Middle East Peace Talks...[ 2650 ]

Abbas Pledges to Continue Peace Talks with Israel

Topic: Middle East Conflict

Dmitry Medvedev and Mahmoud Abbas//© RIA Novosti. Sergey Guneev

MOSCOW, January 22 (RIA Novosti)

The Palestinian authorities are ready to continue peace talks with Israel, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said on Sunday.
“We’ll continue the dialog and we’ll continue the (peace) talks because we consider this to be the only way (to resolve the problem) but if they fail, this will happen through Israel’s fault,” Abbas said after his talks with Russia’s chief Mufti Ravil Gainutdin in Moscow.
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Abbas arrived in Moscow for a six-day working visit on Thursday. On Friday, he discussed Middle East settlement issues with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
Palestine is supporting the negotiating process as the only way to achieve peaceful settlement but considers Israel as the country responsible for the remaining problems between the two sides, Abbas said.
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“Recently, Israeli settlers burnt down five mosques in West Bank,” Abbas said, adding that attacks continued from Israeli settlements on Palestinians.
The Palestine-Israeli talks stalled in September 2010 over disagreements on Israeli settlements’ construction in the West Bank. Palestinians said they would not resume negotiations unless the construction stopped.
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The Palestinians are seeking to create an independent state on the territories of West Bank, East Jerusalem, partially occupied by Israel, and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and want Israel to pull from the Palestinian territories occupied after the 1967 war.
Israel, however, has refused to return to the 1967 borders and is unwilling to raise the issue of Jerusalem, which it says is the indivisible capital of the Jewish state.

Iran oil to be sanctioned by Europe ...[ 2649 ]

Iran oil to be sanctioned by Europe Monday

By Steve Hargreaves @CNNMoney January 20, 2012: 12:19 PM ET

Sanctions will ban the import of Iranian crude to Europe and also target Iran's central bank.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The European Union will announce tough new sanction on Iran's oil industry Monday.

According to a source familiar with the matter, the sanctions will ban the import of Iranian oil and also restrict Iran's trade in gold and precious metals, as well as freeze certain Iranian financial assets.

Of the 2.2. million barrels of oil Iran exports a day, about 18% is bound for European markets, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The world consumes about 89 million barrels of oil per day.

Final details are still being worked out, and it's expected the sanctions will have a grace period of three to eight months, an EU diplomat told CNN.

Iran's 'distressed' oil to keep flowing - at deep discount

The grace period will allow European refiners to find new suppliers and Iran to find new buyers.

The move, which was widely expected, follows similar actions by the United States and the United Kingdom. They are all aimed at increasing pressure on Tehran to give up its nuclear program, which Iran says is for peaceful purposes buy many suspect is intended to produce a bomb.

The Iranian government gets about half its revenue from oil exports, according to the EIA.

Analysts have said that while the new sanctions are the toughest ever imposed, they still contain many loopholes.

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Iran is expected to still be able to sell its oil to places like China, India or other Asian countries, but perhaps at a discount of 10% to 15%. About 35% of Iran's oil exports currently go to China and India. 

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Western leaders have been walking a fine line with Iran, working to come up with a plan that squeezes the country's finances yet doesn't result in a loss of Iranian oil exports, which could send crude and gasoline prices skyrocketing.

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With reporting in London from CNN producer David Wilkinson  

Closest Dione Flyby...[ 2648 ]

Image of the Day Gallery

Closest Dione Flyby

Flying past Saturn's moon Dione, Cassini captured this view which includes two smaller moons, Epimetheus and Prometheus, near the planet's rings.

The image was taken in visible light with Cassini's narrow-angle camera during the spacecraft's flyby of Dione on Dec. 12, 2011. This encounter was the spacecraft's closest pass of the moon's surface, but, because this flyby was intended primarily for other Cassini instruments, it did not yield Cassini's best images of the moon. Higher resolution images were obtained during earlier flybys (see PIA07638).

Dione (698 miles, or 1,123 kilometers across) is closest to Cassini here and is on the left of the image. Potato-shaped Prometheus (53 miles, or 86 kilometers across) appears above the rings near the center top of the image. Epimetheus (70 miles, or 113 kilometers across) is on the right.

This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from less than one degree above the ring plane. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 67,000 miles (108,000 kilometers) from Dione. Image scale is 2,122 feet (647 meters) per pixel on Dione.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
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Russia : New AWACS Plane...[ 2647 ]

New AWACS Plane Enters Russian Air Force Service

A-50 aircraft ///© RIA Novosti. Denisov Anton ///18:56 17/01/2012

MOSCOW, January 17 (RIA Novosti)

A modernized A-50U airborne warning and control system (AWACS) aircraft entered service with the Russian Air Force on Tuesday, Defense Ministry spokesman Col Vladimir Drik said.

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The aircraft, which has an advanced onboard computer, satellite communication and radar systems, was delivered to the Air Force in October and started flight tests.

It will participate in all major military exercises this year, the spokesman added.

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The aircraft now has the capability to detect various types of flying targets, including helicopters, cruise missiles and supersonic aircraft, he said.

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The Beriev A-50, based on the Ilyushin Il-76 transport, first flew in 1978. It entered service in 1984, with about 40 produced by 1992.

The A-50 can track up to 10 fighter aircraft for either air-to-air interception or air-to-ground attack missions.

James Bond Vehicle...[ 2646 ]

James Bond Vehicle Show Marks 50 Years of Spy Saga

Swedish actress Britt Ekland poses for photographers on the Aston Martin DB5 car used in the 1964 James Bond film "Goldfinger" on display during a press preview of the Bond in Motion exhibition at the Beaulieu National Motor Museum at Brockenhurst//© AFP/ Justin Tallis//03:19 17/01/2012

LONDON, January 17 (RIA Novosti)

An exhibition of 50 vehicles featured in James Bond action movies opens on Tuesday at the National Motor Museum in southern England to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the famous spy saga.

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The James Bond movies are the longest continually-running film series in history, having been in ongoing production from 1962 to the present. The series has grossed just over $5 billion to date.

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The Bond In Motion exhibition, which will run until December 2012, showcases a range of Bond vehicles from 22 films, including cars, boats, motorbikes, sleds, jets and more.

The exhibition has largely been assembled from two major collections — one owned by the U.S.-based Ian Fleming Foundation and another owned by Eon Productions, which makes the Bond films.

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The stars of the show are, undoubtedly, the iconic silver 1964 Aston Martin DB5 from Goldfinger and the 1937 Rolls-Royce Phantom III from the same movie.

Other fan-loved vehicles include the underwater-driven Lotus Esprit S1 from the Roger Moore movie The Spy Who Loved Me, the Bede Acrostar mini jet from Octopussy and even the famous cello case used as a sled during a snow chase in The Living Daylights.

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The long-awaited new installment in the James Bond movie series, Skyfall, is slated for release on October 26 in the UK and November 9 in the United States.