Iranian Atomic Urgency 
• A new assessment says Iran is one month away from having enough weapons-grade uranium to build a nuclear bomb. See USA Today‘s summary, or the full report (pdf format).
• Iran launched a “Down With America” contest. You can win cash for demonizing the US in cartoons, photos, hymns (!?) and blog posts.
The topics encourage entrants to focus on the United States as a centre of imperialism, hypocrisy and prejudice against Islam, and Iran in particular.
• Bret Stephens vs. Lisa Goldman? No contest. Get a body bag.
• Brian Whitaker vs. Robert Fisk? Pass the popcorn!
• For commentary/analysis of the US-Saudi rupture, see Yoram Ettinger, Mordechai Kedar, Clifford May, Jonathan Tobin, Jeff Jacoby, and Reuters.
The Syrian Situation
• The Observer paints a bleak picture of Syrian refugees in Lebanon.
Uppermost in every refugee’s mind is winter. Snow will blanket this area within weeks. In one of the tented settlements in Bar Elias, people are salvaging anything they can to insulate their ramshackle tents. There are 120 tents here: people are digging their own latrines and the place is infested with rats and snakes.
• Norway turned down a US request to take and destroy the majority of Syria’s chemical weapons. Norway’s foreign minister said his country didn’t have a port capable of receiving the WMDs, nor did it have the ability to treat some of the waste byproducts. Oh yeah, the American/Russian deadlines weren’t doable either. What next? AP coverage.
• If your outlook on Hezbollah vs. Al-Qaida in Syria is summed as Let Allah sort ’em out, pass the popcorn, Abdulrahman al-Rashed will make you pause and maybe think again.
(Image of atom via deejaywill, Norway flag via Flickr/Bernt Sonvisen)
For more, see the previous Israel Daily News Stream.
