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Monday 10.01.2012

Gold in Euro terms breaks all time high,
more to come: Commerzbank
LONDON (Commodity Online): Following several attempts in recent days and weeks, gold hit all time record high of 1,380 euros an ounce on Thursday and spot metal has been above $1,780 an ounce several times this week, said Commerzbznk, the second largest German bank after Deutsche Bank.
The Commerzbank expected to gold to maintain its lure as a store of value. Given the current market environment, the price is likely to continue on its upward trajectory.

After Barclays,
more banks may open bullion vaults in London
LONDON (Commodity Online): After the opening Barclays' first precious metals vault in London this month, more banks are likely to open gold vaults as demand for storage facility has risen on QE3 measures that has made gold bullish again.
The Barclays facility designed by Brink's Ltd is one of the largest in Europe and can store gold, silver, platinum, palladium and rhodium. Barclays officials said the new facility was opened to cater to increasing demand from clients.

Sparkle in Gold is not just a weak Dollar story: Sharps Pixley
NEW YORK (Commodity Online): The recent sparkle in gold is not just a weak dollar story,"said Sharps Pixley in a commodity research note.
According to Sharps Pixley, the bullion dealer notes gold is on the way to a roughly 11% rise in the third quarter in dollar terms, although it remains around 7.5% below its all-time record hit slightly more than a year ago.

Fixing America's Fiscal Problem
By Martin Feldstein - Project-Syndicate.org
CAMBRIDGE – With America's elections less than six weeks away, it is time to think seriously about what will be done afterwards to deal with the nation's fiscal mess. Regardless of who wins, addressing the problem can no longer be postponed.
Americans are rightly focused on the "fiscal cliff" looming at the start of 2013, when, under current legislation, virtually all tax rates will rise, sucking more than 3% of GDP out of households and businesses. In addition, automatic cuts in government spending on defense and non-defense programs will subtract nearly another 1% of GDP in 2013 and similar amounts in future years. The Congressional Budget Office warns that falling off the fiscal cliff would push America's economy into a serious recession next year.

Debt limit lurks in fiscal cliff talks
By James Politi in Washington - FT.com
Congress is unlikely to reach an agreement to increase the US debt ceiling during the "fiscal cliff" negotiations at the end of year, raising the prospect of a fresh perilous brush with default in early 2013.
According to several lawmakers, congressional aides and analysts, there is scant probability that US lawmakers will have the political will – or time – to include a rise in the US borrowing limit as part of the talks to avoid the fiscal cliff.

Another domino falls
as Hollande pushes France into depression
If French President François Hollande thinks he can assuage the bond markets by dishing out tax-heavy austerity instead of genuine reform, he has been given very bad advice.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
His tragically-misguided budget offers no strategic plan to reverse -- or even to stop -- thirty years of slow national decline. He offers no worthwhile measures to slim the Leviathan state, now a Nordic-sized 55pc of GDP, without Nordic labour flexibility or Nordic free markets.
He does not tell us how he will stem the slide in France's share of eurozone exports over the last decade, down from 17pc to 13pc, or what he will do about the disastrous swing in France's trade balance from a surplus of 2.5pc of GDP to a deficit of 2.4pc since 1999.

France Raises Tax on the Rich to 75%
in Order to Rescue the Economy
By Editorial Dept - OilPrice.com
It's now official. The top tax rate in France is now 75% for those who make over a million euros. Moreover, there is a new band of 45% for those who make over 150,000 euros. Don't forget the existing VAT on all purchases.
Europe is imploding and instead of fixing onerous work rules, France Hits Rich and Business to Slash Deficit.

Greek-Spanish Pension Split Illustrates Europe's Dilemma
By LANDON THOMAS Jr. - NYTimes.com
The differences in approach could not be more distinct — or telling.
Two of the most economically distraught countries in the euro zone, Greece and Spain, mapped out additional budget cuts last week.
In the case of Greece, under last-chance pressure from its international creditors, the governing coalition tentatively agreed on an austerity package that includes some of the most severe cuts in public pensions ever imposed in a developed country. Pension payouts to retirees would be trimmed by as much as 10 percent.

SPAIN'S DEBT TO RISE TO 90.5% OF GDP IN 2013
MADRID (AP) -- Spain's public debt will reach 90.5 percent of its gross domestic product in 2013 with its new austerity budget, according to government documents.
Spain also revised its debt ratio forecast for this year to 85.5 percent of GDP, up from 79.8 percent.

Ahead Of Major October Redemptions,
Spanish Treasury Cash Slides To Two Year Low
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
A month ago, when we first presented the dwindling Spanish treasury cash position, we wrote: "once the next Spanish State Liability update is posted, we wouldn't be surprised to see this number plunge to a new post-Lehman low. Yet what is scariest is that all else equal (and it never is), at the current run rate Spain may well run out of cash by the end of the year even assuming it manages to conclude all its remaining auctions through year's end without a glitch." The August cash balance update was just released by the Banco de Espana, and there's good news, unsurprising news and bad news.

Germany told to 'come clean' over Greece
German Chancellor Angela Merkel must "come clean at long last" and admit that Greece will need help for another seven or eight years, the German opposition leader said over the weekend.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
"The Greeks must stand by their commitment, but we must give them time. We cannot tighten the screws any futher," said Peer Steinbruck, the Social Democrat candidate for chancellor. He said the political and economic fall-out from Greek ejection from the euro would be devastating and must be avoided.
The plea came amid reports that Berlin is so worried that a Greek crisis would spin out of control that it is ready to back the next €31bn payment to Athens under its EU-IMF Troika rescue, despite failure to comply with the terms. Wirtschaftswoche, a German news magazine, said Greece's parliament merely needs to vote on a list of detailed reforms.

Party's Over: How Did Brazil's Economy Get So Bad So Fast?
High taxes, poor infrastructure, and astonishingly complicated regulations have conspired to bring an end to the Brazilian Decade
By David Rohde - TheAtlantic.com
SAO PAULO - For decades, Denis Dias's parents could never break into Brazil's middle class. They started a bakery and a pizzeria in the 1970s and 1980s, but the country's economic instability and hyper-inflation consumed their businesses and their hopes. His father ended up owning a newsstand. His mother worked as a maid. And Denis attended dilapidated state-run schools.
Over the last 10 years, Denis and at least 35 million other Brazilians have achieved their parents' dream. Denis is a corporate lawyer at a Brazilian energy company and a new member of Brazil's middle class, now 100 million people strong. Denis, his company and his nation have ridden the exports of iron ore, soy, oil and other natural resources to prosperity.

Exposing China's Shadow Banking System
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
We have in the past attempted to take on the gargantuan task of exposing the multi-trillion Chinese Shadow Banking system (not to be confused with its deposit-free, rehypothecation-full Western equivalent), most recently here. Alas, it is has consistently proven to be virtually impossible to coherently explain something as decentralized and as pervasive as an entire country's underground economy, especially when the country in question is the riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma known as China. Today, however, courtesy of AsiaFinanceNews we get a report as close as possible to the most comprehensive overview of what may soon be (especially if rumors of tumbling Chinese municipal dominoes are correct) the most talked about subject in the financial world: China's Shadow Banking empire.

The Federal Reserve Sends Thank You Letters To Congress
For Letting Them Destroy Our Economy In Secret
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
The Federal Reserve continues to pump up this "bubble economy" by recklessly printing money and by setting interest rates artificially low, and the U.S. Congress continues to stand aside and allow them to systematically destroy our economy. The U.S. Congress could choose to end this madness at any time, but the truth is that Congress won't even pass a law that would allow the American people to see what is going on over at the Federal Reserve. Congress has voted down every single bill that would authorize a comprehensive audit of the Federal Reserve. So the folks over at the Fed will continue to be able to destroy our future in secret. In fact, back in July Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke actually sent five thank you letters to members of Congress that gave speeches on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives encouraging their fellow lawmakers to vote against the bill to audit the Fed. Since the U.S. Congress continues to refuse to do anything to hold the Federal Reserve accountable, the Fed will continue to print unprecedented amounts of money, it will continue to set interest rates insanely low and it will continue to pump up the greatest debt bubble in the history of the world. Unfortunately, all debt bubbles eventually burst, and when this one does it is going to be a financial nightmare unlike anything we have ever seen before.

Major Banks Hit with Biggest Cyberattacks in History
By David Goldman, CNNMoney via DailyFinance.com
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- There's a good chance your bank's website was attacked over the past week.
Since Sept. 19, the websites of Bank of America (BAC), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Wells Fargo (WFC), U.S. Bank (USB) and PNC Bank (PNC) have all suffered day-long slowdowns and been sporadically unreachable for many customers. The attackers, who took aim at Bank of America first, went after their targets in sequence. Thursday's victim, PNC's website, was inaccessible at the time this article was published.

JPMorgan, Bank of America Forgive Debts that No Longer Exist; Wonderful News! But For Whom?
By Mike Shedlock - GlobalEconomicAnalysis.com
In February, five of the nation's largest banks agreed on a $25 billion settlement over widespread, systemic mortgage fraud and related issues.
The $25 Billion Deal, announced with huge fanfare, was supposed to help up to a million struggling homeowners, primarily via debt forgiveness.
Let's flash forward a few months to see how debt forgiveness is working out in practice.
Today, the New York Times notes Banks Forgive Debt That Isn't There.

Presenting The World's Biggest Hedge Fund
You Have Never Heard Of
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
The world's largest hedge fund is not located in the top floor of some shiny, floor-to-ceiling glass clad skyscraper in New York, London, Hong Kong or Shanghai. It isn't in some sprawling mansion in Greenwich or Stamford which houses a state of the art trading desk behind a crocodile-filled moat. Instead it can be found in tiny, nondescript office in Suite 225 located on 730 Sandhill Road in Reno, Nevada.

Is The Money-Laundering Driven Real Estate "Boom" Ending?
Submitted by Tyler Durden - ZeroHedge.com
One by one all the money-laundering loopholes in a broke world are coming to an end. First it was Swiss bank accounts, which for centuries guaranteed the depositors absolute secrecy, and as a result saw money inflows from all the wealthiest savers in the world, who felt truly safe their wealth (obtained by legal means or otherwise) would not be redistributed forcefully. In the ecosystem of finance, Switzerland was thedepositor bank. Then 2008 happened, and starting with the US, shortly to be followed by every other insolvent country, demands were issued for a full list of people who had used Zurich and Geneva bank vaults to avoid the risk of asset taxation, capital controls and confiscation on their own native soil. The result was the end of the Swiss banking sector as the ultimate target of all global money laundering. In the ensuing power vacuum, others have sprung up to take its place, most notably Singapore, but its days as a tax-haven are numbered by how long it takes China to fall face first into a hard landing at which point no saving on the Pacific seaboard will be safe.
Now, it is the turn of real estate.

Warning over US health insurance exchange
By Alan Rappeport in Washington - FT.com
Healthcare experts and watchdog groups are warning that a new plan by two US companies to create private health insurance exchanges, if adopted widely, could leave employees at risk as companies try to shift costs to their workers.
Sears, a US retailer, and Darden Restaurants, which operates Olive Garden and Red Lobster, said last week they were unveiling a new "defined contribution" health insurance model. The scheme would give employees a lump sum of money and allow them to choose from a menu of insurance options with a wider variety of choices.

Giving Up on the American Dream:
Are We Being Glum or Realistic?
Nearly three-fifths of Hispanics and African-Americans believe their children will enjoy greater opportunities. Only about a fourth of whites agree. Here's why that matters.
By Ronald Brownstein - TheAtlantic.com
When Robert and Helen Merrell Lynd studied Muncie, Ind., during the 1920s for their classic book,Middletown, nothing surprised them more than the lack of working-class resentment toward the business class.
For Middletown's working-class families, most of them dependent on factory jobs, life was often fragile and insecure. Yet, the Lynds found, workers didn't conclude from those conditions that the economic deck was stacked against them. The Lynds "came away puzzled by the fact that the city was becoming methodically divided, but despite that growing disparity there wasn't any overt hostility from the working-class toward that middle [and upper] class," says James Connolly, director of the Center for Middletown Studies at Ball State University in Muncie. "There was a strong sense in the working class that they had a shot [to get ahead], and this went along with a strong tendency to stress the individual's responsibility for their own success or failure."

Referees' Strike Shows Problems with Economy
The NFL Referees' Strike
Highlights Larger Truths About the U.S. Economy
NFL owners thought they could get away with treating officials the way corporate America treats its employees.
By Daniel Gross, Daily Beast
"Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball," wrote the cultural critic Jacques Barzun in the middle of last century. But if you want to understand what's going on in the U.S economy, you'd be better advised to get to know football. The recently resolved labor dispute between the National Football League and its referees illuminates several larger trends in the economy.
First, when rich and powerful guys defund the rulemakers and regulators, bad things happen—but only the public and the little guys seem to suffer. The NFL officials aren't just workers. We learned they are vital to the quality of the experience in the marketplace—the pace of the game, making sure it is called reasonably, protecting participants from injury, and providing a safety net. They police activity, smack down out-of-bounds behavior, punish wrongdoers, and generally tamp down volatility. Which is very similar to the function that regulators like the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency were supposed to do. When those entities were underfunded, understaffed, and marginalized, it encouraged an anything-goes environment. And then things went south, it wasn't the owners of the institution that got hurt.

'I'm Working Really Hard, but I'm Not Getting Ahead':
The New Middle Class Trap
How "staying put" became the new "moving up" in U.S. economy
By Jim Tankersley - TheAtlantic.com
GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.--One day when John Sherry was 10 years old, his parents picked him up from school and drove to a Ford dealership. They walked into a large showroom with Mustangs parked out front. He watched his parents, neither of them college graduates, ink the paperwork to buy a new, dark-green Taurus. Greg and Beth Sherry let their son sign his name at the bottom of one of the pages, just for fun.
John, who's now 29, says it was the first time he realized that purchasing a car was a bigger deal than buying groceries or a shirt. "I thought, 'Someday, I'm going to be doing that.' " But now, he says, his lips tight and flat, "I don't see myself buying a new car"--ever. "That seems out of my grasp."

Why Does Our Society Look Down
On Unemployed Men So Much?
By Michael Snyder - TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
If you are unemployed for an extended period of time, people are going to look at you differently. Unfortunately, this is especially true if you are a man. In our society, men are primarily defined by "what they do". If you have been unemployed for a long period of time, that can make social interactions even more awkward than normal. Most people will instantly become more uncomfortable around you when they find out that you are unemployed. Many will look at you with pity, and others will actually look at you with disdain. Women will not want to date you, and if you are in a relationship unemployment will put a tremendous amount of strain on it. Once you "don't have a job", you will not get the same level of respect from former co-workers, friends, members of your own family and possibly even your own wife. So why does our society look down on unemployed men so much?

Declining sales force Campbell to cut 700
Plants in California, New Jersey to close in 2013
By Candice Choi and Michelle Chapman, AP - WashingtonTimes.com
NEW YORK — Campbell Soup Co. is closing two U.S. plants and cutting more than 700 jobs as it looks to trim costs amid declining consumption of its canned soups.
The world's largest soup maker said Thursday that it will close a plant in Sacramento, Calif., that has about 700 full-time workers. The plant, which makes soups, sauces and beverages, was built in 1947 and is the company's oldest in the country. That also means it has the highest production costs of Campbell's four U.S. soup plants.

When it costs more to be poor – Fed and government shifting inflation onto rent, medical care, and food. QE3 to widen the gap between the poor and the wealthy.
By MyBudget360.com
Inflation has been picking up since the recession ended in 2009. The problem with the CPI increasing year over year with no rise in household incomes is that the standard of living for most Americans erodes every year that incomes do not keep up. Household incomes are back to levels last seen in the mid-1990s while the cost of necessities has gone up. This brings us to our article today that examines the nuts and bolts of what constitutes the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The CPI attempts to measure the changes in price for consumer goods and services. Overall it did a very poor job of measuring the housing bubble because of the owner's equivalent of rent metric. Today, it is understating inflation because of the excess spending on "wants" that occurred in the 2000s has now shifted to spending on "needs" but is being dragged down by the amount of family spending on needed goods. We will dig deep into this data but suffice it to say that the Fed is creating inflation in items most Americans actually need to live their daily lives and the burden on the poor is actually increasing.

U.S. Postal Service to Default
on Second $5 Billion Retiree Payment
By HOPE YEN, AP - DailyFinance.com
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Postal Service, on the brink of default on a second multibillion-dollar payment it can't afford to pay, is sounding a new cautionary note that having squeezed out all the cost savings within its power, the mail agency's viability now lies almost entirely with Congress.
In an interview, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said the mail agency will be forced to miss the $5.6 billion payment due to the Treasury on Sunday, its second default in as many months. Congress has left Washington until after the November elections, without approving a postal fix.

Two Earthquakes Rattle North Texas
3.4 and 3.1 earthquakes shake Dallas County Saturday night
By Reginald Hardwick, Mark Schnyder and Ray Villeda - NBCDFW.com
Two earthquakes rattled North Texas within 10 minutes late Saturday night.
The U.S. Geological Survey confirms a magnitude 3.4 earthquake occured at 11:05:01 p.m. The USGS listed the epicenter at 32.847°N, 96.956°W. That's just southwest of Las Colinas Country Club near North McArthur Blvd. and West Rochelle Road. It was southeast of DFW International Airport.
The second earthquake was a magnitude 3.1. It happened at 11:09:03 p.m. The USGS listed the epicenter at 32.768°N, 96.915°W. That location is Loop 12 Walton Walker Blvd., just north of Interstate 30 in far West Dallas. It is northwest of the city of Cockrell Hill.

Thousands of Bombs Dumped in Gulf of Mexico
Pose Huge Threat to Oil Rigs
By Joao Peixe - OilPrice.com
After World War II the US government dumped millions of kilograms of unexploded bombs into the Gulf of Mexico. This is no secret; many governments dumped their unexploded ordnance into oceans and lakes from 1946 up until the 1970s when it was made illegal under international treaty.
Now that technology has advanced enough for oil companies to drill deep sea wells in the Gulf of Mexico, those forgotten payloads have become a real hazard.

George Soros Bails Out the Democrats with $2 Million
By Walter Hickey - DailyFinance.com
The New York Times has reported that George Soros just gave $2 million dollars to Democratic Super PACs.
Just when everyone thought that Soros was focusing on philanthropy andignoring Democratic calls for cash because of a perceived snub, "The Man Who Broke The Bank of England" is back in action, rescuing the Democrats from an October in which they're severely outgunned financially.

Ahead of Wednesday's first debate, polls suggest Obama's reelection likelyWith five weeks until election day in the US, Mitt Romney's chances are dwindling in the crucial battleground states
By JOSH LEDERMAN - TimesOfIsrael.com
WASHINGTON (AP) — Five weeks to Election Day, President Barack Obama is within reach of the 270 electoral votes needed to win a second term. Republican Mitt Romney's path to victory is narrowing.
To overtake Obama, Romney would need to quickly gain the upper hand in nearly all of the nine states where he and Obama are competing the hardest.

Obama's Tyrannical Executive Orders
By Alan Caruba - CanadaFreePress.com
A September 24 a Wall Street Journal editorial warned that President Obama is moving to control the Internet by executive order. "Any day now, the White House will issue an executive order on cyber security, according to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano who said last week that the measure 'is close to completion.'"
It noted that "the White House intends to go ahead with its order in the face of vociferous opposition on Capitol Hill."

Romney's 'Secret' Economic Plan Isn't a Secret
(and It's Not Much of a Plan)
A "tax holiday" for multinational corporations isn't much of a stimulus, unless your goal is to stimulate the top 1%.
By Derek Thompson - TheAtlantic.com
Mitt Romney's official economic plan includes repealing Obamacare and maybe not much else. But Politicoreports that he might have a stealth strategy for helping the economy that includes a grand deficit bargain and a plan to encourage corporations to stop saving and start spending:
Romney's metric-obsessed transition team is fleshing out a "200-day plan" (100 days wasn't enough time to pass a bunch of big bills) aimed at goosing the recovery and creating jobs by bringing corporate cash off the sidelines in the United States and attracting investment from abroad.

Ann Romney: 'I'd be worried for his mental well-being'
In TV interview, candidate's wife admits her fears if he should win White House race
By DAVID RANDALL - Independent.co.uk
Ann Romney has told a television station that if her husband, the Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, wins the presidential election, her biggest concern would be his "mental well-being".
In an interview with Nevada's KTVN, Mrs Romney was asked what her biggest worry was should Mitt Romney be elected to serve in the White House. "I think my biggest concern obviously would just be for his mental well-being," she said. "I have all the confidence in the world in his ability, in his decisiveness, in his leadership skills, in his understanding of the economy. So for me, I think it would just be the emotional part of it."

That Sleekly Designed New Gadget Has One Flaw:
It Can't be Fixed
By M. Joy Hayes, Ph.D., The Motley Fool - DailyFinance.com
When buying new laptops, cellphones, and other tech devices, it's all about the latest and greatest -- bigger screens, lighter and sleeker designs, more bells and whistles.
But recent reports suggest that these design innovations aren't necessarily an improvement -- in fact, they may even sacrifice product durability, serviceability, and overall life span. Here's how.

Embracing 3-D Printers,
Manufacturer Tells Customers
to Print Their Own Replacement Parts
BY GEETA DAYAL - Wired.com
Want a new part for your synthesizer? Need a replacement knob or dial? In a first, one company is telling its customers to just print their own.
It's a move that signifies a major step into a new commercial marketplace, where customers can buy products directly from companies for on-demand, at-home manufacturing. And while we probably won't see complicated, mechanical products from big corporations reaching us through Thingiverse for a while yet, knobs and dials are the perfect static, detachable objects to begin the movement.

Your Brain on E-Books and Smartphone Apps
By NICK BILTON - NYTimes.com
Last week, my brain played a cruel trick on me. While waiting for my flight to take off, I was reading The New Yorker, the paper version, of course — I know the rules. I became engrossed in an article and swiped my finger down the glossy page to read more.
To my surprise, nothing happened. I swiped it again. Nothing.
My brain was trying to turn the page the same way I do on my iPad, with the swipe of a finger. (I quickly realized that I had to physically turn the page.)

Russia told Assad to shoot down Turkish plane, murder captured pilots, 'leaked Syrian documents' show Devastating intelligence papers purport to prove jet was downed on Moscow's orders, pilots captured alive by intelligence unit and then killed; Damascus had claimed June incident was an accident
By YIFA YAAKOV and TIMES OF ISRAEL STAFF
Contrary to previous reports, the two pilots of a Turkish F-4 Phantom which was shot down by Syria in June were not killed in the crash, but were murdered by the Assad regime on Russian orders, according to a devastating series of alleged Syrian intelligence documents leaked to and published by Al-Arabiya on Saturday.
A file "sent from [President Bashar] Assad's palace," said the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya, conveys and thus apparently approves a Russian suggestion to "eliminate" the pilots in the "natural way."

Syrian rebels' backers block arms cache
until bickering factions unite
By KIM SENGUPTA - Independent.co.uk
Stockpiles of arms, including anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles, are being held in Turkey for use by rebels in Syria's civil war, but their distribution is being held up because of disunity and feuding between the different groups of fighters, The Independent has learned.
In high-level discussions, Qatari and Turkish suppliers told opposition representatives that heavy weapons would not be made available until the various factions agreed to form a coherent command structure.

Israel tells UN: Iran must be given a 'clear red line'
By DAVID USBORNE - Independent.co.uk
Asserting in a dramatic speech to the United Nations that Iran will be ready to build a nuclear weapon by next summer, the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, told leaders they must draw a clear red line to force the regime in Tehran to back down and end its uranium enrichment programme.
Mr Netanyahu, who brandished a chart drawn in the shape of a bomb with a dangling fuse, insisted that his purpose was to prevent a war, not start one. He added that not delivering the ultimatum he proposes would be akin to what happened when the world waited "too long" to deal with Hitler. "We can't let that happen," he said, insisting the stratagem would work. "I believe that, faced with a clear red line, Iran will back down. At this late hour, there is only one way to peacefully prevent Iran from getting atomic bombs and that is the placing of a clear red line on Iran's nuclear weapons programme. Red lines don't lead to war; red lines prevent war."

Steinitz: Iran economy near collapse from sanctions
Finance minister says Iran's oil income losses will reach $45-50 billion; believes US may delineate red lines in coming months.
By REUTERS, JPOST.COM STAFF
Iran's economy is edging towards collapse due to international sanctions over its controversial nuclear program, Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz told Israel Radio on Sunday.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has said that, although sanctions are taking their toll, they are not yet forcing Iran to abandon work that could soon lead to a nuclear warhead.

Tehran threatens Israel with 'full force'
if nuclear facilities are attacked
By CATRINA STEWART - Independent.co.uk
Tehran said it will respond with "full force" to any attack on its nuclear facilities after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged global action to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
In a speech to the UN General Assembly, Mr Netanyahu warned that the world has less than a year to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power, a prediction that will raise fears of a military confrontation.

Romney: Obama deliberately causing rift between Israel, US
US Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney pens op-ed in WSJ accusing Obama of downgrading bilateral relations, maintaining a weak Middle East policy that could end up pulling US "into the maelstrom."
By JPOST.COM STAFF
US Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Sunday accused US President Barack Obama of deliberately creating a rift between Jerusalem and Washington, in an opinion piece he penned in the Wall Street Journal.
In his article entitled "A New Course for the Middle East," Romney wrote that he believes the US Administration has failed to advance American interests in the region, citing Israel as an example of an ally that has been ignored and let down. "The president began his term with the explicit policy of creating 'daylight' between our two countries," Romney wrote. US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice had used the same expression last month to deny any rift between the two countries in an interview with CNN, saying "the United States is in constant communication with Israel" and adding "there is no daylight" between Jerusalem and Washington.

Iran's Ahmadinejad Says Talks Will Progress After U.S. Election
By Susan Decker - Bloomberg.com
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said talks over his country's development of enriched uranium will be more productive after the U.S. election and expressed optimism the two sides will "be able to take some steps forward."
"We have seen during many years that as we approach the United States presidential election, no important decisions are made," Ahmadinejad said on CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" program. "Following the election, certainly the atmosphere will be much more stable, and important decisions can be made and announced."

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