Iran Increases Its Nuclear Program

VIENNA (AP) — Iran has increased the rate at which it is producing near weapons grade uranium in recent weeks, reversing a previous slowdown that started in the middle of this year, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report to member states.

Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said in the report that Iran “in recent weeks had increased its production of highly enriched uranium, reversing a previous output reduction from mid-2023,” according to an IAEA spokesperson Sunday.

Iran had previously slowed down the rate at which it was enriching uranium to 60% purity. Uranium enriched at 60% purity is just a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%.  READ MORE...

Unwilling to Take Palestinian Refugees

(AP) — As desperate Palestinians in sealed-off Gaza try to find refuge under Israel’s relentless bombardment in retaliation for Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7 attack, some ask why neighboring Egypt and Jordan don’t take them in.

The two countries, which flank Israel on opposite sides and share borders with Gaza and the occupied West Bank, respectively, have replied with a staunch refusal. Jordan already has a large Palestinian population.  

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi made his toughest remarks yet on Wednesday, saying the current war was not just aimed at fighting Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, “but also an attempt to push the civilian inhabitants to ... migrate to Egypt.” He warned this could wreck peace in the region.    READ MORE...

Beyond the Reach of American Bombs

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Near a peak of the Zagros Mountains in central Iran, workers are building a nuclear facility so deep in the earth that it is likely beyond the range of a last-ditch U.S. weapon designed to destroy such sites, according to experts and satellite imagery analyzed by The Associated Press.


The photos and videos from Planet Labs PBC show Iran has been digging tunnels in the mountain near the Natanz nuclear site, which has come under repeated sabotage attacks amid Tehran’s standoff with the West over its atomic program.


With Iran now producing uranium close to weapons-grade levels after the collapse of its nuclear deal with world powers, the installation complicates the West’s efforts to halt Tehran from potentially developing an atomic bomb as diplomacy over its nuclear program remains stalled.


Completion of such a facility “would be a nightmare scenario that risks igniting a new escalatory spiral,” warned Kelsey Davenport, the director of nonproliferation policy at the Washington-based Arms Control Association. “Given how close Iran is to a bomb, it has very little room to ratchet up its program without tripping U.S. and Israeli red lines. So at this point, any further escalation increases the risk of conflict.”


The construction at the Natanz site comes five years after then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the nuclear accord. Trump argued the deal did not address Tehran’s ballistic missile program, nor its support of militias across the wider Middle East.   READ MORE...

North Korea Has Enough Missiles to Defeat US Defenses

North Korea's military displayed enough intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) to defeat America's air defenses on the West Coast, according to satellite images of a martial parade on Wednesday.

North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un organized the parade throughout last week, showing off up to 12 individual Hwasong-17 ICBM launchers. The U.S. has just 44 missile interceptors on America's West Coast, with some stationed in California and others in Alaska, according to Politico.

If the 12 ICBMs carry a payload of four warheads each, they would overwhelm America's prepared defenses, according to the report.

North Korea has struggled to demonstrate the range capability of its ICBMs, however, through the Hwasong-17s are thought to be capable of reaching the U.S. from the country.

NORTH KOREA REPORTEDLY FIRES 130 ARTILLERY ROUNDS, VIOLATING INTER-KOREAN AGREEMENT

Wednesday's military parade in Pyongyang came after Kim disappeared from the public eye for more than a month. He only reappeared during a meeting with his Central Military Commission on Monday. His absence from a Politburo meeting on Sunday raised further speculation regarding his whereabouts.

The country's state-run media reported that Kim and his leaders discussed "constantly expanding and intensifying the operation and combat drills" and "more strictly perfecting the preparedness for war," according to The Associated Press.  READ MORE...

IAN Kills Dozens

PAWLEYS ISLAND, S.C. (AP) — Rescuers searched for survivors among the ruins of Florida’s flooded homes from Hurricane Ian while authorities in South Carolina began assessing damage from its strike there as the remnants of one of the strongest and costliest hurricanes to ever hit the U.S. continued to push north.

The powerful storm terrorized millions of people for most of the week, battering western Cuba before raking across Florida from the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean, where it mustered enough strength for a final assault on South Carolina. 

Now weakened to a post-tropical cyclone, Ian was expected to move across central North Carolina on Saturday morning then move into Virginia and New York.  READ MORE...

Treasures Found in Curious Places

From a tyrannical Roman emperor’s pleasure boat to a Manhattan apartment coffee table, 

this mosaic has gone on quite the adventure. 

ERNESTO RUSCIO/GETTY IMAGES

In 2018, at a Goodwill store in Austin, Texas, a marble bust of a dour-looking man caught antique dealer Laura Young’s eye. She liked the look of him and bought the bust for $34.99, dubbing it “Dennis” after the self-obsessed character Dennis Reynolds in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Young guessed the statue was old, but never imagined it was a 2,000-year-old original. A Greek sculpture expert ​​at Sotheby’s deduced that Dennis was actually a Roman bust of Germanicus, father of infamous madman Caligula. 

But that wasn’t all: Young learned the bust had been stolen during World War II. Most likely a G.I. looted the bust in Germany and brought it back to the United States, where it eventually ended up at Goodwill. Young was determined to return it to Germany, but sorting everything out would take years. Now, after a brief stint at the San Antonio Museum of Art, Dennis is finally set to return home in 2023.

It’s quite the story, but finding hidden treasures in surprising places isn’t as rare as you might imagine. Here at Atlas Obscura we love these kinds of stories. So in honor of the return of Dennis, we went digging through the archives to uncover some other stories of priceless artifacts discovered in unusual places.

A Mosaic From Caligula’s Ceremonial Ship, Turned Into a Coffee Table  (image above)
The striking piece sat in a Manhattan apartment for decades, until the Italian military police’s Art Recovery Unit showed up.

Antique dealer Helen Fioratti had no idea the mosaic that sat in her Upper East Side apartment had been dredged up from a mysterious Roman barge in Lake Nemi, Italy. After buying the red-and-green mosaic in Europe, Fioratti spent thousands of dollars shipping it home to New York and converting it into a coffee table. For 45 years, the table sat as a beloved accent piece, garnering many compliments from visitors, Fioratti told The Associated Press. 

That is until the Italian military police’s Art Recovery Unit and New York’s district attorney’s office caught wind of it. The mosaic, since returned to Italy, had been stolen from the opulent “pleasure boats” of Rome’s tyrannical emperor, Caligula (yes, as in the son of Germanicus, aka Dennis). Caligula’s pleasure boats boasted lush gardens, baths, and even hot water. Unfortunately for Fioratti, Caligula’s mosaic landed her in some hot water of her own.  READ MORE...

White Nationalism

In the wake of the Buffalo supermarket shooting, Republican Rep. Liz Cheney (right) is accusing her party's leaders of enabling white nationalism, white supremacy and antisemitism.

The FBI is investigating Saturday's attack as a racially motivated hate crime, and federal authorities are also considering a potential terrorism charge.

The suspected shooter, who is white, is believed to have written a 180-page screed detailing his white supremacist ideologies and his plan to attack a Black community.

He is allegedly a proponent of "replacement theory," a conspiracy theory that claims non-white individuals are being brought into the U.S. and other Western countries to "replace" white voters to achieve a political agenda.

The idea is popular among white supremacist and anti-immigration groups, and appears to be gaining traction among the broader public, according to a recent poll. One in three U.S. adults believes an effort is underway to replace U.S.-born Americans with immigrants for electoral purposes, the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found in a poll conducted in December.  READ MORE...

Russian Nuclear Drills

Fighter jets of the Russian and Belarusian air forces fly in a joint mission during the Union Courage-2022 Russia-Belarus military drills in Belarus, Thursday, Feb. 17, 2022. Russia has deployed troops to its ally Belarus for sweeping joint military drills that run through Sunday, fueling Western concerns that Moscow could use the exercise to attack Ukraine from the north. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko Jr)

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia announced massive nuclear drills while Western leaders grasped Friday for ways to avert a new war in Europe amid soaring East-West tensions, after unusually dire U.S. warnings that Moscow could order an invasion of Ukraine any day.

Immediate worries focused on the volatile front lines of eastern Ukraine, where an upsurge of recent shelling tore through the walls of a kindergarten and basic communication was disrupted. Western officials, focused on an estimated 150,000 Russian troops posted around Ukraine’s borders, fear the long-simmering conflict could provide the spark for a broader war.

The drumbeat of warnings that a larger conflict could start at any moment continued Friday after U.S. President Joe Biden warned that Washington saw no signs of a promised Russian withdrawal — but instead saw more troops moving toward the border with Ukraine.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the U.S. believes Russia could launch an attack “any time” and also said he still had seen no sign of the promised Russian pullback. He will hold a call Friday with Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.

Even as Russia claimed to be pulling back troops from extensive military exercises that had sparked fears of invasion, the Kremlin sent a reminder to the world that it has one of the world’s biggest nuclear arsenals, by announcing drills of its nuclear forces for the weekend. The muscle-flexing overshadowed Russian offers this week of continued diplomacy to defuse the Ukraine crisis.

NATO allies are also flexing their might, beefing up military forces around eastern Europe, but insist the actions are purely defensive and to show unity in the face of Russian threats.

The U.S. announced the $6 billion sale of 250 tanks to Poland, a NATO member that has been occupied or attacked by Russia over past centuries. Announcing the deal, Austin said Russia’s military buildup had only reinvigorated NATO instead of cowing it, as Moscow had hoped.

Meanwhile, world leaders meeting at the Munich Security Conference warned that Europe’s security balance is under threat. Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said that the situation is “calling into question the basic principles of the European peace order.”

“Even steps, millimeters toward peace are better than a big step toward war,” she said.  READ MORE...

Spain's Top Court Rules Lockdown Unconstitutional

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Spain’s Constitutional Court ruled Wednesday that a strict stay-at-home lockdown order the Spanish government issued under a state of emergency during the first wave of COVID-19 last year was unconstitutional.

While upholding most terms of the state of emergency, the court said provisions ordering the population off the streets except for shorts shopping trips, unavoidable work commutes and other essential business violated Spain’s Constitution.

The court issued a brief statement that described the ruling as a split decision. State broadcaster TVE said six magistrates were in favor and five against. The full decision is expected to be released in the coming days.

According to TVE, the court majority ruled that the limitations on movement violated citizens’ basic rights and the state of emergency was a constitutionally insufficient mechanism to do that. The six magistrates said a state of exception, which does allow the government to suspend basic rights, would have been necessary.

Justice Minister Pilar Llop said that her government “will uphold but does not share the decision” on the inadequacy of the emergency declaration “that saved hundreds of thousands of lives.”

“The home confinement rule declared under the state of emergency, along with the exemplary behavior of citizens, allowed us to stop the virus,” Llop said, adding that it was similar to orders given by other European governments.

The Constitutional Court made its ruling in response to a lawsuit brought by Spain’s far-right Vox party. Vox leader Santiago Abascal called Wednesday for Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to step down.

“We cannot celebrate the decision because we have proof that the government was willing to break the law and tarnish the constitution,” Abascal said.

Spain’s government declared the state of emergency on March 14, 2020, three days after the World Health Organization said the spread of the coronavirus had become a pandemic. With Spain’s hospitals filling up, Sánchez’s left-wing coalition government won parliamentary backing, including from Vox lawmakers, for the state of emergency.

During the first six-week confinement period, Spaniards could not go out even for exercise, and Vox withdrew its support for the lockdown.

The lockdown helped reduce the number of new daily cases. The Spanish government gradually relaxed its pandemic restrictions once the worst of the emergency had passed. Since then, Spain has used a myriad of measures to control infections. The country has reported a pandemic death toll to date of 81,000.  TO READ ENTIRE ARTICLE, CLICK HERE...

A Digital Euro

FROM THE ASSOCIATED
PRESS...

The European Central Bank said Wednesday it is launching a two-year investigation on whether to introduce a digital version of the euro that would complement cash, taking a cautious step toward introduction as central bankers around the world eye digital currencies and their potential impact on policy and the financial system.

The ECB said in a statement that the digital euro must be able to meet consumers’ needs while helping prevent illegal activity such as money laundering and must not have an adverse impact on financial stability and monetary policy.

Digitalization “is reaching all areas of our lives,” Fabio Panetta, a member of the ECB’s executive board, wrote in a blog post. “The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has shown just how fast such change can happen. And this is affecting the way we pay. We are increasingly buying digitally and online.”

He said that there were many questions to be answered and that “a decision about whether or not to issue a digital euro will only come at a later stage.” If the idea gets a green light at the end of two years, it would take three more to actually develop the digital euro.  TO READ ENTIRE ARTICLE, CLICK HERE...

Oil and Gas Shut Downs

FROM ASSOCIATED PRESS...

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — President Joe Biden shut down oil and gas lease sales from the nation’s vast public lands and waters in his first days in office, citing worries about climate change. Now his administration has to figure out what do with the multibillion-dollar program without crushing a significant sector of the U.S. economy — and while fending off sharp criticism from congressional Republicans and the oil industry.

The leasing ban is only temporary, although officials have declined to say how long it will last. And it’s unclear how much legal authority the government has to stop drilling on about 23 million acres (9 million hectares) previously leased to energy companies.

Here are some questions hanging over Biden’s Interior Department as it launches a months-long review of the government’s petroleum sales with a virtual forum Thursday.

WHY IS BIDEN TARGETING OIL AND GAS LEASE SALES?

Burning of oil, gas and coal from government-owned lands and waters is a top source of U.S. emissions, accounting for 24% of the nation’s greenhouse gases. Oil and gas account for the biggest chunk of human-caused fossil fuel emissions from federal lands following a drilling surge under former President Donald Trump.

Emission reductions from a permanent leasing ban would be relatively small -- about 100 million tons (91 million metric tons) annually, or less than 1% of global fossil fuel emissions, according to a study by a nonprofit research group.

But environmentalists and others who want more aggressive action against climate change say a ban would nudge the economy in a new direction. Biden wants to substitute fossil fuel production and consumption with policies that promote renewable energy on public lands, such as wind and solar power.

“The federal government is a huge player here. The government has market power,” said attorney Max Sarinsky with New York University Law School’s Institute for Policy Integrity. “If you restrict the supply (of oil and gas), you alter the market and you create a better environment for more sustainable fuels.”         READ MORE