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Report shows items misidentified, oven temperature too high - OAK RIDGE - A federal spokesman confirmed that Oak Ridge workers overcooked some nuclear warhead components during a drying process to such an extent that the parts could no longer be "used as intended." Beyond that, the government isn't saying much.The incident at the Y-12 National Security Complex was revealed in a June 20 report by staff of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.The timing was about a month after the Oak Ridge plant received approval to restart production work on W76 warheads, which had been delayed for more than a...

Amid the rolling hills and verdant pastures of south central Virginia an unlikely new front in the battle over nuclear energy is opening up. How it is decided will tell us a lot about whether this country is willing to get serious about addressing its energy needs. In Pittsylvania County, just north of the North Carolina border, the largest undeveloped uranium deposit in the United States -- and the seventh largest in the world, according to industry monitor UX Consulting -- sits on land owned by neighbors Henry Bowen and Walter Coles. Large uranium deposits close to the surface are...

via translation - ALERT - Nuclear: Iran has 5,000 to 6,000 centrifuges TEHRAN - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Saturday that Iran had 5,000 to 6,000 centrifuges for uranium enrichment activities, confirming that the Islamic Republic has expanded its controversial nuclear programme, reported state radio.

Ayatollah Khomeini's heirs are breathing new life into the Islamic revolution in the hope of transforming Iran into a regional power. The Iranian revolution can only point to a single achievement in the Arab world: Hizbullah and its leader Hassan Nasrallah are keeping revolutionary fervor alive in Lebanon. This base of exported revolution is central to Iran's political-diplomatic efforts to achieve a higher status in the region and in the world. Two additional foundations of Iranian power must be added: * The Iranian nuclear program, complete with delivery systems capable of reaching targets in the Middle East and Europe. *...

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that Operational Brimstone, starting Monday, July 21, aimed at giving military teeth to the two-week ultimatum the six world powers gave Iran in Geneva Saturday to accept the suspension of uranium enrichment or face harsh sanctions and isolation. The penalty of withholding refined oil products from Iran would be exercised by means of a partial international naval blockade of its Gulf ports. Taking part in the 10-day exercise in the Atlantic Ocean are more than a dozen ships, including the US carrier strike group Theodore Roosevelt and expeditionary strike group Iwo Jima; the French submarine Amethyste,...

Iran was given a fortnight to agree to freeze its uranium enrichment programme yesterday or face further international isolation. After a day of inconclusive talks in Geneva, a six-nation negotiating team warned the Iranian delegation that it had run out of patience and demanded a 'yes or no' answer to a proposal it put forward five weeks ago.

Does anyone have any information of 500 tons of yellowcake being sent to Canada from Iraq?

Hear about the 550 metric tons of yellowcake uranium found in Iraq? No? Why should you? It doesn't fit the media's neat story line that Saddam Hussein's Iraq posed no nuclear threat when we invaded in 2003.

WASHINGTON, July 7, 2008 – Defense personnel have completed the transfer of 550 metric tons of Iraqi uranium ore to Canada, Defense officials said here today. The Iraqi government asked the United States to help transfer the yellowcake -- as the ore is known -- from Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center near Baghdad to its buyer in Canada, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said today. The military dubbed the movement Operation McCall, and it ended July 5. DoD’s portion of the operation involved the transfer of the ore. Yellowcake is a uranium ore that can be processed to become nuclear fuel. State...

550 metric tons of yellowcake uranium worth millions of dollars were shipped out of Iraq to Canada. The uranium was transported in 37 military flights in 3,500 secure barrels. Though the yellowcake had been in Iraq for some time and had been discovered by the United Nations inspectors after the first Gulf War in during the Senior President Bush’s presidency the material has finally been removed. This is a fact the Democrats don’t want publicized and the MSM will oblige.

Al-Qaeda Draws New Recruits Via Internet Al-Qaeda is using the Internet to recruit vulnerable young people to its terrorist network, according to a programme aired on Saudi Arabian TV late on Tuesday. Umm Osama, the founder of al-Qaeda's first women-only website, al-Khansa, joined several others on the programme to discuss how they renounced jihadist ideology. Among those who sought a response to this question was an imam from the Medina mosque, Saleh Ibn Awad al-Mudamsi, and the father of a young al-Qaeda suspect held in an Iraqi prison. Read More Qaeda Targets U.S. Oil Interests in North Africa U.S....

<p>The media have been telling us for years that Saddam had no WMD, so "Bush's War": was based on a "lie." And those who believed Saddam did have WMD or WMD programs were delusional or worse.</p> <p>And multiple devices that could be used in a nuclear weapon.</p>

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Large amounts of uranium may have gone missing from a nuclear technology company in Sweden. The American Central Intelligence Agency fears a worst-case scenario where the material has already fallen into terrorist hands, newspaper Expressen reports. "The company (Ranstad Mineral) is a security risk and we have taken the matter to top level to get the Swedes to stop them," a CIA spokesman told the Swedish newspaper. The CIA operative claims to know that the little Swedish company has educated Syrian nuclear physicists in the treatment of uranium. He also has information that a Swedish consultancy has sold nuclear equipment...

NEW DELHI: Reiterating their total opposition to the India-U.S. civilian nuclear cooperation, the Left parties on Friday said their discussions with the government were still going on. “At the last meeting of the UPA-Left joint committee on the nuclear deal, we were told that there is a shortage of uranium and reactors were working at 50 per cent of their level of production,” Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Prakash Karat told reporters here. The next meeting of the committee on the nuclear deal is scheduled for May 28. “We have not yet completed our discussions with the government...

RIYADH (AFP) - The White House announced major new cooperation agreements with Saudi Arabia on Friday as US President George W. Bush made his second visit to the oil superpower this year. The agreements cover cooperation on civil nuclear power and protecting the kingdom's oil infrastructure which has come under attack by Islamist militants. "The Saudis bear a special responsibility for protecting key energy facilities of global importance and the world benefits from their abundant energy supplies," a White House statement said. "Our global economy depends greatly on Saudi Arabian energy. The United States has a keen interest in helping...

AREVA, a French-based company, has chosen Bonneville County, Idaho, as the site for its first U.S. uranium enrichment facility. "While we had several attractive sites to choose from, we opted for Idaho Falls, which has strong ties to nuclear energy, and which welcomed AREVA and its proposed enrichment facility to become a new member of its community," said Michael McMurphy, President of Areva Inc. "We look forward to a productive and long-term partnership that will deliver diversity and strength to the regional economy." The $2 billion plant will be built 18 miles west of Idaho Falls, close to the Idaho...

Enlarge ImageYum-yum! It would sicken or kill other organisms, but this mycorrhizal fungus consumes depleted uranium and leaves it in a less mobile form.Credit: Marina Fomina et al. (Current Biology 18) Uranium pollution from high-tech armor and munitions is one of the dangerous legacies of the wars in the Balkans and Iraq. But a naturally occurring fungus might help combat the spread of that pollution into local ecosystems. The fungus transforms the uranium into a stable form that shouldn't work its way into the food chain, a new study shows. The findings potentially could help engineers isolate the toxic...

With minimal public notice and no formal environmental review, the Forest Service has approved a permit allowing a British mining company to explore for uranium just outside Grand Canyon National Park, less than three miles from a popular lookout over the canyon’s southern rim.Mining Claims Near the Grand Canyon********************************* If the exploration finds rich uranium deposits, it could lead to the first mines near the canyon since the price of uranium ore plummeted nearly two decades ago. A sharp increase in uranium prices over the past three years has led individuals to stake thousands of mining claims in the Southwest,...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - After more than five years, the Pentagon revealed why it is holding a Saudi nicknamed "the Professor" at Guantanamo Bay, saying he once lived with a Sept. 11 conspirator and received a stipend from Osama bin Laden. Shaker Aamer's lawyer denies the allegations, made after British Prime Minister Gordon Brown last week requested the release of the Saudi, who has been an unofficial leader among the detainees, and four other former residents of Britain. The Bush administration, which has been urging other nations to accept Guantanamo prisoners amid international pressure to close the military jail,...

Petraeus: Al Qaida Trying to 'Come Back In' U.S. military officials said there will be no significant reduction in coalition troops in the Baghdad area as part of an effort to stop the Al Qaida offensive in northern Iraq. They said Al Qaida was trying to reenter Baghdad and reverse its losses in 2007. "Al Qaida is trying to come back in," U.S. military commander Gen. David Petraeus said. "We can feel it and see it, and what we're trying to do is rip out any roots before they can get deeply into the ground." Read More Militants Assert...

The United Arab Emirates has approved plans to pursue a nuclear power programme, saying it would invest $100m in an agency that plans to make it the first Arab state to develop atomic energy. The cabinet approved a plan for the formation of the Nuclear Energy Implementation Organisation, which will work alongside the International Atomic Energy Agency – the United Nations watchdog – as it builds nuclear power facilities. The government said it would import uranium, shunning the uranium enrichment process, the most sensitive aspect of a nuclear development programme. The move confirms the intention of the oil-rich federation to...

The appearance of nuclear weapons materials on the black market is a growing global concern, and it is crucial that the United States reinforce its team of nuclear forensics experts and modernize its forensics tools to prepare for or respond to a possible nuclear terrorist attack. Large quantities of nuclear materials are inadequately secured in several countries, including Russia and Pakistan. Since 1993, there have been more than 1,300 incidents of illicit trafficking of nuclear materials, including plutonium and highly enriched uranium, both of which can be used to develop an atomic bomb. And these are only the incidents we...

WINDHOEK (Reuters) - North Korea's number two leader ended a trip to Namibia, a leading uranium producer, on Sunday saying he would strengthen ties with the country. North Korea, under pressure to declare its nuclear programmes, and Namibia said they signed a memorandum of understanding on diplomatic consultations. Kim Yong-nam, president of the presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly, started an African tour on Thursday in Namibia, the world's fifth-largest uranium miner. In a joint statement issued by Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba's office, the countries "expressed satisfaction" that their ties have grown. North Korea watchers said the search for business...

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - A single laptop can reveal much, and so it is with the digital treasure chest that Colombian commandos found in the jungle quarters of slain rebel leader Raul Reyes. Files in the computer seized in Saturday's raid into Ecuador that claimed the lives of Reyes and 23 of his comrades offer an intimate portrait of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's desire to undermine Colombia's U.S.-allied government. If authentic, the documents show that sympathies Chavez first aired publicly in January grew out of a relationship that dates back more than a decade. But Chavez is not one of...

Despite a new round of UN sanctions over its nuclear activities, Iran still thinks it is ahead. "Today the name of Iran means a firm punch in the teeth of the powerful... "The enemies of the nation and bullying powers do not dare to admit that this nation has won in the nuclear field." bomb, then it might find that there would be those, in the US and elsewhere, who would want to turn that victory into defeat.

(CNN) -- Evidence found in computers seized in a raid over the weekend suggests that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez recently gave the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia $300 million, Colombia's national police chief said Monday. Speaking at a news conference, Gen. Oscar Naranjo also said evidence in the computers suggests FARC had given Chavez 100 million pesos when he was a jailed rebel leader. FARC has fought to overthrow the Colombian government for 40 years. Chavez had no immediate response to the allegations involving him. Naranjo said other evidence in the computers suggests FARC purchased 50 kilograms of uranium...

The article is in Spanish, here is my translation; General Oscar Naranjo has presented this afternoon documents and photographs contained in Raul Reyes' computers that prove strong ties between the Venezuelan President and the FARC. They reveal the handing off 300 million US as well as arms. SEE VIDEOS "We, the FARC, will always be on the lookout for the defense of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, in case of any 'gringo' agression", says one paragraph in a letter from Marulanda to Chavez. Another communication reveals the destination of a delivery "50 kilos" from an airplane. The General has revealed...

The police on February 18 seized four kg of low-grade uranium and arrested six persons in Supaul district along the Indo-Nepal border. A police official on February 19 said acting on an intelligence tip-off, four kg of low-grade uranium was seized near Virpur bus stand in Supaul late on February 18 night. The estimated value of the seized uranium is about Rs.50 million in the international market. The police said the operation was conducted with the assistance of Seema Suraksha Bal (SSB) personnel. Six persons, including a schoolteacher and a SSB jawan posted in Assam, were arrested. The police suspect...

Iran confirms new nuclear centrifuges By NASSER KARIMI, Associated Press Writer Feb 24, 2008 Iran said Sunday that it has started using new centrifuges that can churn out enriched uranium at more than double the rate of the machines that now form the backbone of the Islamic nation's nuclear program. The announcement was the first official confirmation by Tehran after diplomats with the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog reported earlier this month that Iran was using 10 of the new IR-2 centrifuges. "We are (now) running a new generation of centrifuges," the official IRNA news agency quoted Javad Vaidi, deputy of Iran's...

Nuclear Terror: The illusions created by a politicized intelligence report and pacifist wishful thinking don't change the reality of Iran's nuclear ambitions. The Bush administration has just provided expanded evidence.Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton wonders why the publicly released portion of last December's National Intelligence Estimate, contending that Iran ceased its nuclear weapons program in 2003, placed so much emphasis on the building of nuclear warheads. After all, Bolton reasons, that's a small task compared with the years of uranium enrichment that Tehran has steadfastly refused to abandon in the face of U.N. sanctions. "The way...

VIENNA, Austria - Iran's new generation of advanced centrifuges have begun processing small quantities of the gas that can be used to make the fissile core of nuclear warheads, diplomats told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

VIENNA, Austria - Iran's new generation of advanced centrifuges have begun processing small quantities of the gas that can be used to make the fissile core of nuclear warheads, diplomats told The Associated Press on Wednesday. The diplomats emphasized that the centrifuges were working with minute amounts of the uranium gas. One diplomat said Tehran has set up only 10 of the machines — far too few to make enriched uranium in the quantities needed for an industrial-scale energy or weapons program. The statements shed light on the Islamic Republic's experiments with its domestically developed IR-2 centrifuges, which can churn...

via translation - ALERT - Kazakhstan will break contracts for the exploitation of natural resources ASTANA - Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia is rich in oil and ores, will break contracts for exploitation of raw materials whose investors have failed to meet the conditions, announced Thursday Prime Minister Karim Massimov .

/begin my translation N. Korea Constructed a Uranium Mine at the Border Area? [2008-02-05] A N. Korean defector came out with a claim, which says that N. Korea built an uranium mine disguised as an iron mine near Sino-N. Korean border. Kim Dong-han(alias, age:65,) a N. Korean defector who escaped N. Korea last December, came to Free North Korea Radio on Feb. 4, and gave us such a testimony. He used to be an administrative official at Yusun Coal Mine. He said he heard it directly from Chun Ik-sun, the chief engineer of Hoiryong Geological Survey and a son-in-law...

Bill Clinton back at centre of ethics debateBy Alex Spillius Last Updated: 3:02am GMT 01/02/2008 Bill Clinton used his influence with the president of Kazakhstan to help a business friend gain a lucrative uranium mining deal, it has been claimed. Bill Clinton: influence The report in the New York Times will raise concerns about possible conflicts of interest that the former president could face if he returns to the White House as "first gentleman" and raised the spectre of the financial scandals that dogged the Clintons in the White House. Mr Clinton has already began cutting his links to Ron...

Late on Sept. 6, 2005, a private plane carrying the Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra touched down in Almaty, a ruggedly picturesque city in southeast Kazakhstan. Several hundred miles to the west a fortune awaited: highly coveted deposits of uranium that could fuel nuclear reactors around the world. And Mr. Giustra was in hot pursuit of an exclusive deal to tap them. Unlike more established competitors, Mr. Giustra was a newcomer to uranium mining in Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic. But what his fledgling company lacked in experience, it made up for in connections. Accompanying Mr. Giustra on his...

The United States has kept a tight grip on to its peaceful nuclear technology for decades, forcing emerging nations like China to purchase Russian, French and Canadian designs. American company Westinghouse, however, has been allowed to deliver its newest third-generation nuclear plant to China. Radio Australia's Adam Connors reports that the need for energy over the coming few decades is reaching a fever pitch in red-hot economies like China. Energy analyst with the International Atomic Energy Agency, Alan McDonald, told Radio Australia that China and India will be the most veracious about the most controversial energy source of all. "China...

OAK RIDGE, Tennessee (AP) -- The government is offering a rare glimpse of the massive machines used to enrich uranium for the "Little Boy" bomb -- the first atomic weapon used in war, dropped 60 years ago in August on Hiroshima, Japan. Inside the high-security Y-12 nuclear weapons plant remain the last of 1,152 calutrons that once filled nine buildings. The machinery was part of the top-secret bomb-building Manhattan Project, which turned this rural countryside about 30 miles west of Knoxville into a "secret city" of 75,000 people between 1942 and 1945. "Don't you know the people in Knoxville wondered...

Nuclear Secrets Allegedly Stolen From Tenn. Lab First On WNBC.com POSTED: 10:12 am EDT July 19, 2007 UPDATED: 10:50 am EDT July 19, 2007 NEW YORK -- WNBC.com's Jonathan Dienst has learned a contract worker is accused of stealing nuclear secrets from the Oak Ridge National Lab in Tennessee. Investigators said the worker wanted to sell the secrets to a "foreign country." Investigators are calling the theft a serious breach of security at one of the country's most important nuclear research labs. Officials said there was serious concern the documents could have fallen into the hands of enemy states or...

North Korea denies alleged uranium enrichment program Monday, December 24, 2007 04:06 AM SEOUL (AP) - North Korea has again denied it has a uranium enrichment program, a South Korean official said Sunday, just days before Pyongyang's year-end deadline to declare its nuclear programs. The U.S. accused North Korea in late 2002 of seeking to secretly enrich uranium in violation of an earlier nuclear disarmament deal, an accusation that sparked the latest nuclear standoff. The North has consistently denied it has such a program, which it would need to include in the nuclear declaration. "The North maintains its previous stance...

Iran's first nuclear power plant will be operational within three months, providing electricity to Iran's national power grid by the summer, according to Iranian Energy Minister Parviz Fattah. Russia says its fuel can only be used at and for the Bushehr plant. Russia, which is building the Bushehr plant for Iran, started delivering nuclear fuel to the facility a week ago as part of a compromise effort to alleviate concerns over Iran's nuclear intentions while supporting Iran's right to a nuclear energy program. ... The United States, several European nations, and Israel suspect Tehran has been trying to acquire nuclear...

North Korea recently turned over to the United States equipment found to be contaminated with traces of highly enriched uranium — HEU — apparently contradicting the country's stance that it never had such a program, FOX News has confirmed. ... "They got some 'splainin' to do," one U.S. arms control official said when first told of the discovery about a month ago, he recalled to FOX. However, North Korea claims the tubes were intended for use in the development of a conventional "artillery" weapon, sources told FOX News. ... Green told FOX News he believes the data supporting the existence...

U.S. scientists have discovered traces of enriched uranium on smelted aluminum tubing provided by North Korea, apparently contradicting Pyongyang's denial that it had a clandestine nuclear program, according to U.S. and diplomatic sources. The United States has long pointed to North Korea's acquisition of thousands of aluminum tubes as evidence of such a program, saying the tubes could be used as the outer casing for centrifuges needed to spin hot uranium gas into the fuel for nuclear weapons. North Korea has denied that contention and, as part of a declaration on its nuclear programs due by the end of the...

FREDERICKSBURG, Va., Dec 17 (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush said on Monday he supports Russia sending enriched uranium to Iran for civilian power use because it meant that Tehran did not need to pursue their own enrichment capabilities. "If the Russians are willing to do that, which I support, then the Iranians do not need to learn how to enrich," Bush said. "If the Iranians accept that uranium for a civilian nuclear power plant, then there's no need for them to learn how to enrich." Russia has delivered the first shipment of nuclear fuel to Iran's Bushehr atomic...

CARACAS, Venezuela — A mysterious Venezuelan air force flight came under attack from vigilantes when it touched down last week at an airfield in northern Bolivia amid fears that the transport plane was delivering weapons. Suspicions were only deepened when officials confirmed that a Venezuelan banking official on board the flight had been carrying a briefcase stuffed with $160,000 in cash. The airfield, at Riberalta, is located near a Bolivian uranium-mining area, adding to long-standing suspicions that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is trying to purchase uranium from his Latin American neighbor for transshipment to Iran.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran needs to install 50,000 centrifuges within five years so it can make enough fuel for one nuclear power plant, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday. Iran's uranium enrichment plans are the part of Tehran's nuclear program that most worries the West because the process can be used to make both fuel for nuclear power plants or, if desired, material for warheads. Ahmadinejad told a news conference 50,000 centrifuges -- roughly the figure Iran has stated is its goal -- were enough to make fuel for one plant in a year. "We have to install centrifuges with...

Foreign Investment and Iran’s Future by: Bethany Stotts, December 11, 2007 ....Since the NIE report was designed to assess “Iran’s current and projected ability to develop nuclear weapons,” among other variables, it is also useful to consider the influence that international investment practices will have on Iran’s foreign-policy decisions and future capabilities. “In Iran, there are some projections that by 2015 Iran will have so little oil that it will stop exporting, not because they’re running out of oil underground, but because their policies are not allowing for foreign investment,” said Dr. Ariel Cohen, Senior Research Fellow at the Heritage...

MANAMA (Reuters) - Iran poses a threat to the United States and the Middle East despite a U.S. intelligence assessment that Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003, Defence Secretary Robert Gates said on Saturday. In a speech to the Manama Dialogue security conference in Bahrain, the Pentagon chief argued Iran still has the capability to restart its weapons program and continues to enrich uranium, an essential part of atomic weapons development. He also accused Iran of actively supporting insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as Islamist groups Hezbollah and Hamas, and that its missile program poses a...

Anti-mafia police in the southern Italian city of Potenza are investigating allegations that the Calabrian mafia (N'drangheta) helped an Italian firm to sell radioactive materials to the regime of late Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. In his latest book, 'N'drangheta' an Italian historian and expert on the N'drangheta, Antonio Nicaso, explains that a now declassified CIA document supports these allegations. The unnamed Italian company on three occasions between 1979 and 1982 sold uranium to Saddam, who wanted to acquire nuclear weapons, the CIA document claims. Quoting the CIA report, Nicaso said the materials included 486 tonnes of yellowcake uranium, 33,470 kilogrammes...