Free Republic

Eunice, NM The URENCO USA uranium enrichment plant located outside Eunice, NM achieved a capacity milestone today by introducing uranium hexafluoride gas (UF6) into its newest centrifuge cascade. The activation of this cascade brings the enrichment plant to slightly over 3 million separative work units (SWU) of production capacity.

Excerpt from report by Iranian conservative, privately-owned Fars News Agency website Tehran, 27 January: The deputy secretary for international affairs of the Supreme National Security Council has announced that more than 300 tones of UF6 have been produced at the Esfahan nuclear facilities. Speaking at a conference of the [Islamic Revolution Guards] Corps's [IRGC's] political officials and guides, Javad Va'idi, deputy secretary for international affairs of the Supreme National Security Council, described the outlook of nuclear developments. He spoke about the course of the nuclear issue over the past four years, including the haughty opposition of the Americans and the...

Iran Produces 300 Tons of UF6 in Isfahan Nuclear Facility January 27, 2008 Xinhua Yan Liang TEHRAN -- Deputy head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Javad Vaeedi said on Sunday that his country has so far produced 300 tons of uranium hexafluoride (UF6)gas used for uranium enrichment in the Isfahan nuclear facility. Addressing a congregation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Vaeedi said "The Isfahan uranium conversion facilityis active and it has produced more than 300 tons of UF6," local Fars news agency reported. He said that despite pressures by Western countries which once stressed that Iran should...

North Korea's long, subtle game By Aidan Foster-Carter On Thursday, StratFor's (Strategic Forecasting's) Morning Intelligence Brief led its Geopolitical Diary thus: "Iran's nuclear program continues to dominate headlines." Oops. What a difference a few hours make. I say this without schadenfreude, having been similarly caught out myself. Days earlier, I wrote a piece criticizing the six-way talks on North Korea's nuclear issue as "Five caveats and a long shot". You read it here in the February 11 edition ('We have nukes': The six-party failure) - swiftly reworked to take account of the analyst's lifeblood and nightmare: what former British prime...