for nuclear “breakout” capability.The sides were set to return to the negotiating table in Geneva on Thursday, days after the Iranian delegation had abandoned expert-level talks in protest over continued US sanctions.The negotiations, brokered by representatives of the United States, China, Britain, France, Russia and Germany, are expected to revolve around the on-the-ground implementation of the guidelines established in the interim agreement.
While the talks are currently scheduled for December 19-20, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Seyed Abbas Araqchi told Fars that the meetings will continue through Saturday and Sunday if proven necessary.“It’s in the interests of the Iranians to go quickly because there won’t be an easing of sanctions until the agreement is implemented,” a senior Western diplomat told Reuters.The Iranian officials last met with representatives from the six world powers on December 12 in Vienna. However, following a decision by the US government to blacklist 19 companies for evading Iranian sanctions, the Iranian delegation cut the meetings short and flew back to Iran a day before negotiations were set to end, stating that the US’s move violated the interim agreement.“Iran has ended the talks because of the addition of more individuals and companies to the sanctions list. It was against the path of agreements,” an unnamed Iranian official told the IRNA news agency following the move.Days later, top Iranian officials reiterated their commitment to the diplomatic process.“The process has been derailed, the process has not died,” Zarif told CBS News on Sunday. “We are trying to put it back and to correct the path, and continue the negotiations because I believe there is a lot at stake for everybody.”Ali Akbar Velayati, a top adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was also quoted Tuesday saying that Iran was ready for a final agreement.
Under the interim agreement signed in Geneva on November 24, the world powers must ease sanctions against Iran while Iran is required to scale back its nuclear program over the course of six months. While the deal was heavily criticized by Israeli officials, the US and the additional world powers remain optimistic the interim deal will pave the way for a permanent agreement with the Iranian regime.

Universities quit US academic body over Israel boycott

Brandeis and Penn State Harrisburg withdraw their membership in the American Studies Association, citing its politicization

By Yoel Goldman December 19, 2013, 2:52 am 3-The times of Israel

Two US academic institutions withdrew their membership in the American Studies Association this week, after the national body endorsed a boycott of Israeli academic institutions earlier this month, with its members approving the measure on Monday.Penn State Harrisburg was the first university to announce a break with the ASA on Tuesday, with Brandeis University following suit Wednesday.Penn State’s Dr. Simon J. Bronner, chairman of the American Studies department, announced that his school was dropping its institutional affiliation, saying the ASA’s boycott measure would “curtail academic freedom.”“The withdrawal of institutional membership by our program and others allows us to be independent of the political and ideological resolutions issued by the ASA and concentrate on building American Studies scholarship with our faculty, students, and staff,” Bronner added in a statement.A similar message was posted on Brandeis’s American Studies program homepage.“We view the recent vote by the membership to affirm an academic boycott of Israel as a politicization of the discipline and a rebuke to the kind of open inquiry that a scholarly association should foster.“We remain committed to the discipline of American Studies but we can no longer support an organization that has rejected two of the core principles of American culture– freedom of association and expression,” the statement read.The ASA’s boycott has not gone unnoticed by lawmakers.
On Wednesday, Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) released a statement blasting the decision, which he said “applies a deeply offensive double standard.”Nadler said that the ASA had “embraced an approach that is anathema to our desire for Israelis and Palestinians to co-exist in peace and security,” arguing that “such a stance undermines prospects for a two-state solution and ultimately will perpetuate the cycle of violence.”
The congressman warned that boycott would discourage direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, which he described as the only route to “a peaceful and lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”“The ASA’s decision is particularly troubling in that it comes in the middle of newly revived peace talks led by the Obama Administration,” he continued. “Even Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas opposes boycotts and sanctions against Israel, like the one passed by ASA, out of a concern for the potential damage to the talks and ultimately to an enduring peace.”Earlier this week, Congressman Eliot Engel (D-NY) also criticized the vote.Decrying “the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the expansion of illegal settlements and the Wall in violation of international law” and “the systematic discrimination against Palestinians,” the American Studies Association resolved earlier this month to “honor the call of Palestinian civil society for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions.”The “boycott is the best way to protect and expand academic freedom and access to education,” ASA president Curtis Marez said in a press release on December 4.In the resolution passed unanimously by the association’s national council, the group justified its decision with the assertions that Palestinian students and scholars enjoy “no effective or substantive academic freedom” under Israeli rule and that “Israeli institutions of higher learning are a party to Israeli state policies that violate human rights and negatively impact the working conditions of Palestinian scholars and students.”Two-thirds of the 1,252 members of the ASA who then voted on the measure approved the boycott, according to an ASA announcement Monday, a day after the deadline for voting.
At the time of the vote, there were 3,853 eligible voters, meaning one-third of the membership participated.
The membership-wide canvas was unprecedented and was undertaken in part at the behest of boycott opponents, who said at a session during the ASA annual conference in Washington last month that the matter was too sensitive to leave up to the 20-member national council, which unanimously endorsed the boycott.
“The National Council engaged and addressed questions and concerns of the membership throughout the process,” the ASA statement said.“During the open discussion at the recent convention, members asked us to draft a resolution that was relevant to the ASA in particular and so the Council’s final resolution acknowledged that the US plays a significant role in enabling the Israeli occupation of Palestine.”In its announcement, the ASA said it would invite Israeli and Palestinian academics to its 2014 national meeting in Los Angeles. The ASA describes itself as “devoted to the interdisciplinary study of American culture and history.”The Anti-Defamation League called the vote to endorse the boycott “manifestly unjust.”“This shameful, morally bankrupt and intellectually dishonest attack on academic freedom by the American Studies Association should be soundly condemned by all who are committed to the ideal that open exchange of ideas is the most effective way to achieve change,” said National Director Abraham Foxman in a statement.
National council president of the American Studies Association Curtis Marez admitted that the ASA has never before called for a boycott of any other nation’s universities and did not dispute that many other countries, including some of those in Israel’s region, are considered to have a comparable — if not worse — human-rights record than Israel.“One has to start somewhere,” he said according to a New York Times report, adding that the US has “a particular responsibility to answer the call for boycott because it is the largest supplier of military aid to the state of Israel.” In addition, Marez noted, Palestinian civil groups had asked the ASA for the boycott, whereas no similar requests had been made by similar groups in other countries.Founded in 1951 and now counting about 5,000 members, the Washington, DC-based ASA is America’s oldest and largest association devoted to the interdisciplinary study of American culture and history, according to its website.On Wednesday, the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association became the third US academic body to push for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions. The boycott will be open to discussion at the group’s national conference in May in Austin, Texas.Earlier this year, the Association for Asian American Studies became the the first US academic institution to boycott Israeli academic institutions. At its annual conference in Seattle in April, the group’s general membership unanimously voted in favor of a resolution that accuses Israeli universities of supporting systematic discrimination against Palestinian students, among other charges.The US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel was founded in early 2009, in the wake of Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. Since then, it has been endorsed by 963 faculty members across the country.Rebecca Shimoni Stoil, Stuart Winer, Raphael Ahren and JTA contributed to this report.

PASTOR PAUL BEGLEYS LATEST CONSPIRACY THEORY.AN APP THAT SAYS JULY 27TH 14.OPENING GATES OF HATES,WHEN WILL BEGLEY EVER STOP THESE REDICULAS DREAMT UP CONSPIRACY THEORIES-WHEN HE CALLS HIMSELF A PASTOR OF PROPHECY..I'D CALL HIM THE PASTOR OF CONSPIRACY THEORIES AND IMAGINATIONS. STICK TO TRUE PROPHECIES PASTOR BEGLEY.NOT YOUR MIND EVIL DREAMT UP IMAGINATIONS.THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH PROPHECIES.I CAN SEE WHY THE BIBLE SAYS THE CHRISTIANS WILL FALL AWAY FROM THE FAITH BECAUSE OF FILTHY DREAMERS.FALSE PASTORS TEACHERS.DREAMING UP EVERY CONSPIRACY THEORY POSSIBLE TO FIT THEIR PROPHECY BELIEFS OF THE BIBLE.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mK-3jvOQ1eU&list=UU4SH8rh0OjYV3zwqnIfqNbA