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Nuclear talks over Iran extended
Tehran maintains it does not want to manufacture nuclear weapons but instead wants atomic energy. This sentiment came out of a session of talks taking place in Vienna between a handful of the world’s major powers and Iran. The U.S., U.K., Russia, China, France, and Germany are trying to conclude a deal that was initially struck last year in Geneva. The deal would reduce UN sanctions on Iran in exchange for them scaling back their nuclear program. While progress was made over the weekend, talks are expected to continue again in December at a different location with all interested parties set on putting together a game plan. [Source: BBC]
Putin vows not to stay in President’s seat forever
Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, does not intend to sit atop the bear for life. He may run again in 2018, but that would be it, Putin said, adding that such a move would be,“not good, and (is) detrimental for the country, and I do not need it as well.” Putin was elected to the presidency in 2000, where he rode out an entire eight-year term before becoming prime minister. Putin became president again in 2012, and under law can stay in this position for two, consecutive eight-year terms only. Unless, of course, he rewrites these laws, a prescient issue on the mind of many as Russia continues to dig in its heels against the West. But, Putin assured the public in an interview with state-owned TASS news agency, that he does not intend to start another cold war. “We realize the malignity of the ‘Iron Curtain’ for us, and nobody is going to build a wall around us.” If he runs and wins in 2018, Putin would be the longest-standing Russian president since Stalin. [Source: Washington Journal]
Twelve-year-old boy carrying fake gun shot, killed by police
Tamir Rice, 12, died in hospital Sunday after being shot by Ohio police for brandishing a toy gun. The tragic incident has raised questions about police response – “Why not tase him?” asked Rice’s father – and the recognizability of replica guns. The person who called 911 told the operator that the gun was “probably a fake” and that the person waving it around and pointing it at people “was probably a juvenile.” Police allegedly told Rice to raise his arms. And when he went for the fake pistol, they shot him. [Source: BBC]
Letter that inspired Jack Kerouac’s On the Road found
A 16,000-word letter Jack Kerouac said “was the greatest piece of writing” he’d ever read, and the alleged inspiration behind his work On the Road, has been found. It was written by beat author Neal Cassady, in the free-form style Kerouac adopted. Allen Ginsberg leant the letter to a friend, and that was the last of it. Kerouac assumed the friend threw it into the sea, and lamented the loss in an interview with The Paris Review in 1968: “It was my property, a letter to me, so Allen shouldn’t have been so careless with it, nor the guy on the houseboat,” he said. “It was the greatest piece of writing I ever saw, better’n anybody in America, or at least enough to make Melville, Twain, Dreiser, Wolfe, I dunno who, spin in their graves.” The letter was found by the daughter of someone connected to the publishing of this letter, which is known as the “Joan Anderson Letter.” [Source: The Independent]
More than a dozen arrested in Trans Mountain Pipeline protests
More than a dozen people protesting the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion project on Burnaby Mountain were taken into custody Sunday, acting on an injunction ordering protesters to clear the two Kinder Morgan work sites on the mountain. The company is doing preliminary work related to the proposed expansion of the controversial Trans Mountain Pipeline, which delivers Alberta oil to refineries in the Vancouver and Washington areas. The expansion plan is for the addition of a new 1,150-kilometre pipeline to deliver oil alongside the existing one, increasing capacity to 890.000 barrels per day. Sunday’s arrests come after a series of other arrests last week. David Suzuki was present, in case you thought he wasn’t. [Source: Globe and Mail]
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