Posted on 08/20/2005 8:20:55 PM PDT by DoctorZIn
Top News Story
Iran Made Thousands of Centrifuges, Breaking Pledge, Exiles Say
Thu. 18 Aug 2005
By Alex Morales, Iran Focus: an MEK website
New York - Iran has continued to produce centrifuges, which are used in the uranium enrichment process, in contravention of a November 2004 agreement with the U.K., France and Germany to suspend all such activities, the exiled opposition National Council for Resistance in Iran said.
Iran this month removed United Nations seals on equipment used in uranium enrichment at its Isfahan plant, after rejecting an offer from the so-called EU-3 of technology and economic incentives in exchange for halting processing activity. Even during the supposed suspension, Iran had continued to make centrifuges, the NCRI said at a London press conference today.
“In several secret locations, including several sites around Tehran, the regime is working round-the-clock to build centrifuges,'' Hossein Abedini, a member of the NCRI's Foreign Affairs Committee, told reporters. ``Thousands of these machines have already been built and are ready for use,'' in work that has been ``non-stop throughout the past few months.''
The U.S. accuses Iran of pursuing a nuclear weapons program. Adam Ereli, deputy State Department spokesman, said last week in Washington that a referral of Iran to the UN Security Council for sanctions is the ``next step.'' Iran has repeatedly said its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. Nobody answered calls made to Iran's Foreign Ministry today.
The NCRI has in the past revealed information about Iran's nuclear activities that has proven to be true. The group in August 2002 said that Iran was building secret nuclear facilities in Natanz and Arak. Iran admitted the existence of those facilities during a visit to the Islamic Republic in February 2003 by officials from the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency.
Front Companies
Iran's regime has also set up a ``massive network of front companies'' to conceal nuclear-related activities, Abedini said. He named some of the companies and said some were located in Isfahan and Tehran. He named five officials he said are involved in the production of centrifuges. All the information, obtained from people working within different government departments, has been passed to the IAEA, he said.
``We are assessing this just as we do all information,'' IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said in an interview from Vienna, where the agency is based. ``We will follow up on all credible leads.''
The agency is monitoring Iran's Isfahan plant, where work resumed this month on the first steps in converting ranium. The process leads to enriched uranium, which may be used in power plants or nuclear weapons.
Plutonium
Iran's religious regime, led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is ``bent on'' acquiring nuclear weapons, and continues to produce plutonium in Arak, as well as working on projects to build nuclear warheads, casings and a neutron initiator, Abedini said.
Centrifuges spin at supersonic speeds and can enrich uranium hexafluoride gas, which can be used in atomic weapons. Under the terms of its EU deal, Iran said it will stop making and importing gas centrifuges.
The National Council of the Resistance was founded in July 1981 to oppose the Islamic Republic in Iran. It includes groups such as the People's Mujahedeen, the Organization of Iranian People's Fadaian Guerrillas and the Committed Professors of Iran's Universities and Schools of Higher Education. Its headquarters are at Auvers-sur-Oise, north of Paris.
- Feedster.com ranked this blog # 67 among the top 500 blogs.
- Gooya News reported that there will be a vigil in support of Iranian political prisoners, especially Akbar Ganji, in Paris on Friday.
- Persian Journal reported that Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said the withdrawal was a victory for legitimate Palestinian resistance.
- Uriah Kriegel, Tech Central Station reported that genuine revolutions are the result of widespread dissatisfaction so strongly suppressed that it eventually erupts.
- The New York Sun reported that if President Bush permits Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to come to America to address the United Nations it will dishearten the freedom fighters in Iran.
- Iranian.ws reported that the government of Iran has banned the use of Blogrolling.com and has ordered all Iranian ISPs to block and filter the blog rolling service.
- IranMania.com reported that Iranian dissident journalist Akbar Ganji has "officially" ended his hunger strike.
- Shahram Kholdi, ScanIranic translated Iranian hardline bios of Ahmadinehad's cabinet. Part two is here. He argues it is a wartime cabinet.
- Iran Focus reported on a recent scientific study that found 71 percent of teenagers in Iran suffer from depression.
- The New York Times reported that Ms. Rice said of the the recent IAEA statement: We had agreed in advance with the Europeans that we would seek a strong statement. This would be a two-step process.
- The Economist reported that theoretically, the Security Council could take a whole range of measures to against Iran: from selective visa bans for those involved in its nuclear program, through embargoes of various kinds, to tough economic sanctions. The UN is not the only recourse.
- UK Presidency of EU 2005, Presse 208 published the EU's Declaration on Iran's Unilateral Resumption of Nuke Activity.
- The Wall Street Journal reported that officials in Iran have threatened that they might stop the flow of tankers through the crucial Strait of Hormuz.
- Deutsche Welle reported that while Germans are worried about US President Bush's unwillingness to rule out military action against Iran, they said the US and Europe should concentrate on supporting Iran's democracy movement.
- Arnaud de Borchgrave, The Washington Times reported that if the U.S. and/or Israel decide to launch air strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities some 46 Iranian infantry and missile brigades are poised near the common border to move into Iraq.
- And finally, Bamahang Productions reported that for the first time, underground music from Iran became available for Digital Download over the internet.
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bttt
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Ordered by the National Intelligence Council in January, the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran doubles the amount of time the White House believes Iran is away from building a nuclear weapon from five years in the previous estimate in 2001, the daily said.
-a referral of Iran to the UN Security Council for sanctions is the ``next step.''-
Yes, by all means, let's take our formulated steps. Meanwhile, Iran is taking the elevator.
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