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Iran today effectively kick-starts opera tions of its Bushehr nuclear reactor -- a move hard-liners tout as defiance of President Obama's sanctions regime. This follows Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi's announcement yesterday that Iran has test-fired a new ballistic missile with advanced targeting capabilities. Yet despite it all, Washington reportedly has "assured" Israel that Iran is at least one year away from completing a "breakout" in uranium conversion into weapons-grade fissionable material. The point appears to be to delay pre-emptive Israeli military action against Iranian nuclear facilities until Obama can sweet-talk Tehran out of its bomb. Good luck with that --...

After US says Bushehr reactor not a proliferation risk, Israeli Foreign Ministry says country that 'so blatantly violates UN resolutions, IAEA decisions should not enjoy fruits of using nuclear energy' Israel on Saturday denounced Iran's fueling up of its first nuclear power plant as "totally unacceptable" and called for more international pressure to force Tehran to cease any uranium enrichment. Israel, widely assumed to be the only Middle East country to have nuclear weapons, has said a nuclear-armed Iran would be a threat to its existence, raising concerns Israel could attack Iran's nuclear sites. After Iran begins fueling first nuclear...

After Iran begins fueling first nuclear reactor, president says 'Zionist entity knows Iran an indestructible bulwark,' adding Tehran's response to any strike will be 'hard and painful.' US: Bushehr reactor not a proliferation risk As Iranian and Russian engineers began loading fuel into Iran's first nuclear power plant on Saturday, Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad promised a global response if his country is attacked, in an interview with Qatari daily Al-Sharq. "Our options will have no limits... They will touch the entire planet," he said Saturday in response to a question about Tehran's reaction in the event of such an...

SNIPPET: "State television showed live pictures of Iran's nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi and his Russian counterpart looking on at what appeared to be a fuel rod suspended from the ceiling. "The beginning of the first stage of the physical start-up has taken place," said Sergei Novikov, spokesman for Russia's state nuclear corporation Rosatom." SNIPPET: "Russia, which helped finish building the plant..."

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...

Ahmad Vahidi’s announcement comes a day before Iran is scheduled to launch its Russian-built first nuclear power plant in the southern port city of Bushehr. Television images showed the sand coloured Qiam (Rising) blasting into the air from a desert terrain, amid chants of “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest). The words “Ya Mahdi” were written on the side of the missile, referring to Imam Mahdi, one of the 12 imams of Shiite Islam, who disappeared as a boy and whom the faithful believe will return one day to bring redemption to mankind. Mr Vahidi, who was speaking during Friday prayers...

Two mysterious incidents are reported in the run-up to the fueling up of Iran's first nuclear reactor Saturday, Aug. 21 Tuesday, Aug. 17, an Iranian F4 Phantom fighter jet was claimed by Tehran to have crashed 6 kilometers north of the Bushehr nuclear reactor in southern Iran. Military sources report it was shot down by Russian-made TOR-M1 air-missile defense batteries guarding the reactor. A local government official Gholam Reza Keshtkar said the pilot and co-pilot ejected from the plane before it crashed and were rushed to hospital. The TOR-M1 is designed to intercept planes or missiles coming in at medium...

NOTE: THIS IS THE NEW ISRAEL-RELATED THREAD Note The following news brief is a quote: Report: IDF attacks targets in south, central Gaza Strip Published: 08.17.10, 23:45 / Israel News Palestinians reported that the IDF had fired towards open ground in Khan Younis and attacked the smuggling tunnels in the south of the Gaza Strip. No injuries were reported. Two IDF soldiers were lightly wounded Tuesday morning from shells fired into the western Negev. (Ali Waked)

TEHRAN, Aug. 16 (MNA) -- Iran’s ambassador to Moscow has stated that Russia’s announcement that the Bushehr nuclear power plant will be loaded with nuclear fuel next week caught the enemies off guard. “The news report about the loading of the Bushehr plant with nuclear fuel was so unexpected that it confused the enemies of this project and prompted them to issue irrelevant and illogical statements,” Ambassador Mahmoud-Reza Sajjadi told the Fars News Agency on Monday. He made the remarks in response to John R. Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, who told Fox News on Friday...

Joy Tiz ©2010 Putin’s Russia has at long last stopped the dawdling and is ready to load fuel into Iran’s Bushehr plant. Just in time for Ramadan! Cynical types may suggest it has something to do with the current leadership in Washington: "Russian officials did not say why they had decided to move ahead with loading fuel into the Bushehr plant now. But the move could have been triggered in part by Moscow’s desire show the Iranians it can act independently from Washington after its decision to support the fourth set of U.N. sanctions in June and its continued refusal...

The sudden announcement in Moscow and Tehran on Aug. 11 that Russia is set to activate Iran's first nuclear power reactor by loading the fuel on Aug. 21 has caused a major flap in Israel in view of the military aspects of the plant. debkafile's military sources report that only last week, high Israeli officials asked Washington for clarifications on the latest intelligence information that Moscow had decided to finally activate the Bushehr reactor after innumerable delays. The White House called the Kremlin and was assured that President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minster Vladimir Putin stood by their pledge to...

Russia has announced that it will start loading uranium fuel into the nuclear reactor of the Bushehr nuclear power station in Iran on August 21, a spokesman for Russia's state atomic cooperation reportedly told Reuters Friday. According to the report, the spokesperson was quoted as saying that the addition of fuel will be crucial to initiating the country's first nuclear reactor. The United States has called for Russia to delay the startup until Iran proves that it's not developing nuclear weapons.Novikov said that Rosatom chief Sergei Kiriyenko will travel to Bushehr in southern Iran for the Aug. 21 ceremony, which...

MOSCOW (AFP)--Iran's first nuclear power plant, being built by Russia in the southern Iranian city of Bushehr, will formally launch on Aug. 21, a spokesman for the Russian atomic agency told AFP on Friday.

SNIPPET: “Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday that Moscow was in talks on building further nuclear power plants in Iran — a step that, if followed through, would rile the West — in addition to the Bushehr site, due to open in August after years of delay. Lavrov’s statement came just hours after Russia’s Foreign Ministry said the new UN sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program did not oblige Moscow to scrap a controversial deal to deliver surface-to-air missiles to Tehran.”

Obama amputates our nuclear arms By: Charles Krauthammer ...snippet...Under President Obama’s new policy, however, if the state that has just attacked us with biological or chemical weapons is “in compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty,” explained Gates, then “the U.S. pledges not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against it.” Imagine the scenario: Hundreds of thousands are lying dead in the streets of Boston after a massive anthrax or nerve gas attack. The president immediately calls in the lawyers to determine whether the attacking state is in compliance with the NPT. If it turns out that the attacker...

Russia has pledged to open Iran's first nuclear energy reactor within a few months. Officials said Iran's nuclear reactor at Bushehr would begin operations in the summer of 2010. They said Iran and Russia have agreed to the launch of the 1,000 megawatt facility, constructed by the state-owned Atomstroyexport, in July. "July is the start of the phase for the physical launch," Atomstroyexport official Vladimir Pavlov said. In a briefing on March 18, Pavlov, responsible for construction of Bushehr, said Atomstroyexport has concluded all assembly and installation. He said he did not envision any technical obstacles. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir...

Iran and Russia have agreed on another start-up date for the nuclear energy reactor at Bushehr. Officials said the two countries agreed to begin operations of the 1,000 megawatt nuclear reactor in late 2010. They said the Bushehr reactor, built by Russia, was undergoing its final stage of tests. "2010 is the year of Bushehr," Rosatom director Sergei Kiriyenko said. In a briefing in Moscow on Jan. 21, Kiriyenko said Bushehr would be completed by the end of 2010. He said Russia's state-owned prime contractor Atomstroyexport had not reported delays in the final stage of Bushehr, a $1 billion project...

Iran's first nuclear power plant will be operating by mid-2011, Iranian and Russian officials say. The Bushehr plant was begun in 1974 and abandoned five years later. Russia took over building work in the 1990s, but it has been beset with delays. Iran's semi-official Fars news agency quoted the head of Iran's atomic agency as saying that the plant had passed most tests successfully.

MOSCOW, Jan 21 (Reuters) - Russia will start up the reactor at Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant this year, the chief of Russia's state nuclear corporation told reporters on Thursday. "2010 is the year of Bushehr," Rosatom chief Sergei Kiriyenko told reporters after a cabinet meeting in Moscow. "There is absolutely no doubt that it will be built this year. Everything is going according to schedule," he said

Czechs are used to betrayal by their Western allies. It was at Munich in 1938 that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sealed their doom in exchange for a piece of paper promising "peace in our time." The fact that this further gutting of missile defense came on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland on Sept. 17, 1939, is an eerie coincidence. "Just after midnight I was informed in a telephone call by President Barack Obama that (his) administration had decided to pull out from the planned missile defense shield installations" in the Czech Republic and Poland, the...