The UN nuclear watchdog has asked Iran to explain evidence that it has experimented with highly advanced nuclear warhead designs, a British newspaper reported yesterday.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) believes Iranian scientists may have tested components of the sophisticated technology, known as a “two-point implosion” device, the Guardian reported.
This technology — whose existence is secret in the US and Britain — would allow for the production of smaller and simpler warheads and reduce the diameter of a warhead and make it easier to put on a missile, it said.
The Guardian cited previously unpublished documentation in a dossier compiled by the IAEA, drawn in part from reports submitted by Western intelligence agencies, and presented to Iran for response.
An unnamed European advisor on nuclear issues told the newspaper: “It is breathtaking that Iran could be working on this sort of material.”
Meanwhile, UN inspectors found “nothing to be worried about” in a first look at a previously secret uranium enrichment site in Iran last month, the IAEA chief said in remarks released on Thursday.
In interviews with CNN and the New York Times, Mohamed ElBaradei also said he was examining possible compromises to unblock a draft nuclear cooperation deal between Iran and three major powers that has foundered over Iranian objections.
The nuclear site, which Iran revealed in September three years after diplomats said Western spies first detected it, added to Western fears of covert Iranian efforts to develop atom bombs. Iran says it is enriching uranium only for electricity.
ElBaradei was quoted by the New York Times as saying his inspectors’ initial findings at the fortified site beneath a desert mountain near the Shi’ite holy city of Qom were “nothing to be worried about.”
“The idea was to use it as a bunker under the mountain to protect things,” ElBaradei, alluding to Tehran’s references to the site as a fallback for its nuclear program in case its larger Natanz enrichment plant were bombed by an enemy.
“It’s a hole in a mountain,” he said. The outgoing IAEA chief told CNN it was intended to be a “passive defense” of its nuclear technology in the event of an attack.
ElBaradei told CNN the agency’s inspectors had received “quite good cooperation” when they visited Qom.
The IAEA has declined to comment on whether the inspectors came across anything surprising or were able to obtain all the documentation and on-site access they had wanted at the remote spot about 160km south of Tehran.
Details are expected to be included in the next IAEA report on Iran’s disputed nuclear activity due in the middle of this month.
The inspectors’ goal was to compare engineering designs to be provided by Iran with the actual look of the facility, interview scientists and other employees, and take soil samples to check for any traces of activity oriented to making bombs.
Western diplomats and analysts say the site’s capacity appears too small to fuel a nuclear power station but enough to yield fissile material for one or two nuclear warheads a year.
The Islamic Republic revealed the plant’s existence to the Vienna-based UN nuclear watchdog on Sept. 21. It said the site, which remains under construction, would enrich uranium only to the low 5 percent purity suitable for power plant fuel.
Enrichment to the 90 percent threshold provides the fissile material that detonates nuclear weapons.
After talks with Iran and three world powers, ElBaradei drafted a plan for Iran to transfer most of its low-enriched uranium to Russia and France to turn it into fuel for a Tehran reactor that makes isotopes for cancer treatment.
Russia, France and the US, which would help modernize the reactor’s safety equipment and instrumentation under the deal, see it as a way to reduce Iran’s LEU stockpile below the threshold needed to produce material for a bomb.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS