Iran’s Unyielding; Panetta’s Consideration; UN’s Standing For Negotiation

After Israel warned the world must act to prevent Iran getting nuclear weapons, the country’s supreme leader in Iran on Thursday said, Iran “will respond with full force” to fight back any attack — or even any threat of military action – against its nuclear sites.

Iran “will respond with full force to any aggression or even threats in a way that will demolish the aggressors from within,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told students at a Teheran military college. Khamenei said the message was directed at Iran’s enemies, “especially America and its stooges and the Zionist regime (Israel).”

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta considers military strike would lead to serious impact. [Read more...]

UN Links Iran With Nuclear Weapons

The United Nations nuclear watchdog says it has information indicating Iran has carried out tests “relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device”.

In its latest report on Iran, the International Atomic Energy Agency  says the research includes computer models that could only be used to develop a nuclear bomb trigger.

The BBC  says this is the IAEA’s toughest report on Iran to date.

Tehran condemned the findings as politically motivated. [Read more...]

Fear Biggest Danger For Thousands

AFTER past nuclear accidents, fear has proved to be as big a killer as radiation – especially for those whose exposure was mild.

After the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, 1250 of the workers called in to deal with it later killed themselves out of fear of the consequences for themselves or their children.

An extensive study of the health aftermath of the disaster was carried out in 2005 by the Chernobyl Forum, made up of scientists from Europe, the UN, the World Health Organisation and the Food and Agricultural Organisation, the International Labor Organisation and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The forum’s task was to study all available epidemiological data to measure the levels of death, disease and economic damage caused by Chernobyl. [Read more...]

Lithuania Shuts Soviet-Era Nuclear Reactor

lithuania shuts down soviet-built nuclear reactor_Officials at Lithuania’s Soviet-era nuclear plant say they have shut down the facility’s last reactor. Spokeswoman Rasa Shevaldina says the Chernobyl-type reactor at the Ignalina plant closed on schedule at 11 p.m. local time Thursday.

Lithuania agreed to close the plant as part of a deal to joining the European Union in 2004.

The plant was built in the 1980 and is considered by many to be unsafe since it shares design flaws with the Chernobyl unit that exploded in 1986. The Ignalina plant’s first reactor closed in December of that year.

Engineers at Lithuania’s Soviet-built nuclear power plant began shutting down a Soviet-build nuclear reactor Thursday as part of an agreement with the European Union, which considers the Chernobyl-type machine unsafe.

The shutdown has been greeted with anguish across Lithuania, as the recession-hit country will lose a source of cheap electricity and be forced to import more expensive energy.

The Ignalina nuclear plant in the town of Visaginas is scheduled to cease producing electricity at one hour before midnight local time (2100 GMT; 4 p.m. EDT).

Its last working reactor – ordered closed by the EU because it is considered too similar to the one that exploded at Chernobyl in 1986 – boasts a capacity of 1,320 megawatts, making it one of the largest nuclear reactors in the world.

Lithuania – one of the two most nuclear-energy dependent nations along with France – had been hoping that the EU would allow it to keep the plant open for another two to three years, but Brussels, which demanded the reactor’s shutdown as part of Lithuania’s membership agreement, flatly refused.

“We are keeping our word to our European partners,” Energy Minister Arvydas Sekmokas said during a visit to the plant on New Year’s Eve.

In April 1986, an earlier, smaller version of the RBMK reactor at Ignalina exploded in Chernobyl, Ukraine, casting a fallout cloud over a wide swathe of Europe. It remains the world’s worst civilian nuclear catastrophe.

According to the shutdown plan, output at the Ignalina unit will be reduced from 1,320 megawatts to 700 beginning at 8 p.m. local time (1800 GMT; 1 p.m. EDT) and switched off completely at 11 p.m (2100 GMT; 4 p.m. EDT).

“We will witness an unprecedented event today as Lithuania becomes the first country in the world to abandon nuclear energy completely,” said Viktor Shevaldin, the plant’s chief. “Only Armenia knows what it means to lose this power – it had to shut down its reactor after an earthquake but reopened it after six years.”

Residents in Visaginas, a town of 25,000, are frustrated that Lithuania will lose the cheap energy source.

“I don’t understand it. Why throw away a good thing that could still serve for years?” said Aleksei Tichomirov, a 47-year-old engineer who moved to Lithuania in the 1980s when the plant was built.

“This is my last day at work. There is no job in Visaginas for people like me,” he said.

The Ignalina plant supplied over 70 percent of Lithuania’s electricity needs – only France receives more of its kilowatt needs from nuclear power.

The Baltic nation of 3.4 million people will cover the shortfall by buying power on the open market from Estonia, Belarus, Ukraine and Russia.

By 2013, Lithuania hopes to build a new natural-gas power plant, but that would not be enough to meet its own energy needs.

Many Lithuanians are worried that they will become dependent on Russian gas supplies, which they fear may stop without warning given Russia’s snap decisions in the past to shut off supplies to Ukraine.

However, Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius does not share the view.

“Lithuania could have done its homework better preparing for the closure, but it won’t be left without energy next year. I believe our country, together with its Baltic neighbors, will have an energy market similar to the Nordic countries and other EU regions,” he told Lithuanian Radio. The Wichita Eagle

Russia To Work On New Nuclear Missiles: Medvedev

russia to work on new nuclear missiles_Russia will work on a new generation of nuclear missiles to ensure its nuclear deterrent remains effective, President Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday.

Medvedev said the new missiles would be developed in full accordance with arms agreements made with the United States. “Of course, we will develop new systems, including delivery systems, that is, missiles,” Medvedev said in an end-of-year interview with state-controlled television channels.

“This process will be continued, and our nuclear shield will always be efficient and sufficient to protect our national interests,” Medvedev said.

The Kremlin chief said Russia and the United States were close to a new deal on reducing vast Cold War arsenals of nuclear weapons, adding that he had “trustworthy relations” with US President Barack Obama. Zeenews

Lula Backs Iran’s Nuclear Programme

lula backs iran's nuclear program_Brazil’s president has offered his backing for Tehran’s controversial nuclear programme. Speaking at a joint news conference in the capital Brasilia on Monday after holding talks with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, his visiting Iranian counterpart, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva said Brazil backed Iran’s quest for “peaceful nuclear energy in full respect of international accords”.

He urged Ahmadinejad to “continue contacts with interested countries for a just and balanced solution on the nuclear issue in Iran”.

In his weekly radio address earlier, Lula said engaging Iran instead of isolating it was the way to push for peace and stability in the Middle East.

“It doesn’t help isolating Iran,” he said. “It’s important that someone sits down with Iran, talks with Iran and tries to establish some balance so that the Middle East can return to a certain sense of normalcy.”

Lula, who honed his negotiating skills as a union leader, says a new tactic is needed with the Iranians.

“I told President [Barack] Obama, I told President [Nicolas] Sarkozy, I told [German] Chancellor Angela Merkel that we will not get good things out of Iran if we corner them. You need to create space to talk,” he said last month.

During his radio show, Lula also proposed a football game in March pitting Brazil’s famed national team against a team comprising Israelis and Palestinians.

Security council ‘failure’

Ahmadinejad, for his part, supported Brazil’s bid to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

Brazil is to take one of the 10 non-permanent seats – those without the power of veto – in 2010 and 2011.

“We support a reformed UN Security Council and for Brazil to have a permanent seat,” Ahmadinejad said.

He said the council “has failed over the past 60 years because of the veto power of a small number of countries, a source of insecurity for several countries in the world”.

The first visit by Ahmadinejad to Brazil provides Lula an opportunity to boost the international political clout of South America’s largest nation, analysts said.

But Brazilian opposition politicians criticised it, citing concern over Iran’s nuclear programme as its human rights record, as well as Ahmadinejad’s denial of the Holocaust.

Demonstrations against the visit were staged in Brasilia and other major cities across the country.

Lucia Newman, Al Jazeera’s Latin America editor, said: “He [Lula] has faced criticism not only from the Republicans in Washington but also in Brazil itself.

“They [critics] believe he has gone too far; that he’s isolating Brazil by going to the side of countries that are considered by some to be, as we know, on the axis of evil.”

Lula defended the visit, saying any progress on the nuclear standoff with Iran and on the stalled Middle East peace process required dialogue with all parties involved.

Ahmadinejad’s trip follows visits in the past two weeks by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, and Shimon Peres, his Israeli counterpart, who called on Lula to use Brazil’s influence to help curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Iran’s nuclear programme, which it says is intended for civilian use, has drawn criticism from Western countries which suspect Tehran is seeking to build a nuclear bomb.

World powers have urged Iran to reconsider its rejection of a UN-drafted deal aimed at a peaceful resolution to its contested nuclear programme.

The deal would have seen Tehran shipping its low-grade enriched uranium to Russia and France where it could be processed to be used as fuel in Iran’s medical-purpose reactor.

Instead, Iran wants a direct swap of low-enriched uranium for processed nuclear fuel, taking place on Iranian soil.

Ahmadinejad’s visit comes as the military back home engages in large-scale war games centred on protecting Iran’s nuclear facilities from attack. The Iranian leader is set to visit allies in Bolivia and Venezuela next to shore up more South American support. Al Jazeera

Analysis: Iran In No Hurry To Cut Nuclear Deal

analysis_If Western leaders were still puzzling over Iran’s approach to nuclear talks, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad offered a timely tutorial.

It came complete with a dismissive sound bite – comparing Iran’s foes to a mosquito – a bit of boasting about Iran’s prestige and a touch of self-analysis. Iran’s president said Sunday that Tehran doesn’t trust the West to keep its promises.

Added together, it helps explain Iran’s zigzag reactions last week to a UN-drafted nuclear pact, and why Iran is in no hurry to cut a deal.

For days, Iran had hinted that it would back the essential element of the UN offer – to send about 70 percent of its low-enriched uranium stockpile out of the country – but wanted some changes to the formula.

Those changes turned out to be more like a full counter proposal.

The response Thursday – as described by diplomats – essentially seeks to keep the uranium in Iran. That could be an ultimate deal breaker, because the West wants to pare down Iran’s store of low-enriched uranium to a point where it cannot make a nuclear warhead – at least temporarily.

But no one is ready to call it quits yet. Washington and its allies are hoping Iran softens its position. On Monday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told reporters in Malaysia that bargaining was still possible.

Asked if Tehran has rejected the deal, Mottaki said: “No.”

This may be welcome news in Western capitals. Yet many will see it as suspiciously like another stalling tactic.

Iran’s negotiations with the West have been a master class in slo-mo diplomacy. Since uranium enrichment was restarted three years ago, Iran has been able to draw out a showdown by offering just enough to the West when the heat became uncomfortable.

“Iran believes time is on their side for now,” said Mustafa Alani, a regional analyst at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai.

That is because there’s little in the UN plan that Iran likes and no serious domestic pressure for unpopular compromises. Standing firm, meanwhile, brings some immediate dividends.

Ahmadinejad and his hard-line allies can claim the high ground as defenders of Iran’s national dignity and strides in nuclear technology. It’s particularly tempting for Ahmadinejad, a rare opportunity to cross the political no man’s land after June’s disputed elections. Even his harshest opponents take pride in Iran’s nuclear accomplishments.

Ahmadinejad played this to full effect Sunday. In a posting on a government Web site, he was quoted as describing the nuclear negotiations as a match between Goliath Iran and an annoying insect.

“While enemies have used all their capacities … the Iranian nation is standing powerfully and (Iran’s foes) are like a mosquito,” he said.

He further scolded the West for what he called a history of broken promises. Iran, he said, “looks at the talks with no trust.”

The trust gap comes with a long back story. Before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran says it made a deal with France for a 10 percent stake in a nuclear plant and was expected to receive 50 tons of UF-6 gas, which can be turned into enriched uranium. But Iran claims it never received even a gram.

To Iranian leaders, that’s just another example of perceived Western bullying, which also include sanctions and a lack of pressure on Israel to open itself to international nuclear scrutiny.

Israel is widely considered to have nuclear arms, but has never publicly disclosed details – and has left open the option of military action to block Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

In the current context, Iranian authorities also raise worries about Iran’s self-sufficiency or of being at the mercy of the West for reactor fuel. Those are powerful themes inside Iran – making it unlikely that Iranian leaders would stoke such anxieties and then agree to the UN package.

Iran insists its nuclear program is only for research and energy production and has reportedly floated a counterproposal: to enrich uranium to reactor-ready strength at home with monitoring by the UN’s nuclear watchdog group.

But Western leaders are not biting on Iran’s Plan B.

On Friday, the European Union expressed “grave concern” about Iran’s nuclear program and “persistent failure to meet its international obligations.” In Washington, the reaction has been more muted, but President Barack Obama does not favour open-ended talks.

Congress also could give the White House new sanctions leverage, this time to penalize foreign firms that sell and ship refined petroleum products to Iran. That is perhaps Iran’s most vulnerable point. Right now, it must already import about 40 percent of its gasoline and other fuel products.

But there’s no sign of panic from Tehran. The country has ridden out US and international sanctions for years and can look to its economic ties with China and Russia as major buffers.

For the moment, it appears Iran instead is banking on the gravitas of the groundbreaking talks that opened new channels with the United States.

The West may be reluctant to step away from a level of outreach that would be hard to recapture. Yet there is certainly an expiration date on Washington’s patience.

“The president’s time is not unlimited,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Friday. Indian Express