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Iran is operating a newer, more advanced centrifuge at the country's Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant at Natanz, a State Department official who works on arms control and WMD issues has confirmed to FOX News. U.S. officials were trying to determine the origin of the new centrifuges. To enrich uranium to the high levels needed for a nuclear weapon, centrifuges are assembled in groups of 164 — known as "cascades." Mastery of a single cascade is an extremely difficult process, but once that is achieved it is fairly easy for an industrialized country to attain a nuclear weapons capability because it...

Iran Produces 300 Tons of UF6 in Isfahan Nuclear Facility January 27, 2008 Xinhua Yan Liang TEHRAN -- Deputy head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Javad Vaeedi said on Sunday that his country has so far produced 300 tons of uranium hexafluoride (UF6)gas used for uranium enrichment in the Isfahan nuclear facility. Addressing a congregation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Vaeedi said "The Isfahan uranium conversion facilityis active and it has produced more than 300 tons of UF6," local Fars news agency reported. He said that despite pressures by Western countries which once stressed that Iran should...

Aghazadeh: Iran plans to install 50,000 centrifuges TEHRAN, April 10 (Xinhua) -- Head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization Gholamreza Aghazadeh said on Tuesday that Iran plans to install 50,000 centrifuges, the official IRNA news agency reported. "We have plans to install 50,000 centrifuges," Aghazadeh was quoted by IRNA as saying in an interview. Asked about why he had not declared inauguration of 3,000 centrifuges at a ceremony held at Natanz on Monday to mark National Day of Nuclear Technology, he said he was concerned that mentioning numbers would cause ambiguity that Iran has plans for just 3,000 centrifuges. "When we...

TEHRAN, Iran - An Iranian nuclear agency official has denied claims made by a top lawmaker that the Islamic Republic had begun installing 3,000 centrifuges at an uranium enrichment plant, Iran's state-run news agency reported late Saturday. Hossein Simorgh, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization public relations department, said "no new centrifuges have been installed in Natanz," referring to the nuclear facility in central Iran, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported. Earlier Saturday, lawmaker Alaeddin Boroujerdi said Iran was currently installing the 3,000 centrifuges, underlining that the country would continue to develop its disputed nuclear program despite U.N. sanctions....

Iran 'steps up' nuclear programme Iran has begun installing 3,000 nuclear centrifuges in defiance of UN calls to halt its uranium enrichment programme, a senior parliamentarian has said. "God willing it will be finished in due time," said Alaeddin Boroujerdi, head of the national security committee. ... On Friday Iran demanded the removal of the UN official in charge of inspecting the country's nuclear programme. Read more

NEW YORK: In what diplomats described as an attempt to strengthen its bargaining position, Iran launched a new round of nuclear enrichment as the Europeans were presenting a package of incentive in return for Tehran giving up its programme, the UN nuclear watchdog agency said. In a report sent to the agency's 35-member board, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed Elbaradei said Iran had started feeding uranium gas (UF6 gas) into cascade of 164 centrifuge machines on Tuesday after a five-week break. In addition, the report said Iran is also continuing the work of installation two...

WASHINGTON -- Just when the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) thought it had its hands around the Iranian nuclear program, NewsMax has learned from intelligence sources that Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps is completing a secret, underground uranium enrichment plant that should begin operating in October 2006. Work on the new plant, located 50 miles outside the northeastern Iranian city of Mashad, was begun with help from Russian engineers in 2003, Iranian intelligence sources said. The facility has been built 150 meters below ground in a rugged highlands valley some 38 kilometers southeast of the city of Nishabour. The nearest inhabited...

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran's president has thrown a new wrinkle into the nuclear debate by claiming his country is testing a centrifuge that could be used to more speedily create fuel for power plants or atomic weapons. But some analysts familiar with the country's technology said Monday that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could be deliberately exaggerating Iran's capabilities, either to boost his own political support or to persuade the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency to back off.

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed Thursday that Iran won't back away from uranium enrichment and said the world must treat Iran as a nuclear power. The comments were made as Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, arrived in Tehran for talks aimed at defusing tensions over Iran's nuclear program. "Our answer to those who are angry about Iran achieving the full nuclear fuel cycle is just one phrase. We say: Be angry at us and die of this anger," the official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying. "We won't hold talks...

Iran is now operating a 10-centrifuge cascade for uranium enrichment as it makes progress on its nuclear program, diplomats told AFP Friday ahead of a key UN nuclear report next week. The upcoming report from the UN watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) "will confirm that Iran is now running 10 centrifuges" with a feedstock gas used to manufacture enriched uranium, a diplomat said. Enriched uranium can be fuel for nuclear power reactors or the raw material for atom bombs.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Iran has secretly built thousands of centrifuge machines for its nuclear plant at Natanz, an exiled opposition figure alleged. ADVERTISEMENT The claims by opposition figure Alireza Jafarzadeh could not be independently verified, but if confirmed, they would likely enflame the worsening standoff over Iran's nuclear program. The new allegations came hours after Iran resumed sensitive nuclear research after a two-year suspension, triggering fierce Western condemnation and risking censure by the UN Security Council. Jafarzadeh, citing what he said was intelligence from the Iranian opposition and sources within the Iranian nuclear program, said Tehran had already committed serious...

TBILISI, Georgia (AP) - Georgian police working with the FBI discovered dangerous substances in the house of the suspect who admitted throwing a live grenade toward President Bush at a rally in Tbilisi in May, officials said Wednesday. Sergo Dzagnidze, chief of the criminal police department at the Interior Ministry, told The Associated Press that 5 gallons of sulfuric acid, several boxes of mercury thermometers, a centrifuge, a microscope and other devices and dangerous chemicals were found in the cellar. The suspect, Vladimir Arutyunian, was detained last week after a police shootout. He was charged Tuesday with terrorism over the...

/begin my translation Cruise Missile Technology Leaked from Iran to N. Korea? Entire Japan Could be Within RangeFormer Ukrainian regime sold it (to Iran)Sankei Shimbun 2005/06/26 morning issue A speculation arose on June 25 that the technology of long-range cruise missile, Kh-55, sold to Iran by former Ukrainian regime under Kuchma, was transferred to N. Korea. Multiple sources from (Japanese) government and the ruling party admitted it. Kh-55 can mount nuclear warhead, and, if N. Korea deploys it, the entire Japan would be within range. (Japanese) government is stepping up to improve missile defense(MD) against N. Korean ballistic missiles, but it cannot...

Electronic drawings that give comprehensive details of how to build and test equipment essential for making nuclear bombs have vanished and could be put up for sale on the international black market, according to UN investigators. The blueprints, running to hundreds of pages, show how to make centrifuges for enriching uranium. In addition, the investigators have been unable to trace key components for uranium centrifuge rigs and fear that drawings for a nuclear warhead have been secreted away and could be for sale. Inspectors at the UN's nuclear authority, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), have been investigating the worst...

Iran Preparing for Advanced Nuclear Work, Officials Say By Douglas Frantz Times Staff Writer Thu Jun 9, 7:55 AM ET ISTANBUL, Turkey — Iran has plans to install tens of thousands of advanced centrifuges at its huge underground nuclear plant near the central city of Natanz, which eventually would enable the nation to enrich uranium nearly twice as fast as anticipated, Western intelligence officials say. The officials say there is no hard evidence that Iran is currently manufacturing the updated centrifuges and that the timetable for installation remains unknown. However, preparatory work is underway at the plant, they said in...

TOKYO, June 5 (Yonhap) -- North Korea has imported about 150 tons of high-strength aluminum from an unidentified Russian exporter as part of its nuclear weapons program, Japan's Asahi Shimbun reported Sunday, citing U.S. intelligence sources. The amount of high-strength aluminum is enough to produce about 2,600 gas centrifuges used to enrich uranium, the report explained. Identifying the U.S. sources simply as former ranking Washington officials and officials involved in the six-party nuclear disarmament talks, the Japanese paper said such moves by the North have further escalated the international standoff over its nuclear ambition. Separately, Pyongyang is known to...

Time is GMT + 8 hours Posted: 27 May 2005 0312 hrs Pakistan hands over centrifuge parts to UN nuclear watchdog for Iran tests(a major development?) ISLAMABAD : In a major turnaround, Pakistan confirmed it has sent some parts of an old centrifuge to the UN atomic agency to help it establish whether Iran has been secretly developing nuclear weapons. The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) requested the parts in connection with its investigations to determine whether contamination found at Iran's nuclear facilities had come from Pakistan or any other source, a foreign ministry official said. "Components of an...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - An Iraqi scientist killed in the U.S. invasion and now linked by arms hunter David Kay to possible nuclear weapons research was working on an advanced gun, not atomic bombs, fellow physicists say. They and eyewitnesses also say Khalid Ibrahim Sa'id was killed not when he tried to "run a roadblock," as asserted by Kay, but when a U.S. tank crew blasted his civilian car without warning on an open street. These accounts of the physicist's research and death, provided by 10 Iraqis and supported on key points by U.N. arms inspectors, challenge a core element of...

http://ktla.trb.com/news/nationworld/world/ktla-fg-network22apr22-lat,0,4148673.story?coll=ktla-news-1April 22, 2005 Vital Nuclear Parts Missing Investigators worry that some components of a weapons factory ordered by Libya have fallen into the hands of another nation. By Douglas Frantz, Times Staff WriterZURICH, Switzerland ? Critical components and specialized tools destined for Libya's nuclear weapons program disappeared before arrival in 2003 and international investigators now suspect that they were diverted to another country, according to court records and investigators. Efforts to find the missing equipment have led to dead ends, raising what investigators said was the strong likelihood that the sophisticated material was sold to an unidentified customer by...

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 12 - In the weeks after Baghdad fell in April 2003, looters systematically dismantled and removed tons of machinery from Saddam Hussein's most important weapons installations, including some with high-precision equipment capable of making parts for nuclear arms, a senior Iraqi official said this week in the government's first extensive comments on the looting. The Iraqi official, Sami al-Araji, the deputy minister of industry, said it appeared that a highly organized operation had pinpointed specific plants in search of valuable equipment, some of which could be used for both military and civilian applications, and carted the machinery...