White House says chance of Iran nuclear deal '50/50'

The White House on Friday admitted that the chances of reaching a deal to curb Iran's nuclear program were only 50 percent, AFP reported.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said: "The likelihood of success in these diplomatic talks are at best 50/50."

The comments come as U.S. Lawmakers from both parties vowed at a Senate hearing on Wednesday to press ahead with legislative plans for new punitive measures against the Iranian regime if no deal on nuclear issue is achieved.

Democratic lawmaker Robert Menendez said during the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing: "The more I hear from the administration and its quotes, the more it sounds like talking points that come straight out of Tehran.

"And it feeds to the Iranian narrative of victimization when they are the ones with original sin."

Meanwhile, the nuclear talks between the Iranian regime and the U.S. resumed in Switzerland on Friday.

Two days of meetings between the Iranian regime’s deputy foreign minister Abbas Araghchi and top US negotiator Wendy Sherman began Friday morning in Zurich, a US spokesman told AFP.

US Secretary of State John Kerry, who met last week in Geneva and then again in Paris with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif to discuss the nuclear negotiations, also returned to Switzerland Friday.

U.S. Senators press ahead with legislative plans against Iranian regime

U.S. Lawmakers from both parties vowed at a Senate hearing on Wednesday to press ahead with legislative plans for new punitive measures against the Iranian regime if no deal on nuclear issue is achieved.

Top administration officials also disclosed at the hearing that the international talks with the Iranian regime over its nuclear program may extend beyond an end-of-June deadline.

The clash over the nuclear talks came as U.S. will meet with the Iranian regime’s representative, Friday and Saturday in Zurich.

Democratic lawmaker Robert Menendez said during the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing: "The more I hear from the administration and its quotes, the more it sounds like talking points that come straight out of Tehran.

"And it feeds to the Iranian narrative of victimization when they are the ones with original sin."

During the hearing, he also told Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken: "The bottom line is they get to cheat in a series of ways — and I'll call it cheat, you won't — but they get to cheat in a series of ways."

And Mr Menendez added: "Iran is clearly taking steps that can only be interpreted as provocative. It seems that we're allowing Iran to shuffle the deck and deal the cards in this negotiation and that we're playing dealer's choice. Frankly, that's not good enough. We need to get into the game."

Mr Obama's democratic ally Senator Tim Kaine also expressed concern that the US is ignoring Tehran's lies over its nuclear program, adding: "This is not a negotiation about Iran dismantling a nuclear weapons program, yet the number of centrifuges being contemplated in this deal is not consistent with a purely civilian program."

Iran: Enforced women veiling now a ‘source of friction’, regime admits

NCRI – The Iranian regime's strict women's dress code has become a source of friction between the people and the regime, the commander of Morality Police has admitted.

Colonel Mohammad Massoud Zahedian said 'improper veiling' had now become a 'security issue that threatened’ the regime.

He told a group of clerics at a seminar on 'the Hejab and chastity' in the city of Qom on Sunday (January 19): "Improper dressing and avoiding wearing the veil is one of the oldest issues in Islamic society and for police today this issue is a point of friction between the rulers and the body of the society.

"And many of those avoid the dress code have themselves grown up in religious families. This issue of improper veiling has turned to a security issue that is threatening our society."

"The Hawza (the seminaries), Seda and Sima (the official radio and television network) and the State Security Forces (police) must do their utmost to make address the Hejab (the regime’s dress code) as an important social issue.

"Mixed gender parties where the Hejab is not worn are on the increase in Tehran, and this is a source of serious concern."

Imported satellite TV equipment was also a threat to the country's chastity, he said.

Colonel Zahedian added: "The anti-social function of the social networks in the country is another threat to chastity because it creates behavioral changes that will lead to changes in thinking, and create a structural change in the Islamic system that threatens chastity.

"The majority of those we confront regarding being improperly veiled and dressed are born in the 1980s… What has gone wrong?"

He also told the seminar that his forces had identified and arrested 30 underground fashion shows and arrested all those involved.

In the seminar, Cleric Mohammad Reza Zaibai-Nejad, the director of a center for research on family issues, said: "If you ask the police what people's reaction is to being told they are improperly veiled, they protest. This indicates that what we are doing is not working."

"If we counter public opinion with harsh methods and stand against the whole of society, nothing will be achieved.

"Today’s generation is different from the one or two generations before. Their threshold for being provoked has become much lower, and their threshold for fulfilment has become much higher. They become angry very easily.

"If they do not achieve their goal in the cultural arena, it will outbreak in the political field."

He also warned: "If we lower the measures that have been taken, society will become more emboldened and corruption will expand, and if we become too harsh society will collapse."

“The widespread rejection of compulsive veiling in Iran is a collective statement against the regime,” representative of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) has stated.

Mrs Soona Samsami wrote in article in The Hill: “The mullahs have turned the voluntary dress code in Islam into a very strict rule. As a consequence, a clear way of expressing opposition against the theocracy, even for Muslim women, has been to defy their misogynist rules.”

“Compulsory veiling and the systematic suppression of women by the Iranian regime shows that they politicized Islamic fundamentalism and extremism in the region long before the Islamic State (ISIS).”

The remarks by the regime officials admitting to their failure exposes “the face of a weak and desperate theocracy unable to curb increasing social opposition to its rule - led by women.”

Drone carrying 6 pounds of meth, falls in Tijuana

 Unmanned aircraft, (Drone) falls in Zona Rio

For the last year or so, drones, unmanned aircraft, have crept into our lives.  Drones are routinely spotted on beaches, over sporting events and suburban neighborhoods. At a party or gala event, it is not unusual to glance up and see the somewhat eerie sight of a remote device, recording all the unaware people below.

Though in the midst of a legal battle at the Federal level,  many unmanned aircraft related businesses have emerged locally, as well as nationally.  In real estate, journalism, marketing and other fields, drones are being used commercially.  For recreation, those who can afford one, use it as a hobby, navigating the beaches and scenic areas of the city, captu

ring images and uploading to social media sites.

Yesterday, in Zona Rio, Tijuana, the eyes fell from the sky, carrying 6 pounds of methamphetamine, assumedly headed across the San Ysidro border.  The drone was a 'Spreading Wings S900', with 6 propellers and lithium batteries.  This drone model retails for about $1500.  It may become more common to see these type of smuggling attempts take place, as smaller traffickers seek cost efficient, reliable ways to cross product. 

At maybe 2,000 a pound, the crystal will wholesale for maybe 2800-3000 a pound once on the US side.  At 3k a pound times six, thats a roughly 6k profit, minus the 1500 or so for the drone.  It may  become an accepted way to bypass the line, with it's many hassles, variables and watchful eyes.  

Authorities believe the drone crashed because of the weight of the crystal packages, it may take trial and error, but with the cheap price of methamphetamine and relative cheap cost of drones, it will easily be done.

Investigation Keeps Open All Hypotheses about Nisman’s Death

BUENOS AIRES – All hypotheses remain open in the investigation into the death of Argentine Prosecutor Alberto Nisman, whose possible suicide in unexplained circumstances has shocked the country and after the latest evidence was not decisive in determining what occurred.

Prosecutor Viviana Fein, who has termed Nisman’s possible suicide as a ‘suspicious death’, on Tuesday began interrogations of, among others, Nisman’s ex-wife, two of the 10 policemen who were part of his bodyguard detail, the manager of the building where he lived and the assistant who lent him the gun found next to his body early Monday.

Nisman’s ex-wife, Sandra Arroyo Salgado, told the media that the judiciary should be allowed to do its work and conjectures on what happened should not be made.

The two police officers who were undergoing interrogation by Fein said that they never came up to the house and that they tried to communicate with him for two hours on Sunday but getting no response, they called his mother to enter the house.

Fein also ordered a search of Nisman’s office in the hope of finding evidence and an investigation into his phone calls made five days prior to his death.

A test to determine whether there was gunpowder on Nisman’s hands came out negative, although this does not rule out suicide as small calibre weapons such as the one found next to his body do not always leave behind traces.

Tuesday’s preliminary autopsy reports note that by the position of the hand and fingers it can be determined that the gun was fired by Nisman and that there was no intervention by third parties in his death.

A shopping list for Monday was also found which was reportedly left for a domestic worker and was procured during the search of Nisman’s apartment.

Nisman was in charge of the investigation of a bomb attack against the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association, AMIA, building that left 85 dead in 1994.

Last week, Nisman had filed a suit against Argentine President Cristina Fernandez and other officials for signing a memorandum of understanding with Iran in 2013 on the attack, including the alleged cover-up of the perpetrators of the bombing for commercial relations and exchange of oil for wheat during the Argentine energy crisis.

The full text of the report was released Tuesday by Federal Judge Ariel Lijo, who took charge of the case on Monday, and in the report Nisman accuses Fernandez of articulating a ‘criminal plan of impunity’ for terrorists.

It also says that Argentine Foreign Minister Hector Timerman was “the main implementer of the devised plan of impunity’ and ‘conveyed to Iran the decision of the Argentine government to abandon” investigating the AMIA case.

Fernandez Tuesday once again resorted to social networks to reiterate the existence of a “sordid” plot behind Nisman’s death.

Similarly, Cabinet Chief Minister, Jorge Capitanich, asked during his daily briefing to investigate till the end to see if there was any kind of pressure or extortion that could have led to his possible suicide.

Women Bare Their Breasts in Rio to Lobby for Right to Go Topless

RIO DE JANEIRO – A group of women partially undressed on Tuesday on Rio de Janeiro’s Ipanema beach to demand the right to go topless on Brazilian beaches, something that currently could be deemed an obscene act punishable by between three months and a year in prison.

The protest, in which seven women publicly exposed their breasts for several minutes, attracted a good number of curious passersby and journalists to the iconic Rio beach, which was jammed with people because it is a local holiday.

Reporter Ana Paula Nogueira, who was the person who launched the Topless In Rio movement in 2013 via Facebook, told Efe that the idea was never “to get 8,000 women” to participate in the protest, but rather for “the issue to be discussed.”

The Topless In Rio movement, which held its first public event in December 2013 at the same site, seeks to bring about changes in the law which currently prohibits women from going naked from the waist up, something that many of them feel is an insult since men are not obligated to abide by that rule.

The prohibition on going topless runs counter to the custom for Brazilians – both men and women – to wear bikinis and miniscule bathing suits.

Among the participants in the protest were buxom model and dancer Renata Frisson, known as Mulher Melão, as well as former model Natache Iamaya, who because she suffers from a degenerative disease is confined to a wheelchair.

Woman Arrested in Colombia for Committing 300 Thefts Using Her Beauty

BOGOTA – Colombian authorities have captured Andrea Johanna Torres, alias Yayita, 28, who is said to have committed some 300 thefts by using her physical attributes to distract security guards at homes in Bogota, the Colombian police have reported.

Torres was being sought by the police for six months after they discovered that the stunning seductress was the leader of a group of thieves who in the past 11 years had stolen jewels, electronic gadgets and other valuable goods from homes.

Bogota Police Chief Humberto Guatibonza told reporters Tuesday that she was arrested in Bogota as she was preparing to leave for Germany using false documents.

Police detectives intensified their search for her in July, on the very day that Yayita and her accomplices robbed three houses in an upscale residential area. Yayita distracted the guards, allowing her gang to enter the building.

On that day, the gang stole around 80 million pesos (about $34,000) within 20 minutes, according to victims of the theft.

On social networking sites, Torres made a great show of wealth, inviting people to parties and publishing photographs.

She now faces charges of theft and criminal conspiracy and is currently in a women’s prison where she had earlier served a sentence for similar crimes.

During her first stint in prison, Torres won a beauty contest, according to the authorities.