Spring. Those are just some of the stories were covering on tonights pbs newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by and by the alfred p. Sloan foundation. Supporting science, technology, and improved Economic Performance and Financial Literacy in the 21st century. And with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. And. This program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Ifill european sanctions on iran could be eased as early as next month. That word came today from french and European Union officials. It follows the weekend agreement to relax some sanctions in return for freezing much of Irans Nuclear program. Well look at the details and the wider implications for the middle east right after the news summary. National security advisor susan rice was in kabul today, urging afghan President Hamid karzai to sign a security deal without delay. The agreement would govern any u. S. Troops who stay to train afghan units, after nato combat forces withdraw next year. Afghan elders endorsed the pact sunday, but karzai insisted hell leave it to his successor to sign after aprils elections. A date and place for syrian peace talks are finally set january 22 in geneva. The United Nations announced it today. The talks will be the first between the Syrian Government and opposition since the civil war began, nearly three years ago. U. N. Secretary general ban ki moon urged both sides to lay the groundwork for peace. Even though the conference will take place in about eight weeks, all parties can and must begin now to take steps to help the geneva conference succeed, including toward the cessation of violence, humanitarian access, release of detainees and return of Syrian Refugees and internally displaced people to their homes. Ifill announcement of the talks came as the fighting raged on. More than 160 people were killed over the weekend, as rebels tried to break a government siege of a damascus suburb. New findings are out, on the Mass Shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in newtown, connecticut last december. The motive remains a mystery, but the report sheds new light on other aspects of the killings. Jeffrey brown has the story. Brown the longawaited report came nearly a year after the shootings that ravaged the tiny connecticut town. On december 14, 2012, adam lanza shot and killed his mother at their home, then drove to nearby Sandy Hook Elementary School, where hed once attended. There, he killed 20 first graders and six School Staffers before turning the gun on himself. The state attorneys report concludes lanza planned the rampage on his own and told no one in advance. It finds he had an obsession with mass killings, but it concludes the ultimate motive for the sandy hook attack may never be known. The report is heavily redacted. Thats partly because newtown officials have labored to protect the privacy of the victims families and help the community recover. That included a decision to demolish the school itself a move welcomed by many. Were a very Strong Community and were going to overcome this. Were going to move on and theyre going to put up another Beautiful School and were going to move on. Brown a fuller account of the shootings may ultimately come from the connecticut state police. Theres no release date for their report. Ifill a blast of arctic weather swept across the u. S. Today, with nearly a month still to go before winter officially arrives. What began as an ice storm in the west moved eastward, dumping sleet, freezing rain and snow in arkansas, oklahoma and texas. The system is blamed for the deaths of at least ten people in traffic accidents. Forecasts show the storm sweeping up the east coast, just as thanksgiving Holiday Travel begins in earnest. In thailand, the Prime Minister invoked emergency law in the face of escalating protests against her rule. Thousands of demonstrators flooded streets in bangkok and occupied major ministries. Hours later, in a nationally televised address, Prime MinisterYingluck Shinawatra said it has to stop. translated the protesters today have staged mass rallies and seized government offices such as the finance ministry, budget bureau, Foreign Ministry and Public Relations department. Which is preventing officials from doing their work and causing trouble to people in a wide area, and affecting the countrys stability. Ifill opponents say the Prime Minister is actually a puppet for her brother, a former Prime Minister ousted by the military in 2006, amid corruption charges. President obama tried to refocus attention on Immigration Reform today, but his message was momentarily drowned out. The president was speaking in San Francisco when a man on the stage behind him began to shout for an end to deportations and others joined in. You have a a powerful thats why were doing. I need your help. Okay. What i would like to do. Ifill the president managed to quiet the hecklers, and urged them to put their energy into lobbying congress. The easy way out is to try to yell and pretend like i can do something by violating our laws. And what im proposing is the harder path which is to use our democratic processes to achieve the same goal you want to achieve, but it wont be as easy as just shouting. Ifill the prospects for quick action on sweeping Immigration Reform are doubtful as best. House republicans have said they will not hold any votes on the issue for the rest of this year. On wall street, stocks were largely unchanged. The Dow Jones Industrial average gained seven points to close at 16,072. The nasdaq rose just under three points to close at 3994. Still to come on the newshour, going inside the science, the politics and the diplomacy behind the nuclear deal with iran; living on less after cuts to food stamps; four fictional republicans share a house in gary trudeaus new web series and the push for democracy in the birthplace of the arab spring. Woodruff amidst a chorus of complaints from israel, some arab gulf states and members of congress, president obama and other Administration Officials went out today to try to sell the interim deal reached with iran over its nuclear program. The president took time at the start of an Immigration Reform event in california to make a pitch for the iran deal struck in the wee hours of sunday morning if iran seizes this opportunity and chooses to join the Global Community then we can begin to chip away at the mistrust thats existed for many many years between our two nations. None of thats going to be easy, huge challenges remain. Woodruff but today talk focused on the nuts and bolts of the sixmonth pact. And the initial sanctions relief secured in sundays deal had shoppers and merchants buzzing in tehrans grand bazaar today. translated people have more motivation to buy. There is more confidence among shoppers. Woodruff irans economy has been crippled by comprehensive International Sanctions for years, but today, frances foreign minister said the European Union could begin easing its penalties next month, including, mainly, access to frozen oil revenues. He also said all moves are conditional. Vigilance goes in both directions. I mean that tehran will also be vigilant on us sticking to our commitments. For instance, weve committed to ease a certain number of sanctions. Its reversible. Woodruff that air of caution permeated talk throughout europe. In london, British Foreign secretary William Hague explained the deal to parliament, and he urged israel and others to give the agreement a chance. We would discourage anybody in the world, including israel, from taking any steps that would undermine this agreement and we will make that very clear to all concerned. Woodruff israeli Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu had denounced the deal as a historic mistake and said his government is not bound by it. Today he was no less direct after speaking to president obama last night. translated it is a bad deal as it takes the pressure off iran without receiving anything concrete in return. And the iranians, who are laughing all the way to the bank, have said themselves that this deal has saved them. This agreement must bring one result, dismantling ira Nuclear Weapons capabilities. Woodruff in fact, though, that is not on the table in this sixmonth, firststage agreement. Instead, iran agreed to neutralize its stockpile of uranium thats already enriched to 20 , a big step toward reaching weaponsgrade; stop enriching any uranium beyond 5 purity; stop installing new centrifuges or building new facilities to enrich uranium and grant new and greater access to International Inspectors. Iran also agreed to halt work at its arak plutonium facility. The deal produced a heros welcome for iranian negotiators as they returned to tehran last night. But a major core issue remains unresolved, whether iran has a fundamental right to enrich uranium. The u. S. Says it does not; irans foreign minister says it does. So, does this deal do enough to contain Irans Nuclear program as negotiators attempt a final agreement . We have two views Jeffrey Lewis is director of the east Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Monterey Institute of international studies. And Gregory Jones is a Senior Researcher at the non proliferation education center. Welcome to you both. Jeffrey lewis, to you first, you believe this is a good deal. Explain why you think it stops or begins to stop iran from enriching uranium to a weapons grade, a place where it can use it for weapons . Well, the first thing to note is it is an interim deal. And so the question is, is this deal good enough to keep talking . Or is it worth blowing up and just going our separate ways . By definition, the deal prevents iran from enriching above five percent, and it caps the size of irans stockpile of enriched uranium. The reason you need an interim deal is because if we are going to be talking to the iranians we didnt need to be talking to them while they were continuing to enrich uranium and expand their system. In exchange there is a temporary and reversible reduction of sanctions so that the iran yen side comes home with something. Because although i think in the yonted states we seem to have forgotten untilment usually when you make deals internationally both sides get something. So Gregory Jones, how do you see this question of enriching. Irans capability of enriching uranium . Well, first of all, we are still permitting iran to enrich uranium. Its stock pifl enriched uranium is continuing to grow. A number of Nuclear Weapons, they will be able to produce for this is also continuing to grow in the next six months. President obama says that weve cut off irans path to Nuclear Weapons. In fact, we havent. Its still there and virtually everyone agrees that the time would require iran to acquire a Nuclear Weapons is virtually unchanged by this agreement. Furthermore, this agreement is, in fact, something of a disaster because it actually does validate irans right to enrich. Even though secretary kerry says it doesnt. It seems to plainly do so. And this is a disaster not only with regard to iran, but with regard to nonproliferation worldwide. Woodruff well, before we get to that broader question of the right to enrich, what about what mr. Jones just said. Let me come back to you, Jeffrey Lewis. Basically hes saying that iran can still make can still enrich, can still, in esence, make a web. Well, if the United States had agreed to the deal that greg is suggesting that we a he good to, it would be a bad deal. But its not the deal we agreed to. In terms of enrichment, iran is allowed to continue running the centrifuges and enriching uranium but the size of the stockpile cant increase. So it has to take whatever it produces and convert it into a form thats not weaponsusable. He mentioned the fact that there would be no increase in the length of time that it would take iran to acquire a nuclear weapon, again, its just its not true. One of the provisions is that for daily access of the iaea to Irans Nuclear facility. So it would be much harder for the iranians if they decided to make a break for a nuclear weapon. So i think one of the biggest problems the president is going to have in selling this deal is dealing with what really amounts to a tremendous amount of disinformation about its terms. Woodruff gregory jops, you want to respond to those two points . Im afraid hes incorrect. One cannot convert enriched uranium into a form that cant be converted into weaponsment i mean they talk about converting the enriched uranium to oxide but its easy enough to convert that back. For the 20 that was a problem because of critality issues t isnt for 3. 5 . So they can certainly do that. They can continue to enrich. The safeguards only do us any good if they think the u. S. Will take action on it and give enthe president s choking when syrian syria used chemical weapons back in august, i dont know what we thinks going to happen, even if the iaea were to detect something. Woodruff jeff row lewis, it sounds like you are talking about two different agreements. Well, i mean, i think a lot of this is just sort of you heard the reference to the president s choke. I mean, the fact is that the terms of the deal are pretty plain to see. And if you were to look at them, you would see there are plenty of safeguards and measures. Were to the going to resolve it on tv. But i think basically boils down to this, which is, there was no meaningful constraint on Irans NuclearWeapons Program before we had this deal. And so the argument amounts to we should blow up what we have, and let iran go back to enriching uranium on unconstrained basis on the belief that there is somehow some better, amazing deal out there. And you know, a lot of people making that argument had urged the Bush Administration to get a better deal and they didnt. Woodruff so Gregory Jones, you hear what hes saying. I mean, hes saying this, at least, begins to put the brakes on what on where iran was headed. Well, and that would be a useful thing. And there are some useful things in the agreement. In particular our getting to inspect their centrifuge production facilities. Woodruff im sorry, it looks like weve lost one of our guests or both of our guests . All right, let me come back to you. Im here. Woodruff my apologies. Jeffrey, lewis, i mean maybe i have you both back. But Jeffrey Lewis, let me come to you now. This question of inspectors, how confident are you that the International Inspectors are going to be able to get in there and verify that iran is doing what it says its doing . Well, look, theres an easy problem in iran and a hard problem. The easy problem is verifying the declared facilities. And so having daily access to those facilities i think gives one a very high level of assurance. The hard problem in iran is always going to be the possibility of a covert facility, a facility one cant see. And so the way that one needs to address that is by having a much broader and more comprehensive access to the iranian program. So for example, what greg mentioned was access to the workshop where the iranians build the centrifuges. Right now the iranians can build as many centrifuges as they want and if they show up, the inspectors see them. If they show up in a mountain somewhere, in a tunnel, we dont see them. So we are able to get inside those workshops and see how many centrifuges theyre making. And in fact, the deal contains a constraint on how many they can make. It helps deal with that second harder problem of sites we dont yet know about. Woodruff Gregory Jones, we have you back. Sorry were that. But what about the points that we just heard from Jeffrey Lewis. As i said, its deal has some useful features. But its giving up this major point that it is agreed that iran can have enrichment. Once youve done that, we are looking at a very longterm problem, not only with iran, but with nonproliferation worldwide. Woodruff Jeffrey Lewis, final word. Well, its a good ideament i dont know if anybody had noticed but iran does have enrichment and they do have centrifuges. And weve told them for about ten years that they cant and they dont stop. If we want them to stop, we have to have a dell. This is the deal on the table, we should take it. Woodruff all right, gentlemen, well leave it there. Jeffrey lewis and Gregory Jones