The Kingdom Come

Whenever you walk into a Cracker Barrel Old Country Store restaurant, the first thing you’ll run into is their “Made in USA” display of all American-made products. And when I say it’s the first thing you’ll “run into” I mean that literally, because once you pass through the entrance doors, if you keep going straight, you will actually run right into this display of all American-made products.

Part of the motivation behind Cracker Barrel’s decision to have a made-in-USA-only section in its Old Country Store was because consumers and patrons kept “running into” souvenirs, gifts, trinkets, keepsakes, and knick-knacks made in other countries, and they made sure the management knew they were unhappy about it.

Among the store managers I talked to, the consensus was that the company simply felt it just wasn’t right to offer so many products with the American flag, or other American symbols on them, that weren’t made in America. And I’m pretty sure that most conscientious and concerned Americans would agree. I know that I do!

Browsing through the patriotic-theme products of Cracker Barrel’s Old Country Store, patriotic Americans can’t help but get the feeling they’ve walking into the right place. And if they’re Americans who express their patriotism through their consumer purchases, Americans who like to vote with their wallets, checkbooks and credit cards everyday not just on Election Day, then Cracker Barrel’s Old Country Store really is a dream come true.

Among the terrific variety of patriotic-theme products Cracker Barrel carries in their “Made in USA” section, you’ll find:

• United We Stand and USA baseball caps
• USA polo shirts in various color designs with patriotic design collars
• Ladies summer dress in patriotic colors (one of their best sellers, I’m told)
• Land of the Free, Home of the Brave t-shirt
• Rocking chair cushion set
• 100 percent cotton Patriotic Flag Kit
• USA Flag pin and U.S. Angel pin (yes, you can buy American flag pins made in the USA)
• Made in America aprons and kitchen towels
• United States Constitution and Declaration of Independence scrolls
• American Pride and Freedom is Not Free, But Worth Fighting For coffee mugs
• Americana candles by Woodwick
• Lodge Logic cast iron pans
• Patriotic wall hangings
• Red, White, and Blue Charms Blow Pops (and other candies)
• Slinky Spinwheels (I just put two of these in my front garden!)
• U.S. Constitution and United States jigsaw puzzles
• Don’t Forget, God Bless Our Troops (book) and 100 American Flags (book)
• The U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence (booklet)
• Made in America jewelry (my wife just loves her new patriotic earrings from Cracker Barrel!)

You can also shop online at www.crackerbarrel.com, where the American-made items in the Patriotic Collection part of the online store are noted by clicking the Details tab when the product you are interested in is displayed.

If you’re sitting on their front porch, relaxing while rocking in the Official Military Rockers that line the restaurant’s gracious porch, you’ll notice that even they are made in USA (other rocking chairs on the porch are assembled in USA, which means they can contain parts that are not from domestic sources).

In many ways, Cracker Barrel’s business really is synonymous with tried-and-true American values. Whether it’s treating people fairly, with dignity and mutual respect, encouraging those with the drive and talent to succeed, or giving people a fair deal at a fair price, sticking to values like these has rewarded the company with the praise and loyalty of guests. Not only do they crave their home-style cooking while dining out close to home, or traveling throughout America, they also appreciate knowing that when they stop in at one of Cracker Barrel’s 600 restaurants, the experience will be, without a doubt, a positive one.

The folks at Cracker Barrel also believe that they have an obligation to operate in a culture of mutual respect in the communities where they do business. Through their Cracker Barrel Foundation, they provide support for specific community relations efforts, like their in-school Rockin’ Reader® program, Employee Resource Groups, and employee diversity education programs.

And of course, their values are now reflected in the products they offer from truly American vendors. These vendors are pleased to have the opportunity to offer their American-made products in Cracker Barrel’s Old Country Store. If you’re a Buy American advocate, one form of mutual respect is surely worth noting: an all-American business – Cracker Barrel, selling American-made products to support other American businesses, which helps to keep Americans employed and the engine of our national prosperity churning.

This kind of reciprocal and mutual relationship is one thing that’s great about the way America is moving today, because it benefits all Americans, it’s keeping jobs, taxes, and profits within our national borders, and it’s what’s helping us continue to build a strong and proud nation.

Economist, columnist, radio host and international conference speaker Jerry Robinson uses his “Follow the Money Weekly” program this week to interview Pastor Mark Biltz from El Shaddai Ministries in Washington state.

Biltz has been researching the Hebrew roots of Christianity for several years and has stumbled across an amazing discovery. According to the NASA website, four total lunar eclipses are scheduled to occur on the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles and on Passover in 2014 and 2015.

He explains similar events occurred in 1492, when Catholic Spain expelled the Jews, in 1948 when the nation of Israel was established and in 1967 when the Six-Day War happened and the Jewish nation regained control of Jerusalem.

According to Biltz, the four back-to-back lunar eclipses occurring on Jewish Feast Days in 2014-2015 signify important events for the nation of Israel – and even the global economy.

Also on this week’s program, Robinson addresses the comments from some economists who now are saying that the U.S. is facing disinflation – a general decrease in the existing inflation rate.

He dissects the week’s important economic and financial news including the latest PPI and CPI figures for April.

And he explains why disinflation is important and how investors should be preparing for the Federal Reserve’s eventual exit strategy from its massive quantitative easing program.

Robinson also talks about the seven favorite stocks for the next 30 days, five major trends on which to claim a profit this decade and what technical analysis is needed for active stock trading.

Tom Cloud then joins the program to discuss the economy, including the gold and silver markets, following gold’s decline by 7 percent in just the past few weeks.

Then Jay Peroni, CFP, joins the podcast with this week’s investing idea.

Podcast is 1:18:48.

Previous podcasts:

All eyes on stocks rally

‘This isn’t your grandfather’s economy’

Gold dropping? Why not to worry

What’s to love about gold, silver prices

Let the printing presses roll!

New challenge rattles economy’s foundation

Big Brother looking at your bank account

Currency war pushes stocks to new realms

America and the ‘Age of Fiat’

Entitlement liabilities? Try $120 trillion

Paycheck to paycheck, and what to do about it

Boosting your savings – now!

Germans want gold reserves returned

‘The unbelievably bogus debt ceiling debate’

Investing in what people need

Is America on the eve of a civil war?

Becoming your own banker

Again? Feds printing and spending more

Why you should care about petrodollar system

The real story about the fiscal cliff

Last hurrah from a state statesman

Housing starts up, prices grow, and that’s bad?

Stock-market rally ‘flashing warning signs’

Staying afloat through global monetary flood

How to cope when the government prints money

Future of the dollar and fate of the euro

‎Welcome to time of unlimited currency printing

Lies, propaganda and the 2012 vote ‎

Demise of the American war machine

16 trillion reasons why American is bankrupt

The Word from the European central bank

Learn more about Jerry Robinson’s “Follow the Money Quarterly” newsletter.

“Bankruptcy of Our Nation: 12 Key Strategies For Protecting Your Finances In These Uncertain Times.”

Jerry Robinson is an economist, published author, columnist, radio talk show host, and international conference speaker. Robinson has been quoted as an economic authority by USA Today, FoxNews and many other news agencies. His columns have appeared regularly in numerous print and web publications, including WND. In addition, Robinson is also the editor-in-chief of the popular economic newsletter, “Follow the Money Quarterly.”

(CBSNEWS) — Obama administration officials who were in key positions on Sept. 11, 2012, acknowledge that a range of mistakes were made the night of the attacks on the U.S. missions in Benghazi, and in messaging to Congress and the public in the aftermath.

The officials spoke to CBS News in a series of interviews and communications under the condition of anonymity so that they could be more frank in their assessments. They do not all agree on the list of mistakes and it’s important to note that they universally claim that any errors or missteps did not cost lives and reflect “incompetence rather than malice or cover up.” Nonetheless, in the eight months since the attacks, this is the most sweeping and detailed discussion by key players of what might have been done differently.

“We’re portrayed by Republicans as either being lying or idiots,” said one Obama administration official who was part of the Benghazi response. “It’s actually closer to us being idiots.”

Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani issued a press release Tuesday denying reports that he received a letter from Secretary of State John Kerry that said the United States would support him if he chose to run in Iran’s presidential election next month.

Whether his denial will carry any weight, however, may be moot, as Iranian media is reporting that Rafsanjani and another candidate, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s handpicked successor, were disqualified from the race.

Iranian media earlier has speculated that would happen, with reports that Rafsanjani and Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei would be rejected by the council that approves candidacies.

Ahmadinejad has warned that if his handpicked successor, Mashaei, was rejected, he will release a tape that proves his 2009 re-election was fraudulent.

In a May 15 exclusive, WND reported that a secret message from Kerry was delivered to Rafsanjani of U.S. support, according to a source affiliated with the office of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The source, who remains anonymous for security reasons and who has provided valuable information before, said that on May 3, Kerry’s letter was delivered via the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh to Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal, who arranged through the Saudi Embassy in Tehran to present the message to Rafsanjani indicating support from both the White House and the Saudi monarch.

Over 100 of the regime’s media outlets, including Channel 1 TV, immediately picked up WND’s report, which forced Rafsanjani’s office to post a denial on his official website.

Become a part of the investigative reporting team uncovering the truths about Iran, and get author Reza Kahlili’s “A Time to Betray” about his life as a double agent inside Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

“After the false publication of internal media quoting American WND regarding a secret letter by John Kerry to Ayatollah Rafsanjani and on the threshold of the presidential elections,” Rafsanjani’s press release said, “some vengeful media in Iran, without considering the national interest of the country and with the goal of character assassination, have expanded on news and rumors of anti-revolutionary foreign media.”

The press release said it’s unfortunate that some “internal media,” based on their political tendencies, have chosen to become aligned with WND’s report.

After a warning that Rafsanjani might reveal some official regime secrets, the release asks, “Are (the media) willing to publish reports against all officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran!?”

The release said Rafsanjani’s office regretted this “anti-human and anti-moral” behavior by the “internal media” that have become the “loudspeaker” of the anti-revolutionaries and he reserved the right to take legal action against those in regime media who expanded on the WND report.

Fars News Agency, the media outlet run by the Revolutionary Guards, published Rafsanjani’s denial under a big headline: “I did not receive a secret message from the U.S. Secretary of State.”

Jamnews, a regime media outlet, not only put up the WND report in full but partly translated it into Farsi.

Another regime outlet, Yjc.ir (Young Journalist Club), also run by the Revolutionary Guards, not only fully translated the WND piece but said the news of U.S. support for Rafsanjani was published at a time when other U.S. officials had stated that Rafsanjani’s candidacy would be their best scenario for the June 14 presidential election.

The outreach to Rafsanjani goes back to what led to the Iran-Contra Affair in the 1980s in which a direct channel of communication was established with Rafsanjani, who was then the speaker of parliament.

Rafsanjani had promised the American administration that once Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the Islamic Revolution, died, then relations between the two countries could improve, but his promises then and after continued to be hollow as he bought time for the regime to progress in various fields.

Rafsanjani, who portrays himself as a moderate, announced his candidacy just before the May 11 registration deadline, drawing harsh reaction by the hardliners in Iran, who requested that authorities bar him from the election.

Rafsanjani played a major role in the 2009 election by supporting Mousavi, who actually won the vote against Ahmadinejad, whose victory was assured under orders by the supreme leader to add millions to his tally. That fraud touched off days of rioting in which thousands were arrested and many imprisoned or executed and led to the Green Movement, angering the hardliners.

WND reports of April 30 and May 2 revealed that Ahmadinejad had been arrested and detained for several hours recently and warned by regime officials to keep his mouth shut.

As also reported, Ahmadinejad had promised to release a tape that would prove the 2009 election was fraudulent if his handpicked candidate, Mashaei, was denied a spot in the presidential election. That WND report also caused a firestorm in Iran.

The Guardian Council, which must approve candidates, had said its decisions would be announced Wednesday. The source who provided the information both on Ahmadinejad and Rafsanjani to WND said security forces have been stationed around Tehran in anticipation of possible rioting should one candidate or another be rejected.

The source said the WND reports have not only touched off a furor in Iran but have caused grave complications for the regime, which is now confused about what to do in its approval process, fearing instability as the elections nears.

WND’s reports have continuously unnerved the regime in ways that no other reports have done, the source said. This only benefits the Iranian people, he said, who as a majority “want nothing to do with this regime and the so-called moderates (Rafsanjani) who are as much of a criminal as the other officials of the Islamic Republic, whose only goal is for the survival of the regime for a bit longer.”

(CATHOLIC NEWS AGENCY) — Pope Francis spoke today about how gossip by Christians is a “slap” to Jesus “in the person of his children.”

“All three – disinformation, defamation and slander – are sins! This is sin! It is to slap Jesus in the person of his children, his brothers,” the Pope said May 18 in the chapel of St. Martha’s House.

The topic came up in Pope Francis’ homily because of the day’s Gospel reading from John 21 in which Peter asks if John will be alive when Jesus returns to earth.

“What is it to you?” the pontiff began his homily, referring to Jesus’ response to Peter, who was being tempted “to interfere in the lives of others.”

(CATHOLIC NEWS AGENCY) — Pope Francis did not perform an exorcism when he prayed over a young disabled man in St. Peter’s Square on Pentecost Sunday, according to the Vatican’s spokesman.

“The Pope had no intention of doing an exorcism, so it is absolutely false that this has been done. He simply prayed for the sick person,” Vatican press office director Father Federico Lombardi told CNA May 21.?

The idea that Pope Francis performed an exorcism was fueled by a video posted online by channel TV2000, which is overseen by the Italian bishops’ conference.

In the video, which is a preview of the May 24 episode of “Vade Retro” (“Go Back” in Latin), a young man is presented to the Pope by Legionary Father Juan Rivas.

(NYDAILYNEWS) — Mourners freaked out when a dead man came back to life at his own funeral.

Friends and family “jumped out of their skins” and “ran for their lives” when Brighton Dama Zanthe, 34, started moving in his coffin last Monday.

They thought their buddy — who they thought died following a long illness — had come back to haunt them.

Lot Gaka, the Zimbabwean transport worker’s boss, somehow managed to keep his cool – springing into action to save his pal.

Editor’s Note: The following report is excerpted from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, the premium online newsletter published by the founder of WND. Subscriptions are $99 a year or, for monthly trials, just $9.95 per month for credit card users, and provide instant access for the complete reports.

DAMASCUS, Syria – Russian President Vladimir Putin says he’s supplying the long-range anti-aircraft missile S-300 to Syria despite pleas from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry not to do so, according to a report in Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

Putin argued that the S-300 is a “defensive” weapon and will help stabilize the region.

In June 2012, Syria was supposed to receive the S-300s but the contract was canceled due to Western political pressure. The announcement is intended to show Moscow’s support for al-Assad at all costs.

Putin’s rebuff of Netanyahu and Kerry comes following two separate Israeli airstrikes on Syria this month, with a promise of more if Jerusalem believes that Syrian weapons transfers to Hezbollah will continue.

The two initial airstrikes, however, were launched from Israeli aircraft in Lebanese airspace, with the first strike hitting a convoy of what are said to have been advanced weapons for Hezbollah.

Hezbollah already is assessed to have quite an arsenal of missiles from Syria, which has served as a conduit for Iran to pass them along to its proxy.

Two days following that attack, Israel launched a second airstrike – again from Lebanese air space – on a military research facility on a high hill overlooking Damascus.

The second airstrike brought a Syrian threat to retaliate, declaring that the airstrikes were an “act of war” and prompting Syrian charges that the Israelis were working with the Syrian opposition. Those rebels currently are embroiled in a civil war against the Syrian government.

Sources believe, however, that Syria won’t retaliate and, given the state of its military, such retaliation is considered remote.

Yet, Israeli officials already have served warning that they will continue airstrikes against any target they perceive as weapons destined for Hezbollah in Lebanon, with the prospect that continued shipments of weapons could mean Israeli effort to topple al-Assad’s government. That prospect also could set off the Russians.

The launching of Israeli airstrikes brought protests from Lebanon and the United Nations, saying that such incursions into Lebanese airspace were contrary to United Nations Resolution 1701.

Lebanon lacks any kind of air defenses, including ground-to-air anti-aircraft missiles, although Iran, whose presence is very much evident in Lebanon and is closely allied with the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad, has offered such assistance.

Informed sources say that Russia intends to ship four batteries of the S-300s which have from 100 to 150 simultaneously deployable, guided anti-aircraft missiles.

Sources say that once deployed, they will be manned by Russian military “advisers,” since the Syrians are not technically prepared to operate such advanced and complicated systems. They say Israel therefore could hurt Russians should there be more strikes.

This shipment of S-300s is yet a further indication of Russia’s commitment to al-Assad, despite rumors that the Russians are seeking an alternative to his leadership of Syria in an effort to bring stability to the country for Moscow’s own geostrategic purposes.

It is a further indication that the Russians believe that al-Assad has the upper hand in the civil war against the armed opposition, which appears to be increasingly disorganized with internal disputes over leadership and direction.

In addition, Iran and Hezbollah fighters increasingly are assisting al-Assad’s government forces in training and leadership for the beleaguered Syrian armed forces.

Putin wants to give al-Assad more time and to stop any foreign intervention or outside supply of weapons to the Syrian opposition, and to prevent the establishment of a no-fly zone.

For the rest of this report and other Intelligence Briefs, please go to Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin:

• Syria/Washington/Europe: Signs of caving</a
• Qatar/Syria: Doha had arranged kidnapping
• United States: Records may not break rules
• United States: Ill-prepared for EMP attack

Keep in touch with the most important breaking news stories about critical developments around the globe with Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence news source edited and published by the founder of WND.

For the complete report and full immediate access to Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, subscribe now.

Editor’s Note: The following report is excerpted from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, the premium online newsletter published by the founder of WND. Subscriptions are $99 a year or, for monthly trials, just $9.95 per month for credit card users, and provide instant access for the complete reports.

WASHINGTON – As the Obama administration comes under increasing pressure to get more involved militarily in Syria to overthrow the embattled regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a new Harvard University study has calculated the past and future costs for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

According to the study, those two wars will cost the United States a staggering $4 trillion to $6 trillion.

While the study points out that $2 trillion already has been spent for each of the two wars, this is only a fraction of the total costs for the long-term commitments and the expenses for medical care and disability benefits to veterans that will have to continue for decades.

The initial $2 trillion to fight the wars in Iran and Afghanistan came from borrowed money.

“The decision to finance the war operations entirely through borrowing has already added some $2 trillion to the national debt, contributing about 20 percent of the total national debt added between 2001 and 2012,” the report said.

In addition to waging the actual conflict, these costs include spending on medical care for the wounded soldiers and repairs and replacement of military equipment for them.

The study also points out that this cost includes an increase in military benefits which the Bush administration initiated in 2001. Costs to cope with veterans’ rising health care and disability are expected to rise over the next 40 years.

To date, there have been some 2.5 million service men and women who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation New Dawn and Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.

There were 6,658 U.S. military fatalities as of March 8, 2013, which didn’t include contractors, coalition partners, Iraqi and Afghan partners and civilians, according to the study.

By September 2012, some 1.56 million U.S. troops had returned home and left active duty, thereby becoming eligible for veterans medical care and benefits.

These veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are using VA medical services and applying for disability benefits at much higher rates than in previous years, a development which has created a tremendous backlog in processing claims.

The bottom-line price tag of up to $6 trillion also includes the continuing costs for nation-building in both countries that will be ongoing for many years to come.

“The large sums borrowed to finance operations in Iraq and Afghanistan will also impose substantial long-term debt servicing costs,” the study added.

The Iraqi war ended in December 2011 while the Afghanistan war is to wind down by the end of 2014. In both cases, the U.S. is expected to continue expenditures to try and ensure the stability of both countries through training and equipment.

The Harvard report is called “The Financial Legacy of Iraq and Afghanistan: How Wartime Spending Decisions Will Constrain Future National Security Budgets.”

Keep in touch with the most important breaking news stories about critical developments around the globe with Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence news source edited and published by the founder of WND.

For the complete report and full immediate access to Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, subscribe now.

Strengthening Kenya’s county governments, at cost to U.S. taxpayers of millions of dollars, could spark the redistribution of political power across the African republic, whose national government is viewed as one of the most notoriously corrupt in the world.

Efforts to bring about such decentralization, however, may inadvertently create 47 equally corrupt county systems, the Obama administration has acknowledged.

Obama, through the U.S. Agency for International Development, nonetheless intends to dole out upwards of $50 million in U.S. taxpayer funds to help the Kenyans get it right, according to contracting documents that WND discovered via routine database research.

One potential obstacle to accomplishing the task is the relatively recent discovery of significant oil resources in Kenya, USAID says.

Corruption, therefore, could magnify due to the lack of transparency between the government and the “land and extractive industries.”

The new Kenyan Constitution and related legislation raise the issue of transparency; however, they contain “few if any specific mechanisms” to guarantee it.

USAID is wasting no time in preparing for the five-year endeavor, known as the Harmonized Assistance for Devolved Institutions Project, or AHADI – which means “promise” in Kiswahili.

The agency will meet in Nairobi May 30 with private vendors potentially interested in securing AHADI contracts. The anticipated official execution of the project is the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2013.

USAID says it has learned from prior experience that decentralization, when successfully implemented, can create a “more responsive, open and pluralistic government,” the agency points out in the AHADI Statement of Work.

On the other hand, decentralization “also runs the risk of systemic failure that further exacerbates the problems that it was intended to alleviate – often leading to a frustrated populace and a re-centralization of power.”

“This is nowhere more true than in the Kenyan context,” it says.

This planned diffusion of power – which USAID calls “devolution” – stands to alleviate conflict, improve service delivery and empower Kenyan citizens, according to USAID.

“It could just as easily exacerbate ethnic tension, worsen service delivery and reinforce corruption and unaccountable governance,” the agency admits.

The hiring of a contractor to advise Kenyan county governments is intended to help Kenyan authorities avoid such pitfalls.

The selected company will be tasked with improving a targeted number of county governments, ensuring that the systems are “more informed, capable, transparent, accountable and open to the participation of its citizens – especially historically marginalized groups,” the Statement of Work says.

The contractor also will advise county officials on how to work more cooperatively with each other and with the national government.

While the devolution process aims to more closely connect the Kenyan government with its citizens – thereby increasing transparency and accountability – “it also provides new entry points and opportunities for corruption, and could easily replicate old national patterns of obfuscation, unresponsiveness and unaccountability at the local level.”

The AHADI program is one of several new endeavors that the Obama administration is pursuing in Kenya.

As WND recently reported, Obama is embarking upon a nationwide reading project that aims to improve the skills of children in tens of thousands of Kenyan schools.

Similarly, the administration earlier this year launched new peace initiatives in and around Kenya, despite acknowledging that chronic cattle rustling and other cultural practices – such as killing rivals “to prove their manhood or impress young women” – might impede progress.

WND last year reported Obama administration spending and projects in Kenya had become so voluminous that USAID had to hire more contractors to oversee endeavors other providers already carried out across the African nation.

USAID, in its own words, had admitted that the “overall USAID/Kenya program has increased rapidly and exponentially, outstripping workforce resources available to effectively perform assessments and rigorous analyses … track results … manage recordkeeping, and other project development and program office functions.”

According to a Statement of Work for the USAID/Kenya program-support initiative, the agency acknowledged the level of U.S.-financed Kenyan operations has outpaced Washington’s ability to adequately manage it.

After WND’s reporting, USAID in turn eliminated public access to documents about the unwieldy portfolio of Kenyan projects, which included a formal plan to manipulate Kenyan and global media.

One of the America’s foremost experts on nuclear weapons calls Iran’s secret “Quds” nuclear facility very scary and a sign the Islamic regime might be close to taking on the world.

In an exclusive March 20 report with updates on March 24, March 25 and April 10, WND revealed the vast “Quds” site. Iranian scientists are trying to perfect nuclear warheads at this underground facility previously unknown to the West.

According to WND’s source, an officer who has been assigned to the regime’s Ministry of Defense, the site, approximately 14 miles long and 7.5 miles wide, consists of two facilities built deep into a mountain along with a missile facility housing over 380 missile silos/garages that is surrounded by barbed wire, 45 security towers and several security posts.

The most significant information provided by the source is that the regime has succeeded in not only enriching to weapons grade but has converted the highly enriched uranium into metal.

Moreover, the source said, successfully making this metal neutron reflector indicates the final stages for a nuclear weapons design that would be a two-stage, more sophisticated and much more powerful nuclear bomb. Regime scientists are also working on a plutonium bomb as a second path to becoming nuclear-armed, the source said, and they have at this site 24 kilograms of plutonium, which is sufficient for several atomic bombs. The scientists are at the last stage of putting together a bomb warhead, he said.

The nuclear weapon-effects test expert, who could not be named but who served at the U.S. Defense Nuclear Agency and who inspected more than 200 tunnel structures of Russian nuclear test sites as well as Russian operational facilities and silos, viewed the imagery of Iran’s new secret facility.

“The site is similar to a common approach by several other nuclear-capable countries which have used advanced design in hardening these types of tunnels or garages for a quick deployable system,” he said. “I understand exactly what Iran has at the site … (including) a very important part of the structures … the apparent hardened underground stub tunnels for secure storage of mobile systems which can be quickly moved to launching sites.”

Become a part of the investigative reporting team uncovering the truths about Iran, and get author Reza Kahlili’s “A Time to Betray” about his life as a double agent inside Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

“… the overheads indicate there are many apparent tunnel portals designed to hold a weapon and/or an operational controlling element (support system) for the weapons, an indication of an advanced design for a quick deployable nuclear weapons system capable of surviving retaliation, very much similar to what the U.S. had in mind in the 1960s in its major confrontation with the Soviet Union. … And it is very scary because its defeat may not be as easy as attacking it with a couple bombers, even if they have nuke weapons. This layout is very scary because it is … ready for the operational weapon systems to be installed, and then they are ready to take on the world.”

The source said there is close collaboration among Iran, North Korea and key figures in China in working on the nuclear warheads and that he will soon reveal detailed information of this collaboration, along with the plans and the timing for both Iran and North Korea to arm their missiles with nuclear warheads. The source emphasized that the world does not have much time but the time for negotiations with the Islamic regime is over.

Other experts also viewed the imagery.

“(The satellite images) suggest the possibility that Iran may in fact be further along in its nuclear weapons program than is generally assumed,” said David Trachtenberg, who for 30 years served in the national security policy field and who, as principal deputy assistant secretary of defense, played a leadership role in nuclear forces and arms control policy. “It is clear they have gone to great lengths to bury and protect high-value assets at this site, which also complicates the possibility of direct military action and illustrates the risks of allowing years to pass while hoping diplomacy will work.

GoogleEarth 12-2012 Image, Quds secret nuclear facility

“An accelerating train is harder to slow and takes longer to stop. These images reinforce my concern that Iranian nuclear progress is accelerating. The more emphatically the U.S. declares its determination to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons state, the harder it may be to ensure that outcome.”

Fritz Ermarth, who served in the CIA and as chairman of the National Intelligence Council, reviewed the satellite photos and said, “(This) imagery strongly suggests that Iran is working on what we used to call an ‘objective force’ … a deployed force of nuclear weapons on mobile missiles, normally based in deep underground sites for survivability against even nuclear attack, capable of rapid deployment.”

“This open-source analysis by itself illustrates that Iran is very serious about building survivable facilities for its nuclear enterprise,” said Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, the executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security, a congressional advisory board. Pry, who has served with the House Armed Services Committee and in the CIA, also reviewed the imagery and added, “The location of the site amid an Iranian missile armory, protected by a vast array of defensive and offensive missiles, is consistent with the intelligence reporting that the site is for the final stages of nuclear weapons development. The complex appears to be the most heavily protected site in Iran.”

“Reza Kahlili (who revealed the Quds site) has provided the West with one of the most critical pieces of evidence of the Iranian government’s drive to break out its nuclear development into a fully operational capability,” said Maj. Gen. Thomas G. McInerney (Ret.). “All the red lines have been crossed. Beware America, Israel and the West, a nuclear Iran is here!”

The U.N. nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, said last week that a 10th round of talks with Iran over Tehran’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons had failed.

UNITED NATIONS – The role U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice and her staff may have played in the assembly of the Benghazi terror attack talking points – namely that the attack was prompted by a Muslim mob upset over an obscure online video – is moving back under the microscope, following a dump of documents from the Obama administration that appears to have made things foggier, not clearer.

It’s just one of the questions persisting around the al-Qaida-affiliated terror attack in Benghazi that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. As time has passed since the targeted attack last Sept. 11, issues appear to have become more – not less – obscured.

It was Rice who went on national television shows – repeatedly – shortly after the ambassador’s death was announced, and said that the Muslim mob was enraged by the online video about Mohammad.

That story since has been thoroughly debunked, and the filmmaker was jailed, although it was on unrelated probation violations.

Rice has maintained that she was simply repeating “talking points” given to her by the Obama administration when she appeared on a series of network phones to explain what had happened and why.

But a probe by WND shortly after the White House released 100 pages of emails related to the Libyan attacks has shown that Rice and members of her personal staff in fact played a central role in developing those talking points.

WND found that Rice’s press secretary, U.S. United Nations Mission spokeswoman Erin Pelton, and Rice’s Deputy U.N. Ambassador Rosemary DiCarlo both played roles in formulating the Libyan talking points.

Ironically, while the White House promoted the email “document dump” as a move for transparency, a close examination showed exactly the opposite. The identities of numerous administration officials were purged in countless emails. Both senders’ and recipients’ names were repeatedly redacted. And entire documents referred to in several emails were replaced by blank pages.

More than 25 percent of the documents released by the White House had been “sanitized,” leaving the reader with a critically incomplete picture of what transpired during the Benghazi attacks and the days shortly thereafter.

Among those questions is the disposition of U.S. forces in the immediate region, who might have been called upon in an emergency.

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CIA Director David Petraeous and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta have differed on the troop availability issue.

Controversy also remains on what security conditions existed at the U.S. compound prior to the attacks and attempts to address them.

And what role did Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta play as the crisis unfolded? And what was President Barack Obama doing during the crisis?

Even after a formal State Department investigation the chain of command and those in charge still remain unclear.

At the U.S. United Nations mission, only Ambassador DiCarlo’s name is plainly revealed.

Mission spokeswoman Pelton and Rice’s involvement was only confirmed after a WND investigation.

Both U.S. officials were contacted by email and telephone. The emails and phone calls were not returned..

Rice’s press office directed questions to the White House, which also had no comment.

The transcripts released by the White House showed that Pelton was in direct contact with CIA, Defense Department, State Department and National Security Council officials in “refining” the talking points for Rice.

The “working group” spent more than two days “refining” what Rice would or would not say before the Sunday morning talk shows.

The “changes” went far beyond the “one or two (minor edits)” that White House Press Secretary Jay Carney had previously spoken about.

The controversial YouTube video which allegedly sparked demonstrations at the U.S. embassy in Cairo, in turn sparking the Libyan attacks, is given little initial play inside the “working group” though that approach later changed.

What remains unclear is the identity of the party or parties who first believed that the Libyan attacks were spontaneous and not planned.

That concern was repeated by former U.S. United Nations Ambassador John Bolton who told WND:

“One question that remains unanswered us where the story about the Mohammed YouTube video arose? The congressional committees need to pursue that inquiry.” Bolton said.

In another development reported today, CNS News noted that while a senior adviser to Obama, Dan Pfeifer, said Obama was kept “up to date” on the terror attack, officials have refused to give details or provide documentation.

He declined to answer questions from Fox News Sunday about what the president was doing or where he was on that night.

And it was the New York Times that said the State Department plans by late summer to send dozens of additional diplomatic security agents to certain embassies and install millions of dollars in fire-survival gear and surveillance cameras.

The report said the price tag for the better security was at $1.4 billion for the “most urgent needs.”

It was Obama, who while not provide a lot of details about the attack, said Congress must step up and pay for the recommendations regarding security.

At Christian Broadcasting Network, there was a report that Secretary of State John Kerry said the Obama administration will do everything possible to protect U.S. diplomats serving overseas, vowing to spare no expense in the effort.

“The dangers of diplomacy are not unique to this moment in time: our diplomatic missions didn’t become dangerous that night in Benghazi,” Kerry told a group of State Department trainees.

“We are working to upgrade our capacities. We’re bringing on more security personnel, we’re enhancing our training, we’re putting more Marines at our high threat diplomatic posts, and we’re making sure that their first responsibility is protecting our people, not just classified materials,” said Kerry.

WND reported earlier Stevens was in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012, the day he died in that terrorist attack, because Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered him there.

That’s according to an exclusive statement given to WND by the attorney representing Gregory Hicks, the former State Department deputy chief of mission and chargé d’affairs who was in Libya at the time of the attack.

Victoria Toensing, legal counsel to Hicks, told WND that Clinton had given Stevens direct instructions to prepare the CIA compound in Benghazi to be upgraded to the status of a U.S. diplomatic mission and Stevens, in complying with Clinton’s wishes, was in Benghazi the first time he had the opportunity to do so, cognizant of the need to visit the site before the end of the fiscal year, on Sept. 30, 2012.

“Stevens was in Benghazi because Clinton told him to go there,” Toensing explained.

Hicks’ attorney also charged the Accountability Review Board, or ARB, headed by Ambassador Thomas Pickering and Admiral Michael Mullen, was a cover-up designed to contain blame for the Benghazi terror attack at a level below Clinton in the State Department.

The unclassified ARB final report on the tragedy on page 18 states: “Ambassador Stevens was scheduled to remain in Benghazi until September 14, and his visit was timed in part to fill the staffing gaps between TDY [Temporary Duty Assignment] principal officers as well as to open an American Corner at a local school and to reconnect with local contacts.”

Hicks testified to the House oversight committee that in direct contrast to this ARB claim, the State Department in Washington was fully aware of the plans Stevens made to go to Benghazi, the reasons he was going there, and his planned activity while there.

“The ARB unclassified final report was incomplete in that the reason for Stevens being in Benghazi was known to Hicks, but the ARB ignored the testimony Hicks gave on this point,” Toensing further explained to WND.

Hicks elaborated on this point by commenting to the House oversight committee that when he told the ARB the reason Stevens went to Benghazi, Pickering looked visibly upset and asked, “Does the 7th floor [where the office of Secretary of State Clinton is located] know about this?”

So far, there have been dozens of key issues about the tragedy for which there have been no answers from Obama administration officials:

• What did you know, and when did you know about the standoff occurring in Benghazi?
• Why did President Obama declare publicly in initial comments only hours following the Benghazi attack that it indeed was a terrorist attack but later in a CBS interview backtracked by saying that it was too early to determine whether it was a terrorist attack?
• Were Obama and Clinton informed at the time the attack was unfolding? If so, what orders did Clinton give to seek to secure the facility?
• Was Clinton in direct contact at any time with the Secretary of Defense to determine what Special Forces were available to lend assistance? Was she also in contact with the director of the Central Intelligence Agency to ascertain whether he had any assets in the area to rush to the assistance of the beleaguered facility?
• If she had not been informed at the time of the attack, at what level in the Department of State were officials informed and what action, if any, was ordered and with whom in the Defense Department and at CIA were they in contact?
• Who were the State Department officials aware of the pre-911 security requests from Ambassador Christopher Stevens and other U.S. personnel in Libya?
• What was Stevens doing in Benghazi without his usual security detail, especially since he had written earlier to the State Department on the poor security at the facility, considering the already dangerous environment of Libya?
• Why were his repeated requests for security either ignored, or turned down?
• Since warnings are issued by the State Department on every anniversary of 9/11 to all posts to heighten security, why wasn’t it done at Benghazi, especially since the ambassador was traveling to the facility on a mission known by the State Department and CIA?
• Why weren’t U.S. forces directed to be sent in, in light of a statement by the U.S. commander for Africa, Gen. Carter Ham, that he had the capabilities and was ready to go but never directed to go. Why is that?
• Why was a U.S. Marine fast action team out of Rota, Spain, told to take off their uniforms before going in to rescue the ambassador and the other three Americans? Why did the military conclude that the military couldn’t do anything? Why didn’t the accountability board even look at that? Why did CIA have such a large detail at the safe house location?
• Why did Under Secretary of State for Management Patrick F. Kennedy withdraw from Libya’s capital a 16-member special operations forces detachment that was assisting with security, a decision which was made two weeks prior to the Benghazi attack?
• What was the rationale for Kennedy’s decision in light of frequent appeals by Stevens for enhanced security, as he expressed increasing concern about the deteriorating security environment in Libya and the fact that the Libyan government itself was not in a position to provide adequate security at the U.S. embassy or consulate in Benghazi?
• Considering the increasing volatility in Benghazi and the fact that the consulate there was in an isolated position, why did the State Department and the CIA keep it open?
• There were reports that the two former SEALs – Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty – killed in attempting to protect the ambassador and the consulate were contractors for CIA and their main purpose was to work out of a safe house not far from the consulate, ostensibly to inventory various weapons, some of which separate reporting says were then transferred to the opposition forces in Syria. In light of this prospect, why wasn’t more security in place to protect the few CIA contractors who were there?
• In such a high-risk security environment, why was security for the consulate provided by Libyans? Did they stick around to provide security for the consulate once the attack began?
• Since they may not have, there also are indications that some of those providing security at the consulate either tipped off the terrorists or somehow pinpointed where in the consulate to attack, as well as identify the location of the safe houses where U.S. personnel escaped once the attack began. What has the State Department investigation revealed as to collusion with the terrorists by local Libyans charged with providing security for the consulate?
• Why was the FBI barred for 24 days from going to the consulate to secure evidence when reporters were given ready access and had obtained sensitive information which was later turned over to U.S. authorities?
• We were told that four State Department officials involved in the decision-making process on security were removed or resigned. We now learn that isn’t true. Why did the State Department lie about the status of those in State Department management responsible for this security debacle?
• In light of the Benghazi experience, has there been any effort by the Obama administration in close coordination with the Defense Department and CIA to revise operational procedures to ensure that quick-reaction armed resources are available much sooner in future instances of impending or actual attack on U.S. facilities abroad?

In it was September when WND broke the story that Stevens played a central role in recruiting jihadists to fight Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, according to Egyptian security officials.

According to the 39-page report from independent investigators probing the attacks at the diplomatic facility, the U.S. mission in Benghazi was set up without the knowledge of the new Libyan government, as WND reported.

WND also exclusively reported the facility may have violated the terms of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which governs the establishment of overseas missions. Like most nations, the U.S. is a signatory to the 1961 United Nations convention.

And WND reported in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, Rice may have deliberately misled the public when she went on television news shows and called the facility that had been targeted a “consulate.”

TEL AVIV – The Israeli media have been quoting Arab news media reports claiming a Russian convoy of game-changing S300 missile batteries are already in Syria.

Citing Arab intelligence sources last week, WND was first to report that some S300 missile batteries reached Syria two weeks ago.

At the time, Israeli security sources said there was no information to support the Arab claim.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been leading efforts to block the S300 sale, flying to Russia last week to meet with President Vladimir Putin on the matter as well as other security concerns.

Now the Israel media is quoting the London-based Arab paper Al-Quds Al-Arabi, which claimed the S300 missiles are currently in Syria under Russian supervision. The report claimed the missiles are not yet operational.

Israel’s Channel 2 further reported Syrian soldiers completed their training on the S300 on Russian soil.

Read all about what Russia is telling Jerusalem regarding more airstrikes.

Speaking to WND yesterday, the same Arab intelligence sources who first claimed some S300 batteries were already delivered to Syria now say other advanced Russian anti-aircraft missiles arrived in Syria in the last few days.

The sources said a Russian delivery of 9K720 Iskander missiles reached Syria last week. The system is an older version of the S300.

Asked about the latest report, Israeli security officials did not immediately comment on the matter.

S300 missile batteries are able to intercept manned aircraft and guided missiles.

The Wall Street Journal first reported that Syria has been making payments on a 2010 agreement with Russia to purchase four batteries for $900 million, with delivery expected within three months.

The Journal reported the S300 package included six launchers and 144 operational missiles, each with a range of up to 200 miles.

The president of Associated Press is warning that reporters’ sources already are drying up because of the threat posed by the Obama administration’s grab of news agency telephone records.

In a report by the news wire, AP President Gary Pruitt said the Justice Department’s seizure of the records was unconstitutional, and ultimately Americans may be uninformed or misinformed about their government as a result.

Pruitt told the CBS News Sunday morning program “Face the Nation” the government has no business monitoring news gathering activities.

“And if they restrict that apparatus … the people of the United States will only know what the government wants them to know and that’s not what the framers of the Constitution had in mind when they wrote the First Amendment,” he told the network.

Meanwhile, Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus charged that the AP, IRS and Benghazi scandals are manifestations of the “guerrilla warfare” atmosphere that Obama has created.

“This is the problem with this entire situation (with the telephone records), with the IRS, with Benghazi: you have all these situations – all these unprecedented scandals – yet the president knows nothing about it,” Priebus said.

Pruitt told his own news agency it’s “too early to know if we’ll take legal action but I can tell you we are positively displeased and we do feel that our constitutional rights have been violated.”

While investigations of security leaks are necessary, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a member of the Judiciary Committee, said the focus should be on those who leak the information, not on journalists they talk to.

WND reported that the Obama administration said it pursued the news agency’s records because a double agent in the war on terror was compromised by a story. However, the news agency’s reporting on the issue didn’t mention the agent.

It was now-CIA Director John Brennan, who then was President Obama’s terror adviser, who told members of Congress that the U.S. had “inside control” of the situation. Media then reported on the use of a double agent.

That’s according to a profile of the government’s justification for pursuing the reporters’ telephone records published in the Los Angeles Times, which was one of the publications that reported on the double agent after Brennan documented the situation to Congress.

Government officials told the newspaper that it was an AP story May 7, 2012, about a foiled plot to blow up a passenger jet that prompted the controversy, a story the AP held for five days at the request of the CIA.

But the report said the story did not mention the informant.

Ultimately, the fallout from the revelation that a double-agent existed infuriated British officials, whose intelligence agency had developed the source. Saudi Arabian intelligence officials said they were “dismayed.”

Times writer Kevin Dilanian said the sequence developed like this: The informant was a British citizen who was born in Saudi Arabia and was recruited by Britain to work as a double agent inside al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. His information led to a drone strike by the U.S. that killed al-Qaida’s Fahd Mohammed Ahmed Quso on May 6, 2012. The informant also expressed a desire to blow up a U.S. passenger jet and was outfitted with a bomb. The informant left Yemen and delivered the bomb to authorities and intelligence officials hoped to send him back to Yemen. But al-Qaida covered its tracks when the information about a double agent surfaced.

The Times report, which did not identify the U.S. officials who were sources, said the Justice Department then went after the telephone records of more than 20 lines belonging to AP reporters to investigate the “leak” of details.

See the Priebus comments:

It was White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer who denied White House awareness of the situation.

“A cardinal rule is we don’t get involved in independent investigations. And this is one of those,” Pfeiffer said.

But Pruitt said the impact already is evident.

“Officials [who] would normally talk to us and people we talk to in the normal course of newsgathering are already saying to us that they’re a little reluctant to talk to us,” Pruitt said in an AP report. “They fear that they will be monitored by the government.”

And the net widened.

The Washington Post noted the latest scandal for the White House is that the Justice Department also used security badge access records and other information to monitor three Fox News employees.

They were identified as reporters William La Jeunesse and James Rosen and producer Mike Levine.

The report said court documents reveal how they were was monitored.

“Search warrants like these have a severe chilling effect on the free flow of important information to the public,” First Amendment lawyer Charles Tobin told the Post.

Reports say their emails showed up in an inspector’s general report regarding the Fast and Furious gun-tracing scandal.

Breitbart reported: “What we have here is a case of the Obama administration criminalizing reporting. In June of 2009, James Rosen of Fox News reported that North Korea might respond to an increase in United Nations sanctions with even more nuclear tests. Rosen added that the CIA had learned this information from their sources within North Korea. According to the Washington Post, upon hearing … of Rosen’s report, the White House launched what many believe is an unprecedented leak probe that went so far as to criminalize standard newsgathering.”

Shockingly, the report continues, “FBI agent Regineld Reyes claimed there was evidence Rosen had broken the law, ‘at the very least, either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator.’”

Rosen reported the Obama administration never contacted him.

“It is called everyday journalism; and the Obama administration is attempting to criminalize everyday journalism,” the report said.

WASHINGTON – While Washington is abuzz this week with investigations into several scandals, a summit on a much graver threat that could affect the lives of some 160 million people is underway on Capitol Hill.

The annual International Electric Infrastructure Security Summit began Monday with panel discussions on the vulnerability of U.S. power grids to potential threats.

The summit opened with a chilling video calling into question the U.S.’ preparedness to handle the threat of electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, and severe space weather that could cripple the U.S. technological infrastructure to a debilitating degree.

“We are only one act of madness away from a social cataclysm unlike anything our country has ever known,” said conference moderator Rep. Trent Frank, R-Ariz.

Read the documentation that’s sparking the worry about the EMP threat, in “A Nation Forsaken.”

Electric Infrastructure Security Council Founder and CEO Avi Schnurr warned summit attendees, “Governments and corporations are used to dealing with crises by experiencing them and gradually learning how to respond. EMP and severe space weather are in a different category. We are talking about a black swan event, which is not effectively survivable.”

Throughout the day, panelists drew attention to just how unprepared the U.S. is to handle such a threat.

As one speaker explained, water supplies, food, gasoline, transportation, emergency services, medical care and financial services would essentially come to a standstill in the event of an EMP attack or severe space weather catastrophe.

Dr. Robert Hermann of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack warned, “EMP is one of a small number of threats that could hold at risk the continued existence of U.S. civil society.”

As WND reported, scientists have predicted an increased number of solar flares in the near future as the sun approaches its peak activity. The intense solar storms are expected to last as long as until 2020.

For the U.S., the increase in space weather activity draws concern, as it is a technologically based society dependent on critical electronic infrastructure, which could be severely damaged in the case of a massive solar flare or EMP.

With an EMP generated from the sun’s flares – some of which can be up to 10 times the size of the Earth – the unprotected grid, including transformers, electrical components and automated control systems that everyone takes for granted in their everyday lives, could either be severely damaged or fried, taking months if not years to replace.

NASA estimates that a direct hit to Earth from one of these enormous flares would have a catastrophic impact on the nation’s critical infrastructures over a very wide geographical area.

In the first year alone, NASA estimates, such a disaster could cost just the U.S. upward of $2 trillion. It also would take from four to 10 years to recover – if that even would be possible – and affect the lives of some 160 million people, threatening starvation and death.

Some EMP experts say that such a catastrophic event could  wipe out America’s urban centers, due to their total dependency on critical infrastructures for electricity, communications, food and water delivery, oil and gas, transportation, automated banking and financial institutions and even emergency services.

Rep. Yvette Clark, D-N.Y., warned the EIS Summit, “The likelihood of a severe geomagnetic event capable of crippling our electric grid is 100 percent.”

The timely conference takes place shortly after the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission proposed to revise its existing cyber security standards for the nation’s electric grid. The revision would expand existing rules to more than 60 addition companies that link to the grid.

As Bloomberg reported in April, the agency voted to begin the process of updating existing critical infrastructure protection standards.

Read the documentation that’s sparking the worry about the EMP threat, in “A Nation Forsaken.”

(ONLINE.WSJ) — Apple Inc. has set up corporate structures that have allowed it to pay little or no corporate tax—in any country—on much of its overseas income, according to the findings of a U.S. Senate examination released Monday evening.

The unusual result is possible because the iPhone maker’s key foreign subsidiaries argue they are residents of nowhere, according to the investigators’ report, which will be discussed at a hearing on Tuesday where Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook will testify.

The finding comes from a lengthy investigation into the technology giant’s tax practices by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, led by Sen. Carl Levin (D., Mich.) and Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.).

(BBC) — Scientists say the recent downturn in the rate of global warming will lead to lower temperature rises in the short-term.

Since 1998, there has been an unexplained “standstill” in the heating of the Earth’s atmosphere.

Writing in Nature Geoscience, the researchers say this will reduce predicted warming in the coming decades.

Hezbollah is in the final stage of preparation to attack Israel with sophisticated weapons, according to a high-level commander of the terrorist group.

Tabnak, an outlet of Iran’s Islamic regime, said an unidentified Hezbollah commander, in an interview with the Kuwaiti paper Alrai, thanked Syrian President Bashar Assad for keeping his promise to provide those weapons to Hezbollah.

“The weapons given to Hezbollah will change the balance of power,” he said.

“We have in recent days done extensive operations for reconnaissance on Israel’s central and sensitive military and infrastructural installations in different areas and also on Israel’s commando posts and peacekeeping forces in the Golan Heights,” he said, “to prepare for the coming battle with the occupying regime.”

The commander revealed some of the weapons given by Syria to Hezbollah, including Pantsir (SA-22 Greyhound) surface-to-air missiles, SAM 5 surface-to-air missiles and the Russian anti-tank Kornet missiles. However, the commander also hinted that soon Hezbollah will receive the advanced and dreaded ship-killer Yakhont missiles from Assad.

U.S. officials, British Prime Minister David Cameron and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had urged Russian President Vladimir Putin not to go ahead with his arms sales to Syria, including the S-300 antiaircraft system and the feared Yakhont cruise missiles. But despite their pleas, Russian officials said they were honoring contracts with Syria, and those weapons Russia will send to Syria may eventually wind up in the hands of Hezbollah and Iran.

The Hezbollah commander also said that Assad has ordered formation of resistance forces similar to Hezbollah, arming them with various weapons, for the confrontation with Israel.

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On May 9, days after Israeli warplanes struck shipments of advanced Iranian weapons on the outskirts of Damascus intended for Hezbollah, the terrorist group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, boasted that Syria will supply “game-changing” weapons to Hezbollah.

“The attack carried out by the Zionist regime (in Syria) will shorten this fake regime’s life,” Iranian Defense Minister Gen. Ahmad Vahidi warned Israel after the Israeli attack.

Meanwhile, the British Sunday Times reported Sunday that Syria has begun deploying advanced surface-to-surface missiles aimed at Tel Aviv to be launched if Israeli warplanes strike inside Syria again.

According to a source within the Iranian intelligence apparatus, there is now little hope the Assad regime can be saved, hence the panic by Russia in arming Assad with further sophisticated weapons in a warning to U.S. and NATO to stay out of the conflict. He said Iran’s rapid shipment of sophisticated weapons to Hezbollah is part of that strategy. By reinforcing its arsenal, Hezbollah can strike all of Israel and, as a last resort, engage Israel from within Syria, further complicating the already-chaotic region.

Israel, worried about the disintegration of Syria and the further arming of Hezbollah, has warned continuously that giving “game-changing” weapons to Hezbollah is its red line.

Despite the open Iranian threats against Israel, the source said, regime officials have no intention of engaging the Jewish state directly unless America launches a direct attack against Syria or if there is an attack on Iran. In fact, he said, Iranian officials are worried about Israel attacking their nuclear facilities as Iran seeks to create a nuclear-armed state that would then become untouchable.

However, Iranians have devised several plans to engage Israel through their forces in Syria and their proxies, such as Hezbollah, to draw the Jewish state into a wider conflict should Israel continue to attack Syrian armaments facilities.

The source added that the regime also has devised plans for terrorist attacks against Israel, the U.S. homeland and their interests around the world as a warning to leave Syria alone and to stop the pressure on the Islamic regime because of its illicit nuclear program. The fall of Assad, they think, would be a culmination of an effort to then target the clerical regime in Iran.

As reported exclusively on WND on May 13, Iran not only has formed a new coalition of terrorist masterminds among its Quds Forces, Hezbollah and al-Qaida to attack the U.S. homeland, but has also given the go-ahead for three imminent operations within the U.S. to change the perception of security in America, which it believes has helped empower America’s actions in the Middle East.

Editor’s Note: The following report is excerpted from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, the premium online newsletter published by the founder of WND. Subscriptions are $99 a year or, for monthly trials, just $9.95 per month for credit card users, and provide instant access for the complete reports.

DAMASCUS, Syria – Because of the increasing number of violent deaths of Syrian civilians at the hands of al-Nusra, which is affiliated with al-Qaida of Iraq, the Syrian government had asked the United Nations Security Council to blacklist the group, according to report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

Only Britain and France blocked the request.

The United States already has designated al-Nusra a terrorist organization, but there remain questions about whether it should increase aid to include weapons to the Syrian opposition, because it increasingly is being infiltrated by al-Nusra and other Islamist militant fighters from throughout the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Al-Nusra, which has integrated into the Syrian armed opposition of the Free Syrian Army, has pledged allegiance to al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, according to al-Nusra leader Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani, who recently was wounded in an attack.

Al-Zawahiri is the successor to Osama bin Laden, who was killed two years ago by U.S. SEALs in Pakistan.

Al-Nusra has carried out more than 600 terrorist acts within Syria in the past year, according to Bashar al-Jaafari, Syria’s ambassador to the U.N.

Al-Jaafari confirmed that al-Nusra continues to attack hospitals and schools, desecrate holy places, assassinate religious figures and abduct U.N. personnel.

Yet, Britain and France blocked any U.N. Security Council action to declare officially that al-Nusra is a terrorist organization, which has vowed to turn Syria into an Islamic emirate.

There are indications that the U.N. Security Council could reconsider if it can persuade Britain and France to rescind their objection. If blacklisted, all of al-Nusra’s global assets would be frozen.

Qatar and Saudi Arabia and some of the other Persian Gulf states have been providing millions of dollars in funding each month to the foreign fighters. With such financing, these foreign fighters have bought many of their weapons on the black market.

The United States and other Western countries, however, are considering arms shipments to the Syrian opposition but have balked until now out of concern that such weapons will fall into the hands of al-Nusra and other Islamist radical fighters.

One idea is to screen who receives the weapons to ensure against them winding up in the hands of the Islamist fighters.

However, Syrian sources tell WND that elements of the Syrian opposition, including the Western-backed Free Syrian Army, would sell the weapons to the militant fighters or later claim they “lost” them. Such a reality, they say, questions the logic of providing weapons to the opposition.

The al-Nusra fighters, who come from various Middle East countries, are considered to be very ruthless but well organized with a disciplined command structure, according to Syrian security sources.

Given the increase in killings of Syrian civilians at the hands of al-Nusra and other foreign fighters, Syria is organizing its own resistance movement within the country similar to the Iranian and Syrian-backed Hezbollah, the Shi’ite resistance group in Lebanon.

According to Iran’s Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi, Syria is forming the resistance group against the terrorists and other extreme groups fighting alongside al-Nusra.

Keep in touch with the most important breaking news stories about critical developments around the globe with Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence news source edited and published by the founder of WND.

For the complete report and full immediate access to Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, subscribe now.

The foreign-headquartered company that recently purchased the leading U.S. electronic voting firm has just announced its technology will be deployed at more jurisdictions ahead of the 2014 midterm elections.

A SCYTL company news release boasted that its “electronic pollbook solution recently achieved a significant milestone by eclipsing the 100th implementation in the United States.”

“This number continues to grow with many jurisdictions planning to implement electronic pollbook technology ahead of the 2014 election cycle,” continued the release.

The electronic pollbook reportedly allows U.S. election officials and poll workers to manage the electoral roll on Election Day in an efficient and convenient manner.

SCYTL’s electronic pollbook solution will be utilized in small and large election jurisdictions throughout the nation, including in Washington, D.C.; Galveston County, Texas, along with 50 other Texas counties; Kane County, Ill.; and the city of Peoria, Ill.

“We are very excited that our superior platform and unique solution have earned the trust of more than 100 election jurisdictions who have successfully utilized our electronic pollbook in major elections,” said Marc Fratello, CEO of SOE Software.

“We also look forward to expanding our offering to other election jurisdictions across the United States,” added Fratello.

In January 2012, SCYTL, based in Barcelona, acquired 100 percent of SOE Software, the leading software provider of election management solutions in the United States. The sale garnered national attention after it was spotlighted by the popular Drudge Report.

Soros ties

Last week, WND exposed how SCYTL recently acquired the software division of a non-profit election organization tied to George Soros’ Open Society Institute.

SCYTL said it is purchasing the software division of Gov2U, described as a non-profit organization dedicated to developing and promoting the use of technology in the fields of governance and democracy.

A SCYTL press release says: “Gov2U created its software division in 2004 and, since then, it has developed a wide array of innovative award-winning eDemocracy solutions that have been implemented in multiple countries across Europe, Africa and America at the local, regional and federal government levels.”

The Spain-based company says the “main purpose of these tools is to engage citizens in participatory processes through the use of online and offline platforms, bringing more transparency and legitimacy to decision-making processes.”

Gov4U is currently partnered with Soros’ Open Society to support and develop a group called the Declaration on Parliamentary Openness.

The group runs a website, OpeningParliament.org, which says it is a forum “intended to help connect the world’s civic organizations engaged in monitoring, supporting and opening up their countries’ parliaments and legislative institutions.”

Gov4U, meanwhile, has eight partners of its own listed on its website, including the Soros-funded and partnered National Democratic Institute, or NDI.

Aside from receiving financial support for Soros, NDI has co-hosted scores of events along with Soros’ Open Society. The two groups work closely together.

NDI and the Open Society, for example, worked together to push for electoral and legislative reform in Romania.

NDI boasts that with Open Society Institute funds it conducted a political leadership training series for Romanian activists to “bring tangible improvements to their communities.”

NDI describes itself as a nonprofit, nonpartisan, nongovernmental organization working to establish and strengthen political and civic organizations, safeguard elections and promote citizen participation, openness and accountability in government.

NDI previously stated it was founded to draw on the traditions of the U.S. Democratic Party.

WND found that NDI is also listed as the only U.S.-associated organization of Socialists International, the world’s largest socialist umbrella group.

NDI was originally created by the federally funded National Endowment for Democracy, or NED, which itself founded joint NDI projects with the Open Society. Another NDI financial backer is the United States Agency for International Development, USAID.

U.S. elections, national security concerns

With the purchase of SOE Software, SCYTL increased its involvement in the U.S. elections process. SOE Software boasts a strong U.S. presence, providing results in more than 900 jurisdictions.

In 2009, SCYTL formally registered with the U.S. Election Assistance Commission as the first Internet voting manufacturer in the U.S. under the EAC Voting System Testing and Certification Program.

Also that year, SCYTL entered into an agreement with another firm, Hart InterCivic, to jointly market its pollbook.

SCYTL’s ePollBook already has replaced the paper precinct roster in Washington, D.C.

In the 2012 presidential election, SCYTL was contracted by the states of New York, Arkansas, Alabama, West Virginia, Alaska, Puerto Rico and Mississippi to provide the overseas ballots.

During the midterm elections in November 2010, SCYTL successfully carried out electoral modernization projects in 14 states. The company boasted that a “great variety” of SCYTL’s technologies were involved in the projects, including an online platform for the delivery of blank ballots to overseas voters, an Internet voting platform and epollbook software to manage the electoral roll at the polling stations.

The states that used SCYTL’s technologies during the midterms were New York, Texas, Washington, California, Florida, Alabama, Missouri, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, New Mexico, Nebraska, West Virginia and Washington, D.C.

Just prior to the midterm’s however, the new electronic voting system in Washington, D.C., was hacked.

As a program security trial, the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics reportedly encouraged outside parties to find flaws in its new online balloting system. A group of University of Michigan students then hacked into the site and commanded it to play the school’s fight song upon casting a vote.

It’s not the first time SCYTL’s systems have been called into question.

Voter Action, an advocacy group that seeks elections integrity in the U.S., sent a lengthy complaint to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission in April 2010 charging the integration of SCYTL systems “raises national security concerns.”

“Foreign governments may also seek to undermine the national security interests of the United States, either directly or through other organizations,” Voter Action charged.

The document notes that SCYTL was founded in 2001 as a spinoff from a research group at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, which was partially funded by the Spanish government’s Ministry of Science and Technology.

Along with Barcelona, SCYTL has offices in Washington, D.C., Singapore, Bratislava and Athens.

Project Vote noted that in 2008, the Florida Department of State commissioned a review of SCYTL’s remote voting software and concluded in part that:

• The system is vulnerable to attack from insiders.
• In a worst case scenario, the software could lead to 1) voters being unable to cast votes; 2) an election that does not accurately reflect the will of the voters; and 3) possible disclosure of confidential information, such as the votes cast by individual voters.
• The system may be subject to attacks that could compromise the integrity of the votes cast.

Voting through Google, Apple?

As WND reported in May 2012 the company announced the successful implementation of technology that allows ballots to be cast using Google and Apple smart phones and tablet computers.

SCYTL unveiled a platform that it says encrypts each individual ballot on a voter’s Google or Apple mobile device before the ballot is then transmitted to an electronic voting system.

Using this technology, “Scytl is now able to guarantee end-to-end security – from the voter to the final tally – not only for computer-based online voting but also for mobile voting,” stated a press release by the company.

“By leveraging its pioneering security technology with Google and Apple’s mobile device platforms, Scytl has become the premier election technology provider to offer an online voting system that guarantees the highest standards in terms of both voter privacy and ballot integrity both on personal computers and mobile devices,” said Gabriel Dos Santos, Scytl’s vice president of software engineering.

The U.S. currently does not utilize voting platforms using mobile devices. SCYTL sees such methods as the future of electronic voting.

With additional research by Brenda J. Elliott