from PressTV

As Western powers batten down the hatches and prepare sanctions against Tehran, a senior Russian official says there still is no proof of an Iranian nuclear weapons program.

In remarks published on Friday, deputy Russian foreign minister Alexander Saltanov reiterated that Moscow is not convinced that Iran seeks to weoponize its nuclear program, and moreover he has not been shown any corroborative evidence confirming that the country has any such plans.

“Russia has no concrete information that Iran is planning to construct a weapon. It may be more like Japan, which has nuclear readiness but does not have a bomb,” Primakov told The Jerusalem Post.

In order to pressure Iran into halting its nuclear work, Washington and a number of European countries have vowed to push for new UN sanctions early next year.

But the calls for renewed pressure were once again snubbed by China and Russia.

Saltanov said while “Iran has a positive potential” to cooperate with the West on its nuclear case, it is most evident that a military solution against the Tehran government would only make matters worse.

“If Israel attacks Iran it will cause great instability and will only postpone the Iranian program, not end it,” noted the Russian official.

Israel routinely threatens to bomb Iran’s enrichment sites, arguing that the country’s nuclear work is a mortal threat to Tel Aviv, which ironically is reported to have the Middle East’s sole nuclear arsenal and 200 nuclear warheads at its disposal.

This is while Iran, unlike Tel Aviv, is a signatory of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and has opened its nuclear facilities to routine inspections by the UN nuclear watchdog.

In response to Israeli war threats, Tehran warns that if Tel Aviv steps out of line, it will close the strategic Strait of Hormuz to maritime traffic, including the 15 or so supertankers that sail through on a daily basis to deliver the world’s oil supplies.

A recent report by the US Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) has confirmed that if the United States or Israel decide to bomb Tehran’s nuclear sites, Iran’s naval modernization and maritime capabilities have reached a point where it can shut down the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

“Given the importance of the Strait, disrupting traffic flow or even threatening to do so may be an effective tool for Iran,” said the intelligence report, which was revealed by Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin in November.

It notes that while Iran’s ability to shut down the Strait of Hormuz may be transitory, the impact would undoubtedly have far-reaching consequences for the already-fragile world economy.

“[World economies would suffer] a serious economic impact from a sustain closure of the Strait of Hormuz due to greatly reduced supplies of crude oil, petroleum supplies and (liquefied natural gas),” ONI said.

On the same note, the report adds that not only has Tehran acquired “increasingly sophisticated systems” from China and Russia, but the “modernization” of the Iranian navy is to an extent that would help the government carry out such a closure if need be.

(received via email)

from Global Research

China’s completion of an historic natural gas pipeline with Kazakhstan bypassing Russia this week tightens the Asian behemoth’s grip on energy resources needed to fuel a burgeoning economy, a desire also forcing it on a quest for oil and gas wealth in other corners of the globe.

By Fawzia Sheikh

China is not alone in this scramble for energy security. Hungry for oil and gas, world powers like Russia and the United States are also relying on different strategies to grab resource treasures but their efforts have raised questions about conflicts down the road.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration describes China as the second largest energy consumer behind the United States . Taking advantage of the world’s financial crisis, the Asian powerhouse has tapped currency reserves to invest in both Russia and Central Asia , helping to construct power plants and other domestic infrastructure in return for long-term oil and gas supplies, said Ben Montalbano, a senior research analyst at the Washington-based Energy Policy Research Foundation.

Lacking energy reserves, China has been “working hard to lock in” investments in Africa, Central Asia and Venezuela , Montalbano told OilPrice.com. The country has also sought natural gas to satisfy increasing consumption and built many liquefied natural gas receiving terminals over the last year, he added.

“Cut off from African natural resources . . . China ’s growth stops,” warned Peter Pham, director of the Africa Project at the New York-based National Committee on American Foreign Policy and an associate professor at James Madison University in Harrisonburg , Virginia .

This intensive bid for energy, however, has caused friction with the world community. Under an investment strategy in Africa, China “wins over very easily governing elites but doesn’t necessarily win over the populace,” Pham charged.

Chinese state-owned companies tend not to invest in exploration but prefer to offer “inducements,” he said. China’s offer of multibillion-dollar credit facilities to Angola was pivotal for the African nation to get “off the hook” from negotiating with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to meet “serious reform and certain conditions” before the organizations granted such facilities, he argued. China then bought stakes from the Angolan state oil company, he said.

China, moreover, has helped the Khartoum government to evade United Nations sanctions by assisting in the building of at least three weapons factories in Sudan , he said.

Not to be outdone, Russia has returned to Africa in “considerable force” pursuing natural resources in part to recover its “great power status,” said Pham. Russian firms are trying to “lock in partnerships” with resource producers to form, for example, the “stream of a natural gas OPEC,” he said.

Russia holds the world’s largest natural gas reserves and the eighth largest oil reserves, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Next year, its federal budget will be nearly 50 percent derived from oil and gas exports, emphasizing a reliance on gas exports to “feed the budget,” Montalbano of the Energy Policy Research Foundation told OilPrice.com. To some extent, China and Russia have worked together in the oil and gas domain. Earlier this year, China announced a $25-billion loan to Russian firms in return for a 20-year supply of crude oil.

Russia is not the “behemoth of financial reserves” it was two years ago and has a “fairly weak” banking system and industry, Montalbano maintained. While the country is discussing certain projects with Iran and potentially with Iraq , it is mainly concerned with opening up huge Arctic gas fields because its existing fields are declining, he noted.

Russia and other northern countries have increasingly turned to the melting Arctic but the region is “still up for delineation,” said Boyko Nitzov, director of the Eurasia Energy Center at the Atlantic Council in Washington . “The Arctic is still fairly off limits for large-scale production of oil and gas” and difficult to access especially during the winter, Nitzov explained.

For American oil companies, an over-reliance on the Middle East for energy needs has shifted its attention to Africa, a major energy supplier over the last several years edging out the Persian Gulf in energy imports to the United States , Pham explained. U.S. firms tend to forge production-sharing agreements or explore resource development, but lack carte blanche in their pursuit of oil riches in places like Africa due to U.S. government sanctions and public pressure, he said. This puts the United States at “a slight disadvantage” relative to Russia and China , he added.

Competition for energy assets will probably not lead to open conflict but rather to increasing political tension, predicted Africa expert Pham. Leading African organizations, Europe and the United States never recognized Guinea ’s military coup last year, which led to a subsequent massacre of opposition members. Yet China signed a deal with the military junta, risking a perception as a “rogue operator in the single-minded pursuit of resources,” he warned.

Although Russia and China, meanwhile, have both benefited from joint oil and gas investments, making conflict doubtful in the forseeable future, “10, 20 years down the road, who knows,” Montalbano added.

Fawzia Sheikh of OilPrice.com who focus on Fossil Fuels, Alternative Energy, Metals, and Geopolitics. To find out more visit their website at: http://www.oilprice.com

Hat Tip to Dprogram

from Presstv.ir

US President Barack Obama has signed the foreign aid budget law for 2010 which includes the granting of $2.775 billion in security aid to Israel.

The Israeli Ynet news website reported that the budget signed by Obama, for the first time, also grants $500 million to the Palestinian Authority.

The aid also includes $100 million to be used by US General Keith Dayton, who is in charge of training the Palestinian security forces in the West Bank.

The aid will be handed over to the Palestinians under the condition that the American taxpayers’ money will only be transferred to a Palestinian government whose members accept the conditions of the international Quartet – the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations. The conditions include recognizing Israel, renouncing violence and accepting past agreements signed with the Tel Aviv regime.

The $3 billion aid is comprised of $2 billion in security aid and $1 billion in civilian aid.

The annual American security aid to Israel increased to $2.4 Billion after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took office and gradually relinquished the civilian aid.

The aid is accompanied by special additions to the Israeli military industries for the development of technologies, particularly in the missile field.

This is a pretty good video overview of the meddling we’ve done in Iran since the Cold War.  Some of the political slant seems a little leftist, but on the whole, it’s a good illustration of our continual prodding and meddling.