* Iran produces around 4-mil b/d of crude oil, making it OPEC's second-biggest producer. Iran is a major oil supplier to Europe and Asia. None of Iran's oil goes to USA.
[Ref: Margaret McQuaile, "EU continues to press for talks on Iran; Tensions mount as seals removed at Isfahan plant", Platts Oilgram News, August 11, 2005, p. 3]
Population: 66 million
Islamic theocracy.
A rival with several nations for Middle East dominance. It fought an eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s.
NPT: Joined in 1970. Signed a protocol permitting surprise inspections..
NUCLEAR WEAPONS: NO
Is not known to have nuclear weapons. In autumn of 2003, Iran admitted that it hid its uranium enrichment program from U.N. inspectors for almost two decades..
NUCLEAR CAPABILITIES: -- Nuclear program, begun in the mid-1970s, was suspended by the 1979 revolution.
-- In 1984, Iran reportedly began trying to build nuclear weapons with help from Russia and China.
-- Satellite photos, released in late 2002, showed two construction projects that experts said were intended to produce enriched uranium and other weapons components. Iran says its program has only peaceful purposes.
-- U.N. inspectors discovered evidence of a previously unknown program to enrich uranium..
DELIVERY SYSTEMS:
-- Iran has short-range missiles and has developed a mediumrange one. After receiving help from North Korea in the 1980s, Iran now manufactures Scuds. It has also received Chinese missiles.
-- The Shahab-3 (range 930 miles), an apparent derivative of a North Korean missile, became operational in July. It could reach Israel and Pakistan. Iran may also be developing the Shahab-4 (range 1,250 miles) and could develop a longer-range missile as part of a space launch vehicle program.
-- Irans missile program has also been helped by Russia and Pakistan.
[Source: The San Francisco Chronicle, "The dangerous world of nuclear weapons", FEBRUARY 22, 2004, p. A21]
Iran links from IAEA
* Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran
* Nuclear Energy Plant, Bushehr
* Amirkabir University of Technology
* Khajeh-Nasir-Toosi University of Technology
* Shiraz University of Medical Sciences
* Iran University of Science and Technology
- - - - - - - - - -
April 15, 2011
Iran - the world seems resigned to letting it join the nuclear club
"The nuclear agenda of Iran is not on the world's agenda at all. For months, there have been no challenges from Europe or the US, and negotiations are stalled. There is no pressure on Iran." That's the assessment of Ephraim Kam, deputy head of Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies and a former colonel in the Research Division of IDF Military Intelligence. Kam told Jerusalem Post that "It's difficult to know what is propaganda and what is real, but what is clear is that they are making progress." He cited, for example, a a recently published American study which concludes that Tehran has overcome the Stuxnet computer virus. The current nuclear situation is comfortable for the Iranian regime, he said, adding that its leaders are concerned that the upheaval rocking the Arab world could spark more riots within Iran, and hope that announcements on nuclear progress could ease internal pressure.
Source: Yaakov Lappin, "Iran nuclear program moving forward 'without challenges'", Jerusalem Post, April 15, 2011, p. 3
January 4, 2011
The "increasingly ferocious secret war over Iran's nuclear program"
nuclear.com doesn't usually agree with opinions expressed by the writers at the Guardian newspaper, but the line quoted above rings true. The apparent assassinations of two Iranian nuclear scientists, the bomb attack on a third, and the very targeted Stuxnet computer worm seem pretty clear evidence that some determined forces are working against the Tehran wing of the Axis of Evil.
When the secret Iranian nuclear program facilities were revealed to the world by The National Council of Resistance in Iran in 2003, the Bush administration chose to let other nations take the lead in managing the Iran nuclear problem. This was quite a contrast to the role the US took regarding Iraq. There's been much speculation about who was behind the Stuxnet worm. We may never know. nuclear.com prays that the extra time that Stuxnet has provided will be used to turn Iran away from its nuclear weapon quest.
The quote in this tem title, by the way, is from today's Borger and Dehghan article linked below.
Iran - nuclear scientist who claimed to have escaped from CIA got very public hero's welcome home, followed by torture
Iranbriefing.net reports that scientist Shahram Amiri was interrogated intensively for three months in Tehran and then spent two months in solitary confinement. His treatment reportedly caused him to be hospitalised for a week. The website is run by a US-based group which reports on political prisoners in Iran and on the activities of Iran's revolutionary guard.
[Source: Julian Borger and Saeed Kamali Dehghan (The Guardian), Iranian nuclear scientist 'tortured on suspicion of revealing state secrets'; Shahram Amiri, who claimed he was abducted by CIA, has not been seen since return from US last year", guardian.co.uk website, January 4, 2011]
August 26, 2010
For the first few years, Bushehr plant will be operated by a 50-50 Russian-Iranian joint venture
[Source: World Nuclear Assn, "Iran starts to load fuel into new power reactor", WNA Weekly Digest, August 26, 2010]
Iran priority: find more uranium domestically
"The most important priority, after the Bushehr nuclear power plant, is the exploration and discovery of uranium throughout the country." That's a quote attributed to Iran's vice president Ali Akbar Salehi, in article by the government's official IRNA news agency. "Anywhere there is a vein of uranium, we will enter into exploration work", he said.
The republic's principle source of uranium is in Saghand, central Iran, which reportedly has the capacity to produce 132,000 tons of ore per year. Iran has smaller uranium deposits in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas, where a mill is reportedly converting raw uranium into uranium ore known as yellowcake. The country has a total estimated uranium ore reserve of 1.73 million tons, but Salehi said that only one-third of the Islamic republic has been explored for uranium deposits.
Under UN sanctions, countries are banned from selling uranium to Iran that could be converted to produce fuel for power plants or for use in nuclear weapons. Iran has denied media reports that its uranium stockpile was running low, and that it was seeking to buy uranium concentrate from abroad to fuel its nuclear ambitions.
[Source: Joanne Bladd, "Iran: sourcing new uranium deposits 'top priority'", ArabianBusiness.com, August 26, 2010]
April 18, 2009
Example of nuclear export control, and a criminal attempt to violate them
Canada has arrested a Toronto resident for attempting to export ten "pressure transducers" (high-end gas-pressure gauges, essentially), which are devices with legitimate commercial uses but can also be used for military applications. Of special interest is their use in the centrifuge production of enriched uranium, and the apparent destination for these ten: Iran. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police press release reports that "steps to conceal the identification specifications of these transducers were taken in order to export the items without the required export permits." The Sun article reports RCMP Inspector Greg Johnson as explaining at a press conference that "The labels were removed to conceal the identity of the equipment."
The Toronto Star reported that "The charges followed a tip to U.S. agents from a Boston-area company that sold the $1,100 devices to a Canadian. It is legal to purchase such devices and ship them to Canada, but exporting to other countries requires a permit and export to Iran is prohibited outright. The devices were shipped to Toronto by truck and were bound for Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and then to Iran, Johnson said."
The man arrested is a Canadian citizen who emigrated from Iran in 1998. He is 38 years old and his name is Mahmoud Yadegari.
Asked about the significance of the arrest on a scale of 1 to 10, George Webb, of the Canada Border Services Agency's counter-proliferation unit, said: "It's a 10."
The UN Security Council banned exports of nuclear-related technology to Iran in 2006 because of its alleged efforts to build nuclear weapons. This is the first time the RCMP has laid charges against someone for violating those sanctions, but Johnson is reported as saying "We have had an increasing number of these investigations underway."
George Webb, of the national security division of Canada Border Services Agency, said there were 25 such seizures of equipment destined mostly to Iran at border crossings nationwide during the last year, but this is the first time they've been able to build a case against someone allegedly involved. "We have seen a significant increase in the amount of attempts to move these materials out of Canada," Webb said. "Iran is the number one country in which these goods are ending up."
The Globe & Mail reported "police said that legitimate companies that deal in dual-use technologies must be on the lookout for unfamiliar clients seeking to pay premiums for sensitive devices, or asking for urgent delivery. Often, police say, such clients are evasive and don't understand the technologies they are buying."
August 8, 2008
Most-frequently-asked question
Steve, what's the basis for your conclusion that Iran is lying when it says its nuclear program is peaceful?
I came to that conclusion in 2002, based on the types of facilities that Iran was found to be building. A peaceful nuclear program would have been driven by economics to focus on an approach which used some, but not all, of the capabilities Iran was clearly seeking. Compare Iran's nuclear program with that of Canada, for example. Canada chose a reactor designed to use "heavy water" as a moderator. Producing heavy water is not a trivial task -- it requires lots of energy. Canada's two heavy water production plants require about 3,600 megawatts of thermal energy for steam, plus 450 megawatts of electricty. But this choice allowed them to avoid the need for enriched uranium. So there are no enrichment plants in Canada. Iran was secretly building both heavy water and enrichment plants. As soon as I heard that, I knew enough to come to my conclusion, and none of the excuses offered by Iran or its apologists in the years since have seemed reasonable to me.
In the years since then, it has also become clear that the Iranian military has been heavily involved in Iran's nuclear program. Again, the explanations proferred by Iran fail to measure up.
The IAEA has expertise in the technical aspects, and they have surely reviewed every detail that has been disclosed, inferred and even rumored. If the technical experts were the only input into IAEA's conclusions, I suspect the public reports would voice the same conclusion I have long held. Check out the New York Times reporting of a February 2008 meeting: "Last Monday, the chief United Nations nuclear inspector gathered ambassadors and experts from dozens of nations in a boardroom high above the Danube in Vienna and laid out a trove of evidence that he said raised new questions about whether Iran had tried to design an atom bomb. For more than two hours, representatives to the International Atomic Energy Agency were riveted by documents, sketches and even a video that appeared to have come from Iran's own military laboratories. The inspector said they showed work 'not consistent with any application other than the development of a nuclear weapon,' according to notes taken by diplomats."
The same article quotes Mike McConnell, the US director of national intelligence, as telling a radio interviewer on February 26, 2008 that "Our estimate is they [Iran] intend to have a nuclear weapon."
Many folks point to the December 2007 US National Intelligence Estimate as suggesting that folks like me are wrong about Iran. Actually, the NIE vindicates my 2002 conclusion. If the Iranians had not been working on nuclear weapons, how could they have suspended nuclear bomb design work in 2003 as the NIE suggests?
[Refs: William J. Broad and David E. Sanger (New York Times reporters), "Meeting on Arms Data Reignites Iran Debate", March 3, 2008, pp. A1, A6;
Alireza Jafarzadeh (National Council of Resistance of Iran), "Time to Break Out of Diplomatic Impasse with Iran", NCR-Iran.org, 8 August 2008]
March 21, 2008
* Iran and Al Qaeda are in league, and have been for some time
March 18, 2008
* Iran - West to repackage 2006 incentives plan
March 15, 2008
* Obama's top military adviser sez blame Bush for Iran's behavior
March 14, 2008
* Iran threat - should we go ahead and let Israel buy F22 stealth jets?
March 11, 2008
* Iran - U.N. Alleges alleges nuclear work by Iran's Civilian Scientists
* France's Sarkozy promises to fight against Iran's nuclearization
March 9, 2008
* ElBaradei too acquiescent to Iran, sez Israel's Boim
* UN, IAEA to acquiescent to West, sez Iran
March 8, 2008
* Iran vows to discuss nuclear only with IAEA
* Iran - Call for UNSC Compensation
March 5, 2008
* Iran sanctions vote signals a global rift
* Iran determined to keep nuclear program
* Iran & UN - NAM States Block Resolution in IAEA | UNSC Move Unlawful
March 3, 2008
This is from the front page of today's The New York Times.
February 25, 2008
This is from the front page of today's Iran Daily.
It ran under the top story, which was about the Iranian stock market boost from news of IAEA report.
February 24, 2008
This is from the front page of today's The Jerusalem Post, of Israel.
-----
This is top story on the front page of today's Iran Daily, published by the Islamic Republic News Agency.
-----
This is from the front page of today's English edition of Haaretz, of Israel.
February 23, 2008
This is from the front page of today's International Edition of The Miami Herald.
-----
This is from the front page of this weekend's International Herald Tribune, the European organ of The New York Times.
See full text of this story via the Times' version of this article.
-----
This is top story on the front page of today's Iran Daily, published by the Islamic Republic News Agency.
-----
This is from the front page of today's The Virginian-Pilot, of Hampton Roads, Virginia.
See full text of this story via The Washington Post, which ran the story on page A11.
February 19, 2008
This is from the front page of today's The Jerusalem Post, of Israel.
See full text of this story via the web version of this article.
February 19, 2008
This is top story on the front page of today's Gulf News, of Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
February 6, 2008
Iran - long-range missile test prompts Russian official to note n-weapons concern
Russia has raised rare public doubts about Iran's nuclear programme when Moscow questioned the test launch of a rocket earlier this week. The Russian deputy foreign minister, Alexander Losyukov, was quoted today by Russian news agencies saying the research rocket fired on Monday was as a cause for concern. "It adds to general suspicions of Iran regarding its potential desire to build nuclear weapons," Losyukov said. "Long-range missiles are one of the components of such weapons. That causes concern." Iran said on Monday that the test rocket was intended to launch research satellites into space, but the US state department said the launch was a "troubling" display of a technology that could be used to fire long-range ballistic missiles.
[Source: Fred Attewill, "Russian alarm over Iranian missile test", Guardian Unlimited, Feb 6, 2008 12.15pm GMT]
February 6, 2008
Iran - IAEA progress is promising enough that no new sanctions may be warranted, sez UNSC member South Africa
South Africa is protesting against a push by five other members of the UN Security Council to adopt new UN sanctions against Iran. It says it wants to wait for a report from the UN Nuclear Agency later this month. Under the proposed new sanctions, all countries will have to ban the entry or transit of individuals involved in Iran's nuclear programme. Foreign Affairs Deputy Head of the Multilateral Division, Xolisa Mabhongo, has urged the Security Council to respect the process initiated by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). He says this has so far forced the Iranian government to co-operate with its inspectors. "South Africa is concerned about the potential impact of a new punitive resolution on Iran at a time when Iran is actively co-operating with the IAEA... there is some optimism that there will be more effort put into resolving outstanding issues. We therefore indicated that we hope that any action that may be taken outside of the IAEA by the Security Council, would not set back the progress that has been achieved," says Mabhongo.
[Source: South African Broadcasting Corporation, "SA studying proposed UN Iran sanctions", SABCnews.com, February 6, 2008, 16:45]
February 1, 2008
This is from the front page of today's Iran Daily, a publication of the Islamic Republic News Agency.
January 31, 2008
This is from the front page of today's The Dallas Morning News, of Texas.
------
This is from the front page of today's Daily Press, of Hampton Roads, Virginia.
January 29, 2008
This is from the front page of today's Gulf News, out of Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
January 27, 2008
This is from the front page of today's Iran Daily, of Tehran, a publication of the Islamic Republic News Agency.
January 26, 2008
This is from the front page of today's International Herald Tribune, the New York Times outlet published in Europe.
This is from the front page of today's Billings Gazette, of Montana.
January 25, 2008
This is from the front page of today's The Manila Times, of the Philippines. Do you think there's some hint of a message in the side-by-side placement of these two particular articles?
January 23, 2008
This was the lead story on front page ofThe Miami Herald's international edition today. Their web site doesn't appear to have the full text of this AP story archived, but the folks at examiner.com do. See here.
January 23, 2008
This is from front page of today's The Jerusalem Post of Israel. The web archive is here.
January 22, 2008
Iran fearful that Israel's newest satellite will see nuclear program activities
In a front page above-the-fold story today, The Jerusalem Post reports that the TecSar satellite, launched Monday by India, will dramatically increase Israel's intelligence-gathering capabilities regarding the Islamic Republic's nuclear program, since the satellite can transmit images in all weather conditions, a capability that Israel's existing satellites lacked... "The Iranians are scared of the potential this new satellite will bring Israel," a Western defense official had said earlier. "They are doing everything they can to prevent its launch." The TecSar has the ability to create images of objects on Earth in cloudy weather conditions and can see through certain rooftops that are not made of concrete. It can create high-resolution images using advanced radar technology called Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR).
According to assessments recently received, Iran learned of the TecSar's planned deployment from the media and applied heavy pressure through Indian opposition parties - particularly the Muslim and Communist political factions - to prevent the launch. Despite the reported Iranian opposition, last month the Indian government conveyed a message to the Defense Ministry in Jerusalem confirming that it would launch the TecSar.
[Sources: Yaakov Katz, WESTERN SOURCES: Iranian sabotage delayed Indian launch of Israeli satellite | TecSar reaches space, begins orbiting Earth, January 21, 2008, p. 1;
AP & AFP, "EYE IN THE SKY | India launches Israel satellite to spy on Iran", Gulf News, January 22, 2008, p. 1]
January 21, 2008
Since the day it was released, John Bolton has challenged the conventional take on recent National Intelligence Estimate about Iran's nuclear program. A front page story in today's The Jerusalem Post, 'US intelligence has become politicized' highlights some of his latest comments:
See older Iran news