VIENNA, Austria – Arab nations accused Israel on Monday of blasting Gaza with ammunition containing depleted uranium and urged the International Atomic Energy Agency to investigate reports that traces of it had been found in victims of the shelling.
In a letter on behalf of Arab ambassadors accredited in Austria, Prince Mansour Al-Saoud, the Saudi Ambassador, expressed "our deep concern regarding the information ... that traces of depleted uranium have been found in Palestinian victims."
A final draft of the letter was made available to The Associated Press on Monday. It urgently requested IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei to "carry out a radiological and physical assessment in order to verify the presence of depleted uranium in the weaponry used by Israel ... in the Gaza Strip."
Officials at the Israeli mission to the IAEA said they were in no position to comment without having seen the letter.
IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming confirmed receipt of the letter and said a response might be issued later in the day.
The letter — which spoke of "medical and media sources" as the origin of its allegations — appeared to be alluding to health concerns related to depleted uranium but the effects of exposure to the substance are unclear.
An IAEA article on the issue says that while the substance "is assumed to be potentially carcinogenic ... the lack of evidence for a definite cancer risk in studies over many decades is significant and should put the results of assessments in perspective."
Still, says the article, "there is a risk of developing cancer from exposure to radiation emitted by ... depleted uranium. This risk is assumed to be proportional to the dose received."
It is not the first time Israel has been accused of using ordnance containing depleted uranium, which makes shells and bombs harder and increases their penetrating power. The Israeli army declined comment. But the U.S. and NATO have used uranium-depleted rounds in Bosnia and Iraq.
According to the World Health Organization, the weapons are lightly radioactive, though "under mostVIENNA, Austria – Arab nations accused Israel on Monday of blasting Gaza with... more
WASHINGTON — The United Nation’s nuclear inspectors declared for the first time on Thursday that extensive information they have collected raised concerns about “past or current undisclosed activities” by Iran’s military to develop a nuclear weapon. The unusually strongly worded conclusion seems certain to accelerate Iran’s confrontation with much of the rest of the world.
Their comments were contained in a report to the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the first accounting under the agency’s new head, Yukiya Amano.
The report also concluded that Iran’s weapons-related activity apparently continued “beyond 2004,” contradicting an American intelligence assessment published a little over two years ago that concluded that work was suspended at the end of 2003. While the intelligence agencies have never renounced that conclusion, several of President Obama’s top national security advisers have questioned it. Many in the Bush administration also doubted that conclusion.
The report contains no assessment of how long it would take Iran to produce a nuclear weapon, something that Iran denies it is trying to do, saying its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. As recently as early last month, administration officials said they believed it would be a year and a half, or maybe significantly longer, before Iran could become a nuclear power. But the report cited several pieces of new evidence, much of it collected in recent weeks, that appeared to paint a picture of a concerted drive in Iran toward a weapons capability.
The report said that Iranian officials gave inspectors, who visited the country last week, evidence that the country had successfully enriched uranium to 20 percent purity — well above current levels but still far below the level of enrichment used in a nuclear weapon. So far, the report said, the amounts enriched to the 20 percent level — which Iran says it needs for a research reactor that makes medical isotopes — are tiny.
But the report also said that Iran had moved the vast majority of its stockpile of low-enriched uranium into the plant doing the enrichment. It is a curious move. On the one hand, it seems to suggest that the country is preparing to convert all of its stockpile to a higher level of purity, one that could be further enriched to bomb-grade in a matter of months. But the facility where it has been moved is above ground, leaving the stockpile far more vulnerable to military attack.
Perhaps the most startling revelation in the report is that for the first time Iran told inspectors it was preparing to make its uranium into a metallic form — a step that can be explained by some civilian applications, but is widely viewed as necessary for making the core of an atom bomb. The report does not say what explanation the Iranians offered, if any, for the activity.
Mr. Amano’s attitude toward Iran has been closely watched. Some officials were concerned that the former Japanese diplomat would be unwilling to directly confront the Iranians in his first months in office. But as one American official said on Thursday, “it’s been clear to us that he recognizes the severity of what’s going on.”
U.N. experts will inspect Iran's newly disclosed uranium enrichment plant on October 25, the IAEA nuclear agency chief said on Sunday, praising a shift "from conspiracy to cooperation" between Tehran and the West.
The underground nuclear fuel facility near the holy Shi'ite city of Qom had been kept secret until Iran disclosed its existence last month, setting off an international furor.
Iran agreed with six world powers -- the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany -- in Geneva on Thursday to allow IAEA inspectors unfettered access to the site.U.N. experts will inspect Iran's newly disclosed uranium enrichment plant on... more
Gottemoeller said that India was coming closer to the non-proliferation regime by having taken preliminary steps such as its willingness to proceed with a fissile material cut-off treaty in cooperation with the United States and its willingness to pursue the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).
All Israeli online media picked up and reported on Gottemoeller's call to Israel to join the NPT, but that she refused to answer questions as to whether or not the US would exert any pressure on Israel to join the treaty. It didn't take long for Iran to declare that the US, Britain and France had themselves violated the treaty by facilitating Israel's nuclear program. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad-Ali Hosseini said that the three countries have been helping Israel with its nuclear program when he spoke at the Third Session of the Preparatory Committee of the 2010 NPT Review Conference, which opened in New York May 4 and runs till May 15.Gottemoeller said that India was coming closer to the non-proliferation regime by... more
When demonstrators took to the streets after Iran’s disputed Presidential election, many of them were students. That’s why, as Iran’s universities opened back up to students this week, many expected widespread student demonstrations.
The NY Times Lede Blog links to this great first-person video walking along with protests at Tehran University.
As for the other big Iran story: potential threats to the regime’s reputation from abroad. As news from the US is that Obama is preparing to set up a new round of sanctions, Tehran announced today that it will allow inspectors from the IAEA to come in and take a look around the Qom facility revealed last week. What will they find? A facility for purely civilian use? More roadblocks? We’ll see…When demonstrators took to the streets after Iran’s disputed Presidential... more
The UN nuclear inspection agency believes that Iran has "sufficient information" to make a nuclear weapon and had "probably tested" a key component, it was reported last night.
The Associated Press said it had obtained a "secret annexe" to a report on Iran by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which suggests that the agency's experts were more convinced Iran had been trying to make a bomb than its outgoing director, Mohamed ElBaradei, had admitted.
ElBaradei, a Nobel peace prizewinner, who leaves his post at the end of November, has said there is "no concrete evidence" the Iranians had worked on building a warhead. The agency repeated that position last night, in response to the AP report saying there was no "concrete proof that there is or has been a nuclear weapons programme in Iran", and that "all relevant information and assessments" are presented to the IAEA member states.
The statement did not comment on the authenticity of the AP document.
ElBaradei has angrily rejected French and Israeli claims that he has withheld important evidence of Iran's nuclear weapons work.
In the document quoted by AP, his inspectors report: "The agency… assesses that Iran has sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable implosion nuclear device based on HEU [highly enriched uranium] as the fission fuel."The UN nuclear inspection agency believes that Iran has "sufficient... more
WASHINGTON — International inspectors who gained access to Iran’s newly revealed underground nuclear enrichment plant raised questions in a report released on Monday about whether the country may have also concealed other nuclear factories.
So far Iran has denied that there are other hidden sites in addition to the one built deep underground on a military base north of the holy city of Qum. The inspectors were given access to the half-built plant late last month and reported that they had found it in “an advanced state” of construction, but that no centrifuges — the fast-spinning machines needed to make nuclear fuel – had yet been installed.
They confirmed American and European intelligence reports that the site was built to house about 3,000 centrifuges, enough to produce enough material for one or two nuclear weapons a year. But that is too small to be useful in the production of fuel for civilian nuclear power, which is what Iran insists was the intended purpose of the site.
The plant’s existence was revealed in September, as many as seven years after construction had begun.
The report by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspectors came just two days after President Obama, expressing increasing impatience with Iran’s responses in nuclear negotiations, indicated that he would begin to plan for far more stringent economic sanctions against Tehran. He was joined during that announcement by President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia, but Mr. Medvedev was vague about whether Russia was now prepared to join in those sanctions. Mr. Obama was expected to take up the issue on Tuesday with President Hu Jintao of China, where Mr. Obama is on a state visit. China, like Russia, has historically resisted sanctions on Iran.
In its report, the agency said that Iran’s belated “declaration of the new facility reduces the level of confidence in the absence of other nuclear facilities under construction, and gives rise to questions about whether there were any other nuclear facilities in Iran which had not been declared to the agency.”
Both I.A.E.A. officials and American and European diplomats and nuclear experts have argued that the existence of the hidden facility at Qum would make little sense unless there was a network of related facilities to feed it with raw nuclear fuel.
Iran denied that it had any other facilities that it had failed to report to the agency. But in a letter to the nuclear inspectors, parts of which were quoted in the report to the board of the I.A.E.A., Iranian officials said they were motivated to build the underground plant because of “the threats of military attacks against Iran,” a reference to the assumption that Israel, the United States or other Western powers might take military action against its main plant for uranium enrichment, located at Natanz.
Washington, 28 August (WashingtonTV)—The International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] brought Iran under more pressure to prove that its nuclear program is peaceful in nature, in a report published on Friday.
..... http://televisionwashington.com/floater_article1.aspx?lang=en&t=1&id=13528Washington, 28 August (WashingtonTV)—The International Atomic Energy Agency... more
In the past several years, there has been much contest over the Iranian nuclear program and the west has repeatedly rebuked any efforts made by Iran to step into the nuclear age. Now it seems that the previous efforts for Iran to enrich their uranium at home have been unsuccessful and Iran must ship their low-enriched uranium to other nations for further refinement. Several years back there was an article linked from Current regarding new techniques created in Iran using newly-modeled centrifuges which would highly enrich uranium... What happened?! It seems that now they must ship their uranium, which is to be used for medical research, to foreign nations. This is not entirely bad for Iran's stature with the west, the International Atomic Energy Agency monitors the facilities in the nations Iran is shipping their Uranium to, thus legitimizing the Iranian nuclear program.
These steps taken by Iran seem to be nullified by the States and their political figures, who for years have chastised Iran, it's leaders, and its nuclear program. The United States have pushed for threatening sanctions to be placed on Iran by the IAEA and the UN, and it seems they have not lightened up even now. Though the Iranians have been forced to ship their uranium to other facilities, this has placed them in the light of the IAEA inspectors and allowed other nations to see their level of development. The States have not relented in their onslaught of attempted discreditation, but several other nations have stepped up and taken up the slack in the Iranian program, putting many American fears to rest. The latest attempt of the States' has been criticism over a second national facility, this one built in secret. The Iranian defense was the need to have a second facility to fall back on if it came to the West wiping out the primary facility. The States didn't buy it, but several third parties agree that this facility is merely a secondary facility with no hidden agenda, merely a backup facility, built out of legitimate fear of Western reprisal. However, now that Iran must ship away most of their uranium, it is tracked all the way by the IAEA, nothing therefore can be hidden or operated in secret or aggresively - merely an honest attempt at nuclear technology.
There are many questions to be asked and answered in the coming years of the fledgling Iranian Nuclear Program, but for the time being, this development seems to be a positive note in the struggle to compete technologically with the west - and I most certainly do not hint at weaponization!
What are your thoughts on the Iranian Nuclear Program? Have the States been too harsh in their criticisms of Iran over these circumstances? What happened to Iran's new-type centrifuges?In the past several years, there has been much contest over the Iranian nuclear... more
Washington, 31 August (WashingtonTV)—United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Sunday called on Iran to “fully cooperate” with the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] in resolving outstanding questions about Tehran’s nuclear program. http://televisionwashington.com/floater_article1.aspx?lang=en&t=1&id=13562Washington, 31 August (WashingtonTV)—United Nations Secretary-General Ban... more
Image: The existence of Natanz was revealed by exiled groups several years ago.
Iran has revealed the existence of a second uranium enrichment plant, the UN nuclear watchdog has confirmed.
Tehran made the announcement earlier this week in a letter to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohammed ElBaradei.
Iran has previously acknowledged it has one enrichment plant at Natanz, which IAEA inspectors are monitoring.
The US, UK and France are set to accuse Iran of concealing the plant later on Friday, media reports say.
They and other Western nations have long feared that Iran is planning to develop an atomic weapon.
Iran has revealed the existence of a second uranium enrichment plant, the UN nuclear watchdog has confirmed.
Tehran made the announcement earlier this week in a letter to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohammed ElBaradei.
Iran has previously acknowledged it has one enrichment plant at Natanz, which IAEA inspectors are monitoring.
The US, UK and France are set to accuse Iran of concealing the plant later on Friday, media reports say.
They and other Western nations have long feared that Iran is planning to develop an atomic weapon.
IRAN'S NUCLEAR SITES:
Iran insists that all its nuclear facilities are for energy, not military purposes
Bushehr: Nuclear power plant
Isfahan: Uranium conversion plant
Natanz: Uranium enrichment plant, 4,592 working centrifuges, with 3,716 more installed
Second enrichment plant: Existence revealed to IAEA in Sept 2009. Separate reports say it is near Qom, and not yet operational
Arak: Heavy water plant
Tehran has always insisted its programme is for peaceful means.
Iran is supposed to have stopped all enrichment under threat of sanctions from the UN Security Council.
News of the Iranian letter comes days before Iran is due to enter fresh talks over its controversial nuclear programme.
France called Iran's move a "serious violation" of UN Security Council resolutions.
The IAEA confirmed it received a letter from Iran on Monday informing it that "a new pilot fuel enrichment plant is under construction".
Iran told the agency that no nuclear material had been introduced into the plant, and enrichment levels would only be high enough to make nuclear fuel, not a bomb.
In response, the IAEA has requested Iran to "provide specific information and access to the facility as soon as possible", an IAEA statement adds.
Iran insists that all its nuclear facilities are for energy, not military purposesImage: The existence of Natanz was revealed by exiled groups several years ago.... more
Negotiators in Vienna have produced a draft agreement on exporting Iran's enriched uranium. The countries involved have been given until Friday to ratify the proposals.
Under the draft deal, most of Iran's stockpile of low enriched uranium would be shipped out of the country for processing into fuel to make medical isotopes in a research reactor in Tehran.
Negotiators were unable to clinch a final agreement after more than two days of talks in the Austrian capital, apparently because the Iranian delegation, led by the ambassador to Vienna, did not have the authority to sign a far-reaching deal about which there was no consensus in Tehran.
Announcing the draft deal, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director, Mohamed ElBaradei, said it represented a balanced approach, offering to provide Iran with fuel for making medical isotopes, while building international confidence in Iran's intentions by shipping much of its enriched uranium out of the country.Negotiators in Vienna have produced a draft agreement on exporting Iran's... more
Remember how the administration lied about Saddam having WMD's? Well guess what. Everything they ever tell you about any foreign country is a fabrication.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has obtained evidence suggesting that documents which have been described as technical studies for a secret Iranian nuclear weapons-related research program may have been fabricated.
The documents in question were acquired by U.S. intelligence in 2004 from a still unknown source -- most of them in the form of electronic files allegedly stolen from a laptop computer belonging to an Iranian researcher. The US has based much of its push for sanctions against Iran on these documents.
The new evidence of possible fraud has increased pressure within the IAEA secretariat to distance the agency from the laptop documents, according to a Vienna-based diplomatic source close to the IAEA, who spoke to RAW STORY on condition of anonymity.
The laptop documents include what the IAEA has described in a published report as technical drawings of efforts to redesign the nosecone of the Iranian Shahab-3 ballistic missile “to accommodate a nuclear warhead.” The documents are also said to include studies on the use of a high explosive detonation system, drawings of a shaft apparently to be used for nuclear tests, and studies on a bench-scale uranium conversion facility.
These technical papers, along with some correspondence related to the alleged secret Iranian program -- referred to by the IAEA as “alleged studies” -- have been the primary basis during 2008 for the insistence by the US-led international coalition pushing for sanctions against Iran that the Iranian case must be kept going in the United Nations Security Council.
much more at link... Remember how the administration lied about Saddam having WMD's? Well guess what.... more
Iran has informed the International Atomic Energy Agency that it has been building a previously undeclared nuclear facility to enrich uranium, raising fears that Tehran is closer to acquiring an atomic bomb than has been predicted up until now.
The presence of a secret second site – built inside a mountain near the holy Shia city of Qum – has been known about by American and other Western intelligence agencies for some time, although nothing has been revealed until now.
Iran’s formal letter to the IAEA in Vienna, sent on Monday, pre-empted an announcement to be made today by President Obama, Gordon Brown and President Sarkozy of France before the opening of the G20 economic summit in Pittsburgh, in which Tehran will be accused of building the secret facility about 100 miles southwest of the Iranian capital.
Although the CIA and National Security Agency (NSA) has been tracking construction of the plant for several years, Mr Obama decided it was time to put maximum pressure on Tehran by revealing its existence.Iran has informed the International Atomic Energy Agency that it has been building a... more
Iraq has started lobbying for approval to again become a nuclear player, almost 19 years after British and American war planes destroyed Saddam Hussein's last two reactors, the Guardian has learned.
The Iraqi government has approached the French nuclear industry about rebuilding at least one of the reactors that was bombed at the start of the first Gulf war.
The government has also contacted the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and United Nations to seek ways around resolutions that ban Iraq's re-entry into the nuclear field.Iraq has started lobbying for approval to again become a nuclear player, almost 19... more
IAEA's Gustavo Zlauvinen: Israel must join the NPT and get rid of their alleged nuclear weapons.
In the latest video, TRNN Senior Editor Paul Jay asked Gustavo Zlauvinen about the apparent hypocrisy of the IAEA's pursuit in limiting Iranian nuclear armament. Jay asks that if the major nuclear powers were not disarming, and not signing the NPT, by what standard should countries like Iran limit their own nuclear programs. The international pressure to prevent Iranian nuclear weaponization has drawn attention to the nuclear arsenals of other Middle Eastern countries like Israel, a country with allegedly extensive nuclear capabilities. Zlauvinen says that "there are number of resolutions" from the IAEA and other organizations "calling on Israel to join the NPT, calling on Israel to place all their nuclear facilities under inspection of the IAEA, and obviously by getting rid of their nuclear weapons, as allegedly they are."
Just hours after Iranian President Ahmadinejad agreed to accept an IAEA deal to enrich uranium out of the country, they suddenly backed out. The plan had been to take Iran's nuclear stockpile and send it to Russia to be enriched. It's disappointing for those concerned about Iran's plans for its enriching uranium - though I don't think it's particularly surprising.
I was thinking about how long Iran has been playing this game, and it brought to mind this Supernews gem: Iran: Deal or No Deal?
That piece was produced in 2006. Over three years ago. It's kind of disheartening to see what looks like the same game playing out, but with a few different players. No more Bush or Condoleeza Rice, and Putin is now the Prime Minister of Russia, not the President. But it's hard not to watch this and see Iran doing the same things today. Is there another card up the Obama Administration's negotiating sleeve? Let's hope so.
UN atomic watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei said this past week that UN experts found "nothing to be worried about" during their first inspection of a previously secret uranium enrichment site in Iran.UN atomic watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei said this past week that UN experts found... more
Gustavo Zlauvinen, the IAEA Representative to United Nations, on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Paul Jay talks with Gustavo Zlauvinen, an IAEA Representative to United Nations about effectiveness of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NNPT) and the possibilities of achieving the world without nuclear weapons.
Gustavo R. Zlauvinen, of Argentina, is the Representative of the Director General of the IAEA to the United Nations and as Director of the IAEA Office at United Nations Headquarters, New York. Mr. Zlauvinen joined the Argentine Foreign Service in 1986. Upon graduating from the Diplomatic Academy, he served in various capacities in Buenos Aires, Vienna and New York. From 1987 to 1989, he served with the General Directorate for Disarmament and Nuclear Affairs at the Argentine Ministry of Foreign Affairs; from 1989 to 1990, he was a member of the Argentine Commission on the Control of Military Equipment Exports; and, from 1990 to 1991, he was Director of International Relations of the Argentine Space Agency (CNIE), in Buenos Aires.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency has cancelled interviews with the BBC over its decision not to broadcast a charity appeal for Gaza.
Mohamed ElBaradei believed that the BBC's decision broke "the rules of basic human decency", his spokeswoman said.
BBC director general Mark Thompson had said airing the appeal would compromise the BBC's impartiality.
In a statement, the BBC said that it regretted Mr ElBaradei's move.
The IAEA chief had been due to take part in interviews with the BBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
But Mr ElBaradei cancelled them over the corporation's decision not to broadcast a three-minute appeal by the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) - an umbrella group for major UK charities - for humanitarian aid funding for Gaza.
"He believes this decision violates the rules of basic human decency which are there to help vulnerable people irrespective of who is right or wrong," his spokeswoman said.
The BBC said it hoped Mr ElBaradei would accept an interview invitation at another time.
Britain's three other terrestrial broadcasters, ITV, Channel 4 and Five, showed the appeal on Monday.
But Sky News also chose not to air it, saying it would be "incompatible" with its objective role.The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency has cancelled interviews with the... more
