As global disarmament talks begin in Paris, a senior Iranian nuclear official lashes out at atomic powers for holding themselves “unaccountable” in the face of international law. “Powers, who themselves have used atomic weapons, are testing new generations of nuclear arms, instead of giving into the international disarmament regulations,” Iran's top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili said in Tehran on Tuesday. “They are even thinking of expanding these weapons. They hold themselves accountable to no authority whatsoever,” he added.

Iran's president has said it is ready to send its enriched uranium abroad for further enrichment under a deal to ease concerns about its nuclear programme. But for months, Iranian officials publically criticised the terms and said they were unwilling to export the uranium without simultaneously receiving fuel in return. The proposal proved unacceptable to the West. But in a television interview on Tuesday, President Ahmadinejad dismissed the concerns of his "colleagues" that the West would not return the uranium, saying Iran would respond by producing more. "We have no problem sending our enriched uranium abroad," he said. AntiWar: Iran Accepts Third Party Enrichment Deal Terms. + Iran and US Moving in Circles? Damian Lataan: Iran Thwarts Israeli And U.S. Plans For Final Confrontation. AJ/The Middle East Blog: Iran attack update. FP/Stephen M. Walt: The Lobby versus Iran (revised edition).

Iran test-fired a new satellite rocket and unveiled a series of what it said were home-grown advances in a space program that has worried Western officials because of possible cross-over applications in the country's weapons program. In addition to the test-firing, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad unveiled on Wednesday three new telecommunications satellites and a new satellite-carrier engine, according to state media. BBC: Iran has successfully test-fired a satellite rocket, state television has reported.

A secret meeting between the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Leon Panetta and Israeli officials has reportedly centered on Iran's nuclear program. In a secret flying visit to Israel on Thursday, the head of the CIA reportedly discussed Iran's nuclear issue in a sit-down with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Mossad Chief Meir Dagan. The trip, which was originally scheduled to take place in May, follows a recent wave of developments in the Middle East that strongly imply preparations for a possible new military conflict in the region.

An attempted "al Qaeda" attack against the United States is a high possibility in the next 3 to 6 months, the nations' top terror chiefs testified today. "An attempted attack, the priority is certain, I would say," Director of National terror operations Dennis Blair told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. CIA terrorist Leon Panetta and FBI terrorist Robert Mueller both told the committee they agreed with Blair's stark "assessment", when asked by committee chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. AntiWar: US: "Al-Qaeda" Certain to Attack in Next 3-6 Months. WaPo: Metro Transit Police stage large anti-terrorism drill: Metro is planning exercises this month modeled after terrorist attacks in Madrid, London and Mumbai. About 200 to 300 police officers and other emergency responders from across the region will take part in tactical exercises Feb. 12, 13 and 24 that will include simulations of the bombing of a Metrobus, an explosion in the tunnel between the Rosslyn and Foggy Bottom-GWU Metro stations, and shooters at the Friendship Heights Metro station. 9/11 and 7/7 started with drills like these and they went live...

US predator drones Obama has killed 31 people and wounded many more in Pakistan after missiles rained down on Dattakhel village in the Degan area of North Waziristan, according to intelligence sources. Pakistan government officials said nine spy planes fired 18 missiles causing heavy human loss. Locals were said to be digging out the dead and wounded from the debris. AWIP: US drones killed 123 civilians, three al-Qaeda men in January.

JANUARY 27: Afghanistan plans to delay awarding concessions for a major iron ore deposit and sizeable oil and gas reserves as part of a broader effort to stamp out corruption, the country's finance minister said. The move by Afghanistan could upend the plans of Total SA, Swiss-based Addax Petroleum Corp. and Canada-based Nations Petroleum Co., all of which were among the seven finalists selected last year for oil and gas blocks in the country's northwest. Of particular concern, said Finance Minister Omar Zakhilwal in an interview Tuesday, is a major iron ore deposit in central Afghanistan that last year attracted bids from smaller Chinese and Indian companies. "We've put a hold onto to the bidding process; it will have to be re-bid," he said. AWIP: Afghanistan, one of the world's poorest countries, is sitting on mineral and petroleum reserves worth an estimated one trillion dollars.

You’d think, being academics and all, that Penn State’s internal investigation of Dr. Michael Mann would contact the people who raised questions about the MBH98 paper and the “hockey stick”.

The Coming Economic Depression

Children are hit particularly hard, according to the report by Feeding America, a network of 203 food banks nationwide. One in five children, 14 million, received food from soup kitchens, food pantries and other agencies, up from 9 million in 2005, the year of the group's last major survey. More here: Hunger in America 2010

A year ago, American hopes were high for a friendly relationship with China. But the White House seems unwisely to have raised expectations – the Chinese have been consistent in their unwillingness to change positions on key issues.

Speaking in Brooklyn, George Galloway presented a report on his recent experiences in Gaza and Egypt. Despite his deportation from Egypt, he had only praise for the citizens of that nation.

Ms Short, who was the International Development Secretary before resigning shortly after the March 2003 invasion, also revealed that she was “jeered” by Cabinet colleagues and told to be quiet by Mr Blair when she attempted to dispute the legality of the war. She added that Gordon Brown had complained to her that Mr Blair was “obsessed with his legacy” and was determined to use a short, decisive victory in Iraq to secure it. In the most "ferocious" attack on Mr Blair's style of government heard by Sir John Chilcot's inquiry to date, Ms Short said the former Prime Minister had ignored warnings that post-war preparations were not ready because he was “frantic” to give his backing to President Bush. Plans on Iraq were decided by a small group of his “mates”, while she was frozen out during the summer of 2002. AWIP: Blair has shown himself more a fool than a liar. The Guardian: Blair: truth and lies. Global Research: Citizen's Arrest of War Criminals Tony Blair and George W. Bush.

The prestigious British medical journal The Lancet has retracted a flawed study linking the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to autism and bowel disease. The journal published the controversial paper by Andrew Wakefield and colleagues in 1998. That, in turn, prompted many British parents to abandon the vaccine, leading to a resurgence of measles. Subsequent studies found no proof the vaccine is connected to autism.

People who live inside the world's many war zones, from Afghanistan to Rwanda, may never have heard of New York or Paris, but they are likely to know of a town in northern India called Jaipur. Jaipur is famous in strife-torn areas as the birthplace of an extraordinary prosthesis, or artificial limb, known as the Jaipur foot, that has revolutionized life for millions of land-mine amputees. The beauty of the Jaipur foot is its lightness and mobility--those who wear it can run, climb trees and pedal bicycles--and its low price. While a prosthesis for a similar level of amputation can cost several thousand dollars in the U.S., the Jaipur foot costs only $28 in India. Sublimely low-tech, it is made of rubber (mostly), wood and aluminum and can be assembled with local materials. In Afghanistan craftsmen hammer the foot together out of spent artillery shells. In Cambodia, where roughly 1 out of every 380 people is a war amputee, part of the foot's rubber components are scavenged from truck tires.

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has observed a mysterious X-shaped debris pattern and trailing streamers of dust that suggest a head-on collision between two asteroids. Astronomers have long thought that the asteroid belt is being ground down through collisions, but such a smashup has never been seen before. The object, called P/2010 A2, was discovered by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) sky survey on Jan. 6. At first, astronomers thought it might be a so-called "main belt comet"--a rare case of a comet orbiting in the asteroid belt. Follow-up images taken by Hubble on Jan. 25 and 29, however, revealed a complex X-pattern of filamentary structures near the nucleus.

"This is quite different from the smooth dust envelopes of normal comets," says principal investigator David Jewitt of the University of California at Los Angeles. "The filaments are made of dust and gravel, presumably recently thrown out of the nucleus. Some are swept back by radiation pressure from sunlight to create straight dust streaks. Embedded in the filaments are co-moving blobs of dust that likely originated from tiny unseen parent bodies."