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Iran Pushing to Upgrade Enrichment Gear: IAEA
A forthcoming International Atomic Energy Agency report asserts Iran is pushing to replace thousands of its uranium enrichment centrifuges with newer carbon-fiber machines capable of operating five times faster than their predecessors, the Wall Street Journal reported today (see GSN, Feb. 17).
(Feb. 18) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad unveils an experimental uranium enrichment centrifuge at a ceremony in Tehran last year. A forthcoming International Atomic Energy Agency report says Iran is working to deploy a new line of higher-speed centrifuges, according to diplomats (Behrouz Mehri/Getty Images).
Iran was purging electronics from its Natanz uranium enrichment complex and other atomic facilities after what appears to be an unsuccessful attempt to locate the origin of the Stuxnet computer worm infecting the sites, said diplomats with knowledge of the “militarization report” requested by IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano. Moving in new equipment might take as long as two years, the diplomats said.
Deploying its experimental carbon-fiber in large numbers could enable Iran to produce sufficient material for a nuclear weapon in under 12 weeks, Germany determined in an official assessment. The United States and its allies have expressed concern that Iran’s uranium enrichment program could generate nuclear-weapon material; Tehran has insisted its atomic ambitions are strictly peaceful (David Crawford, Wall Street Journal, Feb. 18).
Meanwhile, the U.S. Treasury Department yesterday blacklisted an Iranian bank believed to be supporting the organization managing Read more…
Two Iranian Warships May Pass Through Suez Canal, Israel’s Lieberman Says
By Gwen Ackerman
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that two Iranian gunboats are planning to sail late today to Syria through Egypt’s Suez Canal in what he called a “provocation.”
“Regretfully, the international community isn’t showing readiness to deal with the recurring Iranian provocations,” Lieberman said today in a speech to U.S. Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. “The international community must understand that Israel can’t ignore forever these kinds of provocations.”
The Israeli statement comes five days after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stepped down and unrest in North Africa spread to the Persian Gulf, where Bahrain and Iran have seen anti-government protests since Feb. 14. Israeli leaders have voiced concern that Iran may exploit Read more…
Iranian MPs call for execution of opposition leaders
Moussavi and Karroubi under house arrest
222 members of Iran’s 290-seat Parliament calling for the execution of opposition leaders Mir Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi, who remain under house arrest after being detained from attending anti-government protests in Read more…
Ahmadinejad calls for Mideast without Israel and US
TEHRAN – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says Egypt’s popular uprising shows a new Middle East is emerging, one that will have no signs of Israel and US “interference.”
The Iranian president spoke as the country marked the 32nd anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. His remarks came hours after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak refused to step down, angering hundreds of thousands of Egyptians who have been demanding he relinquish his three-decade grip on power.
Ahmadinejad says Egyptians have the right to live in freedom and choose their own government.
Iran crushed opposition protests against Ahmadinejad’s disputed 2009 re-election and on Thursday, Iranian opposition leader Mahdi Karroubi was placed under house arrest because of calls for a rally in support of Egyptian protesters.
On Thursday, Iranian opposition leader Mahdi Karroubi announced via his website, Sahamnews.org, that he has been placed under house arrest, because he called for a rally in support of anti-government demonstrations in Egypt.
Karroubi petitioned the government for permission to hold a rally, but State Prosecutor Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehi rejected the request, warning of repercussions should a demonstration take place.
Chinese weapons fall into hands of insurgents
Insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq have obtained Chinese-made weapons
Chinese-made weapons have fallen into the hands of insurgents fighting Coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan because of China’s failure to enforce export controls on arms to Iran, the leaked cables show.
By Gordon Rayner
US diplomats also feared that Chinese companies were selling materials to Iran that could be used to build nuclear missiles and other weapons of mass destruction.
Chinese-made guns, as well as rocket-propelled grenades and surface-to-air missiles containing Chinese-made components, have all been used against Coalition forces or civilian targets in Iraq, the US claims, while other weapons have been obtained by militants in Afghanistan.
The US was so concerned about Chinese arms and components being sold to Iran that in September 2008 the State Department launched a major diplomatic offensive to put pressure on Beijing.
It decided to share intelligence with eight “key allies” including Spain and Italy to “persuade China to enforce its export control laws more effectively” and to “aggressively implement” UN Security Council resolutions on the sale of arms and weapons materials.
Ambassadors were told to encourage the foreign governments to point out to the Chinese that arms sales to Iran “could ultimately damage China’s reputation and its bilateral relationship with” each of the countries.
Iran to unveil ‘national supercomputer’
The national supercomputer is capable of processing 34 billion operations per second with a speed topping 40 gigabytes within the same time span, Mehr news agency reported on Monday.
Officials at Tehran’s Amirkabir University of Technology (AUT), which will display the computing machine, said that the Iranian supercomputer is capable of processing data and carrying out computations in an array of fields.
High-capacity supercomputers are viewed as strategic products and the Iranian computational device will rank amongst the world’s first 500, the report said.
Supercomputers, primarily introduced in the 1960s, are at the frontline of current processing capacity, particularly speed of calculation.
The machines were introduced in Iran around 10 years by the AUT. Iranian engineers and technicians have been making efforts to increase the computational capacities of the devices ever since.
Supercomputers are used for intensive calculation tasks such as problems involving physics, weather forecast, climate research, molecular modeling, simulations of airplanes in wind tunnels, nuclear research and computations in nanotechnology among others.
Iran unveils missiles, satellites as warning to foes
TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran showed off new missile and satellite technology on Monday, and told its enemies it had “complete domination” of the entrance to the oil-rich Gulf.
As part of Iran’s annual revolution celebrations, a time traditionally marked by new technological and military advances, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad unveiled locally-made satellites while a senior commander showed off mass produced missiles.
“We should reach a point where we will be able to provide our knowledge and technology in the aerospace field to other countries,” Ahmadinejad said in a speech, unveiling the satellites he said were for scientific purposes, and showing film of a satellite-carrier rocket.
Although Iran is not engaged in any military conflict, it is on constant alert against possible attacks from the United States and Israel which have not ruled out possible pre-emptive strikes to stop Tehran getting nuclear weapons.
Iran says it has no intention of making nuclear bombs and that its atomic programme, which is the subject of U.S., European and U.N. sanctions, is entirely peaceful.
In 2009, Iran launched a domestically-made satellite into orbit for the first time, a step that increased the Read more…
Iran Escalates Attacks on Christians
Joseph DeCaro
TEHRAN, Iran (Worthy News)– Last Christmas, the Iranian government began arresting Christians, raiding and ransacking their homes as they are taken to prison and interrogation.
Since December 26, anywhere from 100 to 600 Christians, often converts from Islam, have been detained without charge and without access to lawyers or family members for what the governor general of Tehran Province claims is their “corrupting” influence on society.
Along with Christians, other Iranian religious minorities — Zoroastrians, Sufis and Sh’ia — have also come under closer government scrutiny.
Reportedly, Iran’s religious minorities are increasing in large numbers because many of its Muslims will no longer tolerate their government’s intolerable version of Islam.
Scientists Warn Iran Could Produce Enough Nuclear Material for Warhead in 5 Months
ISTANBUL — The U.S. is joining five other world powers for talks with Iran this week publicly confident that international efforts have slowed Tehran’s capacity to make nuclear arms and created more time to press Tehran to accept curbs on its atomic activities.
But while diplomats and officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency — the U.N. nuclear monitor — agree that Iran’s enrichment program has struggled over past years, the Federation of American Scientists warns against complacency.
It notes impressive improvements in the performance of the Iranian machines that enrich uranium — an activity that has provoked U.N. sanctions because it could be used to make nuclear weapons.
Washington’s message is essentially this: Iran is struggling with uranium enrichment, a process that can create both nuclear fuel and fissile warhead material. Significantly, that view is backed by Israel, Iran’s implacable foe and considered to have the Mideast’s best intelligence on Iran’s nuclear strivings.
If true, that leaves more time to negotiate in hopes Iran will come around and give up enrichment — thereby removing the threat of an Israeli or U.S. military strike on Iran’s nuclear Read more…
WikiLeaks: Iran developing nuclear bomb with help of more than 30 countries
The Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten quotes U.S. diplomatic cables as saying that Iran is racing to achieve nuclear bomb before its economy collapses due to sanctions.
Iran has been developing contacts in more than 30 countries to acquire technology, equipment and raw materials needed to build a nuclear bomb, a Norwegian newspaper said on Sunday, citing U.S. diplomatic cables.
Aftenposten said that according to the cables, obtained by WikiLeaks, more than 350 Iranian companies and organizations were involved in the pursuit of nuclear and missile technology between 2006 and 2010.
 Technicians measuring parts of Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant in this undated photo. |
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| Photo by: AP |
Iran says its nuclear program has purely peaceful aims but the West suspects is designed to develop a weapons capability.
“For years, Iran has been working systematically to acquire the parts, equipment and technology needed for developing such weapons, in violation of UN sanctions against the country Read more…
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