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JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The United States will not permit Israel to attack Iran's nuclear program as long as American troops are stationed in Iraq, an Israeli television report quoting unnamed diplomatic sources said on Monday. An Israeli official accompanying Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on a visit to Moscow declined to comment on the report. Olmert flew to Moscow to press Russia not to sell advanced missiles and weapons technology to Iran and Syria

Russia is committed to stopping Iranian nuclearization for military purposes, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Moscow on Monday night.

France's foreign minister says that the world knows Israel will attack Iran before it can develop a nuclear weapon. As Middle East correspondent, Ben Knight, reports Bernard Kouchner was speaking with the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz ahead of his visit to Israel. The foreign minister says he doesn't believe a nuclear weapon would give any immunity to Iran, because Israel would hit the country first - something the Iranians, and everybody else knows. Mr Kouchner says the solution lies in dialogue and sanctions against Iran. Yesterday Iran rejected a proposal to accept foreign supplies of nuclear fuel for its reactors, saying...

Iran will not stop uranium enrichment even if it is guaranteed supplies of nuclear fuel from abroad, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Sunday.

October 4, 2008 Israel accuses North Korea of supplying Mideast with arms and nuclear technology Times Online and news agencies Israel has accused North Korea of supplying at least half a dozen Mideast governments with nuclear technology or conventional arms. World powers at a 145-nation Vienna meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency at the same time urged North Korea to stop reactivating its weapons-producing atomic programme. The comments focused on North Korea's black market role and its reversal of a commitment to mothball its nuclear activities in exchange for trade and security guarantees. In the latest setback, US chief...

Their progress watched closely by increasingly jittery western militaries, dozens of nuclear bombers will take part in the exercise. Tu-95 Bear bombers will fire cruise missiles at targets in sub-Arctic Russia for the first time since 1984. While Russia insists that the war games are not meant as a gesture of aggression, the West is growing increasingly uneasy about the scale of the manoeuvres. The aerial exercises, which will take place close to American airspace in Alaska, are part of a month-long war game known as Stability 2008 that Russia claims is the biggest for 20 years.

Christopher Hill, the American assistant secretary of state responsible for negotiating with the eccentric regime of Kim Jong-il, returned to the South Korean capital Seoul from a three-day stay in the North. He offered Pyongyang a deal under which verification of the North's promised nuclear disarmament would follow a "provisional" removal of the country from Washington's list of states that sponsor terrorism. Previously, Washington offered to remove North Korea from the list once it had verifiably dismantled its nuclear programmes, but the North has since objected saying that America's plans to conduct "Iraq-style" inspections were humiliating. It has since thrown...

At its annual Vienna powwow this week, the world's nuclear watchdog is taking Iran for a few spins over its atomic ambitions. But the mullahs in Tehran know this diplomatic waltz well, and they can rest assured the dance merely frees up more time and space for them to get their bomb. The International Atomic Energy Agency report does at least tell us the Iranians are closer than ever to becoming a nuclear power. In unusually scathing terms for an outfit disinclined to criticize Iran, the IAEA lays bare Tehran's lack of cooperation and implies it was hiding illegal military...

CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that Russia will help Venezuela develop nuclear energy — a move likely to raise U.S. concerns over increasingly close cooperation between Caracas and Moscow. Chavez said he accepted an offer from Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin for assistance in building a nuclear reactor. "Russia is ready to support Venezuela in the development of nuclear energy with peaceful purposes and we already have a commission working on it," Chavez said. "We are interested in developing nuclear energy." Putin offered Chavez assistance in developing nuclear energy during a meeting in the Russian city of...

A British businessman has been arrested after being named in a plot to supply Iran with weapons of mass destruction, while two more at the centre of an international manhunt are accused of smuggling military parts to Tehran. Farshi Gillardian, from Hendon in north London, was detained by Scotland Yard officers last week after being accused by the US authorities of attempting to supply weapons components illegally to Iran. The other two British businessmen remain at large after allegedly supplying batteries for surface-to-air missiles and military aircraft parts to Tehran. Christopher Tappin vanished after leaving his Surrey freight company, while...

We can be reasonably sure that, at this time, North Korea is not negotiating for better terms. It is wrecking the six-party process simply because it can no longer adhere to its obligations. Short of military force or other extreme coercive measures, Pyongyang cannot be persuaded to disarm. Despite what Ms. Rice says, this is not just another “down” in the talks. It is the end...

Russia to build missile defence shield and renew nuclear deterrence The Russian President has signalled a new arms deal with the US Tony Halpin in Moscow Russia is to build new space and missile defence shields and put its armed forces on permanent combat alert, President Medvedev announced yesterday. In a sharp escalation of military rhetoric, Mr Medvedev ordered a wholesale renovation of Russia’s nuclear deterrence and told military chiefs to draw up plans to reorganise the armed forces by December. He said that Russia must modernise its nuclear defences within eight years, including the creation of a “system of...

NKorea may already have nuclear warheads: ex-CIA official 11 hours ago TOKYO (AFP) — North Korea has likely mastered the technology for arming its missiles with nuclear warheads, a former US intelligence official said Friday. "The fact that they have a warhead that's fitable to the Rodong (ballistic missile) is pretty much given," said Arthur Brown, who until 2005 was National Intelligence Officer for East Asia at the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). "We (the United States) went from nothing to missile capable in seven years. The Russians went from their first test to missile capable in six... Why do...

THE new president will have one modestly useful extra resource, a bipartisan report commissioned by two former US senators and written primarily by Middle East expert Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute. The Weekend Australian has obtained a copy of the report, to be released later this week. Before I got the report, I had a long discussion with Rubin. Rubin is a Republican, but the report he wrote was the consensus work of a bipartisan taskforce that includes Dennis Ross, Obama's key Middle East adviser. The report is sobering and in some ways shocking reading. It begins baldly:...

WASHINGTON: “People of India deeply love you,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told United States President George W. Bush here on Thursday evening. Sitting within a handshake distance from the American President at the Oval Office, Dr. Singh uttered those words, which produced a smile of satisfaction on Mr. Bush’s face but left the Indian media puzzled. Normally not given to loquaciousness, Dr. Singh found himself in an expressive mood and easily showered liberal praise on his host. “In the last four and half years that I have been Prime Minister, I have been the recipient of your generosity, your affection,...

Iranian "President" Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rejects American ideas — all of our ideas, that is, but nuclear fusion. When Ahmadinejad told a crowd at Columbia University in 2007 that the United States must investigate "who was truly involved" in 9/11, students may have confused the speech with ethnic studies class. There should be no confusion. It's bad enough this bird-brained troglodyte was again walking the streets of America's greatest city this week, a place teeming with women, Christians, Jews and gays. Ahmadinejad has something to offend all. Holocaust denier. Misogynist. Religious fanatic. Terrorist enabler. Homophobic inquisitor — though, Ahmadinejad does claim,...

Israel gave serious thought this spring to launching a military strike on Iran's nuclear sites but was told by President George W Bush that he would not support it and did not expect to revise that view for the rest of his presidency, senior European diplomatic sources have told the Guardian. The then prime minister, Ehud Olmert, used the occasion of Bush's trip to Israel for the 60th anniversary of the state's founding to raise the issue in a one-on-one meeting on May 14, the sources said. "He took it [the refusal of a US green light] as where they...

VIENNA - An International Atomic Energy Agency inquiry into Syria's nuclear activity has been set back by the August assassination of the IAEA's main Syrian contact, the U.N. watchdog's chief said on Thursday. Diplomats familiar with the matter identified the official as Brigadier General Mohammad Suleiman, 49, a senior security adviser to President Bashar al-Assad. A sniper shot him dead on a Mediterranean beach, Syrian opposition websites said. "The assassination of the IAEA's main interlocutor has made our inquiry more difficult," agency Director Mohamed ElBaradei said during a closed-door meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation governing board on the status of...

Russia offers Chavez nuclear help amid US tensions Sep 26 02:05 AM US/Easter Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was to meet Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev on Friday after Russia risked Washington's wrath by offering the fierce US foe help developing nuclear energy. The two were to meet in the city of Orenburg after hawkish Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told Chavez in Moscow on Thursday that Russia was "ready to consider the possibility of cooperation in nuclear energy." The countries have boosted ties in recent weeks following sharp US criticism of Russia's incursion into Georgia, with Moscow dispatching long-range bombers and warships...

Paris, 15 Sept. (DEBKAfile-IPS) As Tehran continue to deploy an oversize and much disputed diplomatic activity concerning the Caucasian crisis, placing itself on the side of Moscow and criticizing the ”unwise” decision of the pro-American Georgian President to handle the situation, an Israeli intelligence news service says that the overwhelming Russian response to the Georgian provocation was to destroy facilities that Israel could use to attack Iranian nuclear facilities. According to DEBKAfile, which has the reputation of being “close” to the Israeli secret services Mossad, the raids, disclosed by Arnaud de Borchgrave, the Chief Editor of the Arab owned United...

European diplomatic sources told a British newspaper on Thursday that Israeli leaders had proposed a plan to attack Iran last spring, but were told by the Americans not to carry out the strike. According to the sources, who spoke to London’s The Guardian, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert presented the strike plans to US President George W. Bush when the two met in Washington in May.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said he was ready to consider helping Venezuela develop a nuclear energy program after meeting the country's President Hugo Chavez on Thursday. NOVO-OGARYOVO, Russia (Reuters) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said he was ready to consider helping Venezuela develop a nuclear energy program after meeting the country's President Hugo Chavez on Thursday. The move toward closer cooperation, particularly on the military side between Moscow and Caracas, comes in the wake of the Georgia conflict that triggered widespread western condemnation of Russia's intervention. The offer of support for Chavez, an outspoken critic of Washington, comes...

LONDON (AFP) - Israel seriously considered bombing Iran's nuclear sites earlier this year but US President George W. Bush refused to support such a strike, according to a British newspaper report.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, just a few hours after President Bush. The contrast was palpable. Ahmadinejad expressed continued defiance of the UN Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency, insisting that Iran would continue and even accelerate its nuclear program. Bush, by contrast, has overseen nearly six years of failure trying to stop Iran from doing exactly that. Iran is now closer than ever to achieving its long-held strategic objective of obtaining deliverable nuclear weapons. Why has Iran succeeded and the United States failed in this struggle? What does it...

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran plans to launch a satellite into space soon using an Iranian-made rocket, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said. Iran has in the past launched satellites using rockets built by other nations, but this was the first announcement of such a launch with an all-Iranian made rocket. Ahmadinejad said the rocket will have 16 engines and will take a satellite some 430 miles into space, according to a state television report Thursday. The satellite will likely be a commercial one for communication or meteorological research purposes. Iran has never announced plans to launch military satellites. But the country...

Israel gave serious thought this spring to launching a military strike on Iran's nuclear sites but was told by President George W Bush that he would not support it and did not expect to revise that view for the rest of his presidency, senior European diplomatic sources have told the Guardian. The then prime minister, Ehud Olmert, used the occasion of Bush's trip to Israel for the 60th anniversary of the state's founding to raise the issue in a one-on-one meeting on May 14, the sources said. "He took it [the refusal of a US green light] as where they...

North Korea's Reverse The framework for dismantling the world's most dangerous nuclear program is crumbling. Thursday, September 25, 2008; A18 IN JUNE, the Bush administration's diplomacy with North Korea finally produced the video clip negotiators had long hoped for: that showing the demolition of the cooling tower at the Yongbyon nuclear reactor. Now, it appears that that picture, which suggested that North Korea's dismantling of its nuclear infrastructure was irreversible, may have been misleading. Yesterday, the secretive communist regime ejected U.N. nuclear inspectors from Yongbyon and announced that it planned to reactivate a reprocessing plant that produces plutonium for weapons....

Iran is close to the point of being able to arm a warhead with a nuclear core even if it insists its atomic activities are peaceful, the European Union warned Wednesday. In comments prepared for the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35 board members, the EU also asserted that Iran appeared to have had a past nuclear arms program despite denials from Tehran. The statement was made available to reporters as IAEA board turned its attention Wednesday to Iran's nuclear defiance. The group is concerned about Tehran's refusal to freeze uranium enrichment despite three U.N. Security Council sanctions and its stonewalling...

Live in the U.S. any length of time, and one thing you soon realize: The country, be that its media or its government, can only focus on one crisis at a time. Right now, that failing is eminently forgivable. Nothing is more pressing than a financial meltdown that unless it is tackled in days -- or a very few weeks at the most -- could lead to the Great Depression of the 21st century. But amid the turmoil, another crisis has been forgotten. Once it was measured in years, now the critical moment may arrive in months. Does anyone remember...

N. Korea notified IAEA that they will reload nuclear materials(into the reactor) next week.

The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security recently asserted that Iran has resolved many of the technical flaws in its 4,000 centrifuges, used in Iran's uranium enrichment program. The institute, headed by former U.N. nuclear inspector David Albright, said Iran was enriching uranium at a rate that would enable nuclear weapons capacity by March 2009. "The centrifuges now appear to be running at approximately 85 percent of their stated target capacity, a significant increase over previous rates," the report concluded. The report, released Sept. 15, was based on information by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). In early 2008,...

"The world must not sit with its arms folded while Iran is developing a nuclear bomb," President Shimon Peres said Tuesday on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. "If the world doesn't wake up and stop Iran's nuclear weapons project on time, the future of the world is in danger," he said. Referring to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's planned speech to the UN, Peres told reporters that while he was encouraged by speeches made thus far by other leaders, he was "distressed" about what he was going to hear. "The earlier messages were of hope, but I have read...

As Iran makes steady progress toward achieving its nuclear ambitions, the debate over how best to respond is growing louder. Lately, however, the public discussion has been focused too much on the specific threat that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose to Israel. Israel’s friends do indeed have reason to worry. Iran’s leaders not only regularly issue inflammatory threats against Israel, they also spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year arming and training terrorist organizations that are committed to its destruction. Given this record of belligerence, Iran’s nuclear program represents a potentially grave threat to the Jewish state. The singular...

Top Security Official Warns Iran Against Involving GCC in Nuclear Conflict September 22, 2008 Gulf News Duraid Al Baik, Associate Editor Dubai -- A top security officer warned Iran against involving the GCC in any conflict with the West, saying that the GCC will react strongly to any threat against its stability. In a rare reaction to Iranian leader's threats, Lt.Col Dahi Khalfan Tamim, Commander-in-Chief of Dubai Police, told Gulf News that Gulf countries respect Iran as a neighbouring Muslim country, but will not accept any hostility that has direct impact on the lives of people in the region. "Our...

Don't Kowtow to Iran September 22, 2008 The Washington Times Thomas G. McInerney Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad waves during a conference in Tehran entitled 'The World without Zionism', 26 October 2005. Mr. Ahmadinejad openly called for Israel to be ’wiped off the map’ adding that ’The establishment of the Zionist regime was a move by the world oppressor against the Islamic world.’ Israel is now facing an existential threat from Iran. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad weekly pronounces that Israel will be wiped off the face of the earth - while he simultaneously refuses to negotiate in good faith with the United...

The Sunday Times has revealed that an Israeli factory beneath the Negev desert is manufacturing thermo-nuclear weapons for atomic bombs. Hidden beneath the Negev desert, the factory has been producing atomic warheads for the past 20 years. Now it has almost certainly begun manufacturing thermo-nuclear weapons, with yields big enough to destroy entire cities, the report says. Information about Israel's capacity to manufacture the bomb comes from the testimony of a former Dimona employee, nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu. Vanunu's testimony and pictures, confirm that Israel has the world's sixth-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, including hundreds of nuclear warheads.

We have long felt that Mohamed ElBaradei and his United Nations nuclear inspectors were too patient with Iran’s cat-and-mouse games and constant evasions. Even their patience is running out. In a report last week, the International Atomic Energy Agency declared that it had reached an impasse over Tehran’s refusal to answer questions about its past nuclear activities. (An official close to the agency told The Times: “We seem to be at a dead end.”) The report also said that Iran had substantially improved its ability to produce nuclear fuel in direct defiance of a Security Council ban. We know that...

AMID THE financial crisis and the worsening violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Iran's nuclear program and Western efforts to stop it have slipped down Washington's list of priorities. That's just what Tehran's ruling mullahs were hoping for. The government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is still stonewalling international inspectors trying to investigate evidence that Iran has secretly worked on nuclear bomb and missile warhead technology. This summer, it rebuffed the latest Western effort to open negotiations -- one whose only precondition was that Iran agree to a six-week pause in adding centrifuges to the 3,800 it has already installed in a uranium...

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Sunday that Iran's military will ''break the hand'' of anyone targeting his country's nuclear facilities. The president spoke during a military parade displaying various types of Iranian-made missiles, including Shahab-3 and Ghadr. Also taking part in the parade was a military truck carrying a huge banner saying ''Israel should be eliminated from the universe'' in both English and Farsi. ''If anyone allows himself to commit even a tiny offense against Iran's legitimate interests, borders and sacred land, our armed forces will break his hand before he pulls the trigger,'' Ahmadinejad said...

VIENNA, Austria: The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency warned Monday that he cannot determine whether Iran is hiding some nuclear activities, comments that appeared to reflect a high level of frustration with stonewalling of his investigators. IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei said Iran's stonewalling of his agency was a "serious concern." "Iran needs to give the agency substantive information" to clear up suspicions, he said at the start of a 35-nation board IAEA meeting, in comments made available to reporters. Diplomats at the gathering described ElBaradei's comments as unusually blunt. ElBaradei rejected the Iranian suggestion that the IAEA probe...

IAEA investigators suspect Damascus may have ordered traces of alleged reactor bulldozed, covered with concrete after Israel bombed site in order to hide evidence of nuclear activity – causing UN probe to come up empty-handed UN investigators believe Syria may have buried under concrete traces of what Washington suspects was a covert nuclear reactor at a site bombed by Israel a year ago, diplomats said on Sunday. The International Atomic Energy Agency began probing Syria in April based on US Intelligence suggesting a remote desert complex targeted by Israel was a reactor almost completed with North Korean help and designed...

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said that no obstacle will prevent the Iranian nation move along the path of progress. ""The great Iranian nation will pass all obstacles in the way of achieving progress,"" Ahmadinejad told reporters upon his arrival at the John F. Kennedy Airport in New York City. Ahmadinejad is in New York to address the 63rd annual session of the UN General Assembly on September 23. ""The United Nations is a venue for (all countries) to express their opinions and exchange views on important issues in the world. Humanity is currently faced with key issues including poverty,...

Morning Edition's Steve Inskeep has interviewed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad explains his comments that he would like to see Israel wiped off the map. The full interview will run on Morning Edition Tuesday, Sept. 23rd.

Everyone Needs to Worry About Iran By RICHARD HOLBROOKE, R. JAMES WOOLSEY, DENNIS B. ROSS and MARK D. WALLACE Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visits the United Nations in New York this week. Don't expect an honest update from him on his country's nuclear program. Iran is now edging closer to being armed with nuclear weapons, and it continues to develop a ballistic-missile capability. Such developments may be overshadowed by our presidential election, but the challenge Iran poses is very real and not a partisan matter. We may have different political allegiances and worldviews, yet we share a common concern --...

VIENNA, Austria - The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency warned Monday that Iran may be hiding secret nuclear activities, comments that appeared to reflect a high level of frustration with stonewalling of his investigators

Iran is halfway to a nuclear bomb, and Hizbullah, Hamas and Syria are using this period of relative calm to significantly rearm, Brig.-Gen. Yossi Baidatz, the Military Intelligence's head of research, told the cabinet Sunday during a particularly gloomy briefing on the threats facing the country. Baidatz said there was a growing gap between Iran's progress on the nuclear front and the West's determination to stop it. "Iran is concentrating on uranium enrichment, and is making progress," he said, noting that they have improved the function of their 4,000 centrifuges. According to Baidatz, the Iranian centrifuges have so far produced...

Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, spokesman of Neturei Karta International, issued the following statement on the eve of the arrival of the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "It has been our honor and privilege to meet with President Ahmadinejad, as well as other Iranian leaders, several times in the past. In addition we have had the pleasure of visiting Iran on different occasions. At each encounter with the Iranian leadership, we have emphasized to them that, despite media hysteria and the statements of some misinformed Jews, we have found the Iranian people and their leaders to be friendly and respectful." "Likewise, although...

Hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Sunday that Iran's military will "break the hand" of anyone targeting his country's nuclear facilities. The president spoke during a military parade displaying various types of Iranian-made missiles, including Shahab-3 and Ghadr. Also taking part in the parade was a military truck carrying a huge banner saying "Israel should be eliminated from the universe" in both English and Farsi. "If anyone allows himself to commit even a tiny offense against Iran's legitimate interests, borders and sacred land, our armed forces will break his hand before he pulls the trigger," Ahmadinejad said during the parade. The...

Just breaking now.

N Korea 'removes nuclear seals' North Korea has removed UN nuclear watchdog seals from a key atomic facility, the organisation has said. Pyongyang had said it would reactivate the Yongbyon plant amid disputes over a disarmament-for-aid deal. North Korea said Washington had not removed it, as promised, from a list of state sponsors of terrorism. The removal of similar seals in December 2002 sparked a long-running crisis which resulted in Pyongyang testing an atomic weapon in 2006. Pyongyang was expecting to be removed from the US terror list after finally submitting a long-delayed account of its nuclear facilities to the...