Guardian leading article. The article referred to is here.

Two analysts at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) have argued that the international community should accept Iran's current counter-offer, which is to have the fuel swap (low-enriched uranium for fuel elements) but keep it on Iranian soil. Ivanka Barzashka and Ivan Oelrich say that in haggling over details we are losing sight of the goal, which would be to make it more difficult, not easier, for Iran to build a nuclear weapon.

[...]

We are back to a familiar game of diplomatic brinkmanship, but one cannot help thinking that if sanity were to break out it would be in a form not too far away from the FAS's version. The gaps are bridgeable. There is, unfortunately, much that could happen in the Middle East to derail that outcome.

BBC report.

Afghan prisoners are being abused in a "secret jail" at Bagram airbase, according to nine witnesses whose stories the BBC has documented.

The abuses are all said to have taken place since US President Barack Obama was elected, promising to end torture.

Paul Woodward on Mondoweiss.

Here's how President Obama states the nuclear paradox:

The risk of a nuclear confrontation between nations has gone down, but the risk of a nuclear attack has gone up.

Here's how I define it:

Hypothetical nuclear threats provoke more fear than real nuclear threats.

Nowhere is this paradox more evident than in Tel Aviv and Tehran.

Which city is currently in greater jeopardy of nuclear annihilation? Tehran.

Which city's residents are repeatedly being told by their political leaders they should be afraid of nuclear annihilation? Tel Aviv's.

ABC report.

Malaysia's Petronas has stopped supplying gasoline to Iran, a company spokesman said on Thursday, as the threat of U.S. sanctions on oil firms with supply ties to the Islamic Republic looms large.

Iran is the world's fifth biggest crude oil exporter but U.S. sanctions mean it has suffered from lack of investment in refineries, forcing the OPEC member to import some 40 percent of its gasoline needs.

Malaysia's state oil firm has stopped supplying gasoline to Iran since the middle of March, the Petronas spokesman told Reuters.

USA Today report. The document referred to is here (PDF).

The White House has warned state and local governments not to expect a "significant federal response" at the scene of a terrorist nuclear attack for 24 to 72 hours after the blast, according to a planning guide.

President Obama told delegates from 47 nations at the Nuclear Security Summit on Tuesday that it would be a "catastrophe for the world" if al-Qaeda or another terrorist group got a nuclear device, because so many lives would be lost and it would be so hard to mitigate damage from the blast.

The Leveretts (Race for Iran) comment.

We have previously emphasized that the "Iranian exception" in the Nuclear Posture Review, from a purely strategic perspective, actually incentivizes Iran to move toward weaponization of its expanding nuclear capabilities. However, a www.TheRaceForIran.com reader in Iran argued that the real issue regarding the "Iranian exception" in the Nuclear Posture Review is not the prospect of "any change in Iran's policy regarding its nuclear program", but rather

"that the Iranians see Obama and even the U.S. media in a different light than before. To see a U.S. president threaten a nation with mass murder and then see that the U.S. and Western media is not outraged is a clear sign that Iran should never trust the U.S."

The Leveretts (Race for Iran) comment.

In the midst of its Nuclear Security Summit and in the wake of President Obama's bilateral meeting with China's President Hu yesterday, the Obama Administration is vigorously spinning the U.S. and Western media that it has won Chinese support for new sanctions against the Islamic Republic over its nuclear activities. To say the least, this is an exaggeration on the Obama Administration's part, and wholly unreflective reporting on the part of those journalists who repeated the exaggeration without question or context.

BBC report.

World leaders at a summit on nuclear security in Washington have heard dire warnings of the danger of nuclear material falling into the wrong hands.

US President Barack Obama, opening the biggest international meeting hosted by the US since 1945, greeted leaders from nearly 50 countries.

Ynetnews report.

The under secretary of state stressed that Washington will adopt a "calculated ambiguity" policy towards countries which do not pose a threat to the US. Despite not explicitly pointing to Israel, it appears her statements were meant to reassure the Jewish state.

Telegraph report.

"If there was ever a detonation in New York City, or London, or Johannesburg, the ramifications economically, politically and from a security perspective would be devastating. We know that organisations like al-Qaeda are in the process of trying to secure nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction, and would have no compunction at using them."

Andrew Sullivan on his Atlantic blog.

Lie after lie after lie. And the illegal imprisonment and torture of individuals often completely unrelated to terrorism at all. And no accountability. This was America for almost eight years. And Obama has perpetuated the avoidance of responsibility with staggering diligence.

Times report.

Terrorists including al-Qaeda pose a serious threat to world security as they attempt to obtain atomic weapons material, Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, declared on the eve of a global summit in Washington to prevent a nuclear terror attack.

The Leveretts write.

Iranian officials have said repeatedly, over years, that the Islamic Republic does not want nuclear weapons and is not seeking them. Furthermore, political and religious authorities have said that acquiring nuclear weapons would be a departure from Islamic ethical standards. (In this regard, it is interesting to note that Iran decided not to weaponize and use chemical agents during the Iran-Iraq war, even though Saddam Husayn subjected both Iranian military forces and civilian targets inside Iran to chemical attack.) Our understanding is that, within the Islamic Republic's decision-making circles, Ayatollah Khamenei has steadfastly rejected the weaponization of Iran's growing nuclear capabilities--and that opposition to nuclear weaponization remains his position. Certainly, Ayatollah Khamenei's public statements on the subject are consistent with such a position.

This is important in the context of the Islamic Republic's political order and culture. Given Tehran's record of official and religious rejection of nuclear weapons, for Ayatollah Khamenei to shift course at some point in the future and endorse nuclear weapons fabrication by the Islamic Republic would require him to explain, to the Iranian public and his followers throughout the Shi'a world, how Iran's strategic circumstances had changed to such an extent that it was now both necessary and legitimate for the country to develop a full-fledged nuclear deterrent. But, as a highly regarded Iranian analyst pointed out to us last week, having the United States threaten to "nuke" the Islamic Republic could plausibly be an important element in the changed circumstances that might warrant a fundamental shift in Iran's posture toward nuclear weapons.

New York Times report.

A large majority of Iranian lawmakers, angered over the Obama administration's new nuclear weapons policy that conspicuously makes Iran and North Korea possible targets, urged their government on Sunday to formally complain to the United Nations in a petition that called the United States a warmonger and threat to world peace.

Christina Lamb in the Times.

The Karzai family has now hit back, accusing US officials of launching a smear campaign as a prelude to abandoning the country again. "There's a very bad policy developing towards Afghanistan," said the president's brother Mahmoud Karzai, a businessman who lives in Kabul. "They want to discredit the Afghan government in the eyes of the US public. I hope it's not the beginning of an exit strategy. If it is, God help us, it will be very bad -- don't they remember what happened when they did this before in the Eighties?"

Patrick Martin on wsws.org.

The new Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) issued by the Pentagon Tuesday is being hailed by the Obama administration's apologists as a step towards global nuclear disarmament. It is nothing of the kind. The document lays out a rationale that would justify the use of nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state for the first time since the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Iran and North Korea are singled out as potential targets.