Defying the UN Security Council, Iran activated a second centrifuge Monday to enrich uranium more efficiently, the International Atomic Energy Agency said.

The Vienna-based nuclear watchdog said Monday Iran has started using a second set of 164 centrifuges linked in a cascade, or string of machines, to enrich uranium to up to 20 percent at its Natanz pilot fuel enrichment plant. Another cascade there has been producing uranium enriched to near 20 percent since February.

It is unsurprising that the 9/11 attack fostered a massive expansion of America’s already sprawling Surveillance State. But what is surprising, or at least far less understandable, is that this growth shows no signs of abating even as we approach almost a full decade of emotional and temporal distance from that event. The spate of knee-jerk legislative expansions in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 trauma — the USA-PATRIOT Act — has actually been exceeded by the expansions of the last several years — first secretly and lawlessly by the Bush administration, and then legislatively and out in the open once Democrats took over control of the Congress in 2006. Simply put, there is no surveillance power too intrusive or unaccountable for our political class provided the word “terrorism” is invoked to “justify” those powers.

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It hasn't been the coolest summer on record, but it's been close, forecasters say.

The average temperature in July was 79 degrees, five degrees below normal, and the first eight days of this month also have been five to six degrees below normal, weather experts said.

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Since Barack Obama was inaugurated and began to implement his anti-Israel policies, the Democratic Party has been strangely silent about Israel and while the GOP has been cheerleading for the Jewish State. Sure most Democrats signed non-binding letters in support of Israel (Republicans also), and Chuck Schumer complained on a small Jewish-targeted radio station (he backed off his comment when it reached the general media), but with few exceptions, members of the President’s party have refused to stick their head above the cloak of anonymity provided by a  letter with the signatures of  300+ colleagues  to publicly support Israel or to disagree with the President’s misdirected one-side policy on Israel.

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China mudslides blocked roads and bridges on Sunday, leaving rescuers today to dig with shovels and their bare hands, occasionally finding survivors. Authorities expect the official death toll of 127 to rise.

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North Korea fired about 110 rounds of artillery Monday near its disputed sea border with South Korea, the South's military said, amid high tension over the deadly sinking of a South Korean warship blamed on North Korea.

The firing came shortly after South Korea ended five-day naval drills off the west coast that the North called a rehearsal for an invasion, vowing to retaliate.

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Floods and landslides across Asia plunged millions into misery Sunday as rubble-strewn waters killed at least 127 in northwestern China and 4 million Pakistanis faced food shortages amid their country's worst-ever flooding.

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Cuba's Fidel Castro took part in his first government function since he nearly died in 2006, repeating his apocalyptic warnings of a nuclear war that only President Barack Obama can avert as he spoke Saturday to a formal session of parliament.

Read more at Miami Herald

Sen. Jim DeMint (R- S.C.) said that if President Barack Obama gets his way and the Senate ratifies the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the precedent would be set to place parental rights under the jurisdiction of the international community.

“We believe we need to take clear action here in Congress to protect the rights of parents to raise their children," DeMint said at a Wednesday panel discussion. "This treaty would, in fact, establish a precedent that those rights have been given over to the international community."

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The Moscow skyline of the Kremlin and St. Basil's Cathedral vanished Friday as a blanket of thick, noxious smoke shrouded the metropolis, leaving many of the city's 10 million residents with sore throats and burning eyes.

On Friday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visited a Moscow ambulance station, accompanied by top health officials. He was told that the number of emergency calls has increased by about 10 percent lately, related to the heat and smog.

The acrid smoke, from thousands of square miles of wildfires, drove carbon monoxide levels in Moscow five times higher than what is considered safe, the Russian Health Ministry said.

Read more at CNN