Free Republic

CAIRO—Nobel Peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei on Saturday withdrew his candidacy from Egypt's coming presidential race in protest over the autocratic governance that has persisted under Egypt's post-revolutionary military leadership. Though Mr. ElBaradei wasn't considered among the top contenders for presidential elections scheduled for this spring, his global stature makes his pullout a symbolic blow to the military leadership and its often faltering stewardship of the country's transition to democracy. Mr. ElBaradei's statement on Saturday marks the highest-profile censure of the military's governance since a leading group of generals, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, or SCAF, assumed power from...

Yukiya Amano says Iran has failed to clarify its atomic development activities to the satisfaction of the United Nations nuclear watchdog body -- and now it's his job to warn the world about its possible military intentions. Amano, chief of the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency, said Thursday in an interview with the German-language Financial Times Deutschland an IAEA delegation will press Iran for "full cooperation" in meetings with officials in Tehran. "What we know suggests the development of nuclear weapons," FTD quoted the IAEA chief as saying "We want to check over everything that could have a military...

The geopolitical foreplay is getting ridiculous. At this point it is quite obvious that virtually everyone involved in the US-Israel-Iran hate triangle is just itching for someone else to pull the trigger. And the latest report out of the IAEA will only precipitate this. Who - remember the IAEA? The same IAEA which did not find nukes in Iraq in 2003 only to be overriden by Dick "WMD" Cheney to "justify" an invasion. As RIA reports:  "The International Atomic Energy Agency officially confirmed that Iran has started enriching uranium to the 20-percent level, which can easily be turned into...

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...

As'ad AbuKahlil—a political science professor at California State University, Stanislaus—spoke last month at a day-long "teach-in" at the University of California, Berkeley titled, "Building Solidarity with the Arab Spring." It consisted of a number of "workshop sessions" at the Valley Life Sciences Building, followed by a "plenary session" at the Multicultural Center, and was co-sponsored by the Arab Resource Organizing Committee, the Berkeley Muslim Students Association PAC, the International Socialist Organization, and the Syrian American Council. AbuKhalil's workshop on "The U.S. and the Arab Uprising" was held in a tiny, hot, windowless room filled with students wearing hijabs and keffiyehs....

Iran flies Palestinian terrorists to Syria for raids into Israel DEBKAfile Exclusive Report November 20, 2011, 8:01 AM (GMT+02:00) Under cover of its four-day military exercise starting Friday, Nov. 18, Iran is reported exclusively by debkafile to be transferring Palestinian terrorist units into Syria after training them at IRGC Al Qods facilities for cross-border raids into the West Bank and Israel. Iran and Syria are hitting back for the rebel Free Syrian Army-FSA's armed offensive on military installations and commands centers. Bashar Assad's cousin Rami Makhlouf warned last May: "Without stability in Syria, there will be no stability in Israel."

-excerpt- Iranians have never regarded clerics​—​except perhaps the most accomplished scholars​—​as ever being above sin. They are lawyers who, as the great poet Hafez famously remarked, “don’t practice in private what they preach in public.” excerpt- Khamenei’s nuclear fatwa was not to be taken seriously. It was meant partly for Western consumption. More important, it reflected the surreal Islam-vs.-the-West theater that is a never-ending spectacle in the Islamic Republic. America unleashed the atom bomb in war; the Islamic Republic wouldn’t do such a thing. The West is overflowing with homosexuals; in Iran, as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad informed the students of...

World powers are close to overcoming their differences on what message the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will send to Iran when its board of governors meets Thursday, diplomats told AFP on Wednesday. According to the reports, diplomats to the IAEA in Vienna were “close, but not there yet” to agreeing on a resolution amenable to all the main powers, including Russia and China. One diplomat told AFP that the resolution “will call on Iran to intensify dialogue with the agency and comply fully with its obligations. It also calls on the director general to report in March on the...

France said on Wednesday it wanted to convene the UN Security Council and could push for unprecedented sanctions against Iran after an International Atomic Energy Agency report said Iran had worked to develop an atomic bomb design. "Convening of the UN Security Council is called for," Foreign Minister Alain Juppe told RFI radio. In a statement, Juppe said diplomatic pressure needed to be ramped up. "If Iran refuses to conform to the demands of the international community and refuses any serious cooperation, we stand ready to adopt, with other willing countries, sanctions on an unprecedented scale," Juppe said.

-Excerpt- The IAEA’s findings are not only an indictment of Iran, however. They also reveal the fundamental corruption of Mohamed ElBaradei, the Egyptian diplomat who was the IAEA’s director general from December 1997 to November 2009. While his job was to administer a technocratic agency, ElBaradei repeatedly intervened to distort the inspectors’ findings. Rather than confront the Islamic Republic on its cheating, he coached Iranian officials on their public diplomacy. He also repeatedly ignored mounting evidence of secret Iranian facilities until these were publicly exposed by other means. -excerpt- The IAEA report should also embarrass Thomas Fingar, Vann H. Van...

VIENNA — Iran is suspected of conducting secret experiments whose sole purpose can only be the development of nuclear weapons, the U.N. nuclear atomic energy agency said for the first time in a report released Tuesday. While some of the suspected secret nuclear work can have peaceful purposes, "others are specific to nuclear weapons," according to the report by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency. A 13-page attachment to the report details intelligence and IAEA research that shows Tehran working on all aspects of research toward making a nuclear weapon, including fitting a warhead onto a missile. "Iran," the report...

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, will this week release a report on Iran’s nuclear activities. According to Western officials It will offer overpowering evidence that the Islamic republic has acquired and assembled the equipment and skills needed to build its first nuclear weapon. Details of the report have already begun to emerge. Here are the key points: Iran is in the advanced stages of designing a nuclear explosive device small enough to fit in a warhead. Its indigenous design involves a so-called R265 generator, which is a spherical shell with explosives around the outside. The name...

Iran has already acquired the knowledge, technology, and resources to create a nuclear bomb within months, according to Western experts who were briefed on the intelligence information due to be released in this week's report by the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency. According to the experts, Iranian scientists acquired the knowledge with the help of weapons scientists from Russia, Pakistan and North Korea. Haaretz reported last week that other experts also estimated that Iran could assemble a nuclear bomb within months and carry out an underground nuclear experiment if it wishes to do so. (snip) New disclosures in the...

The Washington Post and the New York Times have nothing on this, so let’s take a look overseas to see what our government might be planning, shall we? The Guardian reports that the UK has begun preparing to support the US in a strike on Iran, thanks to a new IAEA report that concludes — very much belatedly — that Tehran has been working all along to develop nuclear weapons: Britain’s armed forces are stepping up their contingency planning for potential military action against Iran amid mounting concern about Tehran’s nuclear enrichment programme, the Guardian has learned.The Ministry of Defence...

Atomic agency report uncovers Iranian nuclear experiments experts claim could only be used for development of warhead A report by the UN's nuclear watchdog due to be circulated around the world next week will provide fresh evidence of a possible Iranian nuclear weapons programme, bringing the Middle East a step closer to a devastating new conflict, say diplomats. The report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is the latest of a series of quarterly bulletins on Iran's activities, but this one will contain an unprecedented level of detail on research and experiments carried out in Iran in recent years,...

In a SPIEGEL interview, Olli Heinonen, the former deputy director of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, offers his first assessment of his 27 years at the global nuclear watchdog. He addresses Iran's nuclear program, his concerns about the security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal and mistakes made in Fukushima. SPIEGEL: Mr. Heinonen, if you consider your time as the United Nations' atomic "watchdog," do you look back in anger? Or did you succeed in making the world safer from nuclear bombs? Heinonen: There are quite a few things I'm proud of. While I was at the International Atomic Energy...

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insisted on Tuesday that his country has "no need" for nuclear weapons, amid new concerns from an international atomic watchdog group about Tehran's atomic ambitions. "We do not need nuclear weapons and we do not accept that," Ahmadinejad told the NBC television "Today Show" program. "We are against that," he said.

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran's nuclear chief on Monday proposed to allow the U.N. nuclear watchdog "full supervision" of its nuclear activities for five years provided that sanctions against Tehran are lifted, but the official did not give details of his offer. The United Nations has imposed four rounds of Security Council sanctions over Tehran's refusal to halt uranium enrichment, a technology that can be used to produce nuclear fuel or materials for an atomic bomb. Iran's nuclear program is already subject to routine IAEA inspections. IAEA cameras monitor Iran's nuclear activities. including its contentious uranium enrichment sites. Vice President Fereidoun...

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.

VIENNA - A research center near Tripoli stocks uranium and other material that could be used to make a nuclear "dirty bomb" and Libya's rebels will need to secure it, a former senior UN inspector said on Wednesday. Seeking to mend ties with the West, Libya's Muammar Gaddafi agreed in 2003 to abandon efforts to acquire nuclear, chemical and biological weapons -- a move that brought him in from the cold and helped end decades of isolation. Olli Heinonen, head of nuclear safeguards inspections worldwide for the UN atomic watchdog until mid-2010 and now at Harvard University, said Libya's uranium...

Iran's leadership is undaunted by the sanctions imposed on the country and seems unhindered by the damage the Stuxnet computer worm caused to the centrifuges at the uranium enrichment facility in Natanz. VIENNA - The procession of cars carrying Fereidoun Abbasi Davani sped down Vienna's Wagramer Strasse this Monday and into the underground car park of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Outside the building, on the bank of the Danube River, some 30 protesters from the Stop the Bomb movement demonstrated, waving signs denouncing the Iranian nuclear scientist. But Iranian security officers seemed more concerned about the prospect of someone...

Participants at a closed door session of the International Atomic Energy Agency have agreed to set up an international mechanism to share information in the event of nuclear emergencies. The IAEA held the ministerial meeting on Wednesday to assess Japan's response to the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in March. A Japanese official quoted an expert from the World Meteorological Organization as saying the group was unable to obtain necessary information from Japan. He said this led to difficulties in projecting how radioactive materials would spread around the world. The official said other member countries also criticized...

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) voted Thursday to report Syria to the UN Security Council over evidence it was building a nuclear reactor at Deir Azzour. The plant was destroyed by the Israel Air Force in September 2007 while still under construction. The vote was held at a closed-door session of the IAEA board of governors in Vienna. Seventeen of 35 countries voted in favor of the resolution and six voted against it. The resolution was sponsored by the US and 12 other nations. Russia and China were among those who voted to reject the resolution. Of the remaining...

World Powers Condemn Iran’s Nuclear Enrichment Expansion Plans Thursday, June 9th, 2011 at 2:35 pm UTC Posted 1 hour ago World powers meeting in Vienna to discuss global atomic issues have criticized Iran for proposed moves this week to accelerate its capability to produce nuclear fuel. Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States expressed their concerns in a joint statement Thursday to a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-member board of governors. The allies said IAEA chief Yukiya Amano sent a message to Iran's Atomic Energy Organization raising concerns about “possible military dimensions” of Iran's controversial...

The UN atomic watchdog has received further information regarding activities that "seem to point to the existence" of possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program, the agency's head said on Monday. "There are indications that certain of these activities may have continued until recently," Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said in a speech to the agency's 35-nation governing board.

The International Atomic Energy Agency last week presented a report to its board that laid out new information on what it calls “possible military dimensions” of Iran’s nuclear program, clarifying the central issue in the long clash between Tehran and the West over nuclear technology. The nine-page report raised questions about whether Iran has sought to investigate seven different kinds of technology ranging from atomic triggers and detonators to uranium fuel. Together, the technologies could make a type of atom bomb known as an implosion device, which is what senior staff members of the I.A.E.A. have warned that Iran is...

The U.N. nuclear agency is investigating reports from its experts that their cellphones and laptops may have been hacked into by Iranian officials looking for confidential information while the equipment was left unattended during inspection tours in the Islamic Republic, diplomats have told The Associated Press.

IAEA Update on Fukushima Nuclear Accident (12 April 2011, 4:45 UTC) The Japanese Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) today issued a new rating for the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on the IAEA International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES). The nuclear accident at Fukushima Daiichi is now rated as a level 7 "Major Accident" on INES. Level 7 is the most serious level on INES and is used to describe an event comprised of "A major release of radioactive material with widespread health and environmental effects requiring implementation of planned and extended countermeasures". The new...

Japan nuclear crisis: Pressure to widen evacuation zone UN nuclear monitors have advised Japan to consider expanding the evacuation zone around the stricken reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. An exclusion zone with a radius of 20km (12 miles) is currently in place but the UN says safe radiation limits have been exceeded 40km away. /snip 'No immediate action' The UN's nuclear watchdog (International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA) found safe radiation limits had been exceeded at the village of Iitate, 40km north-west of the nuclear plant. "The highest values were found in a relatively small area in the north-west from...

IAEA official says conditions at plant are serious but stable, as the agency faces renewed scrutiny for its record

Latest news from Japan: From the BBC- 1456: Tepco says it may start pouring water from a helicopter over Fukushima Daiichi's reactor four in the next few days, to cool the spent-fuel pool. 1439: A 30km (18 mile) no-fly zone is in place around Fukushima, says the IAEA. 1436: The IAEA says Monday's blast at Fukushima may have affected the integrity of the containment vessel - there are fears of more serious radioactive leaks if happen. 1435: Following earlier reports, it appears there has been more than one strong aftershock in Japan - AP reports two tremors measuring over 6.0...

(Reuters) - Japan has told the U.N. nuclear wathchdog that a heightened state of alert has been declared at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant after Friday's major earthquake, the Vienna-based agency said. The International Atomic Energy Agency also said it had been told that the plant had been shut down and that no release of radiation had been detected. Japanese media reported separately that a leak was possible at the plant as water levels fell. "The IAEA is seeking further details on the situation at Fukushima Daiichi and other nuclear power plants and research reactors.

VIENNA – The U.N. nuclear monitoring agency said Friday that "recently received" information is adding to concerns Iran may have worked on developing nuclear arms. At the same time, a report by the organization — The International Atomic Energy Agency — noted that Tehran continues to stonewall its attempts to follow up on that information, which points to possible experiments with components of a nuclear arms program.

The United Nations nuclear watchdog has received new information regarding allegations of possible military aspects to Iran's disputed nuclear program, the agency said in a report. The confidential report, obtained by Reuters on Friday, listed several areas of questions the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has about Iran's atomic activities and called on Tehran to cooperate with its investigation.

VIENNA, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Syria is considering building its first nuclear power plant by 2020 to meet rapidly growing electricity demand, a document from the Arab state's Atomic Energy Commission showed. The paper posted on the website of the International Atomic Energy Agency did not say whether Syria, which is under IAEA investigation over suspected covert nuclear activity, may also contemplate making its own fuel for such a facility. Any bid by Syria to launch uranium enrichment, like its ally Iran, would likely further alarm the United States and its Western allies about Damascus' atomic activities as such material...

"One of the reasons that the revolt in Egypt is so important is what their new government's foreign policy will be. The Middle East is tumultuous at the best of times, but Egypt hasn't been a part of the fighting since 1973 with the exception of a brief skirmish with Libya in 1977. Now, it looks like Mubarak's regime will fall. Mubarak is 83 years old, and the current riots make it seem unlikely that he will hold onto power until Egypt's election this fall." http://www.rationalpublicradio.com/israel-has-peace-agreement-with-mubarak-not-with-egypt.html

TEHRAN, Oct. 4 (Xinhua) -- Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed ElBaradei said Sunday that "Israel is number one threat to Middle East" with its nuclear arms, the official IRNA news agency reported.

While the mood here at Davos has been optimistic about recovery from the global credit crisis, the consensus is that the world is far from out of the woods. Austerity and cutbacks are the buzzwords in this exclusive ski resort for this week, at least. Among those worried about funding his project in this tight environment is Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA. He is here at the World Economic Forum making the case for his agency. “We are aware of the difficulties of countries (who fund the IAEA). I need to strike a...

President Obama is lucky. It is not everyday that a President’s legislative priority, as Senator, becomes a reality because of a billionaire. But that’s what happened last month when famed investor and philanthropist Warren Buffett pledged $50 million to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to create a global nuclear fuel bank to ostensibly discourage nations from enriching their own uranium. In 2007, as a Senator, Obama introduced legislation that would create an international fuel bank and give the IAEA, an arm of the United Nations, $50 million taxpayer dollars to begin to fund it.

President Obama is lucky. It is not everyday that a President’s legislative priority, as Senator, becomes a reality because of a billionaire. But that’s what happened last month when famed investor and philanthropist Warren Buffett pledged $50 million to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to create a global nuclear fuel bank to ostensibly discourage nations from enriching their own uranium. In 2007, as a Senator, Obama introduced legislation that would create an international fuel bank and give the IAEA, an arm of the United Nations, $50 million taxpayer dollars to begin to fund it.

VIENNA — Egypt fears being grouped with the likes of Iran and Syria if a UN investigation into traces of highly enriched uranium found in the country isn't brought to a swift end, according to what officials describe as a confidential report from the country's nuclear agency. The particles — enriched close to the levels required to arm nuclear missiles — have been under investigation since being detected by the International Atomic Energy Agency in 2007 and 2008. Egypt, a US ally in the Middle East, has said the particles originated from abroad and were inadvertently imported, but the agency...

Sixty-five years after Germany's campaign to exterminate the Jews, of the many countries in the world Israel is the only one repeatedly subjected to calls for its extinction. Though Pakistan and India, like Israel and the Arabs, have suffered population exchange and territorial wars, neither questions the other's right to exist. So rare and extreme is such a position that one might think the countries of Europe, so many of which cooperated in hunting down their Jews, would do more to recognize its endemic presence in the Middle East. They don't—their publics having largely accepted that, in regard to the...

Member states of the U.N. nuclear watchdog rejected on Friday an Arab-proposed resolution calling on "nuclear-armed" Israel to join a global anti-atomic arms treaty... An assembly meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency last year approved a resolution calling on Israel to join the Non-Proliferation treaty. The general assembly of the 151-member International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) failed to pass the resolution with 51 against, 46 votes for and 23 abstentions... Several small countries, including some in Latin America such as Costa Rica and Panama, who were absent in 2009 voted against the measure this time. Like last year, Russia...

El Baradei and Chairman of Iranian Parliament, Ali Larijani Source: Al Youm Al SabehSeptember 6, 2010The Egyptian Newspaper Al Youm Al Sabeh reports: In a communication to the Attorney General of Egypt, Dr. Yasser Najib Abdel Mabboud, has accused Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, former Director General of International Atomic Energy Agency and a candidate in the Egyptian presidential elections, of receiving funds exceeding $7 million (US) from Iran’s leadership as support for ‘political reform in Egypt’.Abdul Mabboud , a candidate of the National Party and who like El Baradei is also running for the Egyptian Presidential election, was informed of the...

A former nuclear inspector for the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is warning that Iran already has the capacity to produce a nuclear bomb. Olli Heinonen revealed the information in an interview with the French Le Monde magazine on Thursday. According to Reuters, quoting the interview, Heinonen was an expert on Iran’s nuclear program during his tenure as the deputy director-general of the IAEA, heading the agency’s nuclear safeguards arm.

Iran has begun loading its first nuclear power plant in the southern city of Bushehr with fuel in an effort to provide the country with nuclear-generated electricity. Nuclear fuel is being transferred to the Bushehr reactor under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency and senior officials from Iran and Russia. The Russian-completed plant is finally being launched after years of delay. 163 fuel rods are to be transferred to the core of the plant. The fueling comes after head of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi and Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency Director Sergei Kiriyenko...

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was said to no longer be capable of functioning in his position. Diplomatic sources said Mubarak's condition has rapidly declined over the last month and his schedule was severely restricted. They said Mubarak was avoiding meetings with most non-Arab leaders to prevent leaks of his true condition. "He is a walking corpse," a senior Arab diplomat who recently attended a meeting with Mubarak said In July, the sources said, Mubarak underwent a lengthy examination at a French military hospital outside Paris. They said the examination took place amid alarm by presidential aides and close relatives over...

Iran has been able to smuggle advanced technological equipment to its uranium enrichment plant in Natanz via a complex smuggling route based in Dubai, the Sunday Telegraph reported on Sunday. According to the report, an Iranian company has purchased control systems from one of Germany's leading electronic manufacturers. The deal was negotiated with a Dubai trading company, which in turn sold Iran a range of electronic equipment for use at its enrichment facility, the British website reported. The report comes amid growing concerns that though Iran claims its nuclear program has only peaceful aims, Tehran is in fact working toward...

VIENNA SNIPPET: "VIENNA (AP) — Iran has amassed more than two tons of enriched uranium, the U.N. atomic agency said Monday in a report that heightened Western concerns about the country developing the ability to produce a nuclear weapon. Two tons of uranium would be enough for two nuclear warheads, although Iran says it does not want weapons and is only pursuing civilian nuclear energy."

Warhead making equipment was removed before IAEA inspection. VIENNA — UN nuclear inspectors revisiting an Iranian laboratory suspected of involvement in a nuclear weapons program discovered that equipment has been removed, diplomats said Friday. Senior officials within the International Atomic Energy Agency are concerned that the removal was part of a cover-up. The equipment can be used for pyroprocessing, a procedure used to purify uranium metal used in nuclear warheads.