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Iran has now built up a stockpile of enough enriched uranium for one nuclear bomb, United Nations officials acknowledged on Thursday. In a development that comes as the Obama administration is drawing up its policy on negotiations with Tehran over its nuclear programme, UN officials said Iran had produced more nuclear material than previously thought. They said Iran had now accumulated more than one tonne of low enriched uranium hexafluoride at a facility in Natanz. If such a quantity were further enriched it could produce more than 20kg of fissile material – enough for a bomb. “It appears that Iran...

Israeli says “We told you so.” Investigators from the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) which works under the auspices of the United Nations have found traces of enriched uranium in Syria, a sign the country had been attempting to develop a nuclear weapons program, Reuters reported Monday. The enriched uranium was discovered at the same site of a North Korea built and Iran financed reactor which was destroyed by what many feel was a combined bombing by the Israeli Air Force jets and special operations forces in September 2007. The raid has been criticized as illegitimate but this discovery lessens...

A national defense analyst says President Bush should be commended for keeping quiet about a discovery that could have blown his critics out of the water. Retired Major General Jerry Curry is a decorated combat veteran who served as an Army aviator, paratrooper, and Ranger during a military career that began during the Korean conflict. He recently wrote on his blog about a very under reported story by the Associated Press. According to the report, a large stockpile of concentrated natural Uranium, known as "yellowcake," reached a Canadian port to complete a top secret U.S. Operation that included a two-week...

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.

Iran has substantially improved the efficiency of its centrifuges that produce enriched uranium, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Monday, indicating that the nation has overcome some of the technical challenges that had plagued its enrichment program. In a six-page report, the agency charged the Iranians with continuing to stonewall about what some Western governments suspected was Iran's past research on designing a nuclear weapon. The agency acknowledged that it had failed "to make any substantial progress" in its investigation. "We seem to be at a dead end," said a senior official with links to the agency. "We would describe...

Remember Joe Wilson? He's the diplomat who went to Niger to investigate Bush administration claims that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy yellowcake uranium, a raw material used in building nuclear bombs, from Africa. He wrote in a July 6, 2003, New York Times op-ed that he had spent the previous February in Niger, "drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people ... associated with the country's uranium business. It did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place." A story that has to be the most underplayed...

If anyone doubts the need to have ousted Saddam, a news release in the past few days should put such doubts to rest. The report is that the US has sold 550 tons of yellowcake uranium that had been found in Iraq to Cameco, a Canadian company. The uranium will now be used as fuel and poses no severe risk if properly stored and sealed. While the report contains no new information per se, it brings to the forefront pertinent facts that, while widely available, were also widely ignored. But when analyzing military and security matters, we can ill afford...

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...

By DOUGLAS BIRCH Associated Press Writer YEKATERINBURG, Russia — Amid tense relations between the United States and Russia, two prominent American arms control advocates Friday toured a storage facility designed to hold tons of plutonium and enriched uranium from dismantled Russian nuclear weapons. Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and former Sen. Sam Nunn, co-authors of the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program, were escorted through the high-security Mayak Fissile Materials Storage Facility — built to withstand assaults from terrorists and a direct hit from a jet. Russia plans to store up to 25 metric tons of plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons at...

Iran has 100kg of enriched uranium in storage, the interior minister said on Friday, in a statement that may concern the countries in the west who fear Iran is planning to build nuclear weapons. However, a senior Iranian nuclear official cast doubt on the claim, saying, "The figures are not correct." Iran has repeatedly refused UN demands to halt its uranium enrichment, a process to make fuel for nuclear power plants that can also provide material for weapons if enriched to a much higher degree. Tehran says its intentions are entirely peaceful.

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 1 (UPI) -- The International Atomic Energy Agency told the U.N. Security Council its inspectors have found new traces of enriched uranium in Iran. The discovery marked the third instance that highly enriched uranium was found at an Iranian facility, but the IAEA said the nuclear fingerprint on the new discovery does not match that found on earlier samples, which the agency had concluded came from contaminated equipment from Pakistan, The New York Times reported Friday. The 6-page IAEA report did not identify where the uranium might have originated or whether it was connected to a secret...

The IAEA discovers in Iran of new enriched uranium traces VIENNA - the IAEA discovered uranium traces highly enriched on an Iranian nuclear site where Teheran contradicted in the past to have carried out this kind of experiment, to AFP diplomats Friday in Vienna indicated. These uranium particles highly enriched were discovered in taking away carried out by the inspectors of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in the research center of Lavizan, close of Teheran, shaved in 2004 by the Iranian authorities, one specified same sources.

Brazil has joined the select group of countries with the capability of enriching uranium as a means of generating energy. A new centrifuge facility was formally opened on Friday at the Resende nuclear plant in the state of Rio de Janeiro. The Brazilian government says its technology is some of the most advanced in the world. The official opening follows lengthy negotiations with the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the IAEA. Brazil has some of the largest reserves of uranium in the world but until now the ore has had to be shipped abroad for enrichment - the process which produces...

Iran has enriched uranium to more than 4 per cent, an Iranian official said, a level higher than Iran previously told the UN nuclear watchdog but still well below the range needed to make nuclear weapons. Iran had told the International Atomic Energy Agency two weeks ago that it had enriched uranium to 3.6 per cent, a level which the agency confirmed from samples. According to experts, uranium enriched to a range of 3 to 5 per cent is used in atomic power reactors. Uranium needs to be enriched to 80 per cent or more to make nuclear weapons, which...

Hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s claim of Iranian success in low-level uranium enrichment was more bombastic than frank. Before springing his disclosure at a sacred mausoleum in the northern town of Mashhad on April 11, DEBKAfile’s Iranian sources disclose he paid a stealthy visit to Neyshabour in Khorassan, 38 kms to the southeast. There, he inspected a project he omitted to mention in his Mashhad speech about low-level enrichment, namely, a top-secret plant under construction that is designed to run 155,000 centrifuges, enough to enrich uranium for 3-5 nuclear bombs a year. This is Project B, or the hidden face of...

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 Vows to Ramp Up Uranium Enrichment Apr 12 8:05 PM US/Eastern Email this story By ALI AKBAR DAREINI Associated Press Writer TEHRAN, Iran Iran intends to enrich uranium on a scale hundreds of times larger than its current level, the country's deputy nuclear chief said Wednesday, signaling its resolve to expand a program the international community insists it halt. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that Iran for the first time had succeeded on a small scale in enriching uranium, a key step in generating fuel for a reactor or fissile material for a bomb. The U.N. Security Council has...

TEHRAN, Iran - Former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani said Tuesday that Iran has enriched uranium using 164 centrifuges, a major development in nuclear fuel cycle technology, news agencies reported. Rafsanjani made the comment to the Kuwait News Agency during an interview in Tehran. "Iran has put into operation the first unit of 164 centrifuges, has injected (uranium gas) and reached industrial production," the Kuwait News Agency quoted Rafsanjani as saying. Iranian authorities had promised to announce "good nuclear news" on Tuesday.

VIENNA (AFP) - Iran could be running a 164-centrifuge pilot cascade to enrich uranium by the end of March or beginning of April, diplomats close to the UN nuclear watchdog told AFP. ADVERTISEMENT This comes as the United Nations Security Council is stalled over issuing a statement that would call on Iran to suspend enrichment, which Tehran says is to produce nuclear reactor fuel but can make atom bomb material. At the pilot cascade in the Iranian city of Natanz, "there is just piping to be finished, then they do vacuum tests, then they would test with inert gas and...