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ALARM - Iran installs centrifugal machines with Natanz VIENNA - Iran started to install centrifugal machines on its site of Natanz, where it hopes to use 3.000 of them to enrich by uranium in spite of the calls of UNO, declared Thursday of the diplomats.

Iran prevents the work of inspectors of the IAEA VIENNA - Iran prevents inspectors of the IAEA from installing cameras of monitoring in a nuclear installation where Teheran wishes to place 3.000 centrifugal machines to enrich by uranium on industrial scale, diplomats Thursday indicated to AFP. Inspectors of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are currently with the nuclear installation of Natanz (center of Iran) where an underground site is in the process of construction.

VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- Iran's uranium enrichment program appears stalled despite tough talk from the Tehran leadership, leaving intelligence services guessing about why it has not made good on plans to press ahead with activities that the West fears could be used to make nuclear arms, diplomats said Thursday. Outside monitoring of Iran's nuclear endeavors is restricted to International Atomic Energy Agency inspections of declared sites leaving significant blind spots for both the agency and intelligence agencies of member countries trying to come up with the full picture. Still, Tehran's reluctance to crank up activities at its declared enrichment site...

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran has doubled its capacity to enrich uranium by successfully executing the process with a second network of centrifuges, a semiofficial news agency reported Friday, sending a defiant new message to the U.N. Security Council. Council members are working on a draft resolution that would impose limited sanctions on the Islamic republic because of its refusal to cease enrichment, a process that can produce fuel for a civilian nuclear reactor or fissile material for a warhead. The Iranian Students News Agency quoted an anonymous official as saying Iran has successfully begun injecting gas into a second network...

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran has injected gas into a second network of centrifuges and has obtained the output, Iran's student news agency ISNA reported on Friday, referring to part of a program the West fears is aimed at making bombs.ISNA quoted an "informed source" saying "the injection of gas was carried out" in the past week. "We have obtained the product of the second cascade," the source said. But the report also said uranium had not been put into the system yet, although it said this could happen in the next few days. It was not immediately clear what gas...

LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) - The European Union was set to back limited United Nations sanctions against Iran on Tuesday after Tehran spurned conditions for opening negotiations on its nuclear programme. Diplomats said the EU's 25 foreign ministers were due to discuss possible incremental measures targeted initially at individuals and materials involved in Iranian uranium enrichment activities, which the West suspects is aimed at making a bomb. "The most important thing is to have a united response as we showed with North Korea. We must show Iran that the international community is completely determined to remain united," European External Relations Commissioner Benita...

Tehran - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday that the Western position in the nuclear dispute is getting weaker. 'The Western position against us is day by day getting weaker while ours is getting stronger,' Ahmadinejad said in a speech in the city of Shahriar, west of the capital Tehran. 'The West is getting unstable in its decisions. One day they threaten us, the other day they come with a smile,' the Iranian president said in the speech carried live by the news network Khabar. Ahmadinejad reiterated that Iran's nuclear programmes would continue despite all pressures and intimidation, but stressed...

Thomas report - Download 525k Listen to Thomas report North Korea's claims to have detonated a nuclear weapon are expected to have wide-reaching effects on efforts to stem nuclear proliferation, especially with regard to Iran. Tehran will be calculating what the international response to the North Korean test will be, and how it will affect its bargaining position. North Korea's leader Kim Jong Il The physical shock waves from North Korea's test may have been limited, but the political shock waves are far more profound, and no more so than in Tehran.Karim Sadjapour, an Iranian affairs analyst with the International...

MOSCOW, October 10 (Itar-Tass) - The situation regarding the Iranian nuclear problem was in the focus of attention during the conversation on Tuesday between Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak and ambassador of the Republic of Iran to Moscow Gholamreza Ansari. The diplomats also exchanged opinions on a number of international problems, the ministry noted. The meeting was held at the request of the Iranian ambassador. Nicholas Burns, the US undersecretary of state, said earlier to the BBC that the drafting of a new Security Council resolution on Iran’s nuclear programme would start this week. He said the resolution would...

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Dozens of protesters pelted the Danish embassy in Tehran with stones and petrol bombs on Tuesday after Danish television broadcast footage deemed insulting to the Muslim Prophet Mohammad, witnesses said. Denmark's state TV aired footage on Friday of a number of members of the youth wing of the anti-immigrant Danish People's Party (DPP) drawing cartoons in August mocking the Prophet. Iran condemned the broadcast. Reuters witnesses said protesters hurled stones and petrol bombs into the embassy compound. The crowd chanted "Down with Zionists" and "God praise the party of God". Riot police guarded the embassy and two...

(Agencies) A NORTH Korean official has warned the communist nation could fire a nuclear-tipped missile unless the US acts to resolve its standoff with Pyongyang, a South Korean news agency has reported. "We hope the situation will be resolved before an unfortunate incident of us firing a nuclear missile comes," the unnamed official said, according to a Yonhap report from Beijing.

"The transfer of nuclear weapons or material by North Korea to states or nonstate entities would be considered a grave threat to the United States, and we would hold North Korea fully accountable of the consequences of such action," Mr. Bush said . . .

Mr Keating said . . . "My great concern is that Japan may use the impasse of North Korea and this testing of its nuclear weapons to move into nuclear weapons itself, eschewing the nuclear protection provided to it by the United States under its umbrella," he told a business breakfast.

'Doomsday Clock' may tick toward midnight Many people in the Chicago area are closely watching developments in North Korea. "This is as bad as it gets," said Dr. Brian Kellman, director of the International Weapons Control Center at DePaul University. Kellman says North Korea's nuclear test doesn't come as a surprise, but it takes the arms race to the next level. "How do you now tell Iran that they can't do it? And then, we have nuclear weapons all along the northeast corridor of Asia all the way down to Iran, in a string, India, Pakistan, Iran," said Kellman. The...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush, facing a new election-year foreign policy crisis, condemned North Korea's reported nuclear test on Monday and vowed the United States will respect its security commitments in Asia. Democrats eager to oust Republicans from control of the U.S. Congress wasted no time in accusing him of being in a "state of denial" about North Korea for several years as he pursued war in Iraq. They demanded a change in strategy. In his first reaction to the North Korean test, Bush said he talked by phone with the leaders of China, South Korea, Japan and...

HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- South Korean stocks dropped sharply Monday after North Korea announced it had conducted an underground nuclear weapons test, raising concerns that investment money may flow out of its neighbor to the south over risk concerns.

LONDON (AP) - High-level representatives from the United States, Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia are planning to meet in London on Friday to assess Iran's refusal to suspend uranium-enrichment. They are expected to refer the Iranian nuclear case to the UN Security Council, which will start discussing possible sanctions against Iran next week, some western diplomats said Thursday. Russia's foreign minister, however, said he believes it is too soon to impose sanctions and further efforts are needed to push Iran to negotiate. To avoid alienating Russia and China, any sanctions are likely to be relatively mild, including embargoes on...

Gollust report - Download 304k Listen to Gollust report U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday Iran will not suspend uranium enrichment and it is time for the U.N. Security Council to move on sanctions against Tehran. Rice is expected to meet with fellow foreign ministers from the other permanent Security Council member countries and Germany on the issue as early as this week. Condoleezza Rice Though a Security Council deadline for Iran to halt enrichment expired August 31, the major powers allowed a dialogue between the European Union and Tehran to continue.But EU chief diplomat Javier Solana declared...

TEHRAN A letter written by Iran's former supreme ruler, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and published last Friday refers indirectly to Iran's needs to pursue nuclear weapons and has become part of the struggle between moderates and the military as it tries to expand its power under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

WASHINGTON, Oct 3 (Reuters) - U.S. and world emergency crude oil reserves could replace a complete shut-off of Iranian oil exports for 18 months, avoiding an estimated $201 billion in damage to the American economy, the Government Accountability Office said on Tuesday. There has been concern among energy traders that tough action by the United States and other western countries against Iran's nuclear program could cause Tehran to retaliate by cutting off the country's oil exports. Iran is the world's fourth biggest oil exporter, selling about 2.7 million barrels a day. Such a disruption would remove close to 1.5 billion...