France hands of Carlos the Jackal another life in prison

Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, better known as "Carlos the Jackal solves cm, his fist as he is on trial in Paris appears with a trial in Frankfurt am Main from his former German accomplice Hans-Joachim Klein, 28 November 2000.IMG credit: Reuters/RTV/Thierry Chiarello

Alexandria Sage

PARIS | Thu 15 December 2011 7: 03 pm EST

PARIS (Reuters) - a French Court of sentenced extravagant Marxist militant Carlos the Jackal to another life sentence on Thursday for the bomb attacks, 11 people nearly three decades ago killed.

The Venezuelan defendant, 62, whose real name is Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, is for almost 20 years in the service one life sentence in a separate case for the murder of two policemen and an informant in Paris was closed in 1975 in France.

Conviction Ramirez, an additional life term Pariser Hof, special terrorism consists of seven judges said he should serve at least 18 years in prison.

The ruling could back to push the date on which it can be used for the conditional release, set for 2012.

Defense lawyers called the decision a scandal and said that a complaint would take their customers.

Ramirez masterminding slain accused four separate attacks in France on two trains, a train station and a Parisian Street, the 11 people and wounded almost 200.

Prosecutors, said that the bombings were seizure of two of his gang, including his mistress, his response to the police and had argued that he remained a danger to the public.

Earlier on Thursday Ramirez treated the Court in one - according to one important wanted international criminal - five hour monologue, alternately walking, vitriolic and poignant, called himself "living martyrs" to defend his innocence.

Ramirez, a self-dubbed "elite Schütze," appeared in resignation to a guilty verdict. Death in prison, he said once, "Is the role of a revolutionary."

"I am in prison... sentenced in pre-decided case," he told the Court his voice in volume increases.

SHADES OF CHE GUEVARA

Ramirez, a colorful figure can be seen at the height of his fame from his Che Guevara-style beret, sunglasses and Havana cigars, sealed his fame in a bloody hostage-taking of OPEC oil Ministers in 1975.

During the cold war was previously caught support by Eastern bloc and the Middle East, staging attacks across Europe for more than two decades in the Sudan in 1994.

During the six-week trial Ramirez appeared more like a master of ceremonies as a defendant, speaking through loudspeakers, suspend judges, lawyers to correct and occasionally wrapping well out of his cage respondent.

He denied any specific involvement in four bombings in 1982 and 1983 at a Parisian Street, two trains and a Marseille train station that injured nearly 200 people and 11 dead links. Prosecutors say the bombings Ramirez were the answer to the police seizure of two of his gang, including his beloved.

"There is nothing... me connect with these four attacks," he told the Court, a 0 (zero) characters with his thumb and forefinger.

Wove Ramirez the history smile after history, often as a modern Scheherazade and grow nostalgic over former comrades and sometimes turn fiery to rail on the system.

His relentless discourse touches on a variety of topics, from prison life Zionist strategy, Soviet passports, the French State, hashish, and even the death penalty.

Ramirez broke his powerful voice range when at the end of his speech, he read what he said was the last will of fallen Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi.

"I continue the fight," he read from the text before the crash, to overcome with emotions. A group of about a dozen young people in the courtroom audience raised their fists in the air, screamed encouragement for Ramirez.

"Salam alaikum" or "Peace be with you," said Ramirez, to Islam in prison, before a final fist in the air on the amount converted.

MAN OF KAMPFES

Accused of being a gun for hire by his opponents and a cold-blooded killer of former cohort witnessed against him, put Ramirez on the first day of the procedure as "Revolutionary occupation."

Why no one ever was arrested in France for the attacks he questions cast itself as a convenient scapegoat. He and his lawyers said that the evidence for unreliable witnesses and photocopies of documents from Eastern European secret service archives was based.

Clearly, enjoy a fondness for betting stories in the spotlight, Ramirez indicated, different citing a cast of historical and modern State by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and Soviet leader Stalin of to former French President Jacques Chirac, and mentioned in its guilty verdict given in the same courthouse earlier in the day.

He said the Court considers the right way, a 9-millimeter pistol, correction of the public prosecutor know how many balls to load as a weapon.

"You not really a man of struggle," he said.

Prosecutors had argued, Ramirez remains a public danger and demanded he be sentenced to an additional gets life term and serve at least 18 years old.

(Additional reporting Thierry Leveque and Vicky Buffery;) (Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Read More

8:39 PM | 0 comments

France draws fire after "alarm bells" warning

AppId is over the quota AppId is over the quota 

France's President Nicolas Sarkozy arrives to deliver a speech on benefits fraud during his visit in Bordeaux, southwestern France, November 15, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Regis Duvignau

By Daniel Flynn and James Mackenzie

PARIS/ROME | Tue Nov 15, 2011 6:52pm EST

PARIS/ROME (Reuters) - France came under heavy fire on global markets Tuesday, reflecting fears that the euro zone's second biggest economy is being sucked into a spiraling debt crisis.

Global stocks and the euro fell as Italian bond yields climbed back to unsustainable levels on doubts that Italy's Mario Monti and new Greek leader Lucas Papademos, unelected technocrats without a domestic political base, can impose tough austerity measures and economic reform.

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi has predicted the 17-nation currency bloc will be in a mild recession by the end of the year, a view underlined by data showing the economy barely grew in the third quarter and faces a sharp downturn.

"The risks of a technical recession have increased and we expect the economy in Germany to shrink at least in one quarter," said Michael Schroeder of the German economic research institute ZEW.

On the markets, Italy's 10-year bond yield rocketed back above 7 percent, pushing its borrowing costs to a level that helped to trigger the fall of Silvio Berlusconi's government last week and is widely seen as unsustainable in the long term.

Spain's Treasury paid yields not seen since 1997 to sell 12- and 18-month treasury bills.

French 10-year bond yields have risen around 50 basis points in the last week, pushing the spread over safe haven German bonds to a euro-era high of 173 basis points.

French banks are among the biggest holders of Italy's 1.8 trillion euro public debt pile.

The urgency of resolving the debt crisis was underscored by a think-tank report saying that triple-A rated France should also be "ringing euro zone alarm bells" as it could not make rapid adjustments to its economy.

"THREAT TO THE WORLD"

Fears are growing in the United States that Europe's debt crisis is mushrooming into a wider systemic problem.

Alan Krueger, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said the European debt crisis was the leading risk to the U.S. recovery.

And U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Europe had a difficult task in boosting the creditworthiness of some of its economies while also boosting growth.

"That's a difficult balance and you can see they're struggling with it but I think they're gradually making progress," he told a conference sponsored by the Wall Street Journal. "This is absolutely within Europe's capacity to solve and it's within their ability.

"We are helping both directly and indirectly through a range of things you know about, financially, and we have a lot of useful lessons from our experience."

But Greek conservatives set themselves on a collision course with the European Commission, refusing its demand to sign a pledge to meet the terms of a bailout designed to save Greece from bankruptcy and safeguard the euro zone.

New premier Papademos looks certain to sail through a confidence vote Wednesday, but members of the New Democracy party, a key player in his crisis coalition, said they would not bow to "dictates from Brussels" to give written guarantees. New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras says he is opposed to measures that fail to help Greece grow its way out of trouble.

With the survival of the 17-state currency zone in its current form now at risk, EU governments have until a summit on December 9 to come up with a bolder and more convincing strategy, involving some form of massive, visible financial backing.

Geithner restated the U.S. view that the European Central Bank should play a bigger role, while acknowledging the objections of Germany, the EU's main paymaster, to any step that limits ECB independence or its mandate to fight inflation:

"There are lots of ways for the central bank to play a more effective supportive role in resolving this without violating the obvious constraints we respected here ... for (the central bank's) independence and making sure the central bank is not providing a direct source of financing for governments."

Peter Bofinger, a member of the group of economists who advise the German government, said that if the bloc's debt troubles threatened to rip apart the financial system, the ECB should in fact become the euro zone's lender of last resort.

Many analysts believe the only way to stem the contagion for now is for the ECB to buy up large quantities of bonds, effectively the sort of 'quantitative easing' undertaken by the U.S. and British central banks.

"If politics can't do it, then the ECB must do all it can to bring interest rates down to more reasonable levels," Bofinger said at Euro Finance Week.

LACK OF GROWTH

The debt crisis is likely to make matters worse in the next months with nations such as Italy, Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain forced to adopt unpopular spending cuts to stop the bond market driving them toward default.

Economists say there is no visible growth strategy in place to counter those austerity measures.

After a disastrous week for the euro zone's third biggest economy, Italy's Monti secured a breakthrough when Angelino Alfano, secretary of Berlusconi's People of Freedom (PDL) party, emerged from talks with Monti saying moves to form a government would succeed.

The prime minister-designate said he would present the results of his consultations to the president Wednesday, hinting he had cleared any obstacles to forming a government.

"I would like to confirm my absolute serenity and conviction in the capacity of our country to overcome this difficult phase," Monti said.

His technocrat-led cabinet have the job of speeding reform of pensions, labor markets and business regulation to put Italy's finances on a sustainable path. Italy must refinance 200 billion euros ($273 billion) of bonds by the end of April.

Germany and France posted solid growth in the third quarter, according to new data. But countries on the front line of the crisis fared much worse, for overall growth of just 0.2 percent. Analysts expected bleaker times in the core economies.

"Forward-looking indicators suggest that the euro zone economy is likely to drop back into recession in the fourth quarter and beyond," said Jonathan Loynes, chief European economist at Capital Economics.

(Additional reporting by Luke Baker in Brussels and Glenn Somerville and Lesley Wroughton in Washington; Writing by Peter Millership and Jon Boyle)

Read More

9:12 PM | 0 comments

France, Germany clash over ECB role to stem crisis

AppId is over the quota AppId is over the quota 

1 of 2. France's President Nicolas Sarkozy (L) and Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel leave a joint press conference after crisis talks with Greece's Prime Minister on the eve of a G20 summit of major world economies in Cannes, November 2, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Toby Melville

By Nicholas Vinocur and James Mackenzie

PARIS/ROME | Wed Nov 16, 2011 10:48am EST

PARIS/ROME (Reuters) - France and Germany, Europe's two central powers, clashed on Wednesday over whether the European Central Bank should intervene more forcefully to halt the euro zone's accelerating debt crisis after modest bond purchases failed to stop the rout.

Facing rising borrowing costs as its 'AAA' credit rating comes under threat, France appeared to plead for stronger ECB action, adding to mounting global pressure spelled out by U.S. President Barack Obama.

Bond market contagion is spreading across Europe. Italian 10-year bond yields have risen above 7 percent, unaffordable in the long term. Yields on bonds issued by France, the Netherlands and Austria -- which along with Germany form the core of the euro zone -- have also climbed.

"The ECB's role is to ensure the stability of the euro, but also the financial stability of Europe. We trust that the ECB will take the necessary measures to ensure financial stability in Europe," government spokeswoman Valerie Pecresse said after a cabinet meeting in Paris.

Pecresse said Paris believed the risk premium investors charge to hold French debt rather than safe haven 10-year German Bunds "is not justified". That "spread" hit a euro era peak of 195 basis points on Wednesday.

But German Chancellor Angela Merkel made clear Berlin would resist pressure for the central bank to take a bigger role in resolving the debt crisis, saying European Union rules prohibited such action.

"The way we see the treaties, the ECB doesn't have the possibility of solving these problems," she said after talks with visiting Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny.

The only way to recover markets' confidence was to implement agreed economic reforms and build a closer European political union by changing the EU treaty, Merkel said.

ECB policymakers continue to reject international calls to intervene decisively as Europe's lender of last resort, stressing it is up to governments to resolve the debt crisis through austerity measures and reforms.

SHORT-LIVED RESPITE

Traders said the central bank bought Spanish and Italian bonds on Wednesday, but the respite was short-lived and there was no sign of a change in its policy of limited, stop-go purchases to calm markets temporarily while maintaining pressure on governments.

Wall Street opened lower and European shares slipped as investors doubted the ability of governments in the euro zone to contain the crisis.

Obama, on a visit to Australia, turned up the heat on Europe to act more boldly to extinguish the spreading bushfire.

"Until we put in place a concrete plan and structure that sends a clear signal to the markets that Europe is standing behind the euro and will do what it takes, we are going to continue to see the kinds of market turmoil we saw," he said.

Obama said that whilst there had been progress in putting together unity governments in Italy and Greece, Europe still faced a "problem of political will".

In Rome, Prime Minister-designate Mario Monti unveiled a government of technocrats, taking the key economy portfolio for himself in a drive to implement long delayed structural economic reforms and austerity measures.

Monti, a former European Commissioner, said he hoped markets would be reassured by his team, which features several academics and Intesa bank Chief Executive Corrado Passera, but no politicians. He will present his austerity program to the Senate on Thursday.

Officials said the new 16-member government, including three women and announced by Monti at the presidential palace in Rome, would be sworn in at 5 p.m. (1600 GMT).

Federico Ghizzoni, chief of Unicredit, said he would ask the ECB to increase access to central bank funds for Italian banks, which have faced growing funding problems since Italy was sucked into the debt crisis in July.

SYSTEMIC CRISIS

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso told the European Parliament the euro zone faced a systemic crisis and fragmenting the European Union was no solution.

In Greece, technocrat Prime Minister Lucas Papademos, a former ECB vice-president, was set to win a big confidence vote in parliament for his interim government despite the refusal of the main conservative leader to sign up to more austerity.

New Democracy party chief Antonis Samaras gave Papademos only arms-length backing, refusing to bow to EU demands for a written commitment to the bailout program and calling for elections in three months to restore social peace.

With Papademos' national unity coalition already split, rebuilding Greece's shattered finances to avert default will be a daunting task as Europe battles to prevent its debt woes from dragging down the world economy.

Financial markets are skeptical that unelected technocrats will have the political clout to impose unpopular reforms, the two-year-old debt crisis risks engulfing the entire currency bloc and hurting global growth.

And there are growing signs of strain in the money market, the plumbing of the international financial system.

Banks in the euro zone face increasing difficulties in obtaining dollar funding, and while the stresses are nowhere near as acute as they were in the 2008 financial crisis, they have continued to mount despite ECB moves to provide unlimited liquidity to banks.

"Markets are clearly expecting a circuit breaker to alleviate pressure on periphery bond yields," said David Scutt, a trader at Arab Bank Australia in Sydney. "If no announcement is forthcoming in the days ahead, one suspects that the situation could unravel fairly quickly.

With a Brussels-based think-tank warning that France's economy should be "ringing alarm bells", Finance Minister Francois Baroin sought to calm fears about public finances.

"We are expecting a slowdown, but not a recession," Baroin told LCI news channel. "We are doing everything to maintain our credit rating, to borrow more cheaply."

Data on Tuesday showed the economy of the 17-nation euro zone barely grew in the third quarter. ECB President Mario Draghi has predicted the currency bloc will be in a mild recession by the end of the year.

Many analysts believe the only way to stem the contagion for now is for the ECB to buy large amounts of bonds -- effectively the sort of quantitative easing undertaken by the U.S. and British central banks.

The ECB has bought 187 billion euros in government bonds since May 2010 but it has so far "sterilized" all purchases by taking the equivalent amount in from the market in deposits. One option would be to stop fully sterilizing bond purchases.

This has been anathema in Germany, which fears that printing money could stoke inflation.

But on Tuesday Peter Bofinger, a member of the group of economists that advises the German government, said the ECB should indeed become the euro zone's lender of last resort if the bloc's debt woes risked tearing apart the financial system.

"If politics can't do it, then the ECB must do all it can to bring interest rates down to more reasonable levels," Bofinger said at Euro Finance Week.

(Additional reporting by Emelia Sithole-Matarise in London, Gareth Jones and Dina Kyriakidou in Athens, Deepa Babington in Rome; writing by Paul Taylor; editing by Janet McBride/Mike Peacock)

Read More

4:47 PM | 0 comments

France recalls Syria envoy, security HQ attacked

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

1 of 2. Demonstrators protest against Syria's President Bashar al-Assad gather in Hula, near Homs November 13, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Handout (

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

AMMAN | Wed Nov 16, 2011 11:17am EST

AMMAN (Reuters) - France recalled its ambassador to Damascus and Syria's suspension from the Arab League took effect on Wednesday, intensifying diplomatic pressure on President Bashar al-Assad to halt a violent eight-month-old crackdown on protests.

Syrian army defectors attacked an intelligence complex on the edge of Damascus in a high-profile assault that showed how close the popular uprising is to sliding into armed conflict.

Hours after the Arab League suspension took effect, Assad supporters threw stones and debris at the embassy of the United Arab Emirates and smeared its walls with graffiti, witnesses said. The embassy is in one of the most secure districts of the capital, near Assad's home and offices.

Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said France was working with the Arab League on a draft resolution at the United Nations.

Last month Russia and China vetoed a Security Council resolution that would have condemned Damascus, but since then the normally cautious Arab League has suspended Syria for failing to implement an Arab peace plan.

"New violence is taking place and that has led to the closure of the missions in Aleppo and Latakia and to recall our ambassador to Paris," Juppe said, referring to weekend attacks by pro-Assad demonstrators on French diplomatic premises, as well as Turkish and Saudi missions, in Syria.

Arab foreign ministers met in Rabat for an Arab-Turkish forum, where a Syrian flag was placed by an empty chair.

Turkey, now a fierce critic of its former ally, said Syria had failed to honor an Arab peace plan to halt the unrest.

Speaking through a translator, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu compared Syria with Libya, where rebels captured, humiliated and killed Muammar Gaddafi last month.

"The regime should meet the demands of its people," he said. "The collective massacres in Syria and ... the bloodshed cannot continue like this."

IRAN DEFENDS SYRIA

In Tehran, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi criticized the Arab League for "acting in a way that will hurt the security of the region." He told the official news agency IRNA that Syria, an ally of Iran since 1980, had repeatedly pledged to meet legitimate popular demands and enact reforms.

"Unfortunately, some countries believe that they are outside the crisis ... but they are mistaken because if a crisis happens they will be entangled by its consequences."

Saudi Arabia, which is eager to loosen the ties between its regional rival Iran and Syria, said the Arab League was acting in Syria's interest, not interfering in its affairs.

"What's important is not about suspending or not suspending (Syria from the League), it's stopping the bloodshed, starting the dialogue, and withdrawing troops from Syrian cities," Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal told Al Arabiya channel.

Western countries have tightened sanctions on Syria and on Monday Jordan's King Abdullah became the first Arab head of state to urge Assad to quit after ensuring a smooth handover.

In the early months of the uprising, attempts by security forces to crush mainly peaceful protests accounted for most of the violence. But since August there has been an growing number of reports of army defectors and armed civilians fighting back.

Activists said Free Syrian Army fighters fired machineguns and rockets at a large Air Force Intelligence complex on the northern edge of the capital at about 2:30 a.m. (0030 GMT).

A gunfight ensued and helicopters circled over the complex, on the Damascus-Aleppo highway. There were no immediate reports of casualties. Syrian state media did not mention the attack.

"HUGELY SYMBOLIC"

A Western diplomat in Damascus described the assault as "hugely symbolic and tactically new," saying that if the reported details were true it would be "much much more coordinated than anything we have seen before."

"To actually attack a base like this is something else, and so close to Damascus as well," said the diplomat, adding that fighting in recent weeks involving army deserters in the town of Rastan and the city of Homs resembled a localized civil war.

"It's not a nationwide civil war, but in very specific locations, it is looking like that," said the diplomat.

The Free Syrian Army was set up by deserters and is led by Colonel Riad al-Asaad, who is based in southern Turkey.

It announced this week that it had formed a "temporary military council" of nine defecting officers, led by Asaad.

The statement said the Syrian Free Army aimed to "bring down the regime and protect citizens from the repression ... and prevent chaos as soon as the regime falls," adding that it would form a military court to try "members of the regime who are proven to have been involved in killing operations."

Syrian television showed thousands of Assad's supporters rallying in Damascus and Latakia to mark the day his father Hafez al-Assad seized power in 1970. It said the crowds were also voicing their rejection of the Arab League's decision.

"God, Syria, Bashar, that's all!" shouted demonstrators in central Damascus, who turned out in heavy rain to wave flags and posters of the president. Two large posters of Assad and his father hung from a building. "Neither rain nor sanctions will stop us expressing our nationalism," the television said.

The Arab League has stopped short of calling for Assad's departure or proposing any Libya-style military intervention, but its ostracism of Syria is a blow to a country whose ruling Baath party puts Arab nationalism at the center of its credo.

Syrian authorities have banned most independent media. They blame the unrest on "armed terrorist gangs" and foreign-backed militants who they say have killed 1,100 soldiers and police.

Hundreds of people have been killed this month, one of the bloodiest periods of the revolt.

Syria says it remains committed to the Arab peace plan, which calls for the withdrawal of troops from urban areas, the release of prisoners and a dialogue with the opposition.

State media said more than 1,000 prisoners, including prominent dissident Kamal Labwani, were freed on Tuesday. But human rights campaigners say tens of thousands have been detained since anti-Assad protests began.

(Additional reporting Souhail Karam in Rabat, Dominic Evans in Beirut, John Irish in Paris, Mahmoud Habboush in Dubai and Ramin Mostafavi in Tehran; Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Tim Pearce)

Read More

4:52 PM | 0 comments

United States, UK, France, the pressure on the Iran ratchet

By Louis Charbonneau

Wed, November 3, 2011 4: 32 pm EDT

n">(Reuters) - the United States, the UK and France enabled the pressure on Tehran on Thursday before next week version of a voltage of expected UN report, which can provide new information on the military side of Iran's nuclear programme.

Washington and its European allies suspect that Iran become the possibility of nuclear weapons under the guise of a civilian nuclear energy program. Iran denies want nuclear bombs and insists that its program to generate electricity.

The report of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to detailed intelligence on military dimensions of Iran's nuclear programme when the stop which explicitly say that Tehran is trying to reveal such weapons.

"A (issue), I would like to mention, in particular the continuing threat of nuclear program of Iran," said President Barack Obama reporter of a heads of State and Government of the G20 Summit in the French town of Cannes.

"The IAEA is intended, a report on Iran's nuclear program next week and (French) (Nicolas) President Sarkozy publish, and I agree on the need, the unprecedented pressure on Iran to perform its obligations,", Obama said.

The United States, European Union and its allies around the world have imposed economic sanctions against Tehran for refusing to stop its uranium enrichment program, which Western powers to believe atomic bomb program is at the heart of a Iran.

The United States and Israel have repeatedly indicated the possible use of force against Iranian nuclear sites, technology-based threats of violent retaliation from the Islamic Republic.

The UN Security Council, the support of the traditional supporters of Iran, Russia, and China, has imposed since 2006 four round always tougher sanctions against Tehran.

In response to a newspaper report that military contingency plans amid mounting concerns about Iran Great Britain was, strengthened a spokesman for the British Foreign Office said on Wednesday that London all options offen-- keep including the possibility of a military operation was.

"We want to be kept a negotiated solution, but all options on the table," a spokesman of the Foreign Ministry said.

READY TO USE "ALL MEANS" TO UNITED STATES

The report in the guardian, without giving a source says, UK Ministry of defence believed that the United States could speed up plans for missile strikes on some key Iranian facilities and quoted British officials say it would seek and receive military assistance from the United Kingdom for each mission.

UN diplomats in New York and Government officials, which exaggerated elsewhere as the guardian report. She said, that Israel would be rather is stuck with military violence against Iranian nuclear facilities as the United States, the conflicts in the Iraq and Afghanistan.

The pressure on the Iran comes weeks after the United States Iran plotting to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador in Washington accused, denied a claim Tehran.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland confirmed that the Obama management the door all the options in the use was not closed with Tehran's nuclear program.

"Many times in the last few weeks and months, said that we are a military confrontation with the Iran striving not", she said.

Nuland, "that is to say, we are all means of available to use, continue to try to meet the international pressure on the Iran to the IAEA obligations and to increase, on its nuclear program," told reporters in Washington.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi told reporters in the Libyan city of Benghazi that drastic measures against Tehran should avoid Washington.

"We hope that they think twice before putting on a collision course with the Iran," Salehi said.

Diplomats in New York confirmed the West almost a two-track strategy of negotiations to resolve Iran's decades of nuclear confrontation it should refuse cooperation with the West and the threat of further sanctions.

Years of troubled negotiations with Tehran have gone nowhere. Western diplomats say the new IAEA report on the Iran shows what might they have no choice but try sanctions extend regime against Tehran the United Nations.

WOUNDED BEAR

There was a wave of speculation in the Israeli media this week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to safe Cabinet working consensus for an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.

Israel bombed Iraqi reactor in 1981 and started a similar sortie against Syria in the year 2007 precedents weight, his veiled threats, similar measures on the Iran if foreign pressure fails, put an end to areas its nuclear program.

But many independent analysts see on such a mission as too much for Israel alone against the Iran too.

A senior Western diplomat said that the international sanctions combined with acts of sabotage such as the Stuxnet computer virus, which temporarily hobbled Iran's enrichment program Tehran's nuclear progress has slowed down to reduce the need for the use of military force anytime soon.

"Our policy of slowing down things was successful, but it has not stopped it in its title" the diplomat said on condition of anonymity.

A RAID on the nuclear facilities of Iran would cause such damage to the global prosperity and security, that other central-a mix of sanctions and sabotage-the lever remains pressure on Tehran, analysts say.

There are fears that Iran an attack could hit back, through demolition temporarily the marine and pipeline arteries delivers a large part of the global oil and gas demand.

Malcolm Chalmers, Research Director of at Britain's Royal United Services Institute, the effects for the attack on Iran described strongly expressed: "you are talking about the create a wounded bear follow with very unpredictable."

(Writing by Louis Charbonneau;) Reporting by Reuters offices around the world editing by Vicki Allen)

Read More

8:42 PM | 0 comments