Free Republic

Burma is working on a nuclear weapons programme, experts have concluded, after its existence was exposed by leaked photographs. Burma is working on a nuclear weapons programme, experts have concluded, after its existence was exposed by leaked photographs. Intelligence monitoring of the country’s arms purchases from North Korea has been intensified as a result. Satellite tracking and electronic surveillance in particular have been stepped up. Concerns over the regime’s attempts to develop a nuclear bomb prompted the US State Department to demand last week that the ruling junta disclose an inventory of its nuclear technology.

SEOUL (AFP) - The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has suspended operations in North Korea following US claims that its funds were being diverted to prop up the communist regime. In January the US delegate to the UN Mark Wallace charged that North Korea had, since 1998 and with the complicity of UNDP, "systematically perverted" the aid programme "for the benefit of the Kim Jong Il regime, rather than the people of North Korea." The UNDP said in a statement seen Monday on its website: "As of March 1, 2007, UNDP has no choice but to suspend its operations in...

Iran puts radicals in charge of nuclear programme By Philip Sherwell in Washington (Filed: 09/10/2005) Iran's new hardline president has placed his country's nuclear programme under the control of militant commanders of the Revolutionary Guards, the military's most committed wing. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has launched a purge of moderates in national and provincial government since his election two months ago, has drafted in fellow radical revolutionaries to top administrative posts - a move that will heighten Western fears over Iran's nuclear ambitions.Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Many of the new power-brokers are veterans of the Revolutionary Guards' Quds (Jerusalem) Force, in which Mr...

US rejects plan to replace food aid with cash By Edward Alden in Washington The US yesterday firmly rejected a European Union proposal to convert its food aid for developing countries to cash payments, as members of Congress warned they would have difficulty supporting a Doha Round world trade agreement that did not preserve the current programme. Under questioning from senators, Rob Portman, the US trade representative, said: "We are not going down that road. "The kinds of radical changes the EU and others are talking about would not be just harmful to our farmers and ranchers, but also terribly...

TEHRAN (AFP) - European nations negotiating with Iran over its controversial nuclear programme may be ready to help build nuclear reactors and supply them with fuel, Iranian negotiator Hossein Moussavian said. He told the official IRNA agency that a proposal promised by Britain, France and Germany by August and aimed at resolving the crisis could include such an offer, as well as a several-month delay before Iran's nuclear ambitions are referred to the UN Security Council. The EU proposal could make or break the lengthy diplomatic process aimed at easing widespread fears Iran is seeking nuclear weapons technology. In contrast...

Iran challenges US over nuclear programme By Alec Russell in Washington (Filed: 07/02/2005) Iran dared America to attack it yesterday as the senior hawks in President George W Bush's administration all but admitted that Washington faced a dilemma in trying to prevent Teheran from acquiring nuclear weapons. In a rare interview, Dick Cheney, the vice-president, stressed repeatedly that Washington was backing a European diplomatic initiative to persuade Teheran to freeze permanently its nuclear ambitions - even though it is Washington's worst-kept secret that the administration believes the attempt is doomed to fail. "[The Iranians] know very well that we do...

US out to sabotage Iran's atom bomb programme By David Rennie in Washington (Filed: 09/08/2004) The Bush administration is trying to find covert ways to sabotage or delay Iran's nuclear weapons programme believing that diplomatic deals struck with European nations have barely slowed Teheran's rush towards the bomb. Intelligence and administration officials are urgently trying to find secret means "to disrupt or delay as long as we can" the development of an Iranian bomb, one said. The urgency stems, in part, from "increasingly strong private statements" by Israeli counterparts that they may be forced to take military action to stop...

The International Atomic Energy Agency convened a board of governors meeting June 14, debating how to respond to Iran’s nuclear program, which critics say is dedicated to the development of nuclear weapons. The head of the United Nations’ agency, Mohammad ElBaradei, announced that Tehran’s cooperation has been "less than satisfactory." The most recent IAEA report on Iran’s nuclear program chronicles a long list of deceit, defiance, contradictory accounts and denial of access to some key sites. The report says the agency’s inspectors found more traces of highly enriched uranium that could be bomb-grade, and that Iran had admitted importing parts...

Is Pakistan's nuclear programme dying? By Paul Anderson BBC correspondent in Islamabad In all the heat generated by Pakistan's leading nuclear scientist, AQ Khan, confessing to nuclear proliferation, relatively little attention has been paid to the future of the country's nuclear weapons programme. AQ Khan dramatically confessed to leaking nuclear secrets in February. In the 1970s Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto famously declared that Pakistanis would go to any sacrifice to match India's nuclear weapons programme, even if it meant the people being reduced to eating grass. Now they have a nuclear programme, they are discovering that weapons technology is...

I never thought the day would come when I would admit to missing Mr. Rogers. But here it is. Fred Rogers died Thursday. Bummer. Back when I was a cop, I used to come home from work and watch "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" with my kids. Not at first though. Initially, I refused to believe that anyone, never mind kids with the attention span of a weasel on meth, could sit through two minutes of "Howdy, Neighbor." But mine did. In the beginning it was a fight. I would come home depressed and surly and say, "Let's watch 'Masters of the...