Seems to be big news.

Iran's nuclear plant admission brings sanctions showdown nearer

US, UK and France threaten tough new measures but Ahmadinejad is defiant

The Iranian nuclear crisis reached a pivotal moment todayafter Tehran was forced to admit it was building a secret uranium enrichment plant - a move that brought the prospect of a dramatic showdown over international sanctions a step nearer.

The leaders of US, Britain and France broke away from the G20 summit in Pittsburgh to condemn the Iranian regime after it informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of the development. President Barack Obama said western intelligence agencies had known of the secret plant - near the holy city of Qom, a seat of Shia learning - for more than two years. He demanded that Iran allow UN inspectors into the plant and take concrete steps to restore "confidence and transparency" in the country's nuclear programme.

"The bar for Ahmadinejad has just been raised," said one official.

Read more @ The Guardian

Some of the proposed sanctions would be on oil and gas - which previously Russia described as an embargo and like war.

So what do people think? Is Iran a threat? Should it be sanctioned?

And is it just convenient that the sanctions will be on oil and gas shortly after Iran (I think has) moved to oil/gas trade in euros?

Ertugrul Osman - the would-be sultan known in Turkey as the "last Ottoman" - has died in Istanbul at the age of 97.

Osman would have been sultan of the Ottoman Empire had Turkey's modern republic not been created in the 1920s.

As the last surviving grandson of Sultan Abdul-Hamid II, he would have been known as his Imperial Highness Prince Shehzade Ertugrul Osman Effendi.

Born in Istanbul in 1912, Osman spent most of his years living modestly in New York.

Read more @ BBC News

Scientists kicked out of contest because they are based in the West Bank, Spain's government says

Spain's government today said it had expelled a group of Israeli scientists from a state-funded solar energy competition because they were based in occupied areas of the West Bank.

The decision to expel the team from the Ariel University Centre of Samaria from Solar Decathlon Europe, an international competition involving 20 universities, provoked angry reactions in Israel.

The Israeli team had been selected as one of the 20 finalists in a competition to design solar-powered housing that is part-sponsored by the US energy department. Spain is hosting the first European version of the event next year and claims ultimate say over who takes part.

"This university is in the occupied territories and all the ministry has done is apply the policy of the European Union," a housing ministry spokesman said. "The EU does not recognise the occupation of the West Bank which is where this university is."

Read more @ BBC News

Well, that is what a top general says:

McChrystal's blunt warning to the West

This leaked report offers a blunt and bleak assessment of the challenges facing Afghanistan - and a timetable for possible failure.

Put simply, General Stanley McChrystal acknowledges that the US could lose this war in the next 12 months.

The US commander wants more boots on the ground.

He calls for a speeding up in the training of the Afghan security forces.

And, in the coming weeks, Gen McChrystal is expected to ask for as many as 30,000 extra US forces.

But after a deeply flawed election in Afghanistan which has yet to be resolved, there is growing opposition in President Barack Obama's own Democratic Party to the war.

Read more @ BBC News

A dinner lady who told a parent his seven-year-old daughter had been attacked at school in Essex has lost her job after a disciplinary hearing.

Carol Hill worked at Great Tey Primary school, near Colchester, and was sacked for a breach of confidentiality.

Ms Hill told the girl's father she had seen other pupils tie up his daughter and hit her with a rope.

The girl has now left the school and the parents said they were "disgusted" by the way Ms Hill had been treated.

Read more @ BBC News

British soldiers who abused an Iraqi detainee who died in their custody were not just "a few bad apples", a public inquiry has been told.

There was "something rotten in the whole barrel", Rabinder Singh QC said.

Troops in Iraq routinely used banned interrogation methods they did not think were illegal, lawyers told the inquiry into the 2003 death.

The inquiry, led by Sir William Gage, is focusing on Baha Mousa's death, detainees' treatment and army methods.

Mr Singh, counsel for Mr Mousa's family and the other Iraqis detained alongside him, said: "This case is not just about beatings or a few bad apples.

"There is something rotten in the whole barrel."

Read more @ BBC News

Police in Pakistan say they have raided the offices of a private security firm hired by the US embassy in Islamabad.

The offices of the Inter-Risk company were entered and around 70 weapons were seized and two personnel arrested.

Officials in Pakistan allege that the haul of 61 assault riffles, nine pistols and ammunition were unlicensed.

It follows allegations that the US is using the security firm once known as Blackwater. The US embassy in Islamabad denies it has any contract with them.

The media in Pakistan have reported that the US embassy in Islamabad was involved in hiring the firm Xe services, formally known as Blackwater, a company which was embroiled in allegations of civilian killings while hired to protect US diplomats in Iraq.

Read more @ BBC News

In a landmark decision, Britain's trade unions have voted overwhelmingly to commit to build a mass boycott movement, disinvestment and sanctions on Israel for a negotiated settlement based on justice for Palestinians.

The motion was passed at the 2009 TUC Annual Congress in Liverpool today (17 September), by unions representing 6.5 million workers across the UK.

Hugh Lanning, chair of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said: "This motion is the culmination of a wave of motions passed at union conferences this year, following outrage at Israel's brutal war on Gaza, and reflects the massive growth in support for Palestinian rights. We will be working with the TUC to develop a mass campaign to boycott Israeli goods, especially agricultural products that have been produced in illegal Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank."

Read more @ electronic intifada

RAMALLAH, occupied West Bank (IPS) - The International Committee of the Red Cross has warned that Gaza's access to safe supply of drinking water could cease at any time. The World Health Organization (WHO) says outbreaks of disease could be triggered as a consequence.

The warnings follow a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report Monday that "Gaza's underground water system is in danger of collapse after recent conflict compounded by years of overuse and contamination."

"An outbreak of Hepatitis A and parasitic infections could occur at any time," Mahmoed Daher from WHO in Gaza told IPS. "Already the number of people, especially children, suffering from diarrhea has risen dramatically."

"We have noticed an increase in people suffering from kidney diseases from water contaminated with toxins, as well as babies born with an unnatural blue tinge," Munther Shoblak from Gaza's Coastal Municipalities Water Utility (CMWU) told IPS.

The UNEP report focuses on a rise in saltwater intrusion from the sea caused by over-extraction of ground water, and pollution from sewage and agricultural run-off, with toxic levels high enough to put infants at risk of nitrate poisoning.

Read more @ Electronic Intifada

And being skint makes you a crybaby, say profs

Being rich makes people invulnerable to pain and steels them against rejection by other people, according to trick-cyclists and whalesong specialists in China and America.

In order to discover this, a group of student recruits at Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou were split up into two groups. One was given a sheaf of crisp banknotes to count, the other ordinary dull bits of paper. After this, all of them were forced to plunge their extremities into scalding 50°C water.

Those who had counted money beforehand, apparently, felt less pain than the others. And it doesn't stop there. Crafty psych prof Xinyue Zhou also devised a devilish method of inflicting social rejection on his test subjects, by making them play an online multiplayer game in which a ball was thrown around among a group of players.

Zhou rigged the game, however, so that after a cheery and inclusive period of tossing the cyber ball about, test subjects would then suddenly find that nobody would throw it to them any more - a crushing playground-outcast style experience.

Once again, though, it emerged that those who had fondled a pile of reassuring cash money prior to copping a cyber cold-shouldering laughed the rejection off. Those who hadn't, however, were left blubbing in the corner.

Read more @ The Register