Moscow pushes ahead with plans to supply Tehran with uranium after release of IAEA report, Iran welcomes move, says Russian commitment to its nuclear program 'a matter of principle'
Russia on Friday gave the clearest indication yet that it was ready to send uranium to fuel Iran's first atomic power station, upping the stakes in a diplomatic crisis surrounding Tehran's nuclear program. 
Russia's state-run nuclear fuel producer said inspectors from the United Nations' nuclear watchdog would later this month start sealing nuclear fuel bound for the Bushehr plant, a major step to shipping the fuel to the Bushehr plant in Iran.  
In a report on Iran issued on Thursday, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it had "made arrangements to verify and seal the fresh fuel foreseen (for Bushehr) on Nov. 26, before shipment of the fuel from Russia to Iran".  
Russia has so far given no concrete date for when it will send the nuclear fuel to Bushehr, but says it would be sent six months before the plant's repeatedly delayed start-up.  
According to Russian forecasts, the reactor at the plant could be started up in 2008 and nuclear fuel would have to arrive at ...   more »

After months of waffling, the United States Congress finally passed a military spending bill. It's been sent to the White House for the president's signature, but he's not likely to sign it. The bill provides $50 billion for four months' funding of the war, but only if President Bush begins immediately withdrawing troops from Iraq. It's similar to one the president vetoed earlier this year.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi told reporters that funding for the Iraq war was conditional to force the president to begin withdrawing U.S. troops. The speaker threatened that if the president vetoed the bill, she would not allow another war spending bill to go before Congress for the rest of the year.
Pelosi later told reporters, "It's a war without end. There is no light at the end of the tunnel. We must reverse it." It was the 58th bill this year sponsored by the Democrats that has been tied to an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.
Once again, this proves that the liberals, most of whom are Democrats, don't comprehend that we are in a war – not of our choosing – against an enemy that is dedicated to our destruction. ...   more »

Venezuelan president tells OPEC summit in Riyadh, 'If the United States is crazy enough to attack Iran or commit aggression against Venezuela ... Oil would not be $100 but $200'
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Saturday that oil prices could more than double to $200 per barrel if the United States attacked Iran over a standoff about Tehran's nuclear program.
"If the United States is crazy enough to attack Iran or commit aggression against Venezuela ... Oil would not be $100 but $200," Chavez told an OPEC summit in the Saudi capital Riyadh. His remarks were translated into Arabic.   
Chavez also said $100 per barrel was a "fair" price for oil.
Oil has lapped against the $100-mark this month, prompting consumer nations to call on the exporter group to help ease price pressure by providing the market with more crude.   
On Friday, Saudi Arabia objected to an attempt by Iran and Venezuela to highlight concern over the dollar's weakness in the summit communique and the group voted the proposal out.  
Venezuela is a price hawk and holds some of the largest reserves outside the Middle East and is the no. 4 US supplier.
Original Source
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Liberty Dollar founder says, 'I intend to win'
By Bob Unruh
The government's raid shutting down the Evansville, Ind., offices of Liberty Dollar was a declaration of war, company founder Bernard von NotHaus says. But the confiscation of its stockpiles of gold, silver and medallions also was just the "first battle of a long war that I intend to win!"
The company makes and distributes Liberty Dollar barter currency in various denominations and had announced that it had been closed down by a raid of FBI and U.S. Secret Service officers who confiscated gold, silver, platinum, medallions, documents, "everything but the desks and chairs."
"For approximately six hours they took all the gold, all the silver, all the platinum, and almost two tons of Ron Paul Dollars that were just delivered last Friday. They also took all the files and computers and froze our bank accounts," von NotHaus wrote in an urgent notification of the situation to supporters.
The Peace Dollar, by Liberty Dollar
Federal authorities in the U.S. attorney's office in North Carolina, to whom WND was referred when the FBI and Secret Service were questioned, continued to decline to release information about their case, although they admitted the ...   more »

Defense appropriations bill gives soldiers domestic responsibilities
By Jerome R. Corsi
New federal legislation shows the Bush administration has begun systematically putting in place authorization for the president to federalize the National Guard and use the U.S. military in domestic emergency situations.
A provision in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (H.R. 1585) requires the secretary of defense to prepare and submit to Congress by March 1, 2008, and each subsequent March 1 a plan to coordinate the use of the National Guard and members of the Armed Forces on active duty when responding to natural disasters, acts of terrorism, and other man-made disasters.
Section 1806 of H.R. 1585 requires the secretary of defense to prepare two versions of the plan, one using only members of the National Guard, and one using both members of the National Guard and members of the regular components of the armed services.
The section also requires the secretary of defense's plan to specify "Protocols for the Department of Defense, the National Guard Bureau, and the governors of the several states to carry out operations in coordination with each other and to ensure that governors and local communities are properly informed and ...   more »

A report by scientists Wednesday claiming that they have successfully cloned monkey embryos and extracted stem cells from them has religious bioethics groups concerned over impending human cloning.
A report by scientists Wednesday claiming that they have successfully cloned monkey embryos and extracted stem cells from them has religious bioethics groups concerned over impending human cloning.
Shoukhrat Mitalipov, who led a team of research scientists at Oregon Health and Science University in Beaverton, said they used skin cells from a 9-year-old adult male rhesus macaque monkey to create cloned embryos, and then extracted stem cells from the embryo clones.
Mice are the only other group of animals from which cloned embryonic stem cells have been created and now researchers are now saying the technique should work in humans.
“We hope the technology will be useful for other labs that are working on human eggs and human cells,” said Mitalipov in a New York Times report. “I am quite sure it will work in humans.”
The group’s research was published online Wednesday in the scientific journal Nature and will also be featured alongside a peer-review by an Australian team in the Nov. 22 hardcopy issue.
The report has prompted religious bioethics ...   more »

This Christmas season, whether a store greets you with “Happy Holidays” or “Merry Christmas” makes all the difference where you should do your shopping, says a Christian legal group.
This Christmas season, whether a store greets you with “Happy Holidays” or “Merry Christmas” makes all the difference where you should do your shopping, says a Christian legal group.
Liberty Counsel is urging Christians to fight back to save Christmas from being erased from the public sphere by shopping at stores that honor instead of disregard Christmas.
The Fla.-based legal group released the first draft of its “Naughty & Nice” checklist Monday to advise consumers on which businesses to support.
Businesses and retailers are placed on the “Nice” list if they recognize Christmas and on the “Naughty” list if they censor or exclude the Dec. 25 holiday.
“Every consumer should make a list and check it twice, stop patronizing retailers which are naughty and shop at those which are nice,” said Mathew D. Staver, the group’s founder and chairman.
“Retailers which seek to profit from Christmas while pretending it does not exist should realize they have offended the vast majority of Americans who enjoy Christmas,” added Staver.
Home Depot was among ...   more »