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Iran has begun enriching uranium deep inside a mountain and sentenced an American to death for spying, angering the West and undermining hopes that diplomacy could avert further sanctions or war. The start of enrichment at the Fordow bunker near the Shi'ite Muslim holy city of Qom was confirmed on Monday by an Iranian official in Tehran and by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency. Iran says its nuclear program is purely non-military but the West believes it is designed to produce nuclear weapons. The Islamic Republic's decision to carry out enrichment work deep underground could eventually make it much...

A US federal grand jury has indicted two men, one from Iran and the other from China, on charges of conspiring to send materials from the United States to Iran for the purpose of enriching uranium, the US Justice Department said on Friday. Using a Chinese company as a go-between to avoid trade sanctions, the men tried for three years to obtain US materials, such as high-strength steel, that could be used in an Iranian nuclear program, the department said. Iranian citizen Parviz Khaki was arrested in May in the Philippines, while the other man, Zongcheng Yi of China, remains...

Computer experts from Europe and the United States said on Tuesday that they believe engineers in Iran’s nuclear program were able to completely neutralize their computer systems from the Stuxnet virus which seriously damaged Iranian nuclear equipment about two years ago. According to the experts, the virus was implanted in the computer systems already in 2009 and disrupted...

Iran has started moving the machines that enrich uranium for nuclear fuel from its main atomic complex in the central city of Natanz to an underground bunker near the holy city of Qom, its top nuclear official was quoted as saying on Monday. "Transferring Natanz centrifuges to Fordow (near Qom) is under way with full observance of standards," Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani told state broadcaster IRIB, adding "Fordow's facilities are being prepared and some centrifuges have been transferred."

The United Nations nuclear watchdog released a report Saturday stating that Iran is pursuing the development of nuclear weapons, adding that the Islamic Republic has upgraded its nuclear facilities in order to defend them from possible cyber attacks. According to the report by the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran has installed new and improved 2IR as well as 4IR centrifuges, which according to experts, will be immune to cyber attacks that were able to breach the older centrifuges. The centrifuges have allegedly been installed, the report states, in a fortified underground facility for uranium enrichment near the city of Qom.

Is Kim Jong-il building a new type of weapon? On Monday Seoul announced that the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety had detected unusually high levels of xenon gas near the North Korea border on May 14. The concentration of xenon was eight times higher than normal, and the presence of the gas is indicative of nuclear activities. Because the wind was blowing south at the time, the source of the gas could not have been one of South Korea's nuclear plants. The xenon might have originated in China or Russia, but the most likely place was the land of unexplained...

Second "cascade" of centrifuges for enriching Uranium to critical 20% level ready to go online VIENNA — Iran has set up new equipment that will allow it to boost its efficiency at enriching uranium at higher levels, diplomats said Friday. The move is likely to give the US more leverage with Russia and China in its push for new UN sanctions on Teheran. Iran's clandestine enrichment activities were discovered eight years ago and have expanded since to encompass thousands of centrifuges churning out material enriched to 3.5 percent. But despite three rounds of Security Council sanctions meant to enforce demands...

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has approved the site for a new enrichment facility Iran plans to build, his top adviser said Monday, the latest step in expanding a nuclear program that the United Nations has demanded Teheran halt. Still, in an apparent attempt to ward off a new UN sanctions, Iran's foreign minister said his country wants to hold further discussions on a nuclear fuel deal that was originally touted as a possible way to ease the standoff but has since hit a dead end. The United States and its allies are trying to rally support for new UN sanctions...

Discovery of Iran's secret uranium enrichment facility near Qom several months ago is a "warning sign" for anyone who thinks that the Islamic Republic's nuclear program is for civilian purposes, head of Military Intelligence Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin said Tuesday. Speaking at a conference on security challenges in the 21st century at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, Yadlin said that Iran is extremely close to mastering the necessary nuclear technology and will wait on the threshold until it feels that the international community is too weak to stop them to move forward towards the bomb. Iran, he...

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran wants major amendments within the framework of a U.N. nuclear fuel deal which it broadly accepts, state media said, a move that could unravel the plan and expose Tehran to the threat of harsher sanctions. The European Union's foreign policy chief said on Tuesday there was no need to rework the U.N. draft and he and France's foreign minister suggested Tehran would rekindle demands for tougher international sanctions if it tried to undo the plan. Among the central planks of the plan opposed by Iran -- but requested by the West to cut the risk of...

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...

At a landmark session that included the highest-level bilateral contact between U.S. and Iran in years Iran and six world powers put nuclear talks back on track The meeting ended with a pledge to meet again this month. Disputes, however, surfacing shortly after its conclusion indicated a rough road to agreement ahead. Iran accepted a demand Thursday at the talks in a villa outside Geneva to allow U.N. inspectors into its covertly built enrichment plant, in a move that appeared to defuse tensions that had been building for weeks. Western officials at the session said the Islamic republic had also...

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SEOUL, Sept. 4 (Yonhap) -- North Korea said Friday that it has entered a final phase of uranium enrichment, and is also building more nuclear weapons with spent fuel rods extracted from its only operating plutonium-producing reactor.

WASHINGTON, April 14, 2009 – For military students who can’t squeeze enough learning into the school year, the Department of Defense Education Activity has the perfect solution. For the fifth year, the agency is offering eligible students in kindergarten through 8th grade a free, four-week summer enrichment program with a curriculum emphasizing math and language arts. DoDEA officials expect enrollment of about 10 percent of all the 6,500 students in kindergarten through 8th grade in the activity’s school system, Joel K. Hansen, DoDEA’s special projects coordinator, said. “It’s not a remedial program. It’s not a program to help students...

US may cede to Iran’s nuclear ambition By Daniel Dombey in Washington Published: April 3 2009 17:29 | Last updated: April 3 2009 17:29 US officials are considering whether to accept Iran’s pursuit of uranium enrichment, which has been outlawed by the United Nations and remains at the heart of fears that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons capability. As part of a policy review commissioned by President Barack Obama, diplomats are discussing whether the US will eventually have to accept Iran’s insistence on carrying out the process, which can produce both nuclear fuel and weapons- grade material. “There’s a fundamental...

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.

UNITED NATIONS - UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Thursday made a fresh appeal to Iran to comply with UN demands that it halt sensitive nuclear fuel work and urged all Middle East parties to pursue peaceful dialogue. "I have been calling on Iranian authorities to fully comply with all relevant Security Council resolutions and continue their negotiations with European Union and concerned parties," he said on his return from a two-week, three-nation Asian tour. A spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana refused to confirm Iranian press reports that he would visit the Iranian capital on July 19 to...

PARIS - Iran's written response to an incentives package aimed at curbing its nuclear programme made no mention of a suspension of uranium enrichment, a process that could potentially make fuel for bombs, France said on Tuesday. France, Britain, Germany, the United States, Russia and China made the revised offer to Iran last month, and Iran sent a reply to EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana last week. "There was no mention of a suspension of sensitive activities in this letter," French Foreign Ministry spokesman Eric Chevallier told a news conference, using an expression that refers to enrichment-related activities. Iran...