Iran 01 (Jul 08 - Apr 18)

[winston]

Iran inflation tops 26%
Posted: 05 July 2008 1733 hrs

TEHRAN: Iran's inflation rate, which has provoked intense criticism of the government, topped 26 per cent in June, according to a central bank statement published in the press on Saturday.

"During the Iranian month of Kordad (to June 20) inflation reached 26.4 per cent compared with the same month a year ago," according to the statement published in the economic newspaper Sarmayeh.

The previous month, annual inflation was running at 25.3 per cent.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been blamed by many economists for directly fuelling the price rises by ploughing huge amounts of cash into the economy to fund local infrastructure projects.

There has been a sharp increase in money supply growth -- a key indicator of future inflation trends -- to almost 40 per cent during the years of the Ahmadinejad presidency.

He was elected in 2005 on a platform of making the poor feel the benefits of the OPEC member's massive oil wealth, and he has made implementation of economic "justice" the main government slogan.

- AFP/jk

[LenaHuat]

Look at Iran's Green Wave, it's fascinating :-
http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-43553.html#backToArticle=631208

[winston]

Not sure where I read that Iran will have an atomic bomb in 6 months..

[winston]

Iran's nuclear arms worst threat to global security, says Gates

CHICAGO: Iran's nuclear ambitions are the greatest current threat to global security, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday.

"Iran is the one that concerns me the most because there don't seem to be good options (or a scenario) where one can have any optimism that good options will be found," Gates told the Economic Club of Chicago.

The threat rests not only in Iran's apparent determination to seek a nuclear weapon, but in the "inability of the international community to affect their determination to do that," Gates said.

"All of the outcomes are negative," he said. "If they achieve one, the possibility of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East is very, very real.

"If something is done to prevent them from getting one, the consequences of that are completely unpredictable and frankly, very bad."

Gates says he has struggled to convince other nations, particularly Russia, that the Iranian situation does not simply threaten the United States.

"Iran's going to have the capability to deliver nuclear weapons to the people in their region a lot sooner than they're going to have the capability to deliver them to us," he added.

- AFP/yt

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/ ... 34/1/.html

[winston]

Russia, Ahmadinejad and Iran Reconsidered By George Friedman

Iran's clerical elite does not want to go to war. They therefore can only view with alarm the recent ostentatious transiting of the Suez Canal into the Red Sea by Israeli submarines and corvettes. This transiting did not happen without U.S. approval.

Moreover, in spite of U.S. opposition to expanded Israeli settlements and Israeli refusals to comply with this opposition, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will be visiting Israel in two weeks. The Israelis have said that there must be a deadline on negotiations with Iran over the nuclear program when the next G-8 meeting takes place in September; a deadline that the G-8 has already approved. The consequences if Iran ignores the deadline were left open-ended.

All of this can fit into our old model of psychological warfare, as representing a bid to manipulate Iranian politics by making Ahmadinejad's leadership look too risky. It could also be the United States signaling to the Russians that stakes in the region are rising. It is not clear that the United States has reconsidered its strategy on Iran in the wake of the postelection demonstrations. But if Rafsanjani's claim of Russian support for Ahmadinejad is true, a massive re-evaluation of U.S. policy could ensue, assuming one hasn't already started — prompting a reconsideration of the military option.

All of this assumes that there is substance behind a mob chanting "Death to Russia." There appears to be, but of course, Ahmadinejad's enemies would want to magnify that substance to its limits and beyond. This is why we are not ready to simply abandon our previous net assessment of Iran, even though it is definitely time to rethink it.

http://www.investorsinsight.com/blogs/j ... dered.aspx

[winston]

Turkmenistan-Iran gas pipeline to be finished end-2009

ASHGABAT: Turkmenistan will complete the construction of a gas pipeline to Iran by the end of the year, the former Soviet republic's deputy prime minister said on Saturday.

"Given the intense pace of construction, this project will be completed around November-December," Baimyrat Khodjamukhammedov told national television.

The pipeline will pump gas from the Dovletabat gas field in southeastern Turkmenistan. The gas from Dovletabat has so far only been delivered to Russia.

Turkmenistan announced last month that it would increase gas deliveries to Iran from eight billion cubic metres a year to 14 billion cubic metres.

While Iran holds the world's second biggest gas reserves, it imports as much of it from Turkmenistan as it exports to Turkey.

The development of Iran's gas sector is hampered by a lack of productive investment and the growth of domestic consumption. - AFP/de

[winston]

Pentagon, Eyeing Iran, Wants to Rush 30,000-Pound Bomb Program By Tony Capaccio

July 31 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Defense Department wants to accelerate by three years the deployment of a 30,000-pound bunker-buster bomb, a request that reflects growing unease over nuclear threats from Iran and North Korea.

Comptroller Robert Hale, in a formal request to the four congressional defense committees earlier this month, asked permission to shift about $68 million in the Pentagon’s budget to this program to ensure the first four bombs could be mounted on stealthy B-2 bombers by July 2010.

Hale, in his July 8 request, said there was “an urgent operational need for the capability to strike hard and deeply buried targets in high-threat environments,” and top commanders of U.S. forces in Asia and the Middle East “recently identified the need to expedite” the bomb program.

The bomb would be the U.S. military’s largest and six times bigger than the 5,000-pound bunker buster that the Air Force now uses to attack deeply buried nuclear, biological or chemical sites.

Accelerating the program “is intended to, at the very least, give the president the option of conducting a strike to knock out Iran’s main uranium enrichment capabilities,” said Ken Katzman, Middle East military expert for the non-partisan Congressional Research Service.

Iran Given Deadline

President Barack Obama said Iran must respond by late September to an invitation for unconditional talks with the West on ending what’s believed to be a nuclear weapons program. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said this week in Israel that the offer is not open-ended, and his counterpart, Ehud Barak, warned that Israel is considering all measures if diplomatic efforts fail.

Chicago-based Boeing Co. is developing the bomb which was successfully demonstrated in March 2007.

The B-2, developed by Los Angeles, California-based Northrop Grumman Corp., has a skin capable of evading radar and is the only U.S. bomber capable of penetrating air defenses such as those believed in use by North Korea and Iran. The B-2 bombed targets in the early days of NATO’s Kosovo air campaign and in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

Little authoritative information has been published about the capability of the so-called “Massive Ordnance Penetrator.” A December 2007 story by the Air Force News Service said it has a hardened-steel casing that is designed to reach targets up to 200 feet underground before exploding.

Essential Weapon

Anthony Cordesman, a senior military analyst at the Center For Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said the U.S. “must have a non-nuclear capability to kill such targets if the U.S. is to have a convincing military option against Iran’s proliferation and hardened or underground facilities in other potentially hostile states.”

Still, even though the U.S. wants “this capability, especially for weapons of mass destruction targets, as soon as possible, that doesn’t mean we’ll use them -- but the planners are supposed to create capability and also send messages to potential adversaries,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a national defense analyst with the nonpartisan Brookings Institution.

Iran has at least two suspected subterranean nuclear facilities and other command-and-control sites not connected to the nuclear program, said Cordesman.

The new 20.5-foot-long bomb carries more than 5,300 pounds of explosives and is guided by Global Positioning Satellites, according to a description on the Web site of the Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

Air Force spokeswoman Lieutenant Colonel Karen Platt said Boeing could be put on contract within 72 hours to build the first bombs if Congress approves the shift of funds by mid- August.

Under the accelerated program, the B-2 “would be capable of carrying the bomb by July 2010,” she said in an e-mail.

[kennynah]

i sure hope these gangsters dont repeat the same atrocities they did to and in Iraq

[winston]

Smart move. Or maybe they heard that Israel wanna take them out ..

Iran allows U.N. watchdog access to planned reactor By Sylvia Westall

VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran has allowed U.N. nuclear inspectors access to a reactor under construction after blocking visits for a year, and has let them upgrade monitoring at another site ahead of a crucial report on its atomic program.

Iran allowed International Atomic Energy Agency officials to inspect the site of the Arak heavy water reactor last week, diplomats said. The agency has been urging Iran to grant it access to verify it is for peaceful uses only.

Diplomats also said Iran had an upgrade to IAEA monitoring at the Natanz uranium enrichment plant. The IAEA is due to circulate its latest report on Iran next week.

The United States, Britain, France and Germany are expected to urge Russia and China in talks on September 2 to consider a fourth round of U.N. sanctions on Iran and the latest IAEA report will help form the basis for the discussions.

"We must welcome every effort from Iran because we have been asking them to cooperate with the IAEA and they have not been doing so," one European diplomat said on condition of anonymity. But the diplomat added it was still unclear whether Tehran's concessions were a one-off.

Another diplomat questioned Iranian intentions. "Look at it in context. Iran stonewalls for a year and then allows access right before the IAEA is to issue its report," the Western diplomat said.

Iran's IAEA envoy Ali Asghar Soltanieh was unavailable for comment. He was reported as saying on August 18 that Iran was ready for talks with the West on its nuclear program, but he later denied his comments.

ARAK "FOR MEDICINE AND AGRICULTURE"

Western hopes that Iran would negotiate a cap on its nuclear work faded when it crushed unrest over alleged fraud in a June election which returned Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power.

But the new head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Akbar Salehi, appointed in July, is seen by analysts as a mild-mannered politician in favor of resolving Iran's nuclear row with the West through talks.

Salehi said last month the Islamic state and the West needed to renew efforts to build mutual trust and end a dispute over Tehran's nuclear program.

Iran, which says its nuclear program is peaceful, has said the Arak complex will be geared to producing isotopes for medical care and agriculture.

But Western powers fear Iran may configure the reactor to derive plutonium from spent fuel rods as an alternative source of bomb-grade fuel to its Natanz plant, which is under daily IAEA surveillance.

Inspectors have told the agency that containment and surveillance measures at Natanz, such as cameras and sealing, have been upgraded to the agency's current needs.

The IAEA said in June that the plant was swiftly outgrowing inspectors' ability to monitor it effectively -- namely, to verify that there were no deviations from civilian enrichment.

Some 5,000 centrifuges were enriching uranium then, with 2,400 more being set up on the same underground production floor. The next batch could be refining nuclear fuel full-time by now, with a similar number in line for installation.

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/ ... dChannel=0

[winston]

Iran has slowed production of low-enriched uranium, says UN agency

VIENNA - Iran has slowed production of enriched uranium, which can be used to make a nuclear bomb, and agreed to tighter monitoring of its enrichment plant, the UN atomic watchdog said Friday.

Tehran has also granted UN inspectors access to a research reactor long out of bounds, according to a restricted report by the International Atomic Energy Agency, a copy of which was obtained by AFP.

IAEA inspectors said while Iran was still installing uranium-enriching centrifuges at Natanz, the number of machines actually up and running had been reduced.

A total of 4,592 centrifuges were actively enriching uranium, compared with 4,920 at the time of the IAEA's last report in June. However the number of machines installed had been increased by around 1,000 to 8,308.

Iran is suspected of trying to develop atomic weapons under the guise of a civilian nuclear programme, a charge Tehran denies.

France, Germany and the United States have spoken in favour of an international energy embargo on Iran, which despite being rich in oil lacks domestic refining capacity.

A senior UN official refused to speculate on the reason for the slowdown, which could be for technical maintenance reasons or possibly a sign that the Islamic republic was changing tack in its long-running standoff with the West.

Washington said that despite the report, Tehran was still not fully cooperating with the IAEA, with a State Department spokesman downplaying the new access granted to inspectors.

"Based on what we have seen, it seems clear that Iran continues to not cooperate fully and continues its enrichment activities," Ian Kelly told reporters.

"As I understand it, it's just in one facility. It's not the kind of broad access that the IAEA has been looking for," he said. "We are very concerned that they are not addressing the concerns of the international community.

"They say that they want to have the right to a civilian nuclear energy program but they also have the obligation to show the world that that is indeed what they intend to do."

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner adopted a combative tone, pressing for strictures.

"If there are no international sanctions, there have to be sanctions on which we can work on and they have to be European sanctions," he said.

The IAEA estimates that Iran has so far amassed 1,508 kilogrammes of low-enriched uranium hexafluoride (UF6), up from 1,339 kilogrammes in June.

Estimates vary, but analysts calculate that anywhere between 1,000-1,700 kilogrammes of low-enriched uranium would be needed to convert it into highly-enriched uranium suitable to make a single atomic bomb.

( So they only one bomb at most ? )

Tehran insists its atomic drive is entirely peaceful, while western countries are concerned it is a covert nuclear weapons programme.

The IAEA's latest report will likely form the basis for six-power talks on September 2 to look into harsher UN sanctions against the Islamic republic.

"This is the first time we have seen a reduction," the senior UN official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The report also said Iran had finally given UN inspectors access to its IR-40 research reactor in Arak, which the IAEA has long been wanting to investigate.

"On August 17, Iran, following repeated requests by the agency, provided the agency with access to the IR-40 reactor at Arak, at which time the agency was able to carry out a DIV (design information verification)," the report said.

Inspectors "verified that the construction of the facility was ongoing," it added.

The IAEA said the next inventory verification at Natanz was planned for November.

"At that time, the agency will be able to verify the inventory of all nuclear material at the facility and evaluate the nuclear material balance," the report said.

The two sides agreed on improvements "regarding the provision of accounting and operating records, and on the requirements for timely access for unannounced inspections."

But the IAEA said Iran was still stone-walling agency questions regarding alleged weaponisation studies carried out in the past.

"Regrettably, the agency has not been able to engage in any substantive discussions about these outstanding issues for over a year," the report said, stressing it was "critical... for Iran to clarify the outstanding issues."

- AFP /ls