Japan nuclear crisis far from over, UN agency warns

TOKYO: Japanese engineers struggled on Sunday to pump radioactive water from a crippled nuclear power station while the United Nations’ chief nuclear inspector said the crisis triggered by this month’s earthquake and tsunami was far from over.

Iran criticizes absent EU as envoys see nuclear site

TEHRAN: A group of ambassadors to the U.N. atomic watchdog toured an Iranian nuclear site on Saturday, state television reported, and Tehran accused the European Union of missing an historic opportunity by boycotting the visit.

Iran said the tour, which China and Russia also snubbed after being discouraged by Western officials, aimed to demonstrate the country’s transparency about its atomic program before talks with major powers set for January 21-22.

Tehran invited some ambassadors accredited to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to visit its nuclear sites. The U.S, British, French and German envoys were not asked along, while the EU declined its invitation, saying United Nations nuclear inspectors should carry out such visits.

Israel destroyed Syrian nuclear reactor: WikiLeaks

WikiLeaks disclosed that Israel destroyed a Syrian nuclear reactor in an air raid on September 6, 2007. According to WikiLeaks Israel destroyed the nuclear reactor built by Syria secretly, apparently with North Koreas help, then US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice wrote in the cable published in Yediot Aharonot newspaper.

Our intelligence experts are convinced that the attack targeted by the Israelis is in fact an atomic reactor of the same type built by North Korea in Yongbyon, she wrote in the message dated April 2008. We have good reason to believe that the reactor was not built for peaceful purposes, she said, adding the attack came only weeks before the reactor was to become operational.Rice also noted the secrecy surrounding the construction of the nuclear facility, with the Syrian authorities refusing to invite the International Atomic Energy Agency or any media to inspect the site.

Israel has for its part never denied that its air force attacked a target in Syria, without ever officially claiming responsibility for the action.

Iranian president fires foreign minister Mottaki

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has fired Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, the official IRNA news agency reported on Monday. Ahmadinejad appointed head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization Ali Akbar Salehi, a close ally to the president, as the caretaker for the ministry.

I thank you and appreciate the work and the services you have rendered during your tenure in the foreign ministry, Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying in the directive carried by IRNA.

I hope your efforts receive a praise by God and you will be successful in the rest of your life at the service of people of our Islamic nation, he added.

Mottaki, a career diplomat, was appointed to the post of foreign minister in August 2005. He is currently in Senegal on an official visit.

Iran Against Proposal to Halt Enrichment

Iran’s nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi says the country will not accept any fuel bank proposal which would require Tehran to halt uranium enrichment.

We do not have any opposition to a fuel bank within the framework the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) has established if provision of reliable and stable fuel for nuclear power plants is guaranteed, IRNA quoted head of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran as saying. But not if they use political excuses to not provide fuel, Salehi added. Salehi said Moscow’s fuel ban proposal was based on the condition that the bank be established in Russia and last week the Russians said they had made preparations for it. Earlier this week, Russia announced that it had created the first international fuel bank in Angarsk, and the first batch of low-enriched uranium would be ready by the end of 2010. Russia has pledged to grant any IAEA member country that honors its non-proliferation commitments access to the reserves. This time the US and the agency have proposed a fuel bank, but its conditions are for countries which do not have the capability to produce fuel and given the Islamic Republic’s capability to produce fuel, this proposal is unacceptable for us, Salehi explained. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors voted Friday to establish an international fuel bank that nations can turn to in order to provide fuel for their reactors instead of producing it domestically. The objective of the bank is to reduce the risks of weapons proliferation by providing an alternative to the production of nuclear fuel. Countries which have enrichment technology would donate enriched fuel to a bank, from which states not possessing enrichment technology would obtain fuel for their power reactors. However, certain developing countries oppose the move, arguing that it may restrict their progress in nuclear technology and violate their rights in the nuclear fuel cycle. Earlier on Sunday, Salehi announced that the Islamic Republic has become self-sufficient in yellow-cake uranium. The first consignment of yellow cake was shipped from Gachin mine in Bandar Abbas to Isfahan Uranium Conversion Facility (UCF) under the surveillance of the IAEA.

Iran denies problem with uranium enrichment

TEHRAN: Iran Tuesday denied claims that its sensitive uranium enrichment work has been hit by technical problems and stressed that its nuclear programme has not been harmed by the Stuxnet computer worm.

Also rejecting allegations by Western powers that Iran lacks the know-how to make nuclear fuel plates, atomic chief Ali Akbar Salehi was adamant the Islamic republic would be producing fuel for a research reactor by September 2011.

Salehi “denied Western media reports that enrichment has stopped in Iran,” the official news agency IRNA reported.

“Iran will never pay attention to lies in Western media on its progressive path in the nuclear issue,” he told IRNA.

Salehi appeared to be reacting to comments by Olli Heinonen, former deputy director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who said on Monday that technical problems were slowing down Iran’s

India signs IAEA’s nuclear liability pact

VIENNA: India on Wednesday signed an international convention governing liability in case of nuclear accidents, a move sought by Washington so as to pave the way for US firms to enter India’s civil nuclear market.

With just a week to go before US President Barack Obama’s landmark visit to India, the International Atomic Energy Agency said New Delhi’s ambassador to Austria and to the IAEA, Dinkar Khullar, signed the Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage (CSC) at a brief ceremony at the UN watchdog’s headquarters in Vienna.

The CSC — which dates back to September 1997 — seeks to establish a uniform global legal regime for the compensation of victims in the event of a nuclear accident.

India hopes that signing the convention will allay some of the concerns of US companies about New Delhi’s own recently-passed nuclear liability law which

Syrian, Saudi leaders to discuss Lebanon, Iraq

RIYADH: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad arrived in Saudi Arabia on Sunday for talks with King Abdullah expected to focus on tension in Lebanon over a U.N.-backed tribunal and the political void in Iraq.

The Saudi state news agency SPA gave no details about the talks after Assad began his second trip to the world’s top oil exporting country this year, the latest sign of a thaw in bilateral relations.

The meeting comes a few days after a state visit to Lebanon by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, whose disputed atomic energy programme Riyadh fears could lead to Tehran becoming a nuclear-weapons state.

The Saudis have been trying to convince Syria to loosen its alliance with Iran and adopt a more Arab-focused foreign policy with the kingdom, dangling the prospect of stronger economic cooperation.

The 2005 killing of Lebanese statesman Rafik

Pakistan becomes new chair of IAEA board

Pakistan on Monday was elected, by consensus, as Chairman of the Board of Governors of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for the year 2011-12.
Pakistans Dr. Ansar Parvez, who is Chairman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, will replace the Ambassador of Malaysia Mr. Dato Muhammad Shahrul Ikram Yaakob.
Pakistans election by a consensus is an acknowledgment of the positive advances it has made in the nuclear field. It is also a recognition of its active role in the Agency, a foreign office statement issued here on Monday said. Pakistan last served as Chairman of the IAEA Board in 1962-63 and 1986-87.
The 35-member Board is the executive arm of the IAEA, besides being the highest policy-making organ of the IAEA. The Board will be dealing with a string of important issues this year. These include the Medium Term Strategy for 2012-17, the Technical Cooperation Fund targets for the biennium 2012-13 and the regular budget of the Agency.
Pakistans candidature had been unanimously endorsed by the Middle East and South Asia Group to which Pakistan belongs. It was unanimously approved by the Board this morning, the statement added.

Iran says UN atom body in credibility crisis

VIENNA: Iran said on Monday that the U.N. nuclear watchdog was suffering a crisis of ‘moral authority and credibility’, underlining increasingly strained ties between Tehran and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, criticised the IAEA’s latest report on the Islamic Republic’s disputed nuclear programme as unfair and suggested that Western powers had influenced it.

The report showed Iran pressing ahead with its atomic work, which the West suspects is aimed at developing nuclear arms, in defiance of tougher international sanctions. Iran says its work is for peaceful uses only.

“It appears that the agency is suffering from (a) moral authority and credibility crisis,” Salehi told the IAEA’s general assembly in Vienna, speaking in English. AGENCIES

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