Mossad, CIA agree Iran has yet to decide to build nuclear weapon'

Israel’s intelligence services agree with American intelligence assessments that there is not enough proof to determine whether Iran is building a nuclear bomb, according to a report published Sunday in the New York Times.

	Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant.
	Photo by: Reuters

The newspaper said that senior American officials believe there is little disagreement between the Mossad and U.S. intelligence agencies over Iran’s nuclear program, despite the fact that Israeli political leaders have been pushing for quick action to block Iran from becoming what they describe as an existential threat.

The report further quoted one former senior American intelligence official who states that the Mossad “does not disagree with the U.S. on the weapons program,” adding that there is “not a lot of dispute between the U.S. and Israeli intelligence communities on the facts.”

According to the New York Times, the extent of the evidence the spy agencies have collected is unclear since most of their findings are classified. However, intelligence officials say they have been throwing everything they have at the Iranian program.

The United States and Israel share intelligence on Iran, American officials said. For its spying efforts, Israel relies in part on an Iranian exile group that is labeled a terrorist organization by the United States, the Mujahedeen Khalq, or M.E.K., which is based in Iraq, says the report.

Furthermore, the report states that the Israelis have also developed close ties in the region of Kurdistan in northern Iraq, and they are believed to use Kurdish agents who can move back and forth across the border into Iran.

According to the New York Times, American intelligence officials are wary of relying on information from an opposition group like the M.E.K., especially after their experience in Iraq where they relied on flawed information provided by the Iraqi National Congress, an exile group run by Ahmad Chalabi.

The report comes days after top Israeli official congratulated a decision by the world's largest financial money transfer network to cut off Iranian banks targeted by EU sanctions from the system, saying that the move represented a "mortal blow" to the Iranian regime.

The move was an unprecedented measure that will effectively prevent Iranian institutions from electronically transferring global funds.

An Israeli official indicated that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised the issue of disconnecting the Iranian banks from the SWIFT system during his recent conversations with U.S. President Barack Obama as well as with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

According to the official, Netanyahu told Obama that "we need SWIFT swiftly."
In response to SWIFT's Thursday announcement, the Prime Minister's Office released a statement later in the day, saying that "Prime Minister Netanyahu congratulated SWIFT for its decision to cut the Iranian banks from the system."

The New York Times report also comes on the heels of an interview between U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron and NBC's Brian Williams, in which Cameron reiterated his opposition to an Israeli strike, saying that he didn't "think as we stand today that military action by Israel would be justified."

I don't think the Israelis should take that action now. We told them they shouldn't and said we wouldn't support it if they did. We've been very clear," Cameron said.

"It's very, very important [Israel] knows it has strong allies like America, like the United Kingdom, but I don't support action now because, frankly, we've got more road to run in putting in place sanctions and putting in place tough measures against the regime and saying to them they need to take a different path," Cameron added.

Cameron added that Iran could retain "civil nuclear power, if they give up the ambition of having military nuclear power, they can have a future as a country that has more normal relations with the rest of the world," adding: "We need to keep up the pressure to encourage them to make the right choice."

Hamas chief: Israel using Gaza as 'guinea pig' for military testing

After meeting with Turkish officials, Khaled Meshal vows to continue fight against Israel in 'political, diplomatic and media fields', Turkish newspaper Today's Zaman reports. By Haaretz Tags: Hamas Palestinian reconciliation Israel Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshal on Sunday accused Israel of using the Gaza Strip as a "guinea pig" for its testing its missile capabilities amidst rising tensions with Iran, the Turkish newspaper Today's Zaman reported.

Meshal claimed that Hamas rocket attacks on Israel were self-defense, asserting that rockets are only fired from Gaza in response to Israeli strikes.

	Turkey's President Abdullah Gul (R) and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal (L) meet in Istanbul March 17, 2012. The man in the middle is a translator.
	Photo by: Reuters

Meshal was speaking on Sunday after talks with Turkish officials held over the past few days.

Mehsal called for the implementation of the unity deal between rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah.

“We want to open a new page, and we think that we have created a domestic peace atmosphere," Meshal was quoted as saying. "Peace is obligatory, and Palestinians should be unified. The Palestine issue is our cause, and our stance on occupation is the same.”

"We should sacrifice our personal and political views for the sake of the Palestine cause," Meshal continued.

In recent days, Meshal met with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Turkish President Abdullah Gul.

A main topic in the talks was Palestinian reconciliation.

Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, and Fatah, which controls the West Bank, have been attempting to implement a reconciliation agreement brokered by Egypt and signed last year in Cairo. That agreement included the formation of a unity government and the holding of elections in May 2012.

Israel has rejected the agreement, refusing to negotiate with a government involving Hamas, whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel.

Meshal on Sunday promised to continue efforts to fight Israel.

“We will naturally continue our fight against Israel in political, diplomatic and media fields," he was quoted as saying. "We will try to get the greatest support possible from the world.

Arab Spring blossoming in cinema

With Arab countries making history, the Arab Spring is now making its own revolution in cinema, too. Film festivals around the world, including Turkey, now have an obligatory Arab Spring section. The theme in all of these films is the personal journeys of inspiration

Festivals in Turkey were quick to pick up the trend, incorporating sections into their programs as well. The festivals showed many films from Arab world and praise the Arab revolution in cinema. AFP photo

There’s something intrinsically ironic about the nature of Arab Spring, about the relationship between how the West looks down on the Arab world for lagging behind in civilization, and how the Arab world has popularized a movement for freedom with the use of new media tools, the epitome of a new age in Western civilization.

When Arab communities successfully used social media, mobile phones and amateur videos for a revolutionary wave that would leave its mark on history, intellectuals worldwide celebrated this new, powerful way to communicate, organize and, eventually, stage uprisings.

Another celebration of the Arab Spring was soon seen in the establishment of cinema. First, feature films, shorts and documentaries on the civil resistance among Arab societies began gracing festival programs. Later, examples from the cinemas of Egypt, Syria, Tunisia, and even Turkey, long preceding the Arab Spring, started becoming integral parts of film festivals, as well as hot topics in film discussions.

Major film festivals from Venice to Berlin included a rich selection of films into their programs that chronicled the revolutions across the Arab world or films that were simply made by those countries that had made headlines in the last year.

Festivals in Turkey were quick to pick up the trend, incorporating sections into their programs as well. Last December’s Festival on Wheels featured a section called “Spring is Revolutionary,” showing an array of shorts and documentaries on the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, and on the role of social media in the spread of the Arab Spring. Always sensitive to issues of freedom, last February’s !f International Independent Film Festival’s People Power section blared, “We are the 99 percent.” The section brought together examples on civil disobedience, rebellion and opposition from around the world, one of the highlights being “Tahrir 2011: The Good, the Bad and the Politician,” three Egyptian directors’ look on the revolution that started in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.

And in early March, the International Filmmor Women’s Film Festival devoted a section to the female directors of Tunisia. Now, the Ankara International Film Festival, still continuing its run, is running a selection of films from Egypt under the section “Bread, Change and Social Justice,” which features films directly related to the Arab Spring and others preceding the revolutions.

Stories of inspiration

“Tahrir 2011: The Good, the Bad and the Politician,” by filmmakers Tamer Ezzat, Ayten Amin and Amr Salama, is a good example to the shared nature and narrative of the films on the Arab Spring. The Egyptian revolution here is the focal point, examining the days following Jan. 25, 2011, the day when the demonstrations turned into a full-fledged revolution.

Interviews with prominent figures, politicians and civil leaders are a common theme. But more common in these films is interviews with and profiles of those that inspired change, those who contributed to the movements with their unique stories and personal journeys that eventually became something bigger than they had set out to become.

On a similar note is Stefano Savona’s “Tahrir: Liberation Square,” another chronicle of the two weeks after Jan. 25 that follows three young men who were part of the thousands of Egyptians who took to the streets to overthrow Hosni Mubarak’s regime. Yet another example is Egyptian filmmaker Emad Maher’s “Revolution of Youth,” which is about a family of three generations in Alexandria and how they take the historical changes in their country as they unfold.

Images and hashtags of revolution

Director and writer Nadia El Fani’s “Neither Allah nor Master” (Laïcité Inch’Allah!) is a powerful look on the Zine El Abidine Ben Ali regime months before the Tunisian revolution and the revolution as it broke in the last months of 2010. Syrian director Ammar Al Beik’s short “The Sun Incubator” (Hadinat Al Shams) moves from a family getting ready to demonstrate in Egypt in early 2011 to the spring when Syrian Hamza al-Khateeb is shot and tortured, kick-starting the Syrian uprising.

Then there are the films that take a direct look at the role of social media in the Arab Spring. As evident from its title, “Images of Revolution,” by Qatar filmmaker Ibrahim Hamdan, takes a look at the stories behind the iconic images of the uprisings that have come to symbolize the Arab Spring, the photos and videos that fueled the revolutionary wave through Twitter and Facebook.

Carolina Popolani’s “Cairo Downtown” of 2009 is an in-depth look at the Egyptian bloggers who formed part of the organized underground long before the mass protests that eventually led to the fall of Mubarak. The film takes a look at how bloggers used Internet activism as a political weapon and a powerful tool to organize.

Then, of course, there is the other way around. Writing for The Guardian, Sukhdev Sandhu cites Iranian film scholar Hamid Dabashi to make a point on how the roots of the Arab Spring lies in cinema: “If you want to understand the emotive universe from which the Arab spring arose, cinema is a good place to start. Look at a film like Elia Suleiman’s ‘Divine Intervention’: there, the director spits out an apricot pit at an Israeli tank and blows it up. The scene is both fantasy and prophecy.” As for the films screened under dozens of sections in film festivals devoted to the Arab Spring, they are neither fantasy nor prophecy.

March/19/2012

Dell sees room to challenge Apple in tablets

By Georgina Prodhan and Paul Sandle

LONDON | Fri Mar 16, 2012 2:33pm EDT

(Reuters) - A growing dissatisfaction among office workers with the clunky computers their employers force them to use, in contrast to the sleek Apple devices many have at home, could yet benefit incumbent suppliers like Dell, a top Dell executive said.

As Apple's third-generation iPad went on sale on Friday, accompanied by the now traditional scenes of fans queuing round the block , Dell's chief commercial officer Steve Felice said the tablet market was still wide open.

Dell ditched its previous attempt at cracking the global tablet market, the Streak, last year. It was based on Google's Android operating system software.

Now Dell is planning a fresh assault with the advent of Microsoft's new Windows 8 operating platform, which is expected later this year and will have a touch interface that works across desktop computers, tablets and smartphones.

"We're very encouraged by the touch capability we are seeing in the beta versions of Windows 8," Felice told Reuters in an interview in London, adding that Dell may also make Android tablets again.

"We have a roadmap for tablets that we haven't announced yet. You'll see some announcements.. for the back half of the year," he said. "We don't think that this market is closed off in any way."

Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard and possibly Nokia are also planning Windows 8 tablets.

Felice said that Dell's relationships with its thousands of business customers gave it an advantage over Apple, whose gadgets can cause headaches for IT departments because they operate on different systems.

As iPads and iPhones have become popular from the boardroom down, corporate technology chiefs have been increasingly forced to accept the fact that employees will use their own devices.

"On the commercial side there are a lot of concerns about security, interoperability, systems and device management, and I think Dell is in the best position to meet those," Felice said.

He added that iPads also left much to be desired in terms of processing power and ease of typing. "When people put their computer to the side and take their iPad with them to travel, you see a lot of compromises being made."

Dell has also just launched a so-called ultrabook, a high-end notebook that is light and thin but still at least as powerful as a regular laptop. The XPS 13 costs about $995.

"The demand has been excellent since we launched this product just a week ago," Felice said. "It is a fantastic product and shows our commitment to the PC space. We like the PC space. We are extremely committed to it."

Dell, the world's third-biggest computer maker after HP and Lenovo, has also been expanding its services offering to reduce its dependence on sales of computers, where margins are being squeezed and growth is slowing.

Taking Mac and iPad sales together, Apple sold more computers last year than any of the top PC makers.

Asked whether he envied Apple's ability to produce such coveted objects, Felice said: "We come at the market in a different way ... We are predominantly a company that has a great eye on the commercial customer who also wants to be a consumer."

"In the areas where we come at the market, we think we are a coveted brand."

Afgan shooter in Duty

1 of 3. Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, (R) 1st platoon sergeant, Blackhorse Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, is seen during an exercise at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, California, in this August 23, 2011 DVIDS handout photo.

Credit: Reuters/Department of Defence/Spc. Ryan Hallock/Handout

By Peter Henderson and Bill Rigby

TACOMA, Washington | Sun Mar 18, 2012 5:41pm EDT

(Reuters) - Robert Bales built a life around a call to arms. A call that emanated from the ashes of the World Trade Center in New York and took him to the mayhem of faraway Iraq and Afghanistan. A call he may have heard one time too many.

The 38-year-old U.S. Army staff sergeant suspected of gunning down 16 Afghan civilians, including nine children, had struggled to make financial ends meet and was disappointed at being sent back into a war zone for a fourth time rather than an easier posting in Germany or Hawaii.

Bales was a high school football star from Ohio who enlisted in the Army after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. He married Karilyn Primeau in 2005 and soon they moved into a four-bedroom house near a clear Seattle lake. The couple had two children, but Bales was absent for three tours in Iraq, where he was commended for valor. His wife, a public relations executive, blogged enthusiastically about their life.

Today, his family has the lake house on the market for less than they paid for it and a second home, with a mortgage larger than its market value, has been abandoned for two years, a red notice from the city warning it is uninhabitable.

Bales was denied a longed-for promotion to Sergeant First Class in March 2011. Then his family missed out on the adventure they felt they deserved - a posting in Europe or Hawaii - when Sergeant Bales was sent to a fourth tour abroad, in Afghanistan.

In Iraq, he was celebrated and proud of the heroism of U.S. troops. "We ended up helping the people that three or four hours ago were trying to kill us," he said in a 2009 Army publication describing the rescue of a downed helicopter that turned into a pitched battle, after which victorious U.S. troops gave aid to enemy casualties.

"That's the real difference between being an American as opposed to being a bad guy," he said.

But in Afghanistan something apparently went very wrong. Authorities believe he left a small camp of U.S. soldiers in the middle of the night Sunday, taking his rifle with him and massacring 16 civilians, mostly children, in two villages near Kandahar.

"Please keep (Staff Sergeant) Robert Bales in your prayers. I know his alleged crime is terrible, but he is not a terrible person. He's one of the best guys I've ever served with," Chris Alexander, an Army Captain who served in Iraq with Bales, said on his Facebook page shortly after Bales was identified as the shooting suspect.

MIDWEST TO MIDDLE EAST

Bales grew up in Ohio in the Cincinnati suburb of Norwood. A football player, he made the All-Division II team as a lineman in 1990, according the Cincinnati Post.

Bales got a two-year associates degree, the Army says. He moved to Florida, where he and his brother were directors at a company called Spartina Investments Inc, state records show.

His life changed course when Manhattan's twin towers fell and the Pentagon was struck in the September 2001. Bales joined the army about two months later and was based at the Tacoma, Washington-area Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

Though he won multiple decorations during his Iraq tours, including the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, the soldier had some brushes with the law back home.

In 2002, he was charged with criminal assault, but the court deferred the charge for six months after Bales completed 20 hours of anger management counseling and stayed out of trouble for six months, the Tacoma News-Tribune reported. The charge was dismissed in February 2003, court records show.

Later that year he shipped out to Iraq for the first time.

The News-Tribune also said Bales was cited for a misdemeanor in 2008 after police reported a man left the scene of a single car rollover. Bales later told police he had fallen asleep behind the wheel, the paper said. He received a deferred 12-month sentence and paid a $250 fine, it reported.

FAMILY TIES

The young soldier met his future wife, Karilyn Primeau, through an online dating service, his lawyer has said, and the Web is dabbed with their history, although access has been restricted to some personal sites.

An Amazon.com wish list for Kari Primeau, assembled in 2003 through the year of their marriage in 2005, has computer design manuals, books on cooking, courtship and pregnancy, and music from Dolly Parton to the synthetic pop of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. The new Mrs. Bales blogged prolifically, including a "Babybales" tale of her pregnancy and childraising seen by Reuters.

"Yesterday as I was driving down the road, after dropping Bob off to leave for Iraq, I thought I felt the baby move for the first time," she wrote in 2006.

Years later, in a blog cited by The New York Times, she described the frustration of Bales being passed over for promotion and her response: a wish list of postings, starting with "Germany (best adventure opportunity!), Italy (2nd best adventure opp)" and "Hawaii (nuff said)."

By this point, Bales had spent more than three years at war in three tours in Iraq, losing part of his foot and suffering a head injury in two separate incidents. His lawyer, Seattle attorney John Henry Browne - who made his name defending serial killer Ted Bundy - said the family had been told he was done with fighting. But last December he was sent to Afghanistan.

"He and his family were told that his tours in the Middle East were over," Browne said. "Literally overnight that changed. So I think it would be fair to say that he and the family were not happy that he was going back."

More than a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan has turned multiple deployments into a way of life for many soldiers. Some veterans advocates say the strain is too much, but the Army says it screens troops physically and mentally before sending them back in harm's way.

The sergeant moved out to a small Afghan base with about 20 other troops early this year. Just over a week ago, he watched an explosion blow off one soldier's leg, his lawyer said. Early last Sunday, he gathered his rifle, moved out into the night, and began shooting, killing nine children among 16 dead, authorities believe. Charges are expected in the next few weeks.

Bales' wife and two children are being sheltered by the Army at Lewis-McChord. Bales sits in solitary confinement Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Browne said he did not know whether alcohol was a factor, as has been reported, and told Reuters that post-traumatic stress disorder was likely to be part of the defense. Any suggestion of problems in the marriage was "nonsense," he added.

MONEY WORRIES

The couple's finances, though, gave cause for worry. Their large house near Lake Tapps is up for sale at $51,000 less than they paid for it in 2005, offering it for $229,000, Zillow showed. "Short Sale" announced a realty web site.

A second home in the city of Auburn, about 10 miles to the north of their Lake Tapps home, was purchased by Karilyn Bales, then Karilyn Primeau, in 1999 for $99,500 and was remortgaged for $178,500 in 2006. That is the house that neighbors say has been empty for two years and is posted "Do not occupy."

Edith Bouvette, 52, who knew the couple when they first lived there together, said she was shocked about Robert Bales.

"What I really remember is him in his uniform, his pants tucked inside of his boots," Bouvette said. "He was crisp, clean. Military -- and very polite military. When you talked to him it was 'Yes, Ma'am' - just a really, really nice guy, and it's just a terrible shame.

"I blame part of this on the military. They never should have sent him back for that fourth tour."

(Additional reporting by Laura Myers in Seattle and Sarah Gross in New York; Editing by Doina Chiacu and Jackie Frank)