'Brokers helped Iran go nuke'
January 14, 2004 (SA)
Islamabad - A top official said on Wednesday Iran sought no help from foreign scientists for its nuclear programme, but that five brokers helped buy equipment on the international market, state media reported.
"No scientist from any other country has helped in this regard," said visiting Iranian deputy foreign minister Mohsin Aminzadeh, according to the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan (APP).
Referring to Iran's talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Aminzadeh said Iran only gave the global nuclear watchdog information about five individuals - three Europeans and two from this region - who helped Iran buy equipment required for its nuclear programme, said APP.
The agency did not specify what Aminzadeh meant when he said "this region", but he said the two "had been acting as brokers, they were businessmen who helped us through as intermediaries."
He said it was normal business practice to procure equipment from anywhere in the world and Iran did not contravene the norms.
Taken away for questioning
He called the alleged Pakistan-Iran nuclear co-operation a "fabrication by media", said APP.
Two Pakistani nuclear scientists, Yasin Chohan and Farooq Mohammad, directors of the country's key Kahuta Research Laboratory (KRL), were taken from their homes in early December for questioning about their links with Iran's nuclear programme.
Chohan has since returned home, but Farooq is still being questioned.
The creator of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan, also has been questioned.
A foreign ministry spokesman said on Monday "a very small number of scientists" were being questioned.
"When the government of Iran shared some information with us and subsequently the International Atomic Energy Agency asked for our co-operation, we started these debriefing sessions," Khan said earlier.
Blueprints gave 'tremendous boost' to Iran
The New York Times reported last month that information Iran turned over to the IAEA had strengthened suspicions that Pakistan sold key nuclear secrets to Iran.
Pakistan's suspected role in providing centrifuge designs to Iran was also revealed by the Washington Post, which said the blueprints provided a "tremendous boost" to Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Centrifuges can be used to enrich uranium, spinning it at supersonic speeds to produce a concentrated material used to make nuclear weapons.
Pakistan last week also denied another New York Times report that some of its scientists may have provided Libya with technology to enrich uranium for use in nuclear weapons.
Islamabad, which went public as a nuclear power in May 1998 when it conducted underground nuclear tests, has consistently denied reports that it has exported its nuclear know-how.
President Pervez Musharraf has rejected the allegations as a smear campaign.
http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1469498,00.htmlIRAN: Better shelter needed before weather warms up
BAM, 14 Jan 2004 (IRIN) - Maryam, a resident of Bam in her 40s, lost her husband and four of her 11 children in the devastating earthquake that hit the southeastern Iranian city on 26 December. She has been provided with a tent by the Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS) subsequently established not far from the place where her house used to stand.
She lives there with three of the children who survived, she sent her four other offspring to their grandfather outside the city to be looked after. Maryam's neighbour Mujgan was lucky enough to escape the terrible disaster that claimed the lives of an estimated 30,000 people and left some 100,000 people homeless and destitute.
Nobody died in her family that night as they were sleeping outside their house. However, they lost everything when their house was leveled and turned into rubble. She hurries to get to her temporary shelter with a pair of blankets given by the IRCS to keep her family warm at night when the weather is cold, dropping sometimes below zero.
The United Nations Coordination Centre in Bam has said that according to official figures, a total of 90,000 tents had been distributed among the affected population. "People have received adequate [numbers of] tents and blankets at this point of time," Abdul Haq Amiri, head of the UN team in Bam, told IRIN on Tuesday.
However, one of the concerns is the upcoming hot season, given Bam's desert location. "The heat is coming very soon and in one month the temperature will be about 40 degrees and it will be very hot here," the UN official said.
For that reason the government is said to be keen to have temporary shelter established for the vast number of homeless by the end of April. "But there is no specific or standard design for it as yet," Amiri added, noting that there was a number of possible types of semi-permanent shelter proposed to meet the huge needs. According to official estimates some 10,000 semi-permanent houses would be needed.
"As the weather changes shelter has to be improved," Amiri ascertained. The UN official stressed the need for proper accommodation that could protect people against scorching heat, noting that efforts to push that forward were underway. "It is absolutely impossible to live in summer under those tents that they [people of Bam] have received," he said.
Brunson McKinley, director general of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), told IRIN in Bam that the agency was in the southeastern Iranian city to assess semi-permanent housing needs. "The idea is basically to replace the tents in which many the people are living now with something that will withstand both the wind and the heat better and to do it pretty quickly," McKinley explained. IOM intends constructing after shock-resistant housing that will last around 12 months from local materials.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=38924&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=IRAN