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GENEVA (AP) — A Swiss man suspected of being involved in the world's biggest nuclear smuggling ring claims he supplied the CIA with information that led to the breakup of the black market nuclear network led by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. In a documentary airing Thursday on Swiss TV station SF1, Urs Tinner says he tipped off U.S. intelligence about a delivery of centrifuge parts meant for Libya's nuclear weapons program. The shipment was seized at the Italian port of Taranto in 2003, forcing Libya to admit and eventually renounce its efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. The 43-year-old Tinner...

Iranian construction of a previously secret uranium enrichment site is at an advanced stage, with high-tech equipment already in place at the fortified facility ahead of its 2011 startup, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report Monday. The revelation of the existence of the underground plant known as Fordo, near the holy city of Qom, has heightened concerns of other possible undeclared Iranian facilities that are not subject to IAEA oversight and therefore could be used for military purposes. In Washington, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said the IAEA report "underscores that Iran still refuses to comply fully...

Iran reports having thousands of centrifuges spinning away to make fuel for their upcoming power reactors. Others think that Iran has it in mind to make weapons material using those same centrifuges. In fact, Iran could divert just 1% of its centrifuge production and have enough weapons-grade material to make a few bombs per year. The arithmetic is provided here below. Note: I was with Westinghouse civilian nuclear power for 30 years as a registered professional engineer with nuclear specialization. I hold a doctorate in engineering. All information here is unclassified." Read more: http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-matrix/archives/2009/11/uranium_centrifuges_and_uraniu.php

Security: After Iran admits building a second enrichment facility inside a mountain, the Pentagon shifts money from other programs to urgently fund the mother of all bunker-buster bombs. Why the need for speed? At the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh last month, President Obama announced, "The Islamic Republic of Iran has been building a covert uranium enrichment facility near Qom for several years." U.S. officials said they knew for some time that the facility existed. The announcement was made after U.S. officials learned Iran had told the International Atomic Energy Agency of Qom's existence. Our knowledge of the facility built in...

Defense: As the failure of engagement with Iran grows more apparent, the administration that has talked very softly may be getting the mother of all sticks ready. Guess we need high-tech Cold War weapons after all.Western intelligence sources have told London's Times that Iran has perfected the means to develop and detonate a nuclear bomb and is merely awaiting word from its supreme leader to produce its first one. Should the order be given, it would take just six months to enrich enough uranium and another six months to assemble the warhead. Time's up. Recently, and perhaps not coincidentally, Defense...

Iran plans to install a more advanced type of centrifuge at its newly revealed uranium enrichment site, an Iranian newspaper reported Tuesday, a development certain to add to international concerns about the country's nuclear work. Iranian scientists have carried out research and development in recent months for the new generation of more efficient centrifuges, and most of the machines' components are made domestically, said the head of Iran's nuclear agency, Ali Akbar Salehi, according to the Kayhan daily newspaper.

Note: The following blog entry is a quote: http://www.thememriblog.org/iran/blog_personal/en/20268.htm Iranian Nuclear Chief: We'll Progress In Nuclear Fusion Iranian Atomic Energy Organization director Ali Akbar Salehi has said that Iran is researching nuclear fusion and that it will make great progress in that area. Source: ISNA, Iran, September 22, 2009 Posted at: 2009-09-23 ### ### Note: The following blog entry is a quote: http://www.thememriblog.org/blog_personal/en/20234.htm Blog Details Iran: We've Started Producing Improved Centrifuges Iranian Atomic Energy Organization director Ali Akbar Salehi says that Iran has begun to produce a new generation of improved centrifuges, and that he assesses that Israel is not...

Special Dispatch - No. 2456 July 22, 2009 Iranian VP Parviz Davoudi: Iran is Operating Over 12,000 Centrifuges; Any Attempt to Destabilize the Iranian Regime Will Undermine the Security of the Middle East and Entire World At a July 12, 2009 conference on promoting the mentality of self-sacrifice among women, convened under the auspices of the Martyrs Foundation in Tehran, Iranian Vice President Parviz Davoudi stated that Iran was making progress in nuclear technology as well as in the field of ballistic missiles, and that it currently was operating over 12,000 centrifuges. Davoudi stated that the struggle between Iran and...

IAEA: Iran Has Centrifuges for Two Nuclear Weapons Per Year SNIPPET: "This article in the New York Times, Iran Has Centrifuge Capacity for Nuclear Arms, Report Says, should get your attention. Hopefully the report dispels in the eyes of some the incorrect conclusion that those of us who have been warning of the Iranian race for nuclear weapons are fear mongers and over the top. They now have the capability. It is only the desire which can be seen as debatable, even though arguing 'peaceful nuclear power' intentions requires an unhealthy leap of faith and a disconnect from logic, reason...

VIENNA (Reuters) – Iran has expanded the number of centrifuges enriching uranium to almost 5,000 and this has made it harder for U.N. inspectors to keep track of the disputed nuclear program, according to an IAEA report seen by Reuters. Friday's restricted International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report also said Iran had increased its rate of production of low-enriched uranium (LEU) material, boosting its stockpile by 500 kg to 1,339 kg in the past six months. Iran's improved efficiency in turning out potential nuclear fuel was sure to fan Western fears of the Islamic Republic nearing the ability make nuclear...

Special Dispatch - No. 2349 May 8, 2009 No. 2349 "Iranian President Ahmadinejad and Nuclear Program Chief Aghazadeh Give Details of Nuclear Plan" SNIPPET: "Following are excerpts from a TV program on Iran's National Day of Nuclear Technology, which aired on Channel 2, Iranian TV, on April 9, 2009." SNIPPET: "The third stage of the project is uranium enrichment. This huge and complex project has been fruitful in the Natanz region. By now, approximately 7,000 centrifuges have been installed, and in the course of the five-year plan, this figure will rise to 50,000. Let me use this occasion to inform...

Note: The following blog entry is a quote: Blog Details Ahmadinejad: Iran's Entered Final Phase In Nuclear Fuel Production At an inauguration ceremony yesterday for a nuclear fuel production facility in Isfahan, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad expressed his pride at Iran's entering into the final phase in the nuclear fuel production cycle. He said that despite the threats from the West, "the Iranian train is moving ahead with increasing speed, on the right track." Iranian Atomic Energy Organization director Gholam Reza Aghazadeh said that the speed of the new centrifuges was five to six times greater than that of the...

As a Presidential candidate, Barack Obama called a nuclear Iran "a grave threat" and insisted "the world must prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon." But he also called for direct, high-level talks in the hopes that the mullahs could be persuaded to abandon their nuclear dreams. We've never held out much hope for those talks, which would inevitably be complicated and protracted. Now it turns out that the rate at which Iran's nuclear programs are advancing may render even negotiations moot. That's one conclusion to be drawn from the latest report by the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency. Among...

Iran has substantially improved the efficiency of its centrifuges that produce enriched uranium, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Monday, indicating that the nation has overcome some of the technical challenges that had plagued its enrichment program. In a six-page report, the agency charged the Iranians with continuing to stonewall about what some Western governments suspected was Iran's past research on designing a nuclear weapon. The agency acknowledged that it had failed "to make any substantial progress" in its investigation. "We seem to be at a dead end," said a senior official with links to the agency. "We would describe...

Pentagon Makes Fighting Extremism Top Priority Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon on Thursday officially named "the long war" against global extremism as its top priority and pledged to avert any conventional military threat from China or Russia through dialogue. The Defense Department, in a new national defense strategy, also emphasized the need to subordinate military operations to "soft power" initiatives to undermine Islamist militancy by promoting economic, political and social development in vulnerable corners of the world. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he hoped the change would help establish permanent institutional support for counterinsurgency skills...

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Saturday that Iran has boosted the number of uranium-enriching centrifuges to up to 6,000, in an expansion of its nuclear drive that defies international calls for a freeze. "Today they (the West) have agreed that the existing 5,000 to 6,000 centrifuges do not increase and that there is no problem if this number of centrifuges work," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by state radio. Ahmadinejad said in April that Iran was working to install 6,000 more centrifuges at an underground hall in a plant at its nuclear facility in Natanz, where it already had 3,000...

Al-Qaeda Draws New Recruits Via Internet Al-Qaeda is using the Internet to recruit vulnerable young people to its terrorist network, according to a programme aired on Saudi Arabian TV late on Tuesday. Umm Osama, the founder of al-Qaeda's first women-only website, al-Khansa, joined several others on the programme to discuss how they renounced jihadist ideology. Among those who sought a response to this question was an imam from the Medina mosque, Saleh Ibn Awad al-Mudamsi, and the father of a young al-Qaeda suspect held in an Iraqi prison. Read More Qaeda Targets U.S. Oil Interests in North Africa U.S....

via translation - ALERT - Nuclear: Iran has 5,000 to 6,000 centrifuges TEHRAN - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Saturday that Iran had 5,000 to 6,000 centrifuges for uranium enrichment activities, confirming that the Islamic Republic has expanded its controversial nuclear programme, reported state radio.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday his country would not stop enriching uranium and rejected as "illegitimate" a demand by major powers that it do so, the official IRNA news agency reported. Ahmadinejad's comment came as a British newspaper, quoting intelligence reports received by Western diplomats, reported Monday that Iran has resumed work aimed at producing a nuclear bomb.

Pakistan's Military Knew Of Nuclear Technology Transfer To N Korea, Says Scientist 7/4/2008 2:52 PM ET Abdul Qadir Khan, who is considered to be the father of Pakistan's nuclear program, said on Friday that the country's former military regime was aware of the transfer of nuclear technology to North Korea. AQ Khan told media on Friday that the Pakistani army, which was headed by President Pervez Musharraf then, was aware of the technology transfer as the uranium enrichment equipment was dispatched onboard a North Korean plane under the supervision of Pakistani army officials in 2000. Khan's statements on Friday contradicts...