Foreign Ministry warns international community against complacency, says recent IAEA report on Islamic republic’s nuclear program does nothing to lessen concern over Tehran’s nuclear program
Israel accused Iran of continued “fraud and evasion,” pursuant to a recent report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and said that “there is nothing in Iran’s response that should lessen the concern of the international community vis-à-vis its nuclear program.”

According to the IAEA report, the Islamic republic was continuing to defy United Nations demands to suspend uranium enrichment - a process used to make both nuclear fuel and the fissile material for an atom bomb.

“Regrettably, as a result of the lack of cooperation by Iran in connection with the alleged studies and other associated key remaining issues of serious concern, the agency has not been able to make substantive progress on these issues,” said the restricted report.

“This report emphasizes again that Iran is repeatedly violating UN Security Council decisions. It underscores the military elements in Iran’s nuclear activities,” the Foreign Ministry said in an official statement.

“Despite the fact that the IAEA takes the information presented to it at face value, Israel once again calls on members of the international community to increase the pressure on the Iranian government in order for it to abandon its threatening program to achieve nuclear energy,” the statement read.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert , who will set out for Washington on Sunday, is expected to spend much of his time discussing the issue of a nuclear Iran. He hopes to be able to convince the American administration to advance sanctions against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government.

Senior Israeli officials believe there is still time to stop the Iranian nuclear program in its tracks and are exploring all options to do so. In addition to diplomatic appeals to the US and European nations, including Russia, they hinted that non-diplomatic options are “still on the table.”

In unprecedented speech, Islamic Republic’s prosecutor general says regime has censored over five million sites due to ‘unethical content’; bloggers concerned over new bill that would allow execution for publishing anti-Islamic material online.

Five million internet websites are currently being blocked by the Iranian government, a progressive site called ‘Rooz’ reported Wednesday, quoting the Islamic Republic’s prosecutor general as its source. The report added that a few million additional sites were being censored as a “preemptive measure” by the regime. The report is the first ever in which a legislative source from Iran has divulged information about the regime’s censorship policies.

During a conference in the country Prosecutor General Abdolsamad Khoram Abadi explained that most of the sites were blocked because they “contained unethical content”, a reference to pornography and other anti-Islamic entertainment.

Ismail Radkani, a spokesman for the company responsible for the blocking of websites in Iran, also spoke during the conference. He said over a thousand such sites were being “automatically” withdrawn from the public eye every month, according to legislature passed down from the government.

“Every day 200-300 unethical sites are being automatically blocked,” he said.

Iran’s population currently stands at 71 million, and the number of web-surfers, currently estimated at about 20 million, is steadily rising. The Islamic Republic ranks second only to Israel in its percentage of web-surfers of any country the Middle East.

Most of the internet-savvy Iranians have devised methods of circumventing the censorship imposed upon them, and make use of different proxies and alternate addresses when publishing their online blogs.But the Iranian government has insisted on battling the “westernization” of its younger population, and the internet is considered a major culprit in this scheme.

 Abadi estimated the internet as a more imminent danger than satellite dishes, “because of the fact that the internet is more accessible”. Thus, he called for the establishment of an “internet police” in his country.

Distorting Khameini’s words illegal

Two years ago President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government approved an “internet and blog registration plan”, which ordered that every site and blog originating in the country seek an approval stamp from a nominated committee. However many bloggers decided to boycott the plan, and only 850 sites and blogs have registered.

Bloggers and sites that place “unethical content” online are subject to penalties by law. A website is deemed illegal if it contains content “weakening Islamic values, insulting the Islam and its martyrs, inciting harm to security and the interests of the Islamic Republic, or distorting the words of (Ali) Khamenei” among other things.

In February of 2008 the Iranian parliament approved part of another bill against “computer crimes”, which has caused a great uprising among web-surfers because of the severe sentences it would impose, ranging from jail time to execution.

By Joel C. Rosenberg

(Jerusalem, Israel, November 17, 2008) — Israel is unlikely to launch massive airstrikes to neutralize Iran’s nuclear weapons program before the U.S. inauguration on January 20, 2009, barring dramatic new intelligence that points to an imminent Iranian attack.

That’s my sense of things here after spending nearly a week on the ground.

There is scant evidence of a nation preparing for imminent hostilities. The Israeli political system is engaged in gearing up for elections next February 10th. What’s more, senior Israeli officials are still urging the U.S. to take the lead on stopping Iran. “We must unite our forces, led by the international community, led by the United States of America,” said outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in an address to some 4,000 Jewish leaders from around the world. He called for bilateral and international sanctions on the Islamic Republic of Iran and told American Jewish leaders: “Each and every one of us needs to play a role - lobby your government, lead your organization or identify a project that can exert additional pressure on Iran….It must become more costly to Iran to pursue nuclear weapons than to give [them] up.”

Last Thursday, I had the honor of addressing the World Likud Congress (pro-Israel political activists from the U.S., Africa and Europe) here in the holy city. I was on a panel of Israeli and Iranian experts on the threat posed to the Jewish State by the Ayatollah Khamenei, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the current regime in Tehran. While I agreed with much that my fellow panelists said, I was struck by their lack of urgency for Israel to take action. One said that Israel shouldn’t strike unless its leaders can be absolutely certain that by doing so Iran will not be able to build the Bomb for at least another ten years. Another suggested Israel should not infuriate the incoming Obama administration by launching attacks on Iran without a clear green light from the new President.

I respectfully disagreed. First, let’s be clear: there is almost no scenario by which the Bush administration is going to launch attacks on Iran in the next sixty days or so and thus hand an on-going war to a new American President. Second, the Obama administration has made it crystal clear that it is not going to make neutralizing Iran’s nuclear threat via military means a priority, much less a top priority. Just the opposite: Obama intends to launch “unconditional” negotiations with Tehran. So waiting for the U.S. to “take the lead” is a non-starter at this point. Third, Israel faces an existential threat from Iranian nuclear weapons and it cannot afford to wait much longer. Once Iran has the Bomb, six million Jews here will be in supreme peril. There will never be a “perfect” time to strike Iran, and Israeli leaders will never be able to be certain ahead of time just how long their attacks will push Iran back from getting the Bomb. But is not buying five more years of security - if ten are not possible - still worth it? Fourth, Israel should never surrender its national security decision-making process to Washington. Did Jerusalem wait for the U.S. to act against the enemies of the Jewish people in 1967? Did Jerusalem wait for the U.S. to bomb Iraq’s nuclear facilities in 1981? Fifth, more than ever, Israel leaders like “the sons of Issachar” described in I Chronicles 12, “men who understood the times and knew what Israel should do.”

[UPDATE: President-elect Obama now says he supports the Saudi "peace" initiative. This would require Israel to go back to its 1967 border, re-divide Jerusalem, give up the strategically vital Golan Heights, and give away all of the Biblical lands of Judea and Samaria and the strategically vital Jordan Valley.]

As I’ve written previously, war with Iran will be horrific at many levels. I do not wish for it. Indeed, I am praying passionately for the peace of Jerusalem, as the Bible teaches me to do. But the notion of Iran’s genocidal, apocalyptic leaders getting weapons of mass destruction in their hands is completely unacceptable. I am, therefore, resigned to the possibility that there may now be no other option but for Israel to launch preemptive strikes, since it is increasingly clear Washington won’t.

As I have no influence on such decisions, I am focusing on helping Israelis prepare for the next war. For much of the past week I have been with my Joshua Fund team here in Israel, working with local Jewish and Christian leaders to stockpile emergency relief supplies. I have also had the privilege of preaching at two Israeli congregations to encourage local believers here to continue walking with the Lord, loving their neighbors, praying without ceasing, and girding themselves for the dark days that very well may lie ahead. More on that in my next dispatch.

[AP: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert speaks during the General Assembly of the United Jewish Communities in Jerusalem, Sunday, Nov. 16, 2008. Olmert told the gathering that Iran is still trying to make nuclear weapons, and the world must make a concerted effort to stop the project.]

Iran has successfully test-fired a new generation of surface-to-surface solid-fuel missile, the country’s defense minister, Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said Wednesday.

Iran fires missile from submarine during exercise in Persian Gulf.

Najjar said on state television that the missile, named Sajjil, was a high-speed projectile manufactured at the aerospace organization, affiliated to the Defense Ministry.

He did not say when the missile was tested.

He described the missile has having “two solid-fuel engines” and an “extraordinary high capability.”

President-elect Obama will have many challenges to solve when he takes office on January 20th. But Russia and Iran may be the most serious and the most difficult.

The news out of Moscow this morning is that Czar Putin is plotting to return next year as President of Russia. “Russian President Dmitry Medvedev could resign from his post in 2009 to pave the way for Vladimir Putin to return to the Kremlin,” reports Reuters this morning, based on a report in a Russian newspaper. “Medvedev Wednesday proposed increasing the presidential term to six years from four years, a step the newspaper said was part of a plan drawn up by Vladislav Surkov, who serves as Medvedev’s first deputy chief of staff. Under the plan, Medvedev could implement changes to the constitution and unpopular social reforms ’so that Putin could return to the Kremlin for a longer period,’ the newspaper said. “Under this scenario Medvedev could resign early citing changes to the constitution and then presidential elections could take place in 2009,” the newspaper said, citing the unidentified source close to the Kremlin. The paper said Putin, who is currently prime minister, could then rule for two six year terms, so from 2009 to 2021.”

Meanwhile, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today did something out of the ordinary, praising Sen. Obama for his election as the next American President.”I congratulate you on being able to attract the majority of votes of the participants of the election,” said Ahmadinejad. “I hope you make the most of the chance of service and leave a good name by preferring people’s real interests and justice to the insatiable demands of a selfish and indecent minority.”