BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 11 Jun 09 - 05:19 PM

Sources: Iran denies UN nuke agency camera request
         

George Jahn, Associated Press Writer – Thu Jun 11, 11:00 am ET

VIENNA – Diplomats say Iran has rebuffed a bid from the U.N. nuclear monitoring agency to beef up its monitoring ability at a key atomic site.

The diplomats say the International Atomic Energy Agency had asked to place one or more additional surveillance cameras at the Natanz enrichment site, but that the request was turned down by the Islamic Republic in recent weeks.

The also say the IAEA is concerned that Iran will use its recent denial of access to Natanz to agency inspectors seeking a surprise visit as a precedent to refuse additional such inspections.

The three diplomats demanded anonymity Thursday because their information was confidential.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 07 Jun 09 - 07:21 PM

Alaskans concerned about North Korea's missiles

Jun 6, 3:37 PM (ET)

By MARY PEMBERTON

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Alaskans are concerned over the prospect that North Korea is getting ready to test a long-range missile that could reach strategic targets in their home state.

And they're not buying Defense Secretary Robert Gates' assertion during a visit this past week to one of Alaska's many military installations that the missile is not a threat to the United States.

"I think we would definitely be a target because of the oil and the military," said Dale Walberg, owner of a small greenhouse business in Eagle River. "They are just so secretive. What do we really know?"

There's been no direct threat against Alaska or anywhere else, but the missile North Korea is believed to be assembling for a test may have a range of 4,000 miles, putting Hawaii and much of Alaska within reach.

Alaska's two largest cities, Anchorage and Fairbanks, have both Air Force and Army bases. There's also Fort Greely, home of the Missile Defense Complex. The U.S. plans to store 26 ground-based missile interceptors in silos at the base, about 100 miles south of Fairbanks.

Other high-profile potential targets would include Prudhoe Bay, the nation's largest oil field, or Valdez, the terminus of the 800-mile trans-Alaska pipeline.

Bert Cottle, mayor of Valdez, where 16 percent of the nation's domestic oil production is loaded onto tankers for delivery to the West Coast, said he checked with two military leaders in Alaska to get their take on the developing missile situation and was told everything is status quo.

"We will wait for further updates," he said.

In the meantime, the state's political leaders are using the missile situation to send a message to the Obama administration: Maintain a strong military presence in Alaska.

Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, sent a letter to Gates urging him to reconsider a decision to not complete construction of a second missile defense field at Greely and to place a cap on F-22 fighters at Elmendorf Air Force Base.

"We are sending the wrong message to our enemies by stopping the placement of these interceptors," Young's letter said. "While 30 interceptors may be enough to counter the current threat from North Korea, it is clear that it will not be enough in the future."

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090606/D98LCAM81.html

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: CarolC
Date: 06 Jun 09 - 08:10 AM

A report on Iran's nuclear program issued by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last month generated news stories publicizing an incendiary charge that U.S. intelligence is underestimating Iran's progress in designing a "nuclear warhead" before the halt in nuclear weapons-related research in 2003.

That false and misleading charge from an intelligence official of a foreign country, who was not identified but was clearly Israeli, reinforces two of Israel's key propaganda themes on Iran - that the 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iran is wrong, and that Tehran is poised to build nuclear weapons as soon as possible.

But it also provides new evidence that Israeli intelligence was the source of the collection of intelligence documents which have been used to accuse Iran of hiding nuclear weapons research.

The Committee report, dated May 4, cited unnamed "foreign analysts" as claiming intelligence that Iran ended its nuclear weapons-related work in 2003 because it had mastered the design and tested components of a nuclear weapon and thus didn't need to work on it further until it had produced enough sufficient material.

That conclusion, which implies that Iran has already decided to build nuclear weapons, contradicts both the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, and current intelligence analysis. The NIE concluded that Iran had ended nuclear weapons-related work in 2003 because of increased international scrutiny, and that it was "less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005."

The report included what appears to be a spectacular revelation from "a senior allied intelligence official" that a collection of intelligence documents supposedly obtained by U.S. intelligence in 2004 from an Iranian laptop computer includes "blueprints for a nuclear warhead."

It quotes the unnamed official as saying that the blueprints "precisely matched" similar blueprints the official's own agency "had obtained from other sources inside Iran."

No U.S. or IAEA official has ever claimed that the so-called laptop documents included designs for a "nuclear warhead." The detailed list in a May 26, 2008 IAEA report of the contents of what have been called the "alleged studies" - intelligence documents on alleged Iranian nuclear weapons work - made no mention of any such blueprints.

In using the phrase "blueprints for a nuclear warhead," the unnamed official was evidently seeking to conflate blueprints for the reentry vehicle of the Iranian Shehab missile, which were among the alleged Iranian documents, with blueprints for nuclear weapons.

When New York Times reporters William J. Broad and David E. Sanger used the term "nuclear warhead" to refer to a reentry vehicle in a Nov. 13, 2005 story on the intelligence documents on the Iranian nuclear program, it brought sharp criticism from David Albright, the president of the Institute for Science and International Security.

"This distinction is not minor," Albright observed, "and Broad should understand the differences between the two objects, particularly when the information does not contain any words such as nuclear or nuclear warhead."

The Senate report does not identify the country for which the analyst in question works, and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff refused to respond to questions about the report from IPS, including the reason why the report concealed the identity of the country for which the unidentified "senior allied intelligence official" works.

Reached later in May, the author of the report, Douglas Frantz, told IPS he is under strict instructions not to speak with the news media.

After a briefing on the report for selected news media immediately after its release, however, the Associated Press reported May 6 that interviews were conducted in Israel. Frantz was apparently forbidden by Israeli officials from revealing their national affiliation as a condition for the interviews.

Frantz, a former journalist for the Los Angeles Times, had extensive contacts with high-ranking Israeli military, intelligence and foreign ministry officials before joining the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff. He and co-author Catherine Collins conducted interviews with those Israeli officials for The Nuclear Jihadist, published in 2007. The interviews were all conducted under rules prohibiting disclosure of their identities, according to the book.

The unnamed Israeli intelligence officer's statement that the "blueprints for a nuclear warhead" - meaning specifications for a missile reentry vehicle - were identical to "designs his agency had obtained from other sources in Iran" suggests that the documents collection which the IAEA has called "alleged studies" actually originated in Israel.

A U.S.-based nuclear weapons analyst who has followed the "alleged studies" intelligence documents closely says he understands that the documents obtained by U.S. intelligence in 2004 were not originally stored on the laptop on which they were located when they were brought in by an unidentified Iranian source, as U.S. officials have claimed to U.S. journalists.

The analyst, who insists on not being identified, says the documents were collected by an intelligence network and then assembled on a single laptop.

The anonymous Israeli intelligence official's claim, cited in the Committee report, that the "blueprints" in the "alleged studies" collection matched documents his agency had gotten from its own source seems to confirm the analyst's finding that Israeli intelligence assembled the documents.

The rest here

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 05 Jun 09 - 05:43 PM

Iran in major nuclear expansion, U.N. oversight harder
         

Mark Heinrich – 1 hr 33 mins ago

VIENNA (Reuters) – Iran has significantly expanded uranium enrichment with almost 5,000 centrifuges now operating and this has made it harder for U.N. inspectors to keep track of the disputed nuclear activity, an IAEA report said on Friday.

Obtained by Reuters, the restricted International Atomic Energy Agency report said Iran had increased its rate of production of low-enriched uranium (LEU), boosting its stockpile by 500 kg to 1,339 kg in the past six months.

Iran's improved efficiency in turning out potential nuclear fuel is sure to fan Western fears of the Islamic Republic nearing the ability to make atomic bombs, if it chose to do so.

Oil giant Iran says it wants a uranium enrichment industry solely to provide an alternative source of electricity.

But it has stonewalled an IAEA investigation into suspected past research into bomb-making, calling U.S. intelligence about it forged, and continues to limit the scope of IAEA inspections.

David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security, a think tank that tracks proliferation issues, said Iran now had accumulated enough LEU to convert into high-enriched uranium (HEU) sufficient for one atom bomb.

This would require reconfiguring Iran's centrifuge network and miniaturizing HEU to fit into a warhead -- technical hurdles that could take 1-2 years or more -- and would not escape the notice of U.N. inspectors unless done at an undeclared location.

There are no indications of any such secret site.

"Still, Iran is ramping up enrichment to reach the point of potential nuclear weapons capability. They haven't made a political decision to do that. But their lack of constraint is disappointing given (U.S. President Barack) Obama's effort to start negotiations," Albright told Reuters from Washington.

JUMP IN CAPACITY

The U.N. nuclear watchdog report said Iran had 4,920 centrifuges, cylinders that spin at supersonic speed, being fed with uranium hexafluoride gas (UF6) for enrichment nonstop as of May 31, a jump of about 25 percent since February.

Another 2,132 machines were installed and undergoing vacuum tests while a further 169 were being set up -- bringing Iran's total number of deployed centrifuges at its underground Natanz enrichment hall to 7,231 -- with 55,000 eventually planned.

The IAEA had told Iran that given the burgeoning numbers of centrifuges and increased pace of enrichment, "improvements to the containment and surveillance measures are required in order for the agency to continue to fully meet its safeguards objectives," the report said, referring to basic inspections.

Senior inspectors were discussing solutions with Iran.

"There is now a forest of 7,000 machines, that's quite a lot, it's a very impressive place, and they will be installing more which could mean 9,000 (soon)," said a senior U.N. official who asked for anonymity to discuss sensitive information.

"That makes it increasingly difficult to do the surveillance (to ensure no diversions for bombmaking purposes elsewhere). We are reviewing (the angles) of our cameras, walking rules (for workers handling equipment), where things are being kept."

At a separate pilot plant in Natanz, Iran continues to test small numbers of a more sophisticated centrifuge than the 1970s vintage it is now using. These models could refine uranium 2-3 times as fast as the P-1, analysts say.

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei has urged Iran to engage with the United States, "grasp the hand that Obama is extending to you," and negotiate over its nuclear program to ensure it remains civilian under effective monitoring.

But little progress in coaxing Iran to open up to IAEA investigators and grant more wide-ranging inspections is likely without a major thaw in Tehran's relations with Western powers.

"The Iran file has been on the table for six years. It's high time to sort it out. We hope Iran and international community get to the table and start to come up with solutions so we can do our (non-proliferation) job," said the senior U.N. official.

Obama has set a rough timetable for negotiating results with Iran, saying he wanted serious progress by the end of the year. He has underlined that any U.S. overtures will be accompanied by harsher sanctions if there is no cooperation.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 05 Jun 09 - 05:37 PM

UN: New uranium traces found in Syria
         

George Jahn, Associated Press Writer – 20 mins ago

VIENNA – The U.N nuclear agency on Friday reported its second unexplained find of uranium particles at a Syrian nuclear site, in a probe launched by suspicions that a remote desert site hit by Israeli warplanes was a nearly finished plutonium producing reactor.

In a separate report, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran continued to expand its uranium enrichment program despite three sets of U.N. Security Council sanctions meant to pressure Tehran into freezing such activities.

And it said the growing pace of enrichment is causing it to review its inspection routine so that it can maintain oversight of the process.

Iran and Syria are under IAEA investigation — Tehran, since revelations more than six years ago of undeclared nuclear activities that could be used to make weapons, and Syria after Israel bombed a structure in 2006 said by the U.S. to be a reactor built with North Korean help.

But the agency has made little progress for over a year in both cases, and both of the restricted reports made available to The Associated Press on Friday essentially confirmed the status quo — stonewalling by both countries of the two separate IAEA probes.

Iran says its nuclear activities are peaceful; Damascus denies hiding any nuclear program.

"In order for the agency to complete its assessment, Syria needs to be more cooperative and transparent," said the IAEA in a document that detailed repeated attempts by agency inspectors to press for renewed inspections and documents — all turned down by Damascus.

Drawing heavily on language of previous reports, the Iran document said Tehran has not "cooperated with the agency ... which gives rise to concerns and which need to be clarified to exclude the possibility of military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program."

The report noted that Tehran continued to rebuff agency efforts to investigate suspicions the Islamic Republic had at least planned to make nuclear weapons.

Without cooperation by the Islamic Republic, the IAEA "will not be in a position to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran," the report said.

Syria and Iran are to come under renewed scrutiny when the 35-nation board of the agency meets June 15 to discuss the two reports.

While the Syrian report was prepared only for the board members, the one on Iran also was transmitted Friday to the Security Council, which for more than three years has tried to pressure Tehran to give up enrichment and other activities of concern.

Tehran says it is exercising its right to develop nuclear power in expanding its enrichment program. But the U.S. other great powers and dozens of additional countries fear Iran might at some point shift from producing low enriched uranium needed for nuclear fuel to making highly enriched matter suitable for use in the core of nuclear warheads.

The IAEA's Iran report reflected continued expansion both in the terms of the equipment in use or being set up and the amount of enriched uranium being turned out by those machines — centrifuges that spin uranium gas into enriched material.

Nearly 5,000 centrifuges were processing uranium gas at the Natanz facility as of May 31, said the report, while more than 2,000 others were ready for operation. More than nearly 3,000 pounds — 1,300 kilograms — of low enriched uranium had been produced as of that date, said the more than four-page report.

That compares to just over 2,220 pounds (1,000 kilograms) mentioned in the last IAEA report in February an amount that experts and U.S. officials subsequently said was enough to process into enough weapons grade uranium for a nuclear warhead.

Commenting on the Iran report, the Washington based Institute for Science and International Security said that at the present pace of production of enriched uranium, Tehran could make two nuclear weapons — should it choose to do so — within eight months.

The report said inspectors have told Tehran that "given the increased number of ... (centrifuges) being installed and the increased rate of production ... improvements to the containment and surveillance measures" are needed. A senior U.N official said the IAEA was considering redirecting surveillance equipment and asking Iranian nuclear staff to change their "walking routes" through the underground Natanz facility as part of the changes. He demanded anonymity in exchange for commenting on the confidential report.

Reversing the previous U.S. stance, the Obama administration has said it is ready to talk one-on-one with Iranian officials on the nuclear issue. Obama himself has said Tehran has the right to benefit from nuclear power — as long as all proliferation concerns are put to rest.

But President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly said his country will not negotiate on its right to enrichment.

On Syria, the agency said the newest traces of uranium were found after months of analysis in environmental samples taken last year of a small experimental reactor in Damascus.

It already reported a similar finding in February at a separate site — at or near the building bombed by Israel more than two years ago.

As in the case of the earlier find, the uranium particles "are of a type not included in Syria's declared inventory of nuclear material," said the report, saying their origin and potential significance still "needs to be understood."

It also said Syria continued to deny cooperation with North Korea in building its nuclear program.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: CarolC
Date: 05 Jun 09 - 03:37 AM

Grey area in AfPak strategy

Evidently, Jundallah is a thorn in the flesh and Tehran badly needs to get rid of it, but cannot quite have its way. There have been persistent reports that US Special Forces operating in Pakistan and Afghanistan have provided arms and training to Jundallah.

Majlis (parliament) speaker Ali Larijani told agitated Iranian parliamentarians on Sunday that the US had "long had contacts" with Jundallah. "Due to the obstacles they face in the region, Americans seek to find a way forward for attaining their objectives at all costs, but these terrorist acts will eventually cost them dearly," he warned.

The fact remains that although Washington has publicly distanced itself from the Zahedan attack, it still refuses to include Jundallah in its list of terrorist organizations, plainly ignoring Tehran's claims that Jundallah is associated with al-Qaeda. To be sure, there is a grey area in the US's AfPak strategy, which creates misgivings in regional capitals. The Obama administration must come clean if an Afghan settlement is to be durable.

The Russian official state television channel Rossiya recently featured a program on the Pakistani military operations in the Swat region. The commentator pointed out that there are "many contradictions" in the US role in Pakistan. "There are many indications that by pushing Pakistan towards the chaos of civil war, Washington is trying to destabilize the general political situation in the region for its own benefit and to the detriment of is geopolitical rivals," the commentator said.

Rossiya continued:

    For 30 years now, Pakistan has been China's key ally, a sort of buffer for Beijing. Islamabad is the main customer for Chinese weapons. Beijing has been helping with its nuclear program ... Beijing has been allowed to use the port of Gwadar in Balochistan. With this port, China can open a direct energy corridor from Africa and the Middle East.

    Destabilization of Pakistan is a direct challenge to China and China understands this very well ... India, Central Asian states and of course Russia are also watching developments with alarm. As happened many times in history, Washington is creating a problem and then using it to gain new benefits.

Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett, two former Iran hands in the National Security Council during the George W Bush administration wrote in an article in the New York Times recently about much the same thing - that Obama is yet to dismantle the covert program that Bush installed to destabilize Iran.

Hillary Leverett told the BBC last week that Iran had given substantive cooperation on al-Qaeda, including at one point providing Washington with a list of 220 suspects and their whereabouts. In one instance in December 2002, she says, soon after the US gave Tehran the names of five al-Qaeda suspects it believed were in Iran, Tehran found two and delivered them to the US air base at Bagram in Afghanistan.

The Iranian response to the presence of hundreds of al-Qaeda suspects in the region was such that "the [Iranian] Foreign Ministry took the evidence, passports, vital information - and gave us [Washington] pages and even a chart showing the disposition or what they'd done with each person", broken down by "those who had been turned away at the border, or been detained or deported".

Ironically, all this traffic continued for a while even after Bush labeled Iran as part of an "axis of evil" until the hardliners in Washington cried halt to any cooperation with Tehran. No wonder, Iranian rhetoric often contemplates whether al-Qaeda could be a strange beast with stars and stripes.

The Zahedan attack opens a can of worms. Obama needs to be wary of his own team scuttling Iranian attempts at rapprochement. Equally, US special representative for AfPak Richard Holbrooke, who might seek a "grand bargain" with Tehran at some point, shouldn't be surprised if his interlocutors are fundamentally defensive - like cats on a hot tin roof.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: CarolC
Date: 05 Jun 09 - 03:36 AM

I'm posting this in two parts, because it's really important.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KF04Ak01.html

Iran wages lonely war on terror
By M K Bhadrakumar

The timing of the attack on the Ali ibn Abi Talib mosque in the eastern Iranian city of Zahedan in the Sistan-Balochistan province bordering Pakistan was by no means casual. Zahedan is a Sunni city. And Shi'ites were mourning the anniversary of Hazrat Zahra, granddaughter of Prophet Mohammad. Over 25 worshippers were killed in last Thursday's attack on the Shi'ite mosque, and 125 injured.

But there are three other reasons why a high-profile, cross-border terrorist attack on Iran from Pakistan took place. One, Iran-Pakistan relations are passing through a period of cordiality and warmth and a cross-border strike was just the right thing to do to


dissipate the newfound bonhomie. Two, US President Barack Obama's much-awaited address to the Muslim world on June 4 raises expectations in the region that a momentous period is at hand in which Iran could be the focal point.

Three, the most crucial presidential election, arguably, in Iran's post-revolution 30-year history will be held on June 12, and marring it will be sweet revenge against the government headed by the "Holocaust-denying", "Israel-hating", "America-bashing" Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.

Plot to disrupt Sunni-Shi'ite amity
Tehran would have a watch list of "naughty powers" with stakes in Middle Eastern geopolitics. Yet, as indignation boiled over regarding the Zahedan attack, it took exceptional care while articulating its feelings. We have not heard an explicit word so far about an American or British intelligence hand behind the Zahedan attack.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei referred to "certain expansionist superpowers and their spying organizations" and warned the people against "opponents of the country's independence and progress" and against "certain people trying to harm national unity". Again, in a demarche with the Pakistani ambassador in Tehran, the Iranian Foreign Ministry vaguely mentioned that "certain people" oppose any expansion of the Iran-Pakistan relationship and "whenever they observe any improvement of ties, they try to tarnish it". It almost appears the Obama-driven detente is gaining traction.

The Iranian leaders underscored that the Zahedan attack was aimed at agitating "Islamic solidarity". Ahmadinejad said: "Sunni and Shi'ite brothers will undoubtedly recognize and neutralize conspiracies through their vigilance." Indeed, the attack took place against the backdrop of a public spat between Iran and Saudi Arabia in the recent period. Tehran has objected to the anti-Shi'ite stances of the Saudi-based Wahhabist clergy.

On Monday, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki revealed that Tehran recently told Riyadh that "Saudi alims [scholars] are not allowed to impose their own beliefs and religious viewpoints over others and that Muslims must be free to act in accordance with the rules of their own Islamic schools of thought, which of course is not equal with the breach of Saudi laws."

Mottaki said Tehran was in possession of evidence pointing at "foreign elements" in Afghanistan supporting the Jundallah. But the reference could as well have been to Wahhabist elements like al-Qaeda, whom Iran in the past blamed for promoting Jundallah. More so, as he also spoke positively in the same media interaction about the prospects of "practical and fruitful talks" between the US and Iran once the Iranian elections of June 12 are over.

The official news agency IRNA even featured amid all this a commentary on Saturday saluting Obama. It quoted an Iranian expert that "the US opposes Israeli adventurism against Iran"; that Israel has become presently the "most serious challenge" to the Obama administration; that "extremist and violent elements" in Israel regarded Obama as a "big challenge to Tel Aviv"; that "Israel preferred US policies to stay unchanged and wanted America, like in the [George W] Bush era, to follow a policy of animosity towards Iran and that is why it is trying to fan the flame of dispute between Iran and the US". The commentary added that "Israel would never be capable of any military action against Iran unless it manages to get the green light for it from Washington ... [and] Israel could not get the green light from the US for adventurism against Iran."

Long-time observers of Iran would rub their eyes in disbelief. Doubly so, as US State Department officials leaked to the American media over the weekend its advisory that Iranian diplomats will be included in the guest lists for the July 4 Independence Day receptions in the American chancelleries worldwide - an extravagant gesture of courtesy by a superpower to a country it doesn't recognize.

Meanwhile, Tehran is probing deeper and deeper into the Zahedan attack. Tehran cannot raise an international scandal when the June 12 election is delicately poised. There is a genuine four-cornered contest, which might push the election to a "run-off" on June 19. An incumbent Iranian president has probably never before faced such a real challenge. Secondly, Tehran is seized of the geopolitical reality that the US-Israeli honeymoon that seemed evergreen may not be so, after all. Tehran knows diplomatic opportunities lie ahead and rhetorical outbursts against Washington will only play into Israeli hands.

Thus, there is growing frustration that Pakistan could do more to curb cross-border terrorism. An Iran-Pakistan counter-terrorism mechanism is in place with regular exchange of intelligence and even coordinated security operations. The chief of the Iranian armed forces, General Hassan Firouzabadi, claimed on Saturday that Tehran had passed on to Islamabad pin-point information about Jundallah's base camps inside Pakistan.

But it seems Islamabad doesn't follow up. According to Fars news agency, "Tehran has repeatedly warned Islamabad that if it cannot handle the situation at and inside its borders with the Islamic Republic, Iran has the required power and military capabilities to trace and hunt down such terrorist groups inside Pakistan." The Iranian Foreign Ministry maintains that the Zahedan attacks could have been averted if only Islamabad had acted promptly on the intelligence passed on by Tehran about such a Jundallah operation.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 10:42 PM

Please show me where I said that.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 08:01 PM

Carolc,
Perhaps I misunderstood. I recall that you had stated the UN was wrong to demand that Iran comply with the terms of the NPT, since they were only building a peaceful nuclear program in self-defense against Israel. Did that not imply they need not comply if they did not feel like it?

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 03:20 AM

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090602/ts_nm/us_korea_north_75

SEOUL (Reuters) � North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has signaled the anointment of his youngest son as heir to the ruling family dynasty as the two Koreas bolstered their militaries along a disputed sea border on Tuesday.

North Korea has turned increasing belligerent since its internationally condemned nuclear test last week, actions analysts believe Kim Jong-il is using to give him greater leverage over power elites at home to nominate his own successor.

It has raised alarm in the region over how far iron ruler Kim, 67 and thought to have suffered a stroke last year, may be prepared to take his latest military grandstanding.

North Korea has asked the country's main bodies and its overseas missions to pledge loyalty to Kim's youngest son Kim Jong-un, various South Korean media outlets quoted informed sources as saying.

"I was notified by the South Korean government of such moves and the loyalty pledges," Park Jie-won, a member of the opposition Democratic Party, said in a statement.

He declined to name his source but the South's Yonhap news agency said Park was among a group of lawmakers briefed on Monday night by the country's spy agency about the succession plans.

Kim Jong-un, born either in 1983 or early 1984, was educated in Switzerland and intelligence sources have said he appears to be the most capable of Kim's three known sons.

Even by North Korea's opaque standards, very little is known about the son, whose youth is a potential problem in a society that adheres closely to the importance of seniority.

"There is a significant link between North Korea's recent military provocations and succession issues," said Lee Dong-bok, an expert on the North's negotiating tactics.

STOCKPILED AMMUNITION

South Korea's Chosun Ilbo quoted a military source as saying the North had stepped up its military training, stockpiled ammunition and imposed a no-sail order off its west coast waters to prepare for a possible fight with the South.

In Seoul, the navy said it was deploying a guided-missile naval vessel to the same area in the Yellow Sea, close to the disputed border that has seen two deadly clashes between the rival states in the past 10 years.

The navy rarely announces such moves and it underscores the hardline being taken toward its communist neighbor by conservative South Korean President Lee Myung-bak who earlier in the day won support at a meeting he hosted of southeast Asian leaders who jointly condemned last weeks' nuclear test.

Many analysts say the North may opt for a skirmish on the sea border as the next step as it ratchets up tension but few believe it would dare put its million-strong but poorly equipped army into direct battle with the U.S.-backed South Korean military.

GUARDED SECRETS

The succession has been one of the most closely guarded secrets in the highly secretive North.

The South's Yonhap news agency quoted an informed source as saying the request for an oath of loyalty by North Korean officials to the youngest son came shortly after the nuclear test on May 25, which was hailed by the North's propaganda as a crowning achievement in Kim Jong-il's "military first" rule.

Kim Jong-il, dubbed the "Dear Leader" by his state's propaganda apparatus, was groomed for decades to take over from his father and state founder "Great Leader" Kim Il-sung. The third generation of Kims is unknown to most North Koreans.

But the South Korean daily Dong-a Ilbo reported that a song had been written for the third son, calling him "The Young Leader," another sign of his rise.

In April, Kim Jong-il put to rest any doubt about whom he sees as his second in command when he elevated his brother-in-law Jang Song-taek to a powerful military post, analysts said.

Analysts said they see the energetic and urbane Jang, 63, as the real power broker after Kim who will groom the successor. Jang, who once fell out of Kim's favor, has in recent year's been Kim's right hand man, they said.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:42 AM

Please show me where I have said that Iran need not comply with the NPT.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 10:25 PM

So, since you have stated that Iran need not comply with the NPT that it signed, when it feels it needs to take other means to defend itself, I must assume you will allow Israel to do the same, and NOT hold it to any of the limitations of the NPT, either.


Especially since
1. Israel did not sign the NPT, nor get the assistance provided by it.
2. Israel had it's nuclear program prior to the NPT- IF it were to sign, it would have to be at the same level as the US, France, China, etc, NOT as a non-nuclear state such as Iran.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 08:21 PM

Best way to do that would be for Israel (and India and Pakistan) to join the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 07:49 PM

A New Red Line For Iran

By Graham Allison
Monday, June 1, 2009

The Iranian nuclear challenge was transformed on President George W. Bush's watch. Events in Iran have advanced faster than the policy community's thinking about the problem. The brute fact is that Iran has crossed a threshold that is painful to acknowledge but impossible to ignore: It has lost its nuclear virginity.

Over the past eight years, the United States has insisted that Iran would never be allowed to develop the capability to enrich uranium, as that could be used to build a nuclear bomb. Three unanimous U.N. Security Council resolutions demanded that Iran "suspend all enrichment-related activities." That was a worthy aim. Technically, mastery of enrichment is the brightest red line short of nuclear weapons. Israelis have called it the "point of no return."

Bush chose the right operational objective when he declared, "We cannot allow the Iranians to have the capacity to enrich." Sadly, the strategy he pursued to prevent Iran from crossing that red line failed. One can debate whether a different strategy would have produced a different outcome. At this point, however, we must recognize the irreversible bottom line: Iran has demonstrably mastered the capability to manufacture and operate centrifuges to enrich uranium. The February report of the International Atomic Energy Agency documents the details: Iran is operating 4,000 centrifuges and has already produced more than a ton of low-enriched uranium -- an amount sufficient, after further enrichment, to make its first nuclear bomb.

The policy consequences of Iran having gotten this far down the road to a nuclear bomb are profound. These new facts require a fundamental reassessment not only of how we engage Iran but also of what we can realistically hope to achieve.

First, the long-held American objective to prevent Iran from acquiring the technical know-how to enrich uranium has been overtaken by events. While it was an appropriate goal at the time, Iran has acquired this capability. Its knowledge of how to enrich uranium cannot be erased. There is no realistic future in which Iran will not be "nuclear enrichment capable," that is, have the know-how to replicate its current enrichment facility at Natanz -- either overtly or covertly.

Second, the predominant focus of U.S. and international policy on Iran's observable nuclear enrichment facility at Natanz is largely misplaced. Preoccupation with the "known" to the neglect of the "known unknown" is common in policymaking. But at this point, it has become a caricature of the story of the drunk looking for his car keys under the lamppost, even though he knows he dropped them a hundred yards away, because that is where the light is. If Iran detonates a nuclear bomb in the next four years, the likelihood that the highly enriched uranium for that bomb will have been produced at Natanz is less than 10 percent. Thus, erasing Natanz today, either by Israel's threatened military attack or through negotiations, addresses the smaller part of the threat.

Further, and third, the source of the highly enriched uranium for Iran's bomb -- if Iran makes and tests a bomb during Obama's first term -- will be a covert enrichment plant that we have not discovered. By definition, we don't know the location or status of secret, undiscovered facilities. But as an American intelligence officer quipped, if Iran's nuclear project manager has put all his eggs in the one basket that is under the spotlight of international inspection, he should be fired.

The bottom line for American policy is that the menu of feasible options has shrunk. Every option available at this point requires living with an Iran that knows how to enrich uranium. Continued denial of this truth is self-delusion.

The central policy question becomes: What combination of arrangements, inside and outside Iran, has the best chance of persuading it to stop short of a nuclear bomb? More important than how many centrifuges Iran continues operating at Natanz is how transparent it will be about all of its nuclear activities, including the manufacture of centrifuges. Maximizing the likelihood that covert enrichment will be discovered is the best way to minimize the likelihood that it will be pursued. The best hope for defining a meaningful red line is to enshrine the Iranian supreme leader's affirmations that Iran will never acquire nuclear weapons in a solemn international agreement that commits Russia and China to join the United States in specific, devastating penalties for violation of that pledge.

The Obama administration cannot restore Iran's nuclear innocence. Its challenge is to prevent the birth of the next nuclear-weapons state.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: CarolC
Date: 28 May 09 - 10:41 PM

Nevertheless, that is what they have persuaded their people they are standing up against. And their people appear to be buying it, which I guess doesn't surprise me considering their history of experiencing imperialism at the hands of all kinds of people over the centuries. One boogeyman is just as good as another when a boogeyman is needed (as we know quite well from our own history).

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 May 09 - 10:29 PM

I really don't think that the perspective of the North Korean government (such as is broadcast to the world) is very strongly grounded in reality.

For one thing, they've been saying the same thing since 1953. For another, it was NORTH Korea that invaded the South in 1950 (and an argument can be made that it was this invasion that ultimately made South Korea one of Asia's economic powerhouses), which resulted in UN action (and UN troops besides those of the US are in ROK today). The number of US military has decreased since 1969 from 56,000+ to roughly half that number today, while the ROK military has remained roughly stable (including 3.5 million in their "Homeland Defense Reserves").

I can't see how this is "Western imperialism."

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: CarolC
Date: 28 May 09 - 09:04 PM

I realize that, but the propaganda they are using now is in reference to Western imperialism. The idea being that the Japanese and Mongols are no longer trying to impose any imperialist agendas in North Korea, but from their perspective, Western governments, the US in particular, are trying to do so.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,Rapaire
Date: 28 May 09 - 08:51 PM

My point is that the Koreans, North and South, experienced imperialism under the Russians, the Chinese, and the Japanese. During the Korean War (1950-53) the Chinese and the Russians were the North Koreans best friends, supplying them not only with aircraft (for instance) but also pilots. Russia sent T-34 tanks, MIGs, AK-47s, and PPSh submachine guns (among many other things); China sent troops, many troops.

What the South Koreans have experienced with (not "under" -- the Status of Forces Agreement is quite strict) the US is nothing compared to what went on under the others.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: CarolC
Date: 28 May 09 - 06:37 PM

The North Koreans experienced Western imperialism under the Soviets. I don't imagine they expect it would be any better if Western imperialism came from other sources. Their experience is what informs their attitudes. If someone is suggesting that I am making excuses for the government of North Korea, I think they should go back and read my post again. As I said, I can understand why it might have been easy for the government to brainwash the people of North Korea. I didn't say I think brainwashing is a good thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 May 09 - 06:23 PM

Carol, I have recently had the pleasure (???) of reading over 1,700 pages of declassified documents relating to Korea from 1966 to 1970. I have also been finding more and more and more documents relating to the country from 1945 (when the Japanese occupied it) to the present. More, I have been reading more lightly in the history of Korea pre-WW2.

And I've been there.

They are are proud people, and have every reason to be. They have an unfortunate location, between China, Russian/Manchuria, and Japan.

Before you call it "US Imperialism", please take a peek at, for example, Kim Il Sung's life and lies. Korea, when I was there, was just starting to replant the trees cut down by the Japanese for their war efforts. Do not forget the Korean women taken by the Japanese as sex slaves during WW2, or this report from the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress. Find out why there a tunnel along the Imjin River is called the "Chinese Tunnel."

I respect and like the Korean people. I would not like to see them suffer yet again.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: CarolC
Date: 28 May 09 - 05:43 PM

I was just reading some of the history of Korea. The Korean peninsula has been subject to many centuries of colonialist enterprises by other countries like Russia and Japan (just two examples), and after WWII, when the country was partitioned into two countries, it was still under foreign occupation (the US and Russia). Korea should have been handed their independence at that time, but the US and Russia didn't want to allow that because of their cold war machinations.

I can see now how it has been possible for the government of North Korea to be able to brainwash their people to accept Juche ideology. They see it as being a way to hold on to their sovereignty and their culture in the face of imperialist encroachments by Western powers into all non-Western countries. They see themselves as being some of the last holdouts against Western imperialist rule. Personally, I think they have a point, although I can't see how the Korean government could possibly expect that it can continue down the road it is on in the long run.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 May 09 - 04:55 PM

In 1967 Kim Il Song began what (I believe) was called "Juche" -- taking the South by force preceded by revolt against the ROK government. From then until 1971 the North launched many attacks against the ROK, including the Blue House Raid, the Pueblo, and the shoot-down of an EC121 "spy plane". The attacks lessened after that but still continued.

During this time the US and South Korea were involved in Vietnam. DPRK is again pushing when the US is involved in combat elsewhere (Afghanistan, Iraq). Militarily, DPRK and ROK are pretty well matched militarily and many believe that ROK has or could very quickly develop nuclear weapons (the US removed all of theirs in 1991 but can fly them from Guam or Okinawa within a couple or three hours).

Park Chung He, the President of ROK in the 1960s, was quite ready to head North, especially after the Blue House Raid.

If provoked ROK will fight back and the US will assist due to treaties signed many years ago (and the troops would shoot in self defense in any case).

Except for Kim Jong Il being in very bad health and an internal power struggle going on inside DPRK I would expect the same-o, same-o as in the past.

Because of the internal struggles I would not be surprised by a war.

I only wonder what will happen when the NK troops get a look at the life style and economic prosperity in the South. Will they realize the lies they've been fed?

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 28 May 09 - 03:47 PM

Analysis: Has North Korea reached a 'tipping point'?

Story Highlights
Analysis: President Obama can't let North Korea's nuclear antics go unanswered

Role of China and Russia likely to be crucial in dealing with North Korea

It may be time for a fundamental overhaul of U.S. policy toward North Korea

Analysis: U.S. and allies must develop plan to prevent arms race, instability in region

updated 3:29 a.m. EDT, Thu May 28, 2009

By Elise Labott
CNN State Department Producer
   
Editor's note: Since becoming State Department producer in 2000, Elise Labott has covered four secretaries of state and reported from more than 50 countries. Before joining CNN, she covered the United Nations.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- When North Korea conducted a nuclear test in 2006, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice promised tough consequences for North Korea's actions but said the door was still open for negotiations.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said pretty much the same thing last month when North Korea lobbed a long-range rocket, prompting fears that it could hit Japan or even Hawaii.

The broken record was replayed this week when President Obama called for "stronger international pressure" after North Korea turned pyrotechnics into an extreme sport, with an apparent nuclear test followed by a series of missile launches.

Fifteen years after the Clinton administration signed the Agreed Framework, essentially bribing North Korea to give up its weapons program with a nuclear power plant, the U.S. has been riding a merry-go-round of deal-making, provocation and punishment with the North.

The Bush administration also tried unsuccessfully to get North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions -- first by trying to squeeze the regime and then by reaching a deal with Pyongyang to dismantle its main nuclear reactor.

Economic sanctions, U.N. Security Council resolutions and even the Obama administration's policy of engagement with rogue states all have failed so far. And military action to take out North Korea's nuclear arsenal is unthinkable, with Pyongyang's enormous conventional army sure to retaliate against neighbors South Korea and Japan.

With North Korea posing an early test to his administration, Obama can't let North Korea's nuclear antics go unanswered. But as it did in April after the missile launch, the U.S. wants to handle this in a way that will preserve the ability to restart the so-called six-party talks. Obama's aides are debating the pros and cons of what limited options the administration has.

For now, eyes are on the Security Council, where the U.S. and its allies are discussing elements of a resolution. Some of the ideas being proposed are tightening existing sanctions, intercepting nuclear cargo and cutting off North Korea's access to cash, possibly with a ban on the lucrative sale of conventional weapons it uses to fund its nuclear program.

The role of China and Russia, typically reluctant to impose sanctions against North Korea, will be crucial. Last month the U.S. could barely get Beijing and Moscow to sign onto to a watered-down statement criticizing North Korea. But administration officials involved in North Korea policy say the one silver lining in the latest antics is that they were so outrageous they crossed a line, which could galvanize Russia and China to act.

Officials acknowledge that with North Korea already sanctioned to the hilt, such measures may do little more than get the regime's attention. But maybe that is the point. North Korea is known for its attention-grabbing, and some officials predict (read: wish) that a strong international reaction could be what Pyongyang needs to nudge it back to the table.

As one senior official put it, "Once we both know we have each other's attention, we can have a drink and a smoke and get back to business."

But even as the administration looks down the road at another round of six-party talks, officials are questioning the long-term viability of the exercise. Gary Samore, the president's top adviser for nonproliferation, and Hillary Clinton have both said that North Korea does not appear to want the talks to move forward.

That's the thing about talks -- they generally aren't productive when only one side is talking.

Seriously complicating matters is the health of ailing North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and the lack of clear succession in place. Officials say that the country's internal dynamics are a large, if not the critical, component driving North Korea's actions.

It's particularly concerning because the future of the regime is one where nobody, including the Chinese, can do anything to alter the equation. In that case even the most strenuous international diplomacy may influence North Korean behavior on the margins but will have little effect on how this situation ultimately plays out.

With decades of diplomacy unable to produce a denuclearized Korean Peninsula, it begs the question of whether it is time for a fundamental overhaul of U.S. policy toward North Korea. There are serious conversations in Washington and among capitals about whether North Korea has reached a "tipping point," offering the world final proof it is intent on developing what it calls a "nuclear deterrent."

A nuclear weapon with the missile systems to deliver it would not only pose an existential threat to South Korea and Japan, officials fear it would spark an arms race in East Asia -- turning this region, which has been relatively stable for 40 years, into a much different place.

The U.S. and its allies must huddle quickly and develop a plan to prevent this alternate -- and scary -- reality.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 28 May 09 - 03:02 PM

US, SKorea militaries gird for NKorean provocation
         

Jae-soon Chang, Associated Press Writer – 8 mins ago

SEOUL, South Korea – The U.S. and South Korea put their military forces on high alert Thursday after North Korea renounced the truce keeping the peace between the two Koreas since 1953.

The North also accused the U.S. of preparing to attack the isolated communist country in the wake of its second nuclear bomb test, and warned it would retaliate to any hostility with "merciless" and dangerous ferocity.

Seoul moved a 3,500-ton destroyer into waters near the Koreas' disputed western maritime border while smaller, high-speed vessels were keeping guard at the front line, South Korean news reports said. The defense ministry said the U.S. and South Korean militaries would increase surveillance activities.

Pyongyang, meanwhile, positioned artillery guns along the west coast on its side of the border, the Yonhap news agency said. The Joint Chiefs of Staffs in Seoul refused to confirm the reports.

The show of force along the heavily fortified border dividing the two Koreas comes three days after North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test and fired a series of short-range missiles.

The test drew immediate condemnation from world leaders and the U.N. Security Council, where ambassadors were discussing a new resolution to punish Pyongyang. President Barack Obama called it a "blatant violation" of international law.

In response, South Korea said it would join more than 90 nations that have agreed to stop and inspect vessels suspected of transporting weapons of mass destruction.

North Korea called South Korea's participation in the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative a prelude to a naval blockade and a violation of the truce signed to end the three-year war that broke out in Korea in 1950.

On Wednesday Pyongyang renounced the 1953 armistice and the following day warned U.S. forces against advancing into its territory.

"The northward invasion scheme by the U.S. and the South Korean puppet regime has exceeded the alarming level," the North's main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a commentary carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. "A minor accidental skirmish can lead to a nuclear war."

The U.S., which has 28,500 troops in South Korea and another 50,000 in Japan, has denied it is planning military action. But U.S. and South Korean troops were placed on their highest alert level for more than two years.

The South Korea-U.S. combined forces command rates its surveillance alert on a scale to 5, with 1 being the highest level. On Thursday, the level was raised from 3 to 2, the second-highest level, South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Won Tae-jae said. He said the last time the alert level was that high was in 2006, when the North conducted its first nuclear test.

Won said both militaries were raising their surveillance activities, although he would not explain what that meant. South Korean media reported that the higher alert would involve increased monitoring of North Korea using satellites and navy ships.

The U.N. Command on Korea said it would continue to observe the armistice, saying it "remains in force and is binding on all signatories, including North Korea."

North Korea has repudiated the armistice several times before, most recently in 2003 and 2006.

South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Moon Tae-young accused the North of "seriously distorting" the decision to join in the initiative.

Seoul has said its military would "respond sternly" to any North Korean provocation, and that it would be able to contain the North with the help of U.S. troops.

The South Korean military has dispatched "personnel and equipment deployment" along its land and sea borders, a Joint Chiefs of Staff officer said. He spoke on condition of anonymity citing department policy.

He said there has been no particular movement of North Korean troops in border areas.

The two Koreas technically remain at war because they signed a truce, not a peace treaty, in 1953. However, North disputes the U.N.-drawn maritime border off their west coast, and used that dispute to provoke deadly naval skirmishes in 1999 and 2002.

South Korea's mass-circulation JoongAng Ilbo newspaper said more anti-air missiles and artillery were dispatched to military bases on islands near the disputed western sea border with North Korea.

Yonhap said the destroyer has artillery guns, anti-ship guided missiles, ship-to-air missiles and torpedoes. Air force fighters are were on standby, the report said.

North Korea's West Sea fleet has 13 submarines and more than 360 vessels, Yonhap said.

The recent flurry of belligerence could reflect an effort by 67-year-old leader Kim Jong Il to boost his standing among his impoverished people.

It was also seen as a test of Obama's new administration, and came as two Americans, journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling, remained in custody in Pyongyang accused of illegal entry and "hostile acts." They face trial in Pyongyang next week.

Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso said any new Security Council resolution must be stronger than the one issued after the North's first atomic test in October 2006, and contain sanctions.

A Russian Foreign Ministry official said Moscow did not want to see Pyongyang further isolated. Andrei Nesterenko said Russia opposed sanctions but did not object to a U.N. resolution.

Hong Hyun-ik, a senior analyst at the Sejong Institute security think tank, said sanctions would not be effective unless China — North Korea's traditional ally — implemented them.

"Kim Jong Il must be scoffing" at the talk of sanctions, he said. "He knows the world will forget about any sanctions in the end."

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 28 May 09 - 02:02 PM

Iran says it boosts uranium enrichment capability
         

AP Thu May 28, 9:25 am ET

TEHRAN, Iran – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran has boosted its capacity to enrich uranium, another sign of anti-Western defiance by the leader seeking re-election in a vote next month.

Ahmadinejad said last month that Iran had 7,000 centrifuges at its uranium enrichment facility in Natanz in central Iran. The figure marked a significant boost from the 6,000 centrifuges announced in February. In his latest comments, reported by the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency on Thursday, he did not give a specific new figure.

"Now we have more than 7,000 centrifuges and the West dare not threaten us," IRNA quoted Ahmadinejad as saying on a small radio station late Wednesday.

Ahmadinejad has made Iran's expanding nuclear program one of the centerpieces of his campaign for the June 12 elections and has struck an increasingly harsh tone against the United States and other countries calling for Iran to halt it uranium enrichment.

Iran's leaders say they will never give up nuclear technology and insist they seek only energy-producing reactors. The United States, Israel and other nations worry that Iran's enrichment facilities could eventually produce material for nuclear warheads.

There is broad consensus among Iranian voters on the nation's rights for a nuclear program. But Ahmadinejad's three challengers — a fellow hard-liner and two moderates — have questioned his uncompromising stances against the West and their offers of economic incentives in exchange for suspending uranium enrichment.

The centrifuges spin at supersonic speeds to remove impurities from uranium gas, which then goes through other steps to become nuclear fuel or, at higher enrichment levels, nuclear weapons material.

Earlier this year, Iran said it was using an upgraded centrifuge that produces enriched uranium at about double the rate of its original systems.

Currently, Iran is only capable of slowly producing enriched uranium for reactors. But Iranian officials have said their long-term goal is for more than 50,000 centrifuges, which would give it the ability to produce high-grade nuclear material in a start-to-finish cycle of just weeks.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 27 May 09 - 06:41 PM

Russia fears Korea conflict could go nuclear - Ifax

Wed May 27, 2009 4:48pm IST By Oleg Shchedrov

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia is taking security measures as a precaution against the possibility tension over North Korea could escalate into nuclear war, news agencies quoted officials as saying on Wednesday.

Interfax quoted an unnamed security source as saying 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.

"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. The official did not elaborate further.

North Korea has responded to international condemnation of its nuclear test and a threat of new U.N. sanctions by saying it is no longer bound by an armistice signed with South Korea at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

Itar-Tass news agency quoted a Russian Foreign Ministry official as saying the "war of nerves" over North Korea should not be allowed to grow into a military conflict, a reference to Pyongyang's decision to drop out of the armistice deal.



more

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 27 May 09 - 05:40 PM

Clinton Warns North Korea for 'Belligerent' Behavior in Region

By Heejin Koo and Indira A.R. Lakshmanan

May 27 (Bloomberg) -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said North Korea must face consequences for its "belligerent and provocative behavior" after Kim Jong Il's regime threatened military action against South Korea.
Clinton spoke in Washington after North Korea's official news agency said Kim's government would no longer abide by the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War and may respond militarily to South Korea's participation in a U.S.-led program that would block ships suspected of carrying nuclear weapons or material for export.
The U.S. takes "very seriously" its commitments to defend South Korea and Japan, its principal allies in the region, Clinton said. She called on North Korea to return to the so- called six party talks aimed at dismantling its nuclear arms program.
North Korea has continued to ratchet up tension since it tested a nuclear weapon on May 25, drawing international condemnation and the prospect of increased sanctions against the communist nation.
"The Korean People's Army will not be bound to the Armistice Agreement any longer," the official Korean Central News Agency said in a statement today. Any attempt to inspect North Korean vessels will be countered with "prompt and strong military strikes."
South Korea dispatched a warship to its maritime border and is prepared to deploy aircraft, Yonhap News reported, citing military officials it didn't identify. South Korea's military said it will "deal sternly with any provocation" from the North.

'Calm' Response
Still, South Korean President Lee Myung Bak ordered his government to take "calm" measures in the face of the threats, his office said in a statement today. Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary, Takeo Kawamura, echoed those remarks and called on North Korea to "refrain from taking actions that would elevate tensions in Asia."
President Barack Obama's spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said North Korea's rhetoric will only bring the nation further isolation. "Threats won't get North Korea the attention it craves," he said.
North Korea routinely issues threats directed at the U.S., South Korea and Japan, warning of military retaliation if they continue to take actions that the country's leadership characterizes as threats to its security.

Aggressive Shift
"This rapid-fire provocation indicates a more aggressive shift in the Kim Jong Il regime," said Ryoo Kihl Jae, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. "Kim is obviously using a strategy of maximum force."
North Korea raised the specter of a maritime confrontation. The dispatch by the Korean Central News Agency said North Korea can't guarantee the safety of ships passing through its western waters. The statement specified five islands controlled by the South that were the site of naval skirmishes in 1999 and 2002.
"What they are saying is that they will take military action if there is any action taken on behalf of the program such as boarding their ships, stopping and searching and so on," said Han Sung Joo, a former South Korean foreign minister.
South Korea yesterday agreed to join the Proliferation Security Initiative, or PSI, set up to locate and seize shipments of equipment and materials used to make weapons of mass destruction.
Reaction to Test
President Lee had resisted joining the PSI until the nuclear test, even after North Korea fired a ballistic missile on April 5. His predecessor, Roh Moo Hyun, had said that joining the initiative would be too provocative.
North Korea has also fired five short-range missiles in two days in a further display of military defiance. The United Nations Security Council agreed in an emergency session on May 25 to condemn the nuclear test and missile launches.
Under the July 27, 1953, armistice that ended the Korean War, both sides agreed to "a complete cessation of all hostilities" and pledged to accept the demarcation line that has become the world's most-heavily mined demilitarized zone.
The U.S. has about 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea, according to the United States Forces Korea Web site.
In addition to the weapons tests, North Korea may be preparing to reprocess spent fuel rods at its Yongbyon nuclear reactor, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported earlier today, citing an unidentified South Korean official. Steam has been rising from the facilities, the newspaper said.

Succession
A succession crisis and internal jockeying and unease over who will succeed Kim may be fueling the North's actions.
Kim likely suffered a stroke last August, according to U.S. intelligence officials, and disappeared from public view before presiding over a parliamentary session in April, when he looked gaunt and aged. Research groups including the U.S. Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute say Kim is 68, while the regime says he is a year younger.
North Korea's threat of a military response may flow less from U.S. and South Korean actions than from domestic turmoil over a possible leadership change, said analysts including Wendy Sherman, former coordinator for North Korea policy under President Bill Clinton.
The leaders "right now care more about internal matters than international acceptance," Sherman said. "It's not that they're not trying to get our attention. They are trying to show each other" how loyal they are to Kim.

---

Message edited to shorten it, but it's still over the one-screen limit. Watch it, Bruce.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 27 May 09 - 02:10 PM

N. Korea threatens to attack US, S. Korea warships
         

By HYUNG-JIN KIM, Associated Press Writer Hyung-jin Kim, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 34 mins ago

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea threatened military action Wednesday against U.S. and South Korean warships plying the waters near the Koreas' disputed maritime border, raising the specter of a naval clash just days after the regime's underground nuclear test.

Pyongyang, reacting angrily to Seoul's decision to join an international program to intercept ships suspected of aiding nuclear proliferation, called the move tantamount to a declaration of war.

"Now that the South Korean puppets were so ridiculous as to join in the said racket and dare declare a war against compatriots," North Korea is "compelled to take a decisive measure," the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said in a statement carried by state media.

The North Korean army called it a violation of the armistice the two Koreas signed in 1953 to end their three-year war, and said it would no longer honor the treaty.

South Korea's military said Wednesday it was prepared to "respond sternly" to any North Korean provocation.

North Korea's latest belligerence comes as the U.N. Security Council debates how to punish the regime for testing a nuclear bomb Monday in what President Barack Obama called a "blatant violation" of international law.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: Lox
Date: 27 May 09 - 09:05 AM

LH,

North Koreas Nuclear capability is a serious problem.

Kim Jong Il is a spoiled kid with a self entitlement complex.

He's like a little evil boy with a gun trying to exert power over his classmates and looking for an excuse to impose that power.

He is spoiling for a fight with South Korea and it wouldn't surprise me if he nuked Seoul.

I hope that the security council can act quickly to prevent such an utter monstrosity.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,Greycap
Date: 27 May 09 - 05:54 AM

Yes, Folks,
It's Korea!!! Nuke a Commie for Christ.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: CarolC
Date: 27 May 09 - 01:56 AM

On the subject of those who want peace and those who don't...

http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/05/israel-wants-to-keep-the-settlements-pa-says-they-can-stay-as-palestinian-citizens.html

Israel wants to keep the settlements, PA says they can stay as Palestinian citizens

The Obama administration is putting Israeli settlements front and center and Israeli politicians are doing their best to spin the issue. Likud MK Tzipi Hotovely has held her conference opposing the two-state solution where Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya'alon argued against ending the conflict with the Palestinians. Ha'aretz quotes Ya'alon as saying, "We have to disavow the commonly held perception that we should find an imminent solution." Towards the center of Israeli politics, Defense Minister Ehud Barak is seeking to bring a "compromise" on settlements to Obama when he visits Washington next week. According to the Associated Press, Barak will offer to dismantle settlement outposts in exchange for allowing Israel to continue to expand the vast majority of settlements.

Barak's proposal, which Netanyahu supports, is clearly not a compromise at all, it is simply a demand to continue the status quo. Even the AP points out, "The wildcat outposts are a peripheral part of Israel's West Bank settlement enterprise because only a few thousand people live there." As a point of reference there are over 500,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Barak's offer is totally inconsequential towards ending Israeli control over the West Bank, and if anything it should raise questions about his support for these very outposts. Both Ibn Ezra and Max Blumenthal has shown lately that the outposts are spreading with the active support of the Israeli military.

In the AP article, chief Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qureia makes the common sense point, "what does a peace process mean when settlements are continuing on the Palestinian territories?" He has a more in depth, and interesting, interview with Akiva Eldar in Ha'aretz in preparation for Mahmoud Abbas's visit to Washington later this week. From the interview:

    Do you believe Israel would agree to evacuate Ma'aleh Adumim's 35,000 residents?

    Qureia: "[Former U.S. secretary of state] Condoleezza Rice told me she understood our position about Ariel but that Ma'aleh Adumim was a different matter. I told her, and Livni, that those residents of Ma'aleh Adumim or Ariel who would rather stay in their homes could live under Palestinian rule and law, just like the Israeli Arabs who live among you. They could hold Palestinian and Israeli nationalities. If they want it - welcome. Israeli settlements in the heart of the territories would be a recipe for problems.

This idea, while controversial among Palestinians, is an interesting way of turning Israeli intransigence on its head. If Israelis are not willing to leave the settlements then they are welcome to stay in Palestine, but only if they are willing to live in equality with Palestinians, and not from a position of dominance. So far there have not been any signs that Israel would be willing to do this.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: CarolC
Date: 26 May 09 - 09:29 PM

I was reading something about probable reasons for what North Korea has been doing lately. Someone was suggesting that Kim Jong Il is not well, and the government of Korea is staging some shows of macho power because of some internal rifts within the government itself around the question of succession.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: CarolC
Date: 26 May 09 - 09:26 PM

Sure, I can get some documentation. Later, when I have more time.

Whether or not the Palestinians want peace is irrelevant. What they want is freedom, and their actions and stated policies are perfectly consistent with that.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 26 May 09 - 09:23 PM

"In Tokyo, a former defense minister and ruling party lawmaker said that Japan should consider developing the ability to conduct preemptive strikes against North Korea, even though Japan's constitution prohibits it from taking offensive military action.

North Korea is believed to possess more than 200 mid-range Nodong missiles that can strike nearly any part of Japan. The Japanese government, which has invested billions of dollars in a U.S.-made antimissile defense system, is concerned that the North is making progress in designing nuclear warheads that could fit atop its missiles.

"We must look at active missile defense such as attacking an enemy's territory and bases," the former defense minister, Gen Nakatani, said at a meeting of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
"

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 26 May 09 - 08:14 PM

"any serious threat to anyone except South Korea."

Are you planning to tell the Japanese this? THEY seem more than a little concerned.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 May 09 - 06:49 PM

It's quite silly to imagine that North Korea presents any serious threat to anyone except South Korea. They BOTH present a serious threat to one another...potentially...and they will continue to do so until such time as they agree on peaceful coexistence and an end to hostilities.

The North Koreans are doing what they normally do. They are trying to provoke some international attention which will get them some foreign aid, and they are trying to create a deterrent to any possible outside attack by far greater military power than their own. They are also trying to boost morale at home. It's always considered a big boost to national morale when a small country improves its weapons systems and makes a technical advance in space, nuclear weapons, missiles, or anything else along that line.

The North Korean leadership are simply doing what they think will further secure their position and their security. Period. For the world to panic over that is just silly.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 26 May 09 - 05:38 PM

May 25, 2009 23:51 | Updated May 26, 2009 2:32
Iran watching US reaction to N. Korea
By HILARY LEILA KRIEGER, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT
WASHINGTON


US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spent Monday engaged in "intensive diplomacy" concerning North Korea's reported nuclear test, according to the State Department.

She had spoken by phone to her Japanese and South Korean counterparts by press time and was due to consult with Chinese and Russian leaders later in the day.

While it wasn't immediately clear what steps the US would be taking in response to the test, US President Barack Obama paused before his Memorial Day visit to Arlington Cemetery Monday morning to denounce the "blatant violation of international law."

He called the test a threat to the populations in the region and a violation of North Korea's own commitments made under multilateral negotiations - known as the six-party talks - over ending its nuclear program.

"The United States and the international community must take action in response," he declared. "North Korea will not find security and respect through threats and illegal weapons."

Obama added, "We will work with our friends and our allies to stand up to this behavior and we will redouble our efforts toward a more robust international nonproliferation regime that all countries have responsibilities to meet."

While the US was calling for international cooperation, analysts in Washington said that the nuclear test - and the American response to it - had global implications.

"Given the cooperation between North Korea and Iran, there is reason to fear that North Korea and Iran may be sharing data on nuclear matters, as they do on ballistic missiles," John Bolton, the former undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, said on Fox News Monday. "This is a threat not just in northeast Asia, but potentially in the Middle East as well."

And Ilan Berman, vice president for policy of the American Foreign Policy Council, said that Teheran will be watching the American response closely, to apply it to its own circumstances.

"Everyone's taking their cues from this," he said. "The Iranians, based on how America responds or doesn't respond, are going to make assumptions about how far they can go in their nuclear program, how far they can go in their missile program without eliciting a serious response from America."

He pointed to a missile test that North Korea held earlier this spring despite opposition from the White House as paving the way for this week's nuclear test announcement.

Despite America's verbal condemnation ahead of the missile test, Berman said, "the response was pretty dramatic in its nonexistence; it was a pretty telling moment."

"The expectation is that the Obama administration's not going to have a very steely approach to this," he added.

If that turns out to be the case, he said, "The Iranians could be justified in concluding that Washington is going to respond the same way to them."

Bolton described the test as "a real moment of truth for the Obama administration."

The US ambassador to the UN under former president George W. Bush recommended that the US add North Korea back to its state-sponsors of terrorism list, as well as impose tough UN sanctions.

Berman suggested that tying up its financial transactions - an effective strategy the Bush administration used before relaxing its approach to North Korea - as well as sanctions could be employed.

"If you choose to do nothing, you still have made a choice, and everyone understands that you have made a choice," Berman said.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 26 May 09 - 04:26 PM

CarolC,

I disagree with your statement of "facts"



Have you the documentation to support
"In this case, it's a fact according to stated policy"?




"and it's a fact according to their behavior and the results of their behavior. "

Implies that it is a fact that Palestinians do not want peace, or a state of Israel. ( from their behavior)

Will you allow that as a FACT, then?

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: CarolC
Date: 26 May 09 - 04:18 PM

In this case, it's a fact according to stated policy, and it's a fact according to their behavior and the results of their behavior.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 May 09 - 04:10 PM

There are a lot of different types of "facts" out there, BB, and they vary wildly from one civilization and culture to another.

There are some we all can agree on, such as...

1 + 1 = 2
up is the opposite of down
things fall down, not up
water flows downward and takes the path of least resistance
etc...

Then there are some we don't agree on, such as...

The USA is the greatest nation in the world.
China is the greatest nation in the world.
Japan is the greatest nation in the world.
Russian is the greatest nation in the world.
Egypt is the greatest nation in the world.
etc...

Yet many Americans feel that to state "the USA is the greatest nation in the world" is to state a fact! ;-) Well, it's not a fact, it's an opinion.

When making political arguments, people sieze upon any fact(s) that they feel will strengthen their position, and they discount or ignore any fact(s) that they feel will imperil their position.

This has been going on ever since Og said it was a fact that Mog stole his wife and cheated him at "toss the sticks".

We will never succeed in all agreeing on which facts truly matter and which facts don't and which are really the REAL facts and which aren't.

So, get used to it. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 26 May 09 - 02:38 PM

Well, If LH agrees with you, that must be proof of something...


Can we have some agreement here about what a "fact" is????

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 May 09 - 02:21 PM

I would concur regarding Israel's ambitions in the Middle East, Carol.

Meanwhile, however, we still have Liechtenstein to worry about. Fear the Sleeping Croissant!

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: CarolC
Date: 26 May 09 - 02:03 PM

It's not my opinion. It's a fact. There is more than ample documentation of this, and it is openly acknowledged by many members of the Israeli government.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 26 May 09 - 01:13 PM

Gee, CarolC,

You state your opinion as if it were fact. I know that you do not intend to do that- since you have no facts to back you up.

IMO, what Israel wants is peace with it's neighbors, and the removal ( by peaceful means if possible, but before Israel itself is destroyed under any circumstances) of those threats which have been made against it.

Just my opinion- as your comments were just your OPINION.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: CarolC
Date: 26 May 09 - 12:23 AM

Israel has a policy of not allowing any major powers to emerge in the Middle East other than itself. Israel wants total hegemony in the region. Israel was gunning for Iran long before the acquisition of nuclear weapons was even an issue with Iran.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: bobad
Date: 25 May 09 - 09:19 PM

Israel has nothing to gain by making war against Iran but they will take out their nuclear weapons, you can count on that, and the world be better off for it.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: CarolC
Date: 25 May 09 - 09:10 PM

Considering Israel's hard-on for making war against Iran, I don't think it would be reasonable for us to take any reports coming from that country seriously. They were giving us "secret" reports on Iraq before we attacked that country, too.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 25 May 09 - 08:23 PM

Obama: World must 'stand up' to North Korea
         
Merrill Hartson, Associated Press Writer – 41 mins ago

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama assailed North Korea Monday for new missile tests, saying the world must "stand up to" Pyongyang and demand that it honor a promise to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

Appearing on the White House steps, Obama said that its latest nuclear underground test and subsequent test firings of short-range ground to air missiles "pose a grave threat to the peace and security of the world and I strongly condemn their reckless action."

It was his second statement within hours of the tests, the latest in a number of nuclear actions that Obama said "endanger the people of Northeast Asia." He called it "a blatant violation of international law" and said that it contradicted North Korea's "own prior commitments." Obama had released a written statement chastising the North Koreans in the early morning hours of Monday.

In his statement in the White House Rose Garden, he noted that the latest tests had drawn scorn around the world. Pyongyang's actions "have flown in the face of U.N. resolutions" and had deepened its isolation, he said, "inviting stronger international pressure."

"North Korea will not find security and respect through threats and illegal weapons," the president said. "We will work with our friends and allies to stand up to this behavior. The United States will never waver from our determination to protect our people and the peace and security of the world."

more

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 25 May 09 - 05:31 PM

Israeli document: Venezuela sends uranium to Iran

AP - Monday, May 25, 2009 3:08:54 PM
By MARK LAVIE

Venezuela and Bolivia are supplying Iran with uranium for its nuclear program, according to a secret Israeli government report obtained Monday by The Associated Press.

The two South American countries are known to have close ties with Iran, but this is the first allegation that they are involved in the development of Iran's nuclear program, considered a strategic threat by Israel.

"There are reports that Venezuela supplies Iran with uranium for its nuclear program," the Foreign Ministry document states, referring to previous Israeli intelligence conclusions. It added, "Bolivia also supplies uranium to Iran."

The report concludes that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is trying to undermine the United States by supporting Iran.

Venezuela and Bolivia are close allies, and both regimes have a history of opposing U.S. foreign policy and Israeli actions. Venezuela expelled the Israeli ambassador during Israel's offensive in Gaza this year, and Israel retaliated by expelling the Venezuelan envoy. Bolivia cut ties with Israel over the offensive.

There was no immediate comment from officials in Venezuela or Bolivia on the report's allegations.

The three-page document about Iranian activities in Latin America was prepared in advance of a visit to South America by Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, who will attend a conference of the Organization of American States in Honduras next week. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is also scheduled to visit the region.

Israel considers Iran a serious threat because of its nuclear program, development of long-range missiles and frequent references by its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to Israel's destruction. Israel dismisses Iran's insistence that its nuclear program is peaceful, charging that the Iranians are building nuclear weapons.

Iran says its nuclear work is aimed only at producing energy. Its enrichment of uranium has increased concerns about its program because that technology can be used both to produce fuel for power plants and to build bombs.

Israel has been pressing for world action to stop the Iranian program. While saying it prefers diplomatic action, Israel has not taken its military option off the table. Experts believe Israel is capable of destroying some of Iran's nuclear facilities in airstrikes.

Iran, under Ahmadinejad, has strengthened its ties with both Venezuela and Bolivia, where it opened an embassy last year. Its alliance with the left-led nations is based largely on their shared antagonism to the United States but is also a way for Iran to lessen its international isolation.

The Israeli government report did not say where the uranium that it alleged the two countries were supplying originated from.

Bolivia has uranium deposits. Venezuela is not currently mining its own estimated 50,000 tons of untapped uranium reserves, according to an analysis published in December by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The Carnegie report said, however, that recent collaboration with Iran in strategic minerals has generated speculation that Venezuela could mine uranium for Iran.

The Israeli government report also charges that the Iran-backed Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon have set up cells in Latin America.

It says Venezuela has issued permits that allow Iranian residents to travel freely in South America.

The report concludes, "Since Ahmadinejad's rise to power, Tehran has been promoting an aggressive policy aimed at bolstering its ties with Latin American countries with the declared goal of 'bringing America to its knees.'"

The document says Venezuela and Bolivia are violating the United Nations Security Council's economic sanctions with their aid to Iran.

As allies against the U.S., Ahmadinejad and Chavez have set up a $200 billion fund aimed at garnering the support of more South American countries for the cause of "liberation from the American imperialism," according to the report.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor refused to comment about the secret report.

The Israeli government report did not say where the uranium that it alleged the two countries were supplying originated from.

Bolivia has uranium deposits. Venezuela is not currently mining its own estimated 50,000 tons of untapped uranium reserves, according to an analysis published in December by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The Carnegie report said, however, that recent collaboration with Iran in strategic minerals has generated speculation that Venezuela could mine uranium for Iran.

The Israeli government report also charges that the Iran-backed Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon have set up cells in Latin America.

It says Venezuela has issued permits that allow Iranian residents to travel freely in South America.

The report concludes, "Since Ahmadinejad's rise to power, Tehran has been promoting an aggressive policy aimed at bolstering its ties with Latin American countries with the declared goal of 'bringing America to its knees.'"

The document says Venezuela and Bolivia are violating the United Nations Security Council's economic sanctions with their aid to Iran.

As allies against the U.S., Ahmadinejad and Chavez have set up a $200 billion fund aimed at garnering the support of more South American countries for the cause of "liberation from the American imperialism," according to the report.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor refused to comment about the secret report.

Subject: RE: BS: Who's Next? Iran or Korea?
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 25 May 09 - 05:16 PM

UN chief sees 'violation' if NKorea test confirmed
AP - Monday, May 25, 2009 4:02:08 PM
By EDITH M. LEDERER

APThe U.N. chief said he strongly deplored a second nuclear test by North Korea that clearly violated a United Nations Security Council resolution, as the council called an emergency session Monday to discuss the matter.

The five permanent veto-wielding members of the council -- the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France -- met behind closed doors ahead of the meeting of the full 15-member council.

Japan, which called for the emergency meeting, said North Korea's "irresponsible" nuclear test and a missile launch in April had challenged the authority of the U.N.'s most powerful body "and the response must be firm."

"It's a very clear challenge," said Japan's U.N. Ambassador Yukio Takasu, a non-permanent council member. "So therefore we need a really, really clear and firm message from this -- preferably a resolution."

Takasu refused to say whether Japan would seek new sanctions against North Korea, saying he wanted to consult with other council members. "The important thinking is a unified message from the council," he said.

North Korea claimed it carried out a powerful underground nuclear test Monday that was much larger than one it conducted in 2006. Russia's Defense Ministry confirmed an atomic explosion occurred early Monday in northeastern North Korea and estimated that its strength was similar to bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II.

"I sincerely hope that the Security Council will take necessary corresponding measures," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told The Associated Press during a visit to Copenhagen, declining to specify what further measures, or sanctions, he would urge the council members to take.

Ban, who was in the Danish capital for a global business summit on climate change, said he would closely monitor the meeting in New York.

A statement issued by his spokeswoman later Monday said "the secretary-general strongly deplores the conduct of an underground nuclear test by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, in clear and grave violation of the relevant Security Council resolutions."

New testing by North Korea would undermine peace and security in the region, Ban told AP, and he urged the communist nation "to refrain from taking any actions which will deteriorate the situation."

He urged the Security Council in the statement "to send out a strong and unified message, conducive to achieving the goal of denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and peace and security in the region."

The 2006 U.N. resolution, adopted after North Korea conducted its first nuclear test explosion in October of that year, banned the North from conducting further nuclear tests.

Ban also said the announcement from North Korea's official news agency that it carried out an underground nuclear test Monday "will create negative impact to ongoing negotiation on nuclear disarmament."

"They should have come to the dialogue table and resolved all the issues through peaceful means," he said.

Pyongyang also test-fired three short-range, ground-to-air missiles Monday from the same northeastern site where it launched a rocket last month,

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South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported, citing unnamed sources. U.N. Security Council resolutions bar North Korea from engaging in any ballistic missile-related activity.

North Korea's actions swiftly drew international condemnation.

President Barack Obama said the United States would work with allies around the world to "stand up to" North Korea. He said the latest nuclear tests "pose a grave threat to the peace and security of the world."

European Union Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said he hoped "the international community will be very clear in its reaction. I also encourage the North to refrain from all kinds of provocation."

Even China joined the chorus of disapproval, saying it "resolutely opposed" the test.

The U.N. Security Council last month rebuked North Korea for the April 5 rocket liftoff, which many nations saw as a cover for testing its long-range missile technology.

In response, North Korea announced it was quitting disarmament talks and restarting its atomic facilities after the U.N. Security Council imposed sanctions on three major North Korean companies due to Pyongyang's April rocket launch. The six-party talks, which began in 2003, had involved North Korea, South Korea, Russia, China, Japan, and the United States.