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Purveyor's JournalIran Will Never Stop Uranium Enrichment: Envoy
By Agence France-Presse
Tuesday, August 28, 2012 7:01 EDT
Iran “will never stop” its controversial uranium enrichment, the country’s envoy to the IAEA said on Tuesday, on the sidelines of a Non-Aligned Movement ministerial meeting in Tehran.
“Our enrichment activities will never stop and we are justified in carrying them out, and we will continue to do so under IAEA supervision,” Ali Asghar Soltanieh told reporters.
“We will not give up our inalienable right to enrichment,” he said.
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On Iran’s intent to continue enriching uranium, Soltanieh noted that the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the IAEA’s statutes made no explicit mention of levels of enrichment.
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http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/08/28/iran-will-never-stop-uranium-enrichment-envoy/
American And European Activists To Try Again With Palestinian Visit
By Agence France-Presse
Tuesday, August 28, 2012 9:44 EDT
US and European activists insisted Tuesday on making a new attempt to go to Palestinian territories, two days after Israel and Jordan barred them from entering the West Bank to deliver aid to students.
“We are thinking of going in December to the Palestinian areas to break the siege on them,” Olivia Zemor, spokeswoman for the “Welcome to Palestine” group, told a news conference in Amman.
“We still do not know for sure if we want to go to Gaza this time or another place. It depends on whether the (Egyptian-controlled) Rafah crossing will be open or not.”
Israeli and Jordanian authorities on Sunday prevented the group of 100 activists from going to the West Bank through Allenby Bridge border crossing for delivering a tonne of school stationary to Palestinian students.
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http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/08/28/american-and-european-activists-to-try-again-with-palestinian-visit/
Consumer Confidence in U.S. Declines by Most Since October
Confidence among U.S. consumers fell in August by the most in 10 months as households grew more pessimistic about their employment prospects and the economic outlook.
The Conference Board’s index decreased to 60.6 from a revised 65.4 in July, figures from the New York-based private research group showed today. The 4.8-point decrease was the biggest since October. The reading was less than the most- pessimistic forecast in a Bloomberg survey in which the median projection was 66.
Rising gasoline prices, a jobless rate that’s been above 8 percent since the start of 2009 and limited income gains are keeping consumers glum. Persistent pessimism raises the risk of a pullback in household purchases that account for about 70 percent of the world’s biggest economy.
“The consumer is still very cautious,” said Jim O’Sullivan, chief U.S. economist for High Frequency Economics Ltd. in Valhalla, New York, who projected a drop in sentiment. “The labor market is still relatively weak. There’s a lot of uncertainty about policy ahead of the election” and fuel costs have accelerated, he said.
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-28/consumer-confidence-in-u-s-declines-by-most-since-october.html
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef: Pray For The Destruction Of Iran
Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef implored God to “wipe out and destroy” Iran and Hezbollah during his weekly sermon on Saturday night.
This is the second time in a row in which Yosef has spoken about the threat of Iran’s nuclear program during his post-Shabbat Torah lesson.
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“When we make the blessing on the dates that ‘our enemies and haters should be ended’ we should have in mind the Iranian regime, those evil people who threaten Israel,” the rabbi said.
“Do good, God, wipe them out, kill them,” he entreated, to which the assembled crowd answered “amen.”
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http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=282661
Household Income Is Below Recession Levels, Report Says
By Michael A. Fletcher, Updated: Thursday, August 23, 2:00 PM
Household income is down sharply since the recession ended three years ago, according to a report released Thursday, providing another sign of the stubborn weakness of the economic recovery.
From June 2009 to June 2012, inflation-adjusted median household income fell 4.8 percent to $50,964, according to a report by Sentier Research, a firm headed by two former Census Bureau executives.
Incomes have dropped more since the beginning of the recovery than they did during the recession itself, when they declined 2.6 percent, according to the report, which analyzed data from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey. The recession, the most severe since the Great Depression, lasted from December 2007 to June 2009.
Overall, median income is 7.2 percent below its December 2007 level and 8.1 percent below where it stood in January 2000, which was at $55,470, according to the report.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/household-income-is-below-recession-levels-report-says/2012/08/23/aa497460-ec80-11e1-a80b-9f898562d010_story.html
U.S. Keeps Russia on ‘National Threat’ List
Source: RIA Novosti
15:54 17/08/2012
MOSCOW, August 17 (RIA Novosti)
U.S. President Barack Obama has extended a legal act that lists Russia, among 16 other states, as a national threat, and allows for the freezing and confiscation of assets in the United States.
The International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) is a federal law authorizing the U.S. president to regulate commerce after declaring a national emergency in response to any unusual and extraordinary threat to the United States that stems from a foreign source.
It authorizes the president to block transactions and freeze assets to deal with the threat. In the event of an actual attack on the United States, the president can also confiscate property connected with a country, group, or person that aided in the attack.
Russia, alongside Syria, Iran, North Korea, Belarus and other states, has been subject to IEEPA since 2000 due to its ability to export weapons-grade uranium.
Read more: http://en.rian.ru/russia/20120817/175275475.html
Beekeepers Worried About Aerial Pesticide Spraying
Local beekeepers are circulating an online petition to stop aerial spraying for mosquitoes.
There are 502 human cases of West Nile virus in North Texas as of Tuesday. Fourteen people have died, including 10 people in Dallas County.
Dallas County has authorized aerial spraying to help fight West Nile virus. Garland, Mesquite, University Park and Highland Park have approved the spraying, while other cities in the county are still deciding whether to conduct it.
"They're very deadly to bees, and it's not just honeybees -- there's other invertebrates that are going to be compromised by this," said Brandon Pollard, a Dallas beekeeper.
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http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/health/Beekeepers-Worried-About-Aerial-Pesticide-Spraying-166212746.html
Geraldo Tells ‘Fox And Friends’ That ‘Lesbian Cabal’ Has Taken Over DHS And ICE
Friday morning on Fox News’s morning show “Fox and Friends,” veteran reporter and radio host Geraldo Rivera gave voice to allegations that a “lesbian cabal” has engineered a “same sex takeover” of the Department of Homeland Security.
According to Gretchen Carlson, James Hayes, an official with the New York’s Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is suing Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano alleging that he was passed over for a promotion because he is a man. Suzanne Barr, chief of staff for ICE Director John Morton, has voluntarily stepped down as a result of charges made against her by Hayes, who claims that Barr “created a frat house-type atmosphere that is targeted to humiliate and intimidate male employees” within her department.
Hayes maintains that he was passed over for promotions in favor of less-qualified women with connections to Barr and Napolitano. Many of the women, he claims, worked for Napolitano in Arizona.
The “Fox and Friends” trio were joined by Rivera, who said, “I have a question for you. Is that really what people are saying? That men are disadvantaged and that women, specifically lesbians, are ruling the roost there?”
MORE with video...
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/08/17/geraldo-tells-fox-and-friends-that-lesbian-cabal-has-taken-over-dhs-and-ice/
Index of U.S. Leading Indicators Rises More than Forecast
The index of U.S. leading economic indicators climbed more than forecast in July, a sign of sustained expansion in the world’s largest economy.
The Conference Board’s gauge of the outlook for the next three to six months increased 0.4 percent after a revised 0.4 percent drop in June, the New York-based group said today. Economists projected the gauge would rise by 0.2 percent, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey.
Retail sales rose more than forecast last month, showing households are looking beyond the slowdown and increasing consumer spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of the economy. The housing market also has signaled improvement. At the same time, unemployment remains above 8 percent, which is consistent with the Federal Reserve’s view that economic growth will “remain moderate over coming quarters.”
“What we’ve seen so far is a decent batch of July numbers, not necessarily convincing to the point that we’re going to see a sharp turnaround in the economy, but it is putting at bay concerns that we’re heading for another recession,” Sean Incremona, senior economist at 4Cast Inc. in New York, said before the report. “Housing is improving -- that’s helping the bottom line. But it’s still a very slow recovery.”
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-19/index-of-u-s-leading-indicators-falls-more-than-forecast.html
Consumer Sentiment At Three-Month High In August
Source: Reuters
NEW YORK | Fri Aug 17, 2012 10:54am EDT
(Reuters) - Consumer sentiment improved in early August to its highest in three months as sales at retailers and low mortgage rates spurred Americans to boost their buying plans, a survey released on Friday showed.
But concerns about rising food prices caused a jump in both short- and long-term inflation expectations, the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey showed.
The preliminary reading on the index on consumer sentiment rose to its highest level since May at 73.6 from 72.3 last month, topping economists' forecasts for a slight uptick to 72.4.
Americans were also more optimistic about the state of the economy with the measure of current economic conditions rising to its highest level since January 2008 at 87.6 from 82.7.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/17/us-usa-economy-sentiment-idUSBRE87G0H420120817
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