ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

View taken from a vantage point in the north of Tehran shows the capital covered in smog on December 3, 2012. Schools, universities and government offices in the Iranian capital will be closed on Saturday for the second time in a month because of high air pollution, Tehran governor Morteza Tamadon said Thursday. Schools, universities and government offices in the Iranian capital will be closed on Saturday for the second time in a month because of high air pollution, Tehran governor Morteza Tamadon said Thursday. Emergency services also advised residents to avoid unnecessary travel in the city, the ISNA news agency reported. Tamadon said a pollution committee took the decision after smog failed to dissipate over the past three days, the Mehr news agency reported. "Closure is not the solution but it is the best decision, considering the prolonged high level of pollution indicators," he said, adding that current level of pollution was expected to last another three days. Only...

Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir and his South Sudanese counterpart Salva Kiir are due to meet in Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa tomorrow (4 January), as part of an African Union-hosted summit to attempt to overcome obstacles preventing the implementation of a landmark agreement on oil and security signed between the two nations in September 2012. Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir and his South Sudanese counterpart Salva Kiir are due to meet in Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa tomorrow (4 January), as part of an African Union-hosted summit to attempt to overcome obstacles preventing the implementation of a landmark agreement on oil and security signed between the two nations in September 2012. Both leaders have said they want to establish the demilitarised zone that formed a major part of the September agreement; however, neither side has yet moved its armed forces out of the area demarcated following months of negotiations. Successful implementation of the demilitaris...

Weren't those the greatest of days if you were in the American spy game? Governments went down in Guatemala and Iran thanks to you. In distant Indonesia, Laos, and Vietnam, what a role you played! And even that botch-up of an invasion in Cuba was nothing to sneeze at. In those days, unfortunately, you - particularly those of you in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) - didn't get the credit you deserved. You had to live privately with your successes. Sometimes, as with the Bay of Pigs, the failures came back to haunt you (so, in the case of Iran, would your "success," though so many years later), but you couldn't with pride talk publicly about what you, in your secret world, had done, or see instant movies and TV shows about your triumphs. You couldn't launch a "covert" air war that was reported on, generally positively, almost every week, or bask in the pleasure of having your director claim publicly that it was "the only game in town." ...

By Tatiana Gabroussenko " ... Young guerrilla girl Kumsuni delivers letters to comrades, and one day is caught by the police. When the policemen demand the girl disclose information about the guerillas, she spits into the faces of her interrogators. As the policemen drag Kumsuni to her execution, the heroic girl cries out 'Long Live General Kim Il Sung!'" ...Pre-teen boy Ri Kwang-ch'un is a member of a secret anti-Japanese children's organization. Along with others, he helps the "Red Guard uncles". However, one day policemen apprehend the boy. When the "bastards" torture the young patriot, Ri cuts off his own tongue in defiance. His last words are "Long Live the Korean Revolution!" Even if one supports patriotic education of the younger generation, one is still likely to find such notions of slicing off one's own. Even if one supports patriotic education of the younger generation, one is still likely to find such notions of sl...

Shell says that a drilling platform that ran aground off Alaska during a storm on New Year's Eve is "stable," while federal response officials add that there is "no sign" the rig's hull has been breached or that it is leaking any oil. WATCH VIDEO: Disaster In The Gulf: BP Oil Spill: What Happened? PHOTOS: The Changing Face of Earth in 2012 But the accident is the latest blow to Shell's attempts to begin offshore drilling in the Alaskan Arctic, and underlined critics' concerns that the region is simply too tempestuous and dangerous for drilling to take place. The accident happened while the drilling platform, theKulluk, was being towed to Seattle for maintenance, roughly two months after it had drilled the first half of an exploratory oil well in the Beaufort Sea, north of Alaska. Last Thursday, the Shell-chartered tugboat Aiviq lost its tow line to the rig; several attempts to reconnect the line proved only temporarily successful, and ...

US presid ent told Israeli prime minister he would not back attack on Iran, senior European diplomatic sources tell Guardian A view of the nuclear enrichment plant of Natanz in central Iran. Photograph: EPA Israel gave serious thought this spring to launching a military strike on Iran's nuclear sites but was told by President George W Bush that he would not support it and did not expect to revise that view for the rest of his presidency, senior European diplomatic sources have told the Guardian. The then prime minister, Ehud Olmert, used the occasion of Bush's trip to Israel for the 60th anniversary of the state's founding to raise the issue in a one-on-one meeting on May 14, the sources said. "He took it [the refusal of a US green light] as where they were at the moment, and that the US position was unlikely to change as long as Bush was in office", they added. The sources work for a European head of government who met the Israeli leader some time after the Bus...

TEHRAN (FNA)- A senior Iranian provincial official rejected western media rumors about radioactive leakage at the Uranium Conversion Facility (UCF) in Isfahan which contains process lines to convert yellowcake into uranium oxide, uranium metal, and uranium hexafluoride. "The rumors about leaking and contamination at Isfahan's UCF are not true at all; some western media are just seeking to create tumult in the society through such moves," Deputy Governor-General of Isfahan province for Political and Security Affairs Mohammad Mehdi Esmayeeli told reporters in Isfahan on Sunday. He stressed the full safety of all Iranian nuclear sites and facilities, saying that the country's UCF plant in Isfahan complies with the latest safety rules and standards and does not at all send off nuclear radiations. All activities of Iran's Isfahan uranium conversion facility (UCF) are under control of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Head of the Atomic Energy Organizati...

By George Friedman Founder and Chief Executive Officer The end of the year always prompts questions about what the most important issue of the next year may be. It's a simplistic question, since every year sees many things happen and for each of us a different one might be important. But it is still worth considering what single issue could cause the world to change course. In my view, the most important place to watch in 2013 is Europe. Taken as a single geographic entity, Europe has the largest economy in the world. Should it choose to do so, it could become a military rival to the United States . Europe is one of the pillars of the global system, and what happens to Europe is going to define how the world works. I would argue that in 2013 we will begin to get clarity on the future of Europe. The question is whether the European Union will stabilize itself, stop its fragmentation and begin preparing for more integration and expansion. Alternatively, the tensions could intensify ...