Tehran Rejects Nuclear Accord, Officials Report

By DAVID E. SANGER, STEVEN ERLANGER and ROBERT F. WORTH

WASHINGTON — Iran told the United Nations nuclear watchdog on Thursday that it would not accept a plan its negotiators agreed to last week to send its stockpile of uranium out of the country, according to diplomats in Europe and American officials briefed on Iran’s response.
The apparent rejection of the deal could unwind President Obama’s effort to buy time to resolve the nuclear standoff.
In public, neither the Iranians nor the watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, revealed the details of Iran’s objections, which came only hours after Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, insisted that “we are ready to cooperate” with the West.
But the European and American officials said that Iranian officials had refused to go along with the central feature of the draft agreement reached on Oct. 21 in Vienna: a provision that would have required the country to send about three-quarters of its current known stockpile of low-enriched uranium to Russia to be processed and returned for use in a reactor in Tehran used to make medical isotopes.
If Iran’s stated estimate of its stockpile of nuclear fuel is accurate, the deal that was negotiated in Vienna would leave the country with too little fuel to manufacture a weapon until the stockpile was replenished with additional fuel, which Iran is producing in violation of United Nations Security Council mandates.
American officials said they thought that the accord would give them a year or so to seek a broader nuclear agreement with Iran while defusing the possibility that Israel might try to attack Iran’s nuclear installations before Iran gained more fuel and expertise.
The Obama administration was anticipating that Iran would seek to back out of the deal, and in recent days the head of the nuclear agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, traveled secretly to Washington to talk about what to do if that happened, according to several American officials. Last weekend, President Obama called President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France in an effort to maintain a unified front in dealing with Tehran’s leadership.
A senior European official characterized the Iranian response as “basically a refusal.” The Iranians, he said, want to keep all of their lightly enriched uranium in the country until receiving fuel bought from the West for the reactor in Tehran.
“The key issue is that Iran does not agree to export its lightly enriched uranium,” the official said. “That’s not a minor detail. That’s the whole point of the deal.”
American officials said it was unclear whether Iran’s declaration to Dr. ElBaradei was its final position, or whether it was seeking to renegotiate the deal — a step the Americans said they would not take.
Michael Hammer, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said that “we await clarification of Iran’s response,” but that the United States was “unified with our Russian and French partners” in support of the agreement reached in Vienna. That agreement explicitly called for Iran to ship 2,600 pounds of low-enriched uranium to Russia by Jan. 15, according to officials who have seen the document, which has never been made public.
News of the accord led to a political uproar in Iran, with some leading politicians arguing that the West could not be trusted to return Iran’s uranium, produced at the Natanz nuclear enrichment plant. Clearly, however, the Iranian government does not want to appear to be rejecting the agreement. Mr. Ahmadinejad, in a speech in the northeastern city of Mashhad that was broadcast live on state television on Thursday, said, “We welcome cooperation on nuclear fuel, power plants and technology, and we are ready to cooperate.”
He did not address Iran’s efforts to change the deal, but cast it as a victory for Iranian steadfastness against the West. “A few years ago, they said we had to completely stop all our nuclear activities,” Mr. Ahmadinejad said. “Now, look where we are today. Now, they want nuclear cooperation with the Iranian nation.”
In fact, the Iranians found something to like in the Vienna deal. It essentially acknowledged their right to use low-enriched uranium that Iran produced in violation of three Security Council agreements. The Obama administration and its allies were willing to create that precedent because the material would be returned to Iran in the form of fuel rods, usable in a civilian nuclear plant but very difficult to convert to weapons use.
Mr. Ahmadinejad’s remarks seemed to extend Iran’s two-track public position on the nuclear dispute, offering a degree of compliance while also insisting that there were limits to its readiness for cooperation.
“As long as this government is in power, it will not retreat one iota on the undeniable rights of the Iranian nation,” Mr. Ahmadinejad said. “Fortunately, the conditions for international nuclear cooperation have been met. We are currently moving in the right direction and we have no fear of legal cooperation, under which all of Iran’s national rights will be preserved, and we will continue our work.”
Mr. Ahmadinejad also suggested that Iran expected Western countries to honor payments for nuclear assistance it made before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iran paid more than $1 billion to help build a French reactor in return for access to that reactor’s fuel. After the revolution, France reneged on the contract.
“We have nuclear contracts,” Mr. Ahmadinejad said. “It has been 30 years, we have paid for them. Such agreements must be fulfilled.”
Iran’s envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, arrived in Vienna on Wednesday night to deliver Iran’s response to the plan. On Thursday he told the ISNA news service that Tehran held a “positive view” of the Vienna talks.
An atomic energy agency team returned to the headquarters in Vienna on Thursday after inspecting a second nuclear enrichment plant, at Fordo, near the city of Qum, the state-run Press TV reported on its Web site.
Iran had kept the plant a state secret until a few days before the United States and other Western powers disclosed its existence last month.
In Washington on Thursday, the Senate Banking Committee unanimously approved a measure that would let the White House impose stronger sanctions on Iran. The Senate bill, passed a day after the House Foreign Affairs Committee passed a similar measure, would authorize sanctions against companies that provide Iran with refined petroleum products and would ban most trade between the countries, exempting food and medicine.

The Human Body Is Built for Distance

By TARA PARKER-POPE

Does running a marathon push the body further than it is meant to go?

The conventional wisdom is that distance running leads to debilitating wear and tear, especially on the joints. But that hasn’t stopped runners from flocking to starting lines in record numbers.

Last year in the United States, 425,000 marathoners crossed the finish line, an increase of 20 percent from the beginning of the decade, Running USA says. Next week about 40,000 people will take part in the New York City Marathon. Injury rates have also climbed, with some studies reporting that 90 percent of those who train for the 26.2-mile race sustain injuries in the process.

But now a best-selling book has reframed the debate about the wisdom of distance running. In “Born to Run” (Knopf), Christopher McDougall, an avid runner who had been vexed by injuries, explores the world of the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico, a tribe known for running extraordinary distances in nothing but thin-soled sandals.

Mr. McDougall makes the case that running isn’t inherently risky. Instead, he argues that the commercialization of urban marathons encourages overzealous training, while the promotion of high-tech shoes has led to poor running form and a rash of injuries.

“The sense of distance running being crazy is something new to late-20th-century America,” Mr. McDougall told me. “It’s only recently that running has become associated with pain and injury.”

The scientific evidence supports the notion that humans evolved to be runners. In a 2007 paper in the journal Sports Medicine, Daniel E. Lieberman, a Harvard evolutionary biologist, and Dennis M. Bramble, a biologist at the University of Utah, wrote that several characteristics unique to humans suggested endurance running played an important role in our evolution.

Most mammals can sprint faster than humans — having four legs gives them the advantage. But when it comes to long distances, humans can outrun almost any animal. Because we cool by sweating rather than panting, we can stay cool at speeds and distances that would overheat other animals. On a hot day, the two scientists wrote, a human could even outrun a horse in a 26.2-mile marathon.

Why would evolution favor the distance runner? The prevailing theory is that endurance running allowed primitive humans to incorporate meat into their diet. They may have watched the sky for scavenging birds and then run long distances to reach a fresh kill and steal the meat from whatever animal was there first.

Other research suggests that before the development of slingshots or bows, early hunters engaged in persistence hunting, chasing an animal for hours until it overheated, making it easy to kill at close range. A 2006 report in the journal Current Anthropology documents persistence hunting among modern hunter-gatherers, including the Bushmen in Africa.

“Ancient humans exploited the fact that humans are good runners in the heat,” Dr. Bramble said. “We have such a great cooling system” — many sweat glands, little body hair.

There is other evidence that evolution favored endurance running. A study in The Journal of Experimental Biology last February showed that the short toes of the human foot allowed for more efficient running, compared with longer-toed animals. Increasing toe length as little as 20 percent doubles the mechanical work of the foot. Even the fact that the big toe is straight, rather than to the side, suggests that our feet evolved for running.

“The big toe is lined up with the rest, not divergent, the way you see with apes and our closest nonrunning relatives,” Dr. Bramble said. “It’s the main push-off in running: the last thing to leave the ground is that big toe.”

Springlike ligaments and tendons in the feet and legs are crucial for running. (Our close relatives the chimpanzee and the ape don’t have them.) A narrow waist and a midsection that can turn allow us to swing our arms and prevent us from zigzagging on the trail. Humans also have a far more developed sense of balance, an advantage that keeps the head stable as we run. And most humans can store about 20 miles’ worth of glycogen in their muscles.

And the gluteus maximus, the largest muscle in the human body, is primarily engaged only during running. “Your butt is a running muscle; you barely use it when you walk,” Dr. Lieberman said. “There are so many features in our bodies from our heads to our toes that make us good at running.”

So if we’re born to run, why are runners so often injured? A combination of factors is likely to play a role, experts say. Exercise early in life can affect the development of tendons and muscles, but many people don’t start running until adulthood, so their bodies may not be as well developed for distance. Running on only artificial surfaces and in high-tech shoes can change the biomechanics of running, increasing the risks of injury.

What’s the solution? Slower, easier training over a long period would most likely help; so would brief walk breaks, which mimic the behavior of the persistence hunter. And running on a variety of surfaces and in simpler shoes with less cushioning can restore natural running form.

Mr. McDougall says that while researching his book, he corrected his form and stopped using thickly cushioned shoes. He has run without injury for three years.

Obama Visits Air Base to Honor Returning Dead

By JEFF ZELENY

President Obama returned to the White House on Thursday, after a visit to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to honor 18 Americans killed in Afghanistan, he said the cost and suffering of the war were among the factors influencing whether he would send more troops to the region.

“The burden that both our troops and our families bear in any wartime situation is going to bear on how I see these conflicts,” Mr. Obama said, speaking to reporters several hours later in the Oval Office. “It is something that I think about each and every day.”

It was the president’s first trip to the air base, the main point of entry for the nation’s war dead to return home.

The trip was a symbolic one for Mr. Obama, given the gravity of his coming announcement of a new strategy for Afghanistan.

The image of the commander in chief standing on a darkened tarmac, offering a salute to one of the soldiers, highlighted the poignancy of a decision he is facing. After beginning his presidential bid with a promise to end one war, Mr. Obama is now grappling with how many troops to commit to another.

The overnight trip was not announced in advance. The president, wearing a dark suit and a long overcoat, left the White House just before midnight. A small contingent of reporters and photographers was quietly called to follow him to Dover, where he met for two hours with members of 14 families. He returned to the White House at 4:45 a.m.

October has been the deadliest month for United States troops in Afghanistan since the war began eight years ago, with at least 55 killed in accidents and hostilities. Barely a day has gone by this week without fresh fatality reports coming back to Washington.

The bodies returning to the Dover base on Thursday morning included seven Army soldiers and three agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration who were killed when their helicopter crashed Monday in western Afghanistan after returning from the scene of a firefight with the Taliban.

The bodies of eight soldiers killed the same day when their vehicles were struck by roadside bombs in Kandahar Province arrived on the same cargo plane.

Mr. Obama boarded the back of the gray Air Force C-17 at 3:40 a.m., standing watch as an Air Force chaplain, Maj. Richard S. Bach, offered brief prayers over the flag-shrouded cases that contained remains of the 15 soldiers and three agents.

The family of an Army sergeant, Dale R. Griffin, 29, of Terre Haute, Ind., agreed to have the transfer of his remains photographed. The other families chose not to, under a new Pentagon policy that lifted an 18-year ban on news coverage of returning service members killed in action, but only if the families provide permission.

Six soldiers in white gloves, black berets and camouflage fatigues carried the remains of Sergeant Griffin. They passed Mr. Obama and a row of uniformed officers and dignitaries who stood at attention as the case was placed in a white mortuary van nearby.

Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary who traveled with the president to Dover, said the conversations Mr. Obama had with family members of the soldiers were private, but did not pertain directly to the decision of whether to send more troops to Afghanistan.

The president, Mr. Gibbs said, was silent on the way back to Washington.

“You get a real sense of the gravity when you see the faces of those who are there to greet their loved ones,” he said. “You can see the genuine anguish on their faces. It’s hard not to be overwhelmed by what you see.”

The trip came several hours after Mr. Obama signed a military spending bill, which he said “reaffirms our commitment to our brave men and women in uniform and our wounded warriors.”

Three days earlier, he spoke to sailors and Marines in Florida, where he defended himself against critics who suggest he is taking too long to announce a strategy for Afghanistan.

“I will never rush the solemn decision of sending you into harm’s way,” said Mr. Obama, who on Friday will meet with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the seventh major session on Afghanistan since beginning his review.

Gumshoes, Sleuths and Cops, Squealed on by Scribblers

By JANET MASLIN

It began as a marketing strategy. Otto Penzler, the renowned proprietor of the Mysterious Bookshop in New York City, wanted to keep his customers happy. And he wanted to keep them out of chain stores. So he began commissioning annual Christmas stories from popular crime writers and giving out free copies of these stories as thank-you gifts to the shop’s customers.

Then Mr. Penzler had an even niftier idea. (Santa! Are you listening?) He lined up some of the most famous mystery novelists around and asked them for 10-page riffs about their best-known characters. Those essays have been collected in “The Lineup,” an exciting omnibus volume that has widespread appeal and adds up to much, much more than the sum of its parts.

The mystery writers were free to attack this assignment in whatever way they chose. Some were more assiduous than others. Some just rambled; some indulged their egos; some cooked up conversations with their fictitious creations. One, Jeffery Deaver, even used his character’s obituary to create a miniature mystery plot.

But each wound up delivering memorable revelations about the mystery genre and its different incarnations. And there are many conflicting approaches represented here. That makes “The Lineup” the best book of its kind since Mr. Penzler edited a similar book, “The Great Detectives,” in 1978. Writers in that one included the creators of Dick Tracy, Matt Helm, the 87th Precinct and Nancy Drew.

Today’s star writers reflect the influence of the 1978 group. “The Great Detectives” included an essay on Lew Archer by Ross Macdonald; now crime writers are divided between those who cite Macdonald’s influence (Michael Connelly) and those who prefer John D. MacDonald and Travis McGee (Lee Child). The alphabetical juxtaposition of Mr. Child and Mr. Connelly in this lineup yields other interesting contrasts as well. Mr. Child picked the name Jack Reacher, he says, because he was deliberately trying to do something different, and “there was a miniature rash at the time of characters with cute or complex first names.” Next up: Mr. Connelly’s explanation of why he named his best-known detective Hieronymous Bosch.

Such implicit clashes appear throughout “The Lineup,” which is part of the book’s fascination. The Irish novelist John Connolly, a Ross Macdonald partisan, complains about the black-and-white morality of Agatha Christie-style puzzle mysteries and of “the more conservative elements in the genre, those who would like to see mystery fiction set in aspic somewhere between the birth of Sherlock Holmes and the last appearance of Hercule Poirot.” A fusty case in point: Colin Dexter, whose Inspector Morse books embody that tidiness and whose essay takes the form of a harrumphing Q. and A. “What emboldened you to enlist in the rather crowded ranks of the crime-writing fraternity?” he asks himself.

Few readers of “The Lineup” are likely to be familiar with the work of every writer included here. But that’s why this book holds such enjoyable surprises. David Morrell may not be a household name, but he is certainly the source of one: Rambo. Mr. Morrell, a Canadian who was trying to write obliquely about the turbulent America of the 1960s without losing his United States residency, writes fascinatingly about the genesis of a character who bore very little resemblance to his “jingoistic” film incarnation. It was not until 36 years after the publication of Mr. Morrell’s “First Blood” that a “Rambo” film, much to Mr. Morrell’s surprise, actually captured his original intent.

Although “The Lineup” is best read cover to cover, there are those who will seek out favorites first. And these essays are so true to form that they’re not apt to change your preferences. Mr. Child’s dazzling explication of exactly how he concocted Jack Reacher (“To me it was crucial that he should have a certain nobility — which is a strange thing to say about a guy who goes around busting heads as frequently and thoroughly as Jack Reacher does”) is as lucid and gratifying as his books are. Carol O’Connell’s caustic, droll view of Kathy Mallory signals her books’ appeal. But it’s worth knowing that the feline inspiration for the sociopathic yet glamorously diffident Mallory comes from James Joyce’s “Ulysses,” and that it’s only 11 words long: “Cruel. Her nature. Curious mice never squeal. Seem to like it.”

Maybe Robert Crais’s fans will like what he has to say, too. It’s not short on personality. “If you’re reading this,” he writes, “you probably groove on my guys and maybe even snap up my new books as soon as they come out,” which is akin to Jonathan Kellerman’s reference to the “tens of millions of other people” interested in his work. Mr. Kellerman also thinks that you, at this moment, are reading a “tedious periodical sorely lacking in sparkling critical talent,” and candor is no small part of this collection’s great value.

Time and again these crime writers return to the same questions: Is your character like you? Where did the character’s name come from? How did you get published? The answers are always interesting (as when Faye Kellerman, who is married to Mr. Kellerman, supplies a whole lifetime’s worth of background material on her Orthodox Jewish heroine, Rina Lazarus, and does it well enough to expand her fan base in the process).

But there are just as many good questions that don’t come up: for instance, how do you churn out so many books each year? It’s notable that the superhumanly prolific James Patterson is not included here, that the collection includes Anne Perry but not Thomas Perry, and that a much admired American noir crime writer, James Crumley, does not crop up as a source of inspiration. But Clint Eastwood and “Hill Street Blues” do.

Only a few essays in “The Lineup” misfire. Ridley Pearson presents a grilling of his detective character, Lou Boldt, that is plot-heavy enough to be impenetrable. Ken Bruen free-associates a bit, using a style that works better for his books. And John Lescroart, another John D. MacDonald guy, doesn’t add much more than one of the best lines in this collection.

Dream Power - Dreams' Highest Capacity

By Christina Sponias

Through dream interpretation according to the scientific method you are able to use the extraordinary power of dreams because you see what really provokes the problems you face in your daily life, and how you can solve them successfully for sure.

The highest capacity of dreams cannot be stipulated because it has no limits, since our dreams are created by a wise superior mind that knows a lot more than our ignorant human conscience, and can teach us everything that we ignore.

The knowledge you get access to when you learn the dream language and you start having a direct communication with the wise unconscious mind, gives you a very clear vision of the reality where you belong, and a clear vision of yourself, and who you really are.

The unconscious mind:

- Answers all your questions in dreams

- Helps you solve all your problems

- Cures your mental illnesses

- Transforms your wild conscience into human

- Helps you develop your intelligence

- Teaches you how to be wise and live happily

- Brings you peace and satisfaction

- Helps you discover many things

- Helps you invent what you need

And many things more...

The atheist scientific world has to admit the existence of a superior mind that sends us wise messages in dreams because this is something that was already verified many times by many people. This is a real fact, which you can verify in practice too.

Once you learn the dream language discovered by Carl Jung and simplified by me who continued his research discovering much more, you'll verify by yourself that your dreams give you wise guidance and protection.

I'm giving you many free lessons about dream interpretation according to the scientific method in order to show you how true my discoveries are, and how much they can help you.

The more you learn about the meaning of dreams, more you'll desire to learn, because this is a font of wisdom that gives you the power to do whatever you desire, and have whatever you need.

You'll have much more than merely financial freedom. You'll acquire health, wisdom, peace, love and happiness, and keep them for life.

Learn today how to exactly translate your own dreams with my simple method of dream translation derived from Jung's method, and start solving your problems right now.

You only have to learn the dream language once, the same way you learn any foreign language, to have access to this knowledge forever, and use it to your benefit for the rest of your life.

All the power of dreams is concentrated in this knowledge, which will open your eyes immediately.

You'll also help many other people in your life, because you'll be far superior to common human beings, who use only a tiny portion of their brain.

8 Tips to Embrace Change

By Kellie D'Andrea

Successful people embrace change. They understand that everything around them changes, all of the time and they adapt accordingly. Although change can be exciting, it can also be fearful and a bit overwhelming. When change happens you have two choices: Accept it or resist it. The choice is yours. What is stopping you from reaching for that brass ring?

If you chose to resist change, you most likely have done so because of fear. Fear can be an immobilizing emotion and if not managed correctly, can rob you of many opportunities and from creating and enjoying an abundant life. There is an acronym for F.E.A.R - False Evidence Appearing Real. We create false evidence in our minds to justify our decision not to move forward. We also become so overwhelmed with fear, that we lose focus and lose sight of what is really important to us and this single factor, can keep us in our current situations and living our lives in its current state. If you want to overcome your fear, here are some final words of wisdom and tips that have worked for me:

1) Everyone fears something.

Nobody is invincible. Everyone has encountered fear at one time or another, even the most successful people in the world so you are not alone and can get through it as many before you have.

2) Take small steps

Break down your action into smaller actions that you build upon. For example, if you are scheduled to give a presentation to a large group but are fearful, try talking with smaller groups. If you are trying to exercise, try walking around the block. You do not have to run that marathon right now if you are afraid, but you do need to look for continual improvement and take action towards your goal.

3) Nobody is paying attention to you.

So many times, we fear embarrassment or not being accepted by others. In the top ten fears of humans, Public Speaking holds the number 1 spot, while death holds number 5. Meaning, people would rather end their life rather than not be accepted by a group. The truth is, nobody is paying attention to you and you need to be confident in who you are and worry less about what other people think.

4) Staying positive, motivated and focused.

One of the most powerful weapons in your arsenal is a healthy mind. Remind yourself each day why you want to achieve your goals, what positive changes will come to your life and remain on target. You must never lose sight of your target and where you want to go and more importantly, the why.

5) Accept failure as part of change

Things do not always go our way. We will fail. It is not the failure that we should be focused on but what we learned from that failure so we do not repeat again. By changing your mindset to look at failure as an opportunity to grow and to learn, you will create the behaviors to support taking the next action to move you closer to your goal.

6) Embrace a live in the moment attitude.

Focus your energy in the moment. Do not dwell in the past or constantly dream about the future. You have a life going on right now - embrace the moment. Be completely present and engaged in what is going on right now - your conversations, your relationships, your career, everything. Appreciate what you have and focus on making the changes you need to right now in this moment!

7) Allow change to happen.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over the same way expecting different results. The only way you and your life are going to change is to let change happen. Transform, be free and embrace every opportunity as a positive experience.

8) Do what makes you happy!

For your goals to work, they must be personal and you must have an emotional connection to the result. You own your own life so do what makes you happy. Not what you think others want from you. If the people in your life truly love you, they will support you in decisions and I guarantee you they want you to be happy.

If you chose to accept change, you are in for the ride of your lifetime! Your life is going to change and since you are in complete control of your choices, you life will be all you desire. In Stephen Covey's "7 Habits of Highly Effective People, he discusses being aware of the things you can control in life and the things that you cannot control. Knowing this difference is critical in accepting change.