Iran has significantly expanded uranium enrichment with almost 5,000 centrifuges now operating and this has made it harder for UN inspectors to keep track of the disputed nuclear activity, an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report said on Friday.
The restricted IAEA report said Iran had increased its rate of production of low-enriched uranium (LEU), boosting its stockpile by 500kg to 1,339kg 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 US intelligence about it forged, and continues to limit the scope of IAEA inspections.
David Albright of Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington 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 one or two years or more. “Weaponizing” enrichment would not escape IAEA notice unless done at a secret location.
“[But] Iran could accomplish nuclear weapons ‘breakout capability’ within 3-6 months at Natanz or a clandestine ... facility,” Albright said in an e-mail commentary on the report, citing a 20 percent rise in its daily LEU production rate.
The UN nuclear watchdog report said Iran had 4,920 centrifuges, cylinders that spin at supersonic speed, being fed with uranium hexafluoride gas 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.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
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