nuclear-news

latest news on the uranium/nuclear industry

It looks as if USA and Israel are murdering Iran’s nuclear scientists

The undeclared war on Iran’s nuclear program, PAUL KORING TEHRAN—  Globe and Mail  May. 25, 2012 Over the past 28 months, assassins have targeted at least five Iranians scientists or engineers, men linked by Western intelligence agencies to the country’s controversial nuclear program….

No group or nation has claimed responsibility for any of the attacks on Iranian scientists. The killings are clearly part of a deliberate campaign. Some in the West see them as justified in the broader effort to deny a nuclear arsenal to Iran’s bellicose leaders…… Read more »

May 26, 2012 Posted by | Iran, politics international | Leave a Comment

Iran: Cautious moves for compromise on uranium enrichment

U.S., allies may drop demand that Iran completely halt uranium enrichment By Sahar Issa — McClatchy Newspapers, May 23, 2012;  The United States and five other major powers exchanged extensive proposals with Iran on Wednesday over that country’s nuclear program amid signs that the U.S. and its negotiating partners were dropping demands that Iran completely halt the  enrichment of uranium.
Instead, the six powers formally asked Iran to halt enrichment of
uranium to 20 percent purity, a proposal that would allow it to
continue enriching uranium to the 5 percent level Iran says it needs
for electrical power generation.

…….The proposals also contained incentives for Iran, but it wasn’t
clear whether the six powers had offered to ease far-reaching
sanctions that have sharply hurt Iran’s economy or to suspend a cutoff
of purchases of Iranian oil that’s due to go into effect July 1.

Iran, which says that its uranium enrichment program is for peaceful
purposes, cautiously welcomed the six-power proposal.

“The ideas fielded to us speak of the fact that the other side would
like to make Baghdad a success,” Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar
Salehi said in Tehran. “We hope that in a day or two we can bring good
news.”…….http://www.macon.com/2012/05/23/2036306/us-allies-may-drop-demand-that.html

May 26, 2012 Posted by | Iran, politics international | Leave a Comment

Baghdad nuclear talks offer real hope of progress between Iran and world powers

Iran nuclear talks: why optimism could be different this time, Christian Science Monitor, By Howard LaFranchi, Staff writer / May 22, 2012 The meeting in Baghdad will discuss Iran’s nuclear program. The US and some of its partners are speaking more hopefully about prospects for these talks than at almost any point in the past.

The talks that open in Baghdad Wednesday between Iran and six world powers on curbing
Iran’s nuclear program may well determine whether Israel or the US launches airstrikes against Iranian nuclear facilities. The talks will also be a factor in the US presidential election this year.

But no one should expect to see Wednesday either a comprehensive agreement addressing more than a decade of concerns about Iran’s nuclear development, or a throwing in of the towel (by either side) that paves the way to war.

The more likely scenario, if the talks go well, is the launching of intensive, virtually constant negotiations, which would suggest that agreement on the key issues important to each side is possible and indeed achievable in some reasonably short time frame, some regional
experts say….. http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2012/0522/Iran-nuclear-talks-why-optimism-could-be-different-this-time

May 23, 2012 Posted by | Iran, politics international | Leave a Comment

Iran agrees to let UN inspectors investigate suspected nuclear weapons site

Iran ‘to allow nuclear inspectors’, Herald Sun,  AP May 23, 2012 IRAN has agreed in principle to allow UN inspectors to restart investigations into a suspected nuclear weapons test site.

The tentative accord – announced as envoys headed to the Iraqi capital for negotiations – is likely to be used by Iran as added leverage to seek concessions from the West on sanctions.

But US officials have shown no willingness to shift into bargaining mode so quickly, setting the stage for possible tense moments after talks tentatively set for today resume in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone.

Still, Iran’s move raises the pressure on the West for some reciprocal gestures to keep dialogue on track and further highlights Tehran’s apparent aims of opening a long give-and-take process over its nuclear
ambitions.

A major breakthrough in the years-long impasse was not expected in Baghdad, with officials and experts saying both sides will seek to demonstrate enough progress to keep the process moving forward…..http://www.heraldsun.com.au/ipad/iran-signals-wider-un-access/story-fn6s850w-1226364055809

May 23, 2012 Posted by | Iran, politics international | Leave a Comment

Military action in Syria could escalate into nuclear war

Russia says action on Syria, Iran may go nuclear By Gleb Bryanski MOSCOW |   May 17, 2012   (Reuters) - Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev warned on Thursday that military action against sovereign states could lead to a regional nuclear war, starkly voicing Moscow’s opposition to Western intervention ahead of a G8 summit at which Syria and Iran will be discussed.

“Hasty military operations in foreign states usually bring radicals to power,” Medvedev, president for four years until Vladimir Putin’s inauguration on May 7, told a conference in St. Petersburg in remarks posted on the government’s website.

“At some point such actions which undermine state sovereignty may lead to a full-scale regional war, even, although I do not want to frighten anyone, with the use of nuclear weapons,” Medvedev said. “Everyone should bear this in mind.”…
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/17/us-g8-russia-idUSBRE84G18M20120517

May 18, 2012 Posted by | politics international, Syria | Leave a Comment

Saudi Arabia’s $109 billion solar energy plan

Saudi Arabia Plans $109 Billion Boost for Solar Power Bloomberg, By Wael Mahdi and Marc Roca – May 10, 2012  Saudi Arabia  is seeking investors for a $109 billion plan to create a solar industry that generates a third of the nation’s electricity by 2032, according to officials at the agency developing the plan….

“We are not only looking for building solar plants,” al- Odan said in an interview in Riyadh yesterday. “We want to run a sustainable solar energy sector that will become a driver for the domestic energy for years to come.”…

May 11, 2012 Posted by | renewable, Saudi Arabia | Leave a Comment

Iran’s leadership ‘rational’ about nuclear weapons, says Israel’s military chief

Israeli military chief: Iran will not decide to make nuclear weapons Guardian UK   by  25 April 2012 Benny Gantz has told Israeli daily Haaretz that the Iranian leadership is composed of very rational people 

Israel‘s military chief, Benny Gantz, has stated he doesn’t believe Iran will decide to make nuclear weapons and that Iranian key decision makers are rational. Read more »

May 7, 2012 Posted by | Iran, Israel, politics international | Leave a Comment

Can Israel maintain its secret nuclear arsenal?

Israel’s atomic arsenal could fall victim to a new U.S. nuclear policy Haaretz, 4 May 12, Senior Haaretz analyst Amir Oren says that if Obama wins in November, he will likely push for dramatic new reductions in nuclear arsenals; in addition to the U.S. and Russia, Israel may also have to give up some of the nuclear warheads it reportedly holds.

By Amir Oren   ”…..According to a secret document of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency, which was drawn up at the end of the Bill Clinton administration and leaked during the period of the George W. Bush administration, Israel had “60 to 80″ nuclear warheads in 1999. The document’s authors did not expect this number to change much in the next two decades….. http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/week-s-end/israel-s-atomic-arsenal-could-fall-victim-to-a-new-u-s-nuclear-policy-1.428231

May 5, 2012 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | Leave a Comment

3.000 of Chernobyl’s most vulnerable children helped to safety and care

Children of Chernobyl Airlifts 97th Group in Advance of 26th Anniversary http://www.chabad.org/blogs/blog_cdo/aid/1838545/jewish/Children-of-Chernobyl-Airlifts-97th-Group-in-Advance-of-26th-Anniversary.htm, April 25, 2012 By Joshua Runyan  One week before the 26th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear explosion that rained down fallout across an entire swath of Eastern Europe, Chabad’s Children of Chernobyl brought 26 more children to safety and medical care in Israel, its 97th rescue mission.

“On this significant anniversary, thousands of children every day are still feeling the tragic consequences of the Chernobyl disaster,” said Nancy Spielberg, founding board member of CCOC, in a statement. “They are facing devastating illnesses from radiation contamination –radiation that will be with us for thousands of years. As we’ve seen from the recent Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan, the impact from this kind of radioactivity is as devastating today as it was 26 years ago.”

To date, the Chabad-Lubavitch run organization, which was designed to rescue those most vulnerable from the April 26, 1986 meltdown that left thousands of square kilometers uninhabitable, has helped 2,822 children escape the contaminated living conditions surrounding that portion of Ukraine. Most are brought to a sprawling educational and residential complex in the central Israeli village of Kfar Chabad, where they’re provided with medical care and social services.

The organization also provides medicine, equipment and other needed items for those who
cannot leave Europe. Spielberg pointed to World Health Organization statistics, which show the rate of thyroid cancer in the contaminated areas surrounding Chernobyl as more than 200 times the world norm.

April 30, 2012 Posted by | - Chernobyl, Israel, Reference, social effects, Ukraine | Leave a Comment

Israeli experts criticise Netanyahu’s belligerent stand towards Iran

Mr Diskin’s comments echoed those previously made by Meir Dagan, the director of Israel’s Mossad spy agency until January last year, who said that a strike on Iran would lead to ”regional war” and encourage Iran to continue its nuclear program.

‘Messianic’ Israeli leaders warned over Iran strike, Sydney Morning Herald, Karin Brulliard April 30, 2012 JERUSALEM: The recently retired chief of Israel’s domestic intelligence agency has described the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Defence Minister, Ehud Barak, as men driven by ”messianic feelings” and said that he had ”no faith” in them to lead a possible strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The scathing comments by Yuval Diskin, who had kept a low profile since retiring last year, added to the sense of a divide between Israel’s security establishment and its political leadership over Iran. Last week the head of Israel’s military, Lieutenant-General
Benny Gantz, said sanctions and the threat of military action would deter Iran from building nuclear bombs, an analysis that contrasted with Mr Netanyahu’s and Mr Barak’s grimmer assessments. Read more »

April 30, 2012 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | Leave a Comment

A compromise solution may let Iran partially enrich uranium

US may let Iran partially enrich uranium: report, Business Recorder , 28 APRIL 2012   LOS ANGELES: The United States could let Iran partially enrich uranium in return for strict measures to curb its ability to build a nuclear bomb, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday. Read more »

April 28, 2012 Posted by | Iran, politics international | Leave a Comment

Israel’s Secret Illegal Nuclear Biological And Chemical Weapons

  http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2012/04/israels-secret-illegal-nuclear.html April 2012, In this article, we will explore the secret weapons of mass destruction program in Israel, which still has not been disclosed to the UN or anyone else for that matter. Not disclosing the possession of weapons of mass destruction is illegal.

 The UN required Iraq to disclose the nuclear program it had along with all other weapons of mass destruction. The UN did not require and still has not required that Israel disclose all of it’s weapons of mass destruction; nuclear, biological or chemical. Why not? ….
According to this BBC movie , Israel not only possesses weapons of mass destruction, it has actually used one or more of these secret weapons of mass destruction in Gaza. Of course, they will not confirm or deny that they even have any of these weapons. Nor will they admit that they used any of these weapons.
The thing that is so ironic about the possession of weapons of mass destruction is that this nation has been subject to genocide in the past, so one would think that they would be the LAST nation on Earth to use or stockpile these types of weapons. They know the horrors of genocide, but now they seem intent on accumulating and also using them.
Israel is outside of all international weapons of mass destruction treaties. It will not even disclose whether it even has a nuclear plant, much less nuclear weapons. The whole nuclear and weapons program is completely secret, and completely covered up.  Read more »

April 28, 2012 Posted by | Israel, Resources -audiovicual, weapons and war | Leave a Comment

Iran’s plea for trust in nuclear talks

In the upcoming talks, we hope that all sides will return to the negotiating table as equals with mutual respect; that all sides will be committed to comprehensive, long-term dialogue aimed at resolving all parties’ outstanding concerns; and, most important, that all sides make genuine efforts to reestablish confidence and trust.

Iran: We do not want nuclear weapons Washington Post, By Ali Akbar Salehi,  April 12 Ali Akbar Salehi is foreign minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Forty-five years ago, the United States sold my country a research reactor as well as weapons-grade uranium as its fuel. Not long afterward, America agreed to help Iran set up the full nuclear fuel cycle along with atomic power plants. The U.S. argument was that nuclear power would provide for the growing needs of our economy and free our remaining oil reserves for export or conversion to petrochemicals.

That rationale has not changed. Still, after the Islamic Revolution in our country in 1979, all
understandings with the United States in the nuclear field unraveled. Read more »

April 13, 2012 Posted by | Iran, politics international | Leave a Comment

How the Stuxnet computer worm was introduced into Iran’s nuclear plant

Stuxnet delivered to Iranian nuclear plant on thumb drive, CNET News, 12 April 12,  Citing U.S. intelligence sources, ISSSource says an infected memory stick was used to hit the facility with the worm that severely damaged Iran’s nuclear program.

by Daniel Terdiman  April 12, 2012 An Iranian double agent working for Israel used a standard thumb drive carrying a deadly payload to infect Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility with the highly destructive Stuxnet computer worm, according to a story by ISSSource.  Stuxnet quickly propagated throughout Natanz    – knocking that facility offline and at least temporarily crippling Iran’s nuclear program — once a user did nothing more than click on a Windows icon. The worm was discovered nearly two years ago.
ISSSource’s report yesterday was based on sources inside the U.S. intelligence community.
These sources, who requested anonymity because of their close proximity to investigations, said a saboteur at the Natanz nuclear facility, probably a member of an Iranian dissident group, used a memory stick to infect the machines there. They said using a person on the ground would greatly increase the probability of computer infection, as opposed to passively waiting for the software to spread through the computer facility. “Iranian double agents” would have helped to target the most vulnerable spots in the system,” one source said. In October 2010, Iran’s intelligence minister, Heydar Moslehi said an unspecified number of “nuclear spies” were arrested in connection with Stuxnet.33 virus.

As CNET first reported in August 2010, Stuxnet, as a worm intended to hit critical infrastructure companies, wasn’t meant to remove data from Natanz. Rather, it left a back door that was meant to be accessed remotely to allow outsiders to stealthily control the plant…… http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-57413329-52/stuxnet-delivered-to-iranian-nuclear-plant-on-thumb-drive/

April 13, 2012 Posted by | Iran, technology | Leave a Comment

The eternal cost of dealing with dead, but radioactive, nuclear reactors

Turkish nuclear power – an unwarranted venture, Hurriyet Daily News, ERHUN KULA, 12 April 12 “……Studies in France (available from the author), the most nuclear dependent nation, reveal that nuclear energy is more expensive then hydro and fossil fuel powered units, even when the end cost of nuclear power plants – which is decommissioning and storing highly dangerous nuclear wastes in repositories for thousands of years – is ignored. The most expensive and risky problem with nuclear energy is the safe disposal of the radioactive waste. It has to be transported over long distances, stored and monitored over a very long period of time.

A few months ago the Mersin Akkuyu Nuclear Electricity Production Corporation commissioned an “independent” engineering company, DOKAY, to carry out an environmental impact assessment of the proposed nuclear power unit. In its over 100 page report, DOKAY provided a “pleasing” document to its sponsor. As for nuclear wastes – the end product – only a few sentences are reserved, which is quite outrageous.

There are more than 400 nuclear reactors operating in various countries. A nuclear power station has 35-40 years of operating life. After that it must be dismantled and the area must be cleaned up (the decommissioning process). But so far, no nuclear power station has been completely decommissioned in the world. It has been estimated that decommissioning could last about 50 years and it would cost more than the construction cost.

One of the earliest decommissioning efforts is taking place at Dounrey plant, on the northern tip of Scotland. It started more than 15 years ago and we need at least 30 years more to finish the job. After that, waste must be stored in nuclear graves (waste repositories) for thousands of years. United States regulations require the storage period to be at least 10,000 years.

The cost of decommissioning and waste storage will fall upon future generations at huge costs.   My American colleague, Prof. S. Frachette,  argues that large quantities of nuclear waste is likely to endanger the health, safety and civil liberties of generations yet to be born.

Professor Erhun Kula, from Istanbul’s Bahçesehir University, researched economic and moral aspects of nuclear power in the U.K., the United States and Sweden, and has published widely in this field.  http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-nuclear-power–an-unwarranted-venture.aspx?pageID=238&nID=18223&NewsCatID=396

April 12, 2012 Posted by | 2 WORLD, decommission reactor, Turkey | Leave a Comment

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