IAEA Denies Report Iran Has Ability To Create Nuclear Bomb

The U.N. nuclear agency has no proof that Iran has or once had a covert atomic bomb program, it said on Thursday, dismissing a report that it had concluded Iran was on its way to producing nuclear weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency reaffirmed IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei’s September 9 comment that allegations the agency was sitting on evidence of Iranian bomb work were “politically motivated and baseless.”

“With respect to a recent media report, the IAEA reiterates that it has no concrete proof that there is or has been a nuclear weapons program in Iran,” an IAEA statement said.

The IAEA received information from a variety of sources that might be relevant to verifying that a state was not hiding nuclear bomb research or development, it said.

All information on Iran that the IAEA had vetted has already been shared with its 35-nation Board of Governors in reports by ElBaradei.

Diplomats close to the IAEA have told Reuters it has no “smoking gun” evidence of Iran currently trying to apply nuclear technology to its ballistic missile program. Two diplomats repeated that position after Thursday’s media report.

via IAEA denies report it is sure Iran seeking atom bomb | International | Reuters.

However… There Is This Story

Experts at the IAEA are in agreement that Teheran has the ability to make a nuclear bomb and is on the way to developing a missile system able to carry an atomic warhead, according to a secret report seen by The Associated Press on Thursday.

The document drafted by senior officials at the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency is the clearest indication yet that the agency’s leaders share Washington’s views on Iran’s weapon-making capabilities. It appears to be the so-called “secret annex” on Teheran’s nuclear program that Washington says is being withheld by the IAEA’s chief.

According to the document, the Islamic republic has “sufficient information” to build a bomb. Iran is likely to “overcome problems” on developing a delivery system, according to the report.

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Nuclear Attack: Terrorists vs U.S., Are We At Risk

Few people want to think about the possibility of being successfully attacked by terrorists and/or terror sponsoring nations using nuclear weapons. Many would like to think that the United States government is on top of things and watching all avenues of approach. But, the sad truth is that it isn’t looking everywhere it should be looking. The reality of the situation is that the Department of Homeland Security is grossly overwhelmed. From Customs to the Coast Guard the United States suffers from poor technology, low personnel & equipment numbers, brutal budget restrictions, and poor training programs. The obvious avenues of approach are covered well more to provide the citizenry with a false sense of security than anything else.

Confidential discussions with leaders throughout the Homeland Security Network of agencies reveal that the prevention of an atomic attack is not thorough in the United States. In fact, they indicate that nontraditional infiltration and detonation avenues are barely known and those that are known are barely covered. The entire East Coast of the United States is at risk of a nuclear attack, ranging through New York, D.C., Atlanta, and Orlando. With the Secretary of Homeland Security declaring that America is safe from any such attack one is left with asking, “How national security professionals think that it could happen?”

A briefing before national security professionals has revealed a particularly spooky scenario. One that is sure to run chills up the spine of anyone who learns of it and how unprepared the United States remains. It is an attack scenario that could occur at any moment and without any warning whatsoever. Naturally, those who know of it within the government are highly reluctant to allow themselves to be named.

Let’s go into an imaginary world for a moment. Imagine that a nuclear warhead built in Tehran, Iran and developed jointly by Iran, North Korea, and Russia becomes a multi-megaton reality. With the United States and its allies out of Iraq, Iran has an established transport pipe-line to Syria, a close political and religious ally. Imagine that a Gulfstream or Hawker long-range executive jet is modified internally to carry the warhead on a one way trip to the United States.

The aircraft departs Tehran, with its cargo, and lands at a Syrian Air Base located near Damascus for re-fueling and final checks of its deadly cargo. From Damascus, Syria the aircraft flies to an airport inside Bosnia. There, sympathetic officials who have been well compensated pencil-whip a non-existent customs inspection and allow refueling. It is then off again.

Traveling across Europe at near sound speeds, the aircraft follows a properly filed and normal flight plan. Its pilots maintain radio contact with various centers and draw no unusual attention to it as it continues on. There are no established radiologic detection mechanisms for aircraft traveling at high or low speeds. Thus, the aircraft and its cargo continue on without detection. Many long range executive aircraft are capable of traveling from countries such as Bosnia or Hungary through to New York and many East Coast Cities, such as Charleston or even Atlanta, without having to refuel. There would be no need to stop in advanced technology capable airports or U.S. allied countries.

The aircraft flies normally across Europe, over Greenland, and over Iceland as it moves towards the final destination. Again, it continues to fly without its cargo being detected as U.S. airspace begins to get nearer. According to anonymous sources, there are no aircraft in the skies with super sensitive detectors in U.S. airspace searching for radiological signatures. It is an assumption that has not been directly inferred but hasn’t been squashed or corrected by the DHS, either. People just assume that U.S. technology exists to detect this rather simply approach by enemy force. The reality is that such an approach would happen without hindrance or detection. That is what makes this scenario so worrisome to national security experts, military strategists, and the public in general.

When the aircraft enters American Airspace it continues on to whatever city airport, most likely an international airport, it has listed on its flight plan. As it approaches the airport, the co-pilot walks to the back of the plane and performs the final arming processes following the controlled decompression of the cabin. Decompressing the cabin allows a barometric pressure sensitive detonator to have a more accurate reading of altitude. It will detonate the bomb at a given altitude which is detected by air pressure. Altitude is key in maximizing the effect of a nuclear explosion.

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New Drug Protects From Nuclear or Dirty Bomb Radiation

A drug that can protect people exposed to normally lethal doses of radiation from a nuclear or a “dirty” bomb has been developed, reports say.

In tests involving 650 monkeys exposed to radiation equivalent to that recorded during the Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster in 1986, 70 per cent died while the rest suffered serious maladies, the newspaper Yediot Achronot said yesterday.

Of the group given anti-radiation shots, almost all survived and had no side effects. A test on humans not exposed to radiation showed none suffered side effects from the medication.

The medication was developed by Andrei Gudkov, chief scientific officer at Cleveland BioLabs in the US. Also involved was Israel’s Elena Feinstein.

“We made a breakthrough that may save the lives of millions,” Dr Gudkov was quoted as saying.

The medication has important implications in the treatment of cancer, the report said, since it permits use of more powerful radiation.

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Exclusive: Dramatic discovery by Jewish-American scientists could change world; anti-radiation medication proves effective, safe in tests. Further experiments to be fast tracked, FDA approval possible within 1-2 years

Medication that can protect humans against nuclear radiation has been developed by Jewish-American scientists in cooperation with a researcher and investors from Israel. The full story behind the dramatic discovery will be published in Yedioth Ahronoth’s weekend edition.

The ground-breaking medication, developed by Professor Andrei Gudkov – Chief Scientific Officer at Cleveland BioLabs – may have far-reaching implications on the balance of power in the world, as states capable of providing their citizens with protection against radiation will enjoy a significant strategic advantage vis-à-vis their rivals.

For Israel, the discovery marks a particularly dramatic development that could deeply affect the main issue on the defense establishment’s agenda: Protection against a nuclear attack by Iran or against “dirty bomb” attacks by terror groups.

Gudkov’s discovery may also have immense implications for cancer patients by enabling doctors to better protect patients against radiation. Should the new medication enable cancer patients to be treated with more powerful radiation, our ability to fight the disease could greatly improve.

Dramatic test results
The process that led up to the medical innovation dates back to 2003, when Professor Gudkov came up with the idea of using protein produced in bacteria found in the intestine to protect cells from radiation.

Gudkov recounted an experiment he held with two groups of mice.

“We exposed both groups to lethal radioactive radiation,” he said. “All the mice in the control group died within a short period of time. A few days later, when I approached the cage with the mice that received the protein, I could see that they’re ok, that they’re alive. They survived. It’s hard to describe the joy all of us felt. We realized that finally, after so many years and so many experiments and frustrations, we made a breakthrough that may save the lives of millions.”

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New drug offers radiation protection

A drug developed with Pentagon approval offers protection from radiation in the event of a nuclear attack, U.S. and Israeli researchers said.

The medication could offer effective protection in the event of nuclear or dirty bomb attacks, an exclusive report published Friday in the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Aharonoth said.

The drug developed by Professor Andrei Gudkov may affect the future balance of world powers, the paper said, and will offer cancer sufferers better protection as they undergo radiation treatment.

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Nuclear Bomb Missing For 50 Years

More than 50 years after a 7,600lb (3,500kg) nuclear bomb was dropped in US waters following a mid-air military collision, the question of whether the missing weapon still poses a threat remains.

In his own mind, retired 87-year-old Colonel Howard Richardson is a hero responsible for one of the most extraordinary displays of aeronautic skill in the history of the US Air Force.

His view carries a lot of weight and he has a large number of supporters – including the Air Force itself which honoured his feat with a Distinguished Flying Cross.

But to others, he is little short of a villain: the man who 50 years ago dropped a nuclear bomb in US waters, a bomb nobody has been able to find and make safe.

‘Top-secret flight’

Shortly after midnight on 5 February 1958, Howard Richardson was on a top-secret training flight for the US Strategic Air Command.

It was the height of the Cold War and the young Major Richardson’s mission was to practise long-distance flights in his B-47 bomber in case he was ordered to fly from Homestead Air Force Base in Florida to any one of the targets the US had identified in Russia.

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North Korea Puts Two U.S. Journalists On Trial

North Korea put two U.S. journalists on trial on Thursday on charges of illegally entering the state with “hostile intent”, in a case that could worsen tension with Washington after Pyongyang’s nuclear test last week.

The journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling of the U.S. media outlet Current TV, were taken into custody in March near the border between China and North Korea while working on a story. The TV network was co-founded by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore.

North Korea’s KCNA news agency said in a one-sentence dispatch that the trial would begin at 0600 GMT (3 p.m. local time) at one of the country’s highest courts.

Experts say the pair could face a sentence of 10 years or more of hard labour in the reclusive state. They add a guilty verdict is almost certain in a North Korean justice system that protects the unquestioned rule of leader Kim Jong-il.

via North Korea puts two U.S. journalists on trial | Reuters.

Fears Mount North Korea Preparing To Attack The South

It was obvious that something was up when the Chinese scarpered. One day there were scores of their fishing boats hoovering up the valuable crabs from the richest of the fishing grounds in the Yellow Sea.

Overnight all but a handful were gone.

Anywhere else the locals would have been glad to have the crabs to themselves but this is no ordinary fishing ground. A few yards from here is the maritime boundary between South and North Korea. “The Chinese fish here because the North Koreans allow them,” a coastguard official said. “If they’ve gone it’s because they’ve had some kind of warning.”

An imminent missile launch into the sea? An armed incursion of North Korean ships? A full-scale invasion of Yeonpyeong, the small South Korean island hard up against the maritime boundary? Too much blood has already been shed in these waters for anyone to risk taking any chances, and for the past week South Korea has been dispatching reinforcements.

No one will discuss numbers for security reasons but sailors and marines, as well as members of the Sea Special Attack Team, the coastguard’s commando force, have been arriving to join the several hundred troops already on Yeonpyeong.

These waters, around the Northern Limit Line, have become the most tense and dangerous patch of sea in Asia.

The rest of the world is pondering what to do about North Korea’s underground test of a nuclear bomb eight days ago. Yesterday fresh reports emerged that the nation was transporting its most advanced missile, capable of reaching Alaska, to a launch site. David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, said that Britain and other members of the UN Security Council were drafting new sanctions against Pyongyang.

In South Korea the most pressing question is: what next? The nuclear test was just the most alarming in a series of growing North Korean provocations. In April the North launched a long-range rocket over the Pacific, and last week half-a-dozen short-range missiles were fired from launch sites across the country.

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North Korea Preparing For Test Of Long Range ICBM Missile ?

North Korea appears to be preparing for a long-range missile test, defying the U.N. Security Council whose members are negotiating a resolution to punish it for its recent nuclear test, Yonhap News Agency reported Saturday, quoting an informed intelligence source.

The source, asking not to be identified, said an object that appeared to be an intercontinental ballistic missile ICBM was recently spotted on a cargo train at an artillery research center near Pyongyang, the North Korean capital.

“We believe that the object is certainly an ICBM,” said the official, adding that its size is somewhat similar to the one the North fired into the Pacific on April 5.

North Korea is believed to have started moving the object to a missile launch pad in Musudan-ri on the country’s east coast, according to the official.

“The missile may be a modified version of a Taepodong-2 missile, which can travel over 4,000 km,” the official said. A Taepodong-2 missile is theoretically capable of reaching the western U.S.

“It usually takes about two months to set up a launch pad, but the process could be done in as little as two weeks, which means the North could launch a long-range missile as early as mid-June,” the source said.

The developments of what appears to be preparations for a missile launch follow Monday’s nuclear test, which drew the international community’s condemnation against North Korea. The test came less than two months after it fired a rocket that the U.S. and its allies say was a disguised form of an intercontinental ballistic missile.

The remarks came shortly after a South Korean defense source in Singapore said some activities were spotted at a North Korean munitions factory used to build long-range missiles.

Some watchers speculate that North Korea may launch a missile at a time close to a summit set for June 16 between South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and his U.S. counterpart, Barack Obama.

“There is a possibility that North Korea may push the ‘fire’ button right before or after the South Korea-U.S. summit,” said a key diplomatic official at the presidential office, requesting to be unnamed.

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Russia Fears Korea Conflict Could Go Nuclear

Russia is taking precautionary security measures, including military ones, because it fears tensions over North Korea’s atomic test could descend into nuclear war, news agencies quoted an official as saying on Wednesday.

Interfax quoted an unnamed security source as saying that a stand-off triggered by Pyongyang’s nuclear test on Monday could affect the security of Russia’s far eastern regions, which border North Korea.

Provocation
Reports: N. Korea tests missiles, starts nuke plant / Associated Press
S. Korean newspaper says steam detected coming from nuclear facility at Pyongyang’s main plant, indicating North is reprocessing spent nuclear fuel rods to harvest weapons-grade plutonium; country also test-fires another missile. Meanwhile, N. Korea warns of military action against South
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“The need has emerged for an appropriate package of precautionary measures,” the source said.

“We are not talking about stepping up military efforts but rather about measures in case a military conflict, perhaps with the use of nuclear weapons, flares up on the Korean Peninsula,” he added.

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North Korea Threatens Military Action Against South Korea

North Korea threatened military action in response to South Korea joining an anti-proliferation program and said it’s no longer bound by the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War.

South Korea’s actions are tantamount to a “declaration of war,” the North’s official said in a statement today. North Korea said it can’t guarantee the safety of ships passing through its western waters near the maritime border with the South.

[...]

“We will regard any intervention, searches or other minor hostile acts against our peaceful ships as an intolerable violation of our sovereign rights and will counter with an immediate and forceful military strike,” the KCNA statement said.

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North Korea Test-Fires 2 Short-Range Missiles Off East Coast

A South Korean news agency is reporting that North Korea has test-fired two short-range missiles from an east coast launch pad.

The Yonhap news agency cites an unnamed government sources as saying the missiles have a range of about 80 miles (130 kilometers).

The reports says one was a surface-to-air missile and the other was a ground-to-ship missile. Both were fired Tuesday afternoon.

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North Korea Conducts Underground Nuclear Bomb Test

North Korea Conducts Underground Nuclear Bomb Test

Tremors from a 4.7 magnitude artificial earthquake were detected just before ten o’clock local time, after North Korea detonated a bomb in a bunker six miles underground.

The rogue state, which had previously tested a nuclear weapon in October 2006, boasted that its latest test was more powerful “in terms of its explosive power” and more technologically-advanced.

“We successfully conducted another underground nuclear test on May 25 as part of measures aimed at strengthening our self-defence nuclear deterrent in every way,” said the state-run North Korean news wire.

The test will “contribute to safeguarding our sovereignty and socialism and guaranteeing peace and safety on the Korean peninsula and the surrounding region,” it added.

The test site was around 230 miles north east of Pyongyang, according to the United States Geological Survey. The location is just a few miles from where North Korea tested its first nuclear device in 2006.

Yonhap, the South Korean news wire, also reported that a single ground-to-air missile, with a range of 80 miles, was fired from a launch site nearby just a few hours later. The rogue state is not thought to have yet developed a missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, experts said.

Taro Aso, the Japanese prime minister, said he would set up a task force to handle the situation and seek an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss a plan of action.

The US, meanwhile, said it was not able to confirm the reports of a test, and was seeking “more information from its allies” before making a statement.

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Report: Pyongyang also test-fires short-range missile…

Korea military forms crisis team…

Japan says test ‘unacceptable’…

U.S. ‘gravely concerned’…

Britain: ‘Breach’ of UN resolutions…

Asian markets rattled…

EMP Threat – A Single Nuke Could Destroy America

A sword of Damocles hangs over our heads. It is a real threat that has been all but ignored.

On Feb. 3, Iran launched a “communications satellite” into orbit. At this very moment, North Korea is threatening to do the same. The ability to launch an alleged communications satellite belies a far more frightening truth. A rocket that can carry a satellite into orbit also can drop a nuclear warhead over any location on the planet in less than 45 minutes.

Far too many timid or uninformed sources maintain that a single launch of a missile poses no true threat to the United States, given our retaliatory power.

A reality check is in order and must be discussed in response to such an absurd claim: In fact, one small nuclear weapon, delivered by an ICBM can destroy the United States by maximizing the effect of the resultant electromagnetic pulse upon detonation.

An electromagnetic pulse EMP is a byproduct of detonating an atomic bomb above the Earth’s atmosphere. When a nuclear weapon is detonated in space, the gamma rays emitted trigger a massive electrical disturbance in the upper atmosphere. Moving at the speed of light, this overload will short out all electrical equipment, power grids and delicate electronics on the Earth’s surface. In fact, it would take only one to three weapons exploding above the continental United States to wipe out our entire grid and transportation network. It might take years to recover from, if ever.

This is not science fiction. If you doubt this, spend a short amount of time skimming the Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack from April 2008. You will come away sobered.

Even as the new administration plans to spend trillions on economic bailouts, it has announced plans to reduce funding and downgrade efforts for missile defense. Furthermore, the United States’ reluctance to invest in a modern and credible traditional nuclear deterrent is a serious concern. What good will a bailout be if there is no longer a nation to bail out?

Fifty years ago, it was not Sputnik itself that sent a dire chill of warning around the world; it was the capability of the rocket that launched Sputnik. The rocket that lofted Sputnik into orbit also could have served as an ICBM.

Yet for all its rhetoric, the Soviet Union was essentially a rational power that recognized the threat of mutual destruction and thus never stepped to the edge.

The world is different today. Intercontinental range missiles tipped with nuclear weapons in the hands of leaders driven by fanaticism, leaders that support global terrorism, leaders that have made repeated threats that they will seek our annihilation . . . can now at last achieve that dream in a matter of minutes.

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