Free Republic

NORTH Korea is feared to be building new nuclear weapons after fresh activity was detected at a secret uranium enrichment facility. The International Atomic Energy Agency watchdog confirmed that the Kangson nuclear site near the capital Pyongyang is currently active.... ...Kim Jong-un has refused to acknowledge the existence of the secret facility - which prompted the collapse of peace talks with Donald Trump last year...

How an Americanist devoted to destroying international alliances became the US envoy to the UNIn the heat of the battle over the Florida vote after the 2000 US presidential election, a burly, mustachioed man burst into the room where the ballots for Miami-Dade County were being tabulated, like John Wayne barging into a saloon for a shoot-out. "I'm with the Bush-Cheney team, and I'm here to stop the count," drawled John Bolton. And those ballots from Miami-Dade were not counted.Now that same John Bolton has been named by President Bush as the US ambassador to the UN. "If I were...

[Tehran] is in a difficult position because it labeled the explosion an accident, but it is now facing a deluge of foreign media reports seeking to conclude that the explosion was perpetrated by a state or group. This is what Iran's regime is reading: Major media from The New York Times to The Washington Post and local media such as Kuwait's Al-Jarida have all sought to assert that Israel was involved in the mysterious July 2 explosion at a warehouse in the Natanz nuclear enrichment facility... [t]hat could set back the program for months or a year. Iran, however, is...

As experts got a chance to examine the details of the 159-page Iran nuclear deal signed Tuesday, they warned that it ignores various key aspects of the Islamic regime’s nuclear program, and that the lifting of arms sanctions may pave Iran’s path to nuclear-capable missiles. A glaring omission is seen in the absolute lack of any reference to the highly covert Parchin military base located southeast of Tehran, which is suspected of being the center of Iran’s secret nuclear weapons program, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Iran has admitted to testing exploding bridge wire nuclear detonators at...

An explosion deep within Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility has destroyed much of the installation, trapped about 240 personnel deep underground, according to a former intelligence officer of the Islamic regime, and reported by Reza Kahlili on Thursday. The previously secret nuclear site has become a center for Iran’s nuclear activity because of the 2,700 centrifuges enriching uranium to the 20-percent level. A further enrichment to weapons grade would take only weeks, experts say.“The level of enrichment has been a major concern to Israeli officials, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly has warned about the 20-percent enriched stockpile. The explosion occurred...

A non-profit global science and security group says in a new report that Iran has built a plant to produce nuclear weapons despite its insistence that all its atomic endeavors are wholly peaceful. The Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Science and International Security said the 30-page report is based on documents from the Iran Nuclear Archive that were seized by Israel two years ago. The analysis, posted Wednesday, said Tehran has "clearly" been dishonest with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which relies on government cooperation and onsite inspections. "Iran should declare this site to the International Atomic Energy Agency and allow...

Vienna (AFP) - The UN's nuclear watchdog said Monday that Iran's stock of heavy water for reactors has surpassed the limit set under its agreement with world powers. The International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement that Iran's heavy water production plant was in operation and that its stock of heavy water reserves was 131.5 tonnes, above the 130-tonne limit. In Vienna, an IAEA spokesperson said: "On 17 November, the Agency verified that the Heavy Water Production Plant (HWPP) was in operation and that Iran’s stock of heavy water was 131.5 metric tonnes." Heavy water is not itself radioactive...

America’s oil production is booming. The country’s crude oil output is on track to average 12.2 million barrels per day (BPD) this year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA). That’s an increase of 1.2 million BPD from 2018’s record output. Because of that gusher of new supply, the country now rivals Saudi Arabia as the global oil kingpin. It even briefly overtook that nation as the leader in crude oil exports earlier this year. With more supply on the way and additional export infrastructure under construction, America is emerging as a dominant force in the oil market. The...

Mossad led IAEA to radioactive material at Iran site, proving it broke deal railway packages for containers with uranium hexafluoride salt The IAEA has found signs of radioactive material which would violate the 2015 nuclear deal at an Iranian nuclear site identified to the agency by Israeli intelligence ... top Israeli sources revealed to it that the IAEA is sitting on the information and has avoided making it public to date.In April, Reuters reported that the IAEA had finally visited the secret Iranian nuclear site at Turquzabad revealed in a September 2018 UN speech by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Since...

Former IAEA official says Israel, Gulf states, 'need to be worried' about Iran's emerging nuclear abilities. Olli Heinonen, who headed the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) security team and served as the organizations' deputy director general, on Wednesday morning told Army Radio that Israelis on the whole are not aware of the severity of the Iranian threat. "Israelis need to be worried, and the Gulf states also have reason for concern," Heinonen said. "How will you be able to ensure your security if Iran achieves nuclear abilities?" In the full interview, which will be aired Thursday morning, Heinonen said that...

On Jan. 22, 2019, Ali Akbar Salehi, the nuclear chief of the Iranian theocracy, acknowledged that Iran had fooled the 5+1 and IAEA group of foreign ministers – these were U.S. and European foreign ministers who negotiated the Iran deal – into signing the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. That was the deal President Obama signed with other leaders and touted to the U.S. public. President Trump scrapped it. In an unprecedented confession, Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the mullah regime's Atomic Agency, acknowledged that the mullahs had lied in nuclear negotiations with the five world powers...

The head of the UN’s atomic watchdog said Thursday that Iran continued to abide by the nuclear deal reached in 2015 with major world powers that aimed at preventing Tehran from building atomic weapons in exchange for economic incentives. Speaking at a board meeting Thursday in Vienna of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Director General Yukiya Amano reiterated the agency’s findings in a report distributed to member states earlier this month that “Iran is implementing its nuclear-related commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.” The issue has grown more complicated since the US withdrew unilaterally in May from the...

The U.N.’s nuclear watchdog said Monday that Iran is abiding by the deal reached in 2015 with major powers that aimed at preventing Tehran from building atomic weapons in exchange for economic incentives. In a confidential quarterly report distributed to member states and reviewed by The Associated Press, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran has been abiding with key limitations set in the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. The issue has grown more complicated since the U.S. withdrew unilaterally in May from the deal and then re-imposed sanctions. Iran’s economy has been struggling ever since and...

The U.N. nuclear watchdog has said its independence is paramount and it does not take intelligence presented to it at face value, in an apparent response to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s description of a “secret atomic warehouse” in Iran. Netanyahu — who opposes the nuclear deal between Iran and major powers that the International Atomic Energy Agency is policing — made the statement in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly last week. He urged the IAEA to visit the site in Tehran. A U.S. State Department official later seconded that call. “The agency sends inspectors to sites...

Nations that struck the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, except for the United States, meet on Monday in what many diplomats fear may prove a quixotic effort to keep the agreement alive after U.S. sanctions targeting Iranian oil exports resume in November. Ministers from Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and Iran will gather in New York at 8 p.m. EDT on Monday (0000 GMT Tuesday) to grapple with U.S. President Donald Trump’s May 8 decision to withdraw from the deal and restore the full force of U.S. sanctions on Iran. Their delicate, and perhaps unrealistic, task is to build a case...

VIENNA - Iran has remained within the main restrictions on its nuclear activities imposed by a 2015 deal with major powers, a confidential report by the U.N. atomic watchdog indicated on Thursday. In its last report in May, the IAEA had said Iran could do more to cooperate with inspectors and thereby “enhance confidence”, but stopped short of saying the Islamic Republic had given it cause for concern. Thursday’s report to member states seen by Reuters contained similar language. It said the Vienna-based U.N. nuclear watchdog was able to carry out all so-called complementary access inspections needed to verify Iran’s...

A major purpose of Iran wanting to enlarge its footprint in Syria may be to hide aspects of its nuclear program from the International Atomic Energy Agency, former top IDF Military Intelligence official Yossi Kuperwasser said on Wednesday. Speaking at a Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs conference on the Iran nuclear situation, JCPA fellow Kuperwasser, a former IDF brigadier-general, noted that IAEA inspectors are limited to inspecting Iran’s territory, as the Iran nuclear deal did not grant IAEA inspectors complete access to Iranian scientists. Based on that limited access, Kuperwasser said Iran could move and conceal its nuclear scientists and...

VIENNA, Austria — The chief inspector of the UN’s nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) resigned Friday, a spokesperson for the agency said. No reason was given for Tero Varjoranta’s sudden departure, which comes days after US President Donald Trump took America out of the deal between Iran and world powers over its nuclear program.

The 2015 nuclear deal struck between Iran and six world powers - the US, UK, Russia, France, China, and Germany - was the signature foreign policy achievement of Barack Obama's presidency. The initial framework lifted crippling economic sanctions on Iran in return for limitations to the country's controversial nuclear energy programme. Here are some of the key components of the original framework. Covert activity: At the time of the agreement, the White House expressed confidence that the JCPOA would prevent Iran from building a nuclear programme in secret. Iran, it said, had committed to "extraordinary and robust monitoring, verification, and...

EXCLUSIVE – President Donald Trump is expected this week to “decertify” the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), better known simply as the Iran deal, declaring that the agreement reached in 2015 by the U.S. and five other international powers is not in America’s national interest. The matter will then be tossed back to Congress, which will have 60 days to decide whether to reimpose hefty pre-2015 sanctions. While the President’s likely move has generated wide condemnation from foreign policy leaders — who reiterate that the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has maintained Iran...