Russia raises awareness of Libya’s unguarded yellowcake uranium
Russia implores UN to take control of Libya’s ‘unguarded’ yellowcake uranium, Rt.com. November 05, 2013 Russia has asked the UN Security Council to look into the dangers posed by a badly-guarded stockpile of yellowcake uranium in the Libyan Desert. Recent reports have said that Al-Qaeda is interested in the supply as a potential nuclear weapon component. Continue reading
Iran’s supreme leader curbing hard liners against America
Khamenei tells Iran’s hardliners not to undermine nuclear talks By Yeganeh Torbati 4 Oct 13, DUBAI (Reuters) – Iran’s supreme leader gave strong backing on Sunday to his president’s push for nuclear negotiations, warning hardliners not to accuse Hassan Rouhani of compromising with the old enemy America.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s comments will help shield Rouhani, who has sought to thaw relations with the West since his surprise election in June, from accusations of being soft on the United States, often characterized in the Islamic Republic as the “Great Satan”.
Iran will resume negotiations with six world powers, including the United States, in Geneva on Thursday, talks aimed at ending a standoff over its nuclear work that Tehran denies is weapons-related. Rouhani hopes a deal there will mean an end to sanctions that have cut the OPEC country’s oil exports and hurt the wider economy, but any concession that looks like Iran is compromising on what it sees as its sovereign right to peaceful nuclear technology will be strongly resisted by conservatives.
“No one should consider our negotiators as compromisers,” Khamenei said in a speech, a day before the November 4 anniversary of the 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, a pivotal event in U.S.-Iranian relations, the ISNA news agency reported.
“They have a difficult mission and no one must weaken an official who is busy with work,” said Khamenei, who wields ultimate power in Iran’s dual clerical-republic system, including over the nuclear program. ENEMY WHO SMILES
Hardline factions, who oppose any thaw in relations with the United States, have criticized Rouhani’s negotiating team for not releasing details of the proposal they made to world powers at a previous round of talks in Geneva last month.
They have also resisted calls from moderate Iranian newspapers and prominent figures including former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani to drop the “Death to America” chant, often heard at Friday prayers throughout Iran……..
In September, U.S. President Barack Obama insisted that the United States would “take no options off the table, including military options, in terms of making sure that we do not have nuclear weapons in Iran.” http://ca.news.yahoo.com/khamenei-tells-irans-hardliners-not-undermine-nuclear-talks-120352798.html
Iran upbeat about progress in nuclear negotiations with the West
Iran pledges “new approaches” with U.N. nuclear agency CBC News 28 Oct 13, A senior Iranian negotiator was upbeat Monday about the chances of progress in the latest round of talks about a proposed U.N. investigation of his country’s nuclear program, promising “new approaches” meant to end nearly two years of deadlock.
Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi spoke to reporters after meeting with Yukiya Amano, the head of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency, and shortly before IAEA and Iranian officials sat down to negotiate again about the terms of the IAEA investigation……
Araghchi did not give details about Iran’s position, but in remarks to reporters loaded with optimism, he spoke of a “very useful and constructive meeting” with Amano, and said he was “very hopeful” that the talks on the proposed probe will break “with a good result.”
Beyond any new Iranian initiative Araghchi’s visit had significance on its own. He and other senior Iranian officials have repeatedly expressed willingness to work on reducing fears about Iran’s nuclear aims since reformist Iranian President Hassan Rouhani took office in August……http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57609617/iran-pledges-new-approaches-with-u.n-nuclear-agency/
US State Dept official offends Iran with provocative comments
The Comment That Offended Iranians More Than a Nuclear Threat Iran’s leaders don’t worry we’ll nuke them. They worry we’ll never trust them. By Michael Crowley @Crowley TIME 24 Oct 13, Octogenarian billionaire and GOP megdaonor Sheldon Adelson caused a ruckus Wednesday by suggesting that the U.S. lob a nuclear missile into the Iranian desert. The idea, as Adelson described it, was to issue a warning shot that would show Tehran “we mean business” in nuclear negotiations. American media outlets hyped Adelson’s characteristically hawkish fantasy. But Iran appeared unperturbed by his talk of a nuclear first strike.
That’s because the real furor in Tehran now is over another provocative remark, this one from Wendy Sherman, a senior State Department official who is America’s lead negotiator in talks with Iran. In recent testimony to Congress, Sherman said that the U.S. had to be cautious about cutting a deal with Tehran, because recent experience with the Iranians over their nuclear program—which Iran has repeatedly concealed—shows that “deception is part of the DNA.”
“Sherman’s DNA comment has created a big stir in Iran,” says Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Adelson not so much.”
How could a diplomatic slight like Sherman’s outweigh Adelson’s talk of a nuclear first strike?
One reason has to do with the messengers. Adelson may bankroll Republicans, but he’s not setting American policy. And no one takes seriously his fantasy of a nuclear shot across Tehran’s bow.
Sherman, by contrast, speaks directly for the U.S. government. That’s why conservative leaders and media outlets in Iran are lashing out at what they call Sherman’s insult, uttered at a Senate hearing earlier this month. One hard-line paper is calling for a boycott of the talks if she’s present. A cartoon published by Iran’s Fars news agency depicts Sherman as a broom-riding witch…….
the flap also goes to a core problem with the nuclear talks: mutual distrust. The U.S. worries that Iran is feigning flexibility to win relief from sanctions, with no real intent to halt its nuclear program. Iran thinks America sees the nuclear issue as a stalking horse for regime change. The parallel suspicions could make a deal impossible…… http://swampland.time.com/2013/10/24/the-comment-that-offended-iranians-more-than-a-nuclear-threat/#ixzz2ilvRuSjn
Iran pauses uranium enrichment
Iran temporarily halts 20% uranium enrichment: Tehran (AFP) – 7 News 24 Oct 13 Iran has temporarily halted its production of enriched uranium to 20 percent purity as it has sufficient stocks to fuel its Tehran research reactor, a lawmaker was quoted Thursday as saying.
“There is no production at all … as right now there is no need for the production of 20 percent (enriched) uranium,” the parliament website reported conservative MP Hossein Naqavi Hosseini as saying.
Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme is at the core of its dispute with world powers, who suspect it masks a drive for atomic weapons despite repeated denials by the Islamic republic….. Demands that the programme be halted were again put forward earlier this year in the Kazakh city of Almaty, in talks between Iran and the P5+1 group — the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia plus Germany.
The halting of the sensitive work could be crucial in resolving the long-running showdown in the negotiations, which were revived last week in Geneva and are set to resume in November.
In the talks, Iran is seeking the lifting of international sanctions which have damaged its struggling economy. World powers for their part are seeking to ensure that Tehran is not able to develop nuclear weapons. http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/19538233/iran-temporarily-halts-20-uranium-enrichment-report/
World Health Organisation now distancing itself from dodgy report on Iraq birth defects?
there are signs that the WHO has sought to distance itself from the findings. The interim report, which was published on September 11th, is unsigned by its authors and, while published on the WHO’s website, is apparently the sole responsibility of the Iraqi 
Ministry of Health.
Fresh revelations cast doubt over reliability of Iraq birth defect study http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/fresh-doubts-over-reliability-iraq-study 16 Oct 13 Trust in the findings of a study into rates of congenital birth defects in Iraq, undertaken by the WHO and Iraqi Ministry of Health, has continued to decline after interventions from three former UN officials. ICBUW continues to argue that full transparency is the only way for the WHO and Iraqi Ministry of Health to rebuild the study’s credibility. Continue reading
Yassa Arafat murdered by radioactive polonium
Yasser Arafat: The Dark History of Polonium http://www.livescience.com/40448-history-of-polonium-yasser-arafat.html By Marc Lallanilla, Assistant Editor | October 15, 2013 Little did scientists Marie and Pierre Curie suspect, when they discovered polonium in 1898, that the radioactive element would go on to have one of the darkest and most intriguing histories of any known substance.
In 2004, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat died of uncertain causes in Percy Hospital in Paris. He complained of nausea and stomach pain, suffered liver and kidney failure, and eventually lapsed into a coma before dying. In 2012, Arafat’s remains were exhumed because of persistent rumors that he was the victim of an assassination that used poloniumas a deadly weapon.
A report published last week in the medical journal The Lancet confirmed that traces of polonium were found on Arafat’s toothbrush, underwear and other personal items, fueling reports that he was assassinated. And Arafat isn’t the first person who’s believed to have been murdered by polonium.
Cover-up by World Health Organisation, of Iraq birth defects?
The publication of this ‘summary document’ on the World Health Organisation’s website has raised questions from independent experts and former United Nations and WHO officials, who question the validity of its findings and its anonymous authorship.
“There is definitive evidence of an alarming rise in birth defects, leukaemia, cancer and other carcinogenic diseases in Iraq after the war. Looking at the stark difference between previous descriptions of the WHO study’s findings and this new report, it seems that someone, somewhere clumsily decided that they would not release these damning findings, but instead obscure them.”
How the World Health Organisation covered up Iraq’s nuclear nightmare http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2013/oct/13/world-health-organisation-iraq-war-depleted-uranium by Nafeez Ahmed Ex-UN, WHO officials reveal political interference to suppress scientific evidence of postwar environmental health catastrophe
Last month, the World Health Organisation (WHO) published a long awaited document summarising the findings of an in-depth investigation into the prevalence of congenital birth defects (CBD) in Iraq, which many experts believe is linked to the use of depleted uranium (DU) munitions by Allied forces. According to the ‘summary report’:
“The rates for spontaneous abortion, stillbirths and congenital birth defects found in the study are consistent with or even lower than international estimates. The study provides no clear evidence to suggest an unusually high rate of congenital birth defects in Iraq.”
Jaffar Hussain, WHO’s Head of Mission in Iraq, said that the report is based on survey techniques that are “renowned worldwide” and that the study was peer reviewed “extensively” by international experts.
Backtrack
But the conclusions contrasted dramatically from previous statements about the research findings from Iraqi Ministry of Health (MOH) officials involved in the study. Earlier this year, BBC Newsspoke to MOH researchers who confirmed the joint report would furnish “damning evidence” that rates of birth defects are higher in areas experiencing heavy fighting in the 2003 war. In an earlypress release, WHO similarly acknowledged “existing MOH statistics showing high number of CBD cases” in the “high risk” areas selected for study. Continue reading
Iran prevents latest nuclear sabotage plan
Iran foils nuclear plant sabotage plot http://www.skynews.com.au/world/article.aspx?id=912635 Sunday October 6, 2013 Iran has arrested four people suspected of attempting to sabotage one of its nuclear plants, Atomic Energy Organisation chief Ali Akbar Salehi says. ‘Some time ago, we uncovered sabotage activities by several people at a nuclear plant,’ Salehi said in comments carried by the Mehr news agency on Sunday.
‘We let them continue their activities so that we could gather more intelligence. ‘We arrested them at the appropriate moment and their interrogation is ongoing.’ Salehi did not specify which of Iran’s nuclear plants was targeted.
In August last year, saboteurs blew up power lines supplying Iran’s underground uranium enrichment plant at Fardo outside the central city of Qom.
In 2010, a US cyber-attack, reportedly carried out in collaboration with Israel, hit Iran’s nuclear facilities. The Stuxnet virus was tailored specifically to target uranium enrichment facilities. ‘There are still viruses out there but we have taken the necessary measures,’ Salehi said.
‘Since we uncovered the Stuxnet virus, we have reinforced our protection systems and a special unit has been set up.’ In recent years, Iran has detained a number of alleged US or Israeli agents accused of spying on, or attempting to sabotage, its nuclear program. Several Iranian nuclear engineers have also been killed in what Tehran says were assassinations by foreign intelligence services.
Constructive diplomacy: Iran’s President Rouhani promises a nuclear proposal
Iran president pledges nuclear plan Sky News, September 28, 2013 Iran says it hopes a proposal to be presented to major powers next month will ‘serve as an even more effective step to settle the nuclear issue’.
Iran’s new president was closing a hectic week at the United Nations where his foreign minister held landmark talks with the US.
At a closing news conference, Rouhani said that Iran would present a proposal in talks with six major powers scheduled for October 15-16 in Geneva.
‘We hope it will serve as an even more effective step to settle the nuclear issue,’ Rouhani said.Rouhani said he hoped to resolve the nuclear row in a ‘short period of time,’ a day after his foreign minister said that major powers had set a goal of a deal within one year…….We say explicitly that we do not seek a bomb. We say explicitly that we believe the building of a bomb is dangerous for us, for our region.’
Rouhani said Iran would hold true to promises made in talks with the six powers – Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the US.
‘We will never deviate from our commitments,’ he said. ‘We want to provide more assurances if necessary to the world that our program will remain peaceful.’
Rouhani’s latest remarks come after the UN atomic agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said it had ‘very constructive’ talks with Iran. …. http://www.skynews.com.au/topstories/article.aspx?id=910223
Israel’s dirty secrets – nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons
Israel’s Secret Nuclear Biological and Chemical Weapons (NBC) http://www.globalresearch.ca/israels-secret-nuclear-biological-and-chemical-weapons-nbc/5352454 By Manlio Dinucci
Global Research, October 01, 2013 For years, Syria and Egypt refused to abandon their chemical weapons facing a threatening neighbor, Israel, which develops very sophisticated ones, in addition to biological and nuclear weapons. However, while Syria has joined the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons , we are taking a look at Israeli activities.
The UN inspectors who monitor chemical weapons in Syria would have much to do if they were sent to monitor the nuclear, biological and chemical weapons (NBC) of Israel.
But according to the rules of “international law”, they cannot do so. Israel has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, nor the Convention Banning Biological Weapons , and has signed but not ratified the Convention Banning Chemical Weapons.
According to Jane’s Defense Weekly, Israel – the only nuclear power in the Middle East, has 100 to 300 nuclear warheads and their appropriate vectors ( ballistic and cruise missiles and fighter-bombers ). According to SIPRI estimates, Israel has produced 690-950 kg of plutonium, and continues to produce as much as necessary to make from 10 to 15 bombs of the Nagasaki type each year.
It also produces tritium, a radioactive gas with which neutron warheads are made, which cause minor radioactive contamination but higher lethality. According to various international reports, also quoted by the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, biological and chemical weapons are developed at the Institute for Biological Research, located in Ness- Ziona, near Tel Aviv. Officially, 160 scientists and 170 technicians are part of the staff, who for five decades have performed research in biology, chemistry, biochemistry, biotechnology, pharmacology, physics and other scientific disciplines. The Institute, along with the Dimona nuclear center , is “one of the most secretive institutions in Israel” under direct jurisdiction of the Prime Minister. The greatest secrecy surrounds research on biological weapons, bacteria and viruses that spread among the enemy and can trigger epidemics. Among them, the bacteria of the bubonic plague (the ” Black Death ” of the Middle Ages ) and the Ebola virus, contagious and lethal, for which no therapy is available. Continue reading
West may compromise on Iran’s uranium enrichment
West may drop demand that Iran halt all nuclear work: EU minister ABC News 3 Oct 13, Middle East correspondent Matt Brown reports from Jerusalem A top European diplomat says Western governments may be softening their stand on Iran’s controversial nuclear program and may allow it to continue some uranium enrichment.
The foreign minister of Lithuania, which holds the European Union’s presidency this year, says Iran may be allowed to continue peaceful nuclear activities if it strikes a deal with Western nations.
That would ease a long-standing demand by the UN Security Council to cease all uranium enrichment because of concerns the nuclear program may be aimed at building a bomb.
Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, has repeated claims that the program is entirely civilian but also signaled a softer approach to the West than his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad…….http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-03/iran-nuclear-program-uranium-enrichment-israel-weapons/4995090
Legal opinion on Iran’s right to uranium enrichmen
Iran’s right to uranium enrichment unquestionable: Intl. lawyer An international lawyer tells Press TV that Iran’s right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes is unquestionable under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).Press TV 30 Sept 13
Alfred Lambremont Webre said Monday that Iranian officials have made it clear that they will not go after weapons-grade uranium enrichment, citing Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei’s fatwa on the prohibition of nuclear arms production and development.
“I think things are very clear that statements have been made that Iran will not be going forward to enrich at weapons grade, which is over 90 percent. It will be doing under 20 percent down to 5 percent, which is enough for power enrichment,” he said.
“There is no question that under the NPT Iran has the right to enrich uranium of non-weapons grade, that is, of power-station grade, which you would say would be between 5 percent and certainly under 20 percent,” he added.
He said that there was no evidence that Iran was intending to develop nuclear weapons, adding the Islamic Republic was enriching for nuclear power as its “basic legal right.” …..http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/09/30/326923/iran-right-to-enrichment-unquestionable/
Iran speaks out about Israel’s 200 nuclear warheads
Iranian foreign minister: Israel has an arsenal of 200 nuclear warheads Jerusalem Post, 29 Sept 13 In interview with ABC, Zarif says Holocaust “is not a myth. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif accused Israel on Sunday of having an arsenal of 200 nuclear warheads, and said it is the source of insecurity in the Middle East.
“Israel has 200 nuclear warheads. Israel is the source of insecurity in our region. Israel is the source of aggression and violation of human rights of the Palestinian people. It should not have the audacity to continue to lie to the American people and to the world and mislead everybody,” Zarif toldABC’s This Week in his first appearance on the show in 26 years……..
Echoing similar statements made by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani when he was asked to address the issue, Zarif made the leap from the Nazis’ condemnable crime to the suffering of the Palestinian people.
“We condemn the killing of innocent people, whether it happened in Nazi Germany or whether it’s happening in Palestine. One crime, however heinous – and [the] Holocaust was a heinous crime, it was a genocide, it must never be allowed to be repeated. But that crime cannot be, and should not be, a justification to trample the rights of the Palestinian people for 60 years. We should have abandoned this game and start recognizing the fact that without respect for the rights of the Palestinians we will never have peace in our region,” he said.
Iran’s right for nuclear enrichment ‘nonnegotiable’……. http://www.jpost.com/Iranian-Threat/News/Iranian-foreign-minister-Israel-has-an-arsenal-of-200-nuclear-warheads-327408
At UN Egypt calls for nuclear-free Middle East
Egypt proposes nuclear-free Mideast Sky News Sunday September 29, 2013 Egypt has proposed for the Middle East, including Israel, to rid itself of all weapons of mass destruction after the UN Security Council ordered Syria to destroy its chemical arsenal. Addressing the UN General Assembly, Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy on Saturday called on the five permanent members of the Security Council to support the idea of a Middle East free of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
Fahmy, part of Egypt’s army-installed government, proposed that all nations in the Middle East would then commit by the end of the year to ratify agreements against weapons of mass destruction……..http://www.skynews.com.au/world/article.aspx?id=910396
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