Syria Suspected Of Concealing Nuclear Activity

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It appears Iran may not be the only nuclear concern in the middle east. WTOP reports that the International Atomic Energy Agency ‘IAEA’ and Syria are walking a tightrope and appear to be headed toward a collision over two nuclear sites where undeclared uranium was recently found.

The agency found traces of uranium at the Dair Alzour nuclear site that are not included in Syria’s declared inventory, according to a just released report. The Syrians said the uranium came from the Israeli missiles used to destroy the nearby al-Kibar reactor in September 2007.

The presence of uranium particles was detected at a second site near Damascus — the Miniature Neutron Source Reactor. Syria said it came from the accumulation of samples and reference materials used in neutron activation analysis.

The IAEA is not buying either of the two explanations and is pressing Damascus for more answers and wants to know from where the uranium came. The agency has run its own tests and is certain the Syrian government is not telling the truth.

That’s where the tightrope act comes in. The IAEA won’t comment on what clearly appears to be evasive behavior by the Syrian government because of concern about its tenuous relationship with Syria.

The Syrian government, also aware of the slippery state of affairs, tells WTOP:

“We are taking up the matter with IAEA, and are in constant consultation with them. We are going through appropriate channels and Syria stands by its legal obligations to the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty).”

A U.S. counter-proliferation official is not convinced.

“Syria has a record of concealing nuclear activities. The whole world saw that with the al-Kibar reactor, an undeclared facility, destroyed in 2007.

via Read Full Article.

Man Had Enough Uranium For Dirty Bomb – Melbourne

A Victorian man who was arrested and charged last month with serious drug offences held enough uranium at a storage facility to make a “dirty bomb”.

The Melbourne Magistrates Court heard yesterday that investigators found the uranium oxide powder at Harcourt, outside Castlemaine, along with drug equipment and a confidential police document.

It was alleged by a detective that Andrew John McNaughton, 45, became a target of the police Petra taskforce in December after “intelligence indicated that he was involved in police corruption by way of sourcing and distributing restricted confidential Victoria Police information”.

The court heard that an explosives expert found that the uranium could be used in the “construction” of a dirty bomb and that other chemicals for drug manufacture could in combination make an “incendiary device”.

Detective Sergeant Peter Kos said in evidence that the uranium was “depleted” and only dangerous if ingested.

He agreed with defence lawyer Rob Stary that it “effectively has no use at all” except as a measure to determine radioactivity.

But Sergeant Kos, who said the maximum penalty in Victoria for possessing uranium was about a $15,000 fine, said its other possible use was for a dirty bomb.

Mr Stary told magistrate Peter Lauritsen that while its presence might cause “disquiet”, there was no suggestion by police the uranium was for “any other sinister purpose”.

Prosecutor Stephen Payne said police opposed bail for McNaughton on grounds that included that he was an unacceptable risk of reoffending and endangering the public.

Man had ‘enough uranium for bomb’ | theage.com.au.

U.S. Says Iran Has Enough Material for Nuclear Bomb

The United States now believes that Iran has amassed enough uranium that with further purification could be used to build an atomic bomb, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff declared Sunday.

The statement by the chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, went further than previous, official judgments of the Iranian nuclear threat, and it essentially confirmed a new report by the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency, which found that Iran had enough nuclear material for a bomb.

“We think they do, quite frankly,” Admiral Mullen said on “State of the Union” on CNN. “And Iran having a nuclear weapon, I’ve believed for a long time, is a very, very bad outcome for the region and for the world.”

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations agency, reported on Feb. 19 that its inspectors had found that Iran had understated by a third how much uranium it had enriched.

In its study, the agency declared for the first time that the amount of low-enriched uranium that Tehran had stockpiled, estimated at more than a ton, was sufficient to make an atomic bomb, but only with added purification.

Source

Iran Has Fuel For Nuclear Bomb – IAEA

The report by the IAEA, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, surprises diplomats and arms control experts. Officials note that major obstacles remain to building a weapon.

Iran has made no such gestures and has slowed its expansion of machinery producing nuclear fuel, having increased production capacity by less than 5% over the last three months, according to a report issued Thursday by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Another IAEA report released Thursday raises suspicions about graphite and uranium particles found at an alleged nuclear site in Syria that was bombed by Israel in 2007.

The reports, the latest updates from the arms control watchdog for the United Nations, show that Iran had amassed about 2,227 pounds of low-enriched, or reactor-grade, nuclear fuel by late January. Physicists estimate that producing the 55 pounds or so of highly enriched, or weapons-grade, uranium needed for an atomic warhead requires 2,205 to 3,748 pounds of low-enriched uranium.

Iran’s increased supply of low-enriched uranium surprised diplomats and arms control experts who had assumed that Iran would need until the end of the year to acquire enough fuel for a bomb.

One expert, David Albright of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, said he was “blindsided” by the report.

“We are surprised,” Albright said. “We did not expect this.”

Source

Georgia: Terror Fears Over Whereabouts Of Region’s Nuclear Material

When the breakaway region of Abkhazia split from Georgia in 1993, the world’s only known case of enriched uranium going missing was reported after up to 2kg of the potentially devastating material was stolen from a laboratory.

There are now fears that the organized criminal gangs that are rife in the region could exploit the confusion of the current conflict to loot other stocks. Read more