Iran Remains Defiant, Nuclear Agency Says

WASHINGTON — Three months after the United Nations Security Council enacted its harshest sanctions yet against Iran, global nuclear inspectors reported Monday that the country has dug in its heels, refusing to provide inspectors with the information and access they need to determine whether the real purpose of Tehran’s program is to produce weapons.

For several weeks the Obama administration has argued that the sanctions are beginning to bite, cutting off Iran’s access to foreign capital, halting investment in its energy sector and impeding its ability to send its ships in and out of some foreign ports.

While there are strong indications that Iran is beginning to feel pain — largely from additional sanctions imposed by the United States and European and Asian nations over the summer — the report on Monday from the International Atomic Energy Agency indicates that so far they have failed to force Iran to comply with longstanding requests.

China Holds Back on Blaming North Korea in Attack

China has refrained from placing blame for the sinking of the Cheonan, citing that it needed more time to review the evidence. This has put the brakes on the development of international sanctions against North Korea but could give China time to pressure Pyongyang. Chinese officials said that “The urgent task for the moment is to properly handle the serious impact caused by the Cheonan incident, gradually defuse tensions over it and avoid possible conflicts.”

SEOGWIPO, South Korea — China held back from joining the chorus of nations condemning North Korea over the sinking of a South Korean warship, making quick international sanctions unlikely but perhaps buying time while China quietly leans on its unpredictable, nuclear-armed neighbor.

As Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao met with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts Sunday, tens of thousands of North Koreans rallied in their capital, clapping their hands, pumping their fists and and shouting slogans against South Korea and America, according to video footage from APTN in Pyongyang.

IAEA Report Reduces Chances of Iran Fuel Swap Deal

A recent IAEA report said that the UN agency “remains concerned about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed nuclear related activities, involving military related organizations, including activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile.” This report also summarized the recent development of the Iranian nuclear material swap deal back by Turkey and Brazil.

VIENNA — Iran has amassed more than two tons of enriched uranium, the U.N. atomic agency said Monday in a report that heightened Western concerns about the country developing the ability to produce a nuclear weapon.

Two tons of uranium would be enough for two nuclear warheads, although Iran says it does not want weapons and is only pursuing civilian nuclear energy.

NKorea Threatens Attack if US, SKorea Hold Drills

U.S. Special Envoy Stephen Bosworth & South Korea's Wi Sung-lac

North Korea threatened a “powerful” attack if the U.S. and South Korea proceed with joint military drills next month, warning Thursday that it could even resort to nuclear means.

The threat, routinely issued before South Korea and the U.S. embark on regularly scheduled military exercises, was made just hours after President Barack Obama’s special envoy to North Korea arrived in Seoul to discuss the North.

Communist North Korea, believed to have enough weaponized plutonium to make at least a half-dozen atomic bombs, quit six-nation disarmament-for-aid negotiations last year. It also conducted a nuclear test, earning stricter U.N. sanctions.

UN Agency Worried Iran May be Working on Arms

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

It looks like the IAEA has officially realized that Iran is attempting to work on nuclear weapons. A report released Thursday expressed concern about a program the US thought had been halted since 2003. IAEA officials suggested that intelligence supplied by the U.S., Israel and other IAEA member states on Iran’s attempts to use the cover of a civilian nuclear program to move toward a weapons program was compelling. It seems like the world is waking up to the fact that Iran may not have been telling the whole truth about its “civilian nuclear energy” program.

The U.N. nuclear agency on Thursday expressed concern for the first time that Iran may currently be working on ways to turn enriched uranium into a nuclear warhead, instead of having stopped several years ago.

Its report appears to contradict an assessment by Washington that Tehran suspended such activities in 2003. It appears to jibe with the concerns of several U.S. allies that Iran may never have suspended such work.

The U.S. assessment itself may be revised and is currently being looked at again by American intelligence agencies.

North Korea to have 14-18 Nuclear Warheads by 2019

A recent report estimated that if North Korea is left to its own devices they will be able to produce over a dozen nuclear warheads in the next decade. Combined with the North’s recent developments of increasingly sophisticated ballistic missile this provides a scary picture of the Korean peninsula’s future.

A U.S. scholar said Tuesday that North Korea could produce up to 14 to 18 nuclear warheads by 2019 if multilateral talks on its denuclearization fail.

In a report, titled “Four Scenarios for a Nuclear North Korea,” Joel Wit, a visiting fellow at the U.S. Korea Institute at the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, said that North Korea’s “current nuclear stockpile is believed to consist of sufficient plutonium to build four to eight weapons.”

“By using existing stocks of fresh fuel, North Korea could produce a bomb’s worth of plutonium each year from 2011 to 2013,” he was quoted as saying by Yonhap News Agency.

Wit continued: “If North Korea is able to refurbish its fuel fabrication plant, that production rate could continue indefinitely with its arsenal reaching 14 to 18 weapons by 2019.”

China Plans $10 Billion Investment in North Korea

Left to Right- Wang Jiarui, Kim Jong Il

In an attempt to get North Korea back to the table China will invest $10 Billion through an international cooperation agency called the Taepung International Investment Group. North Korea claims that this investment does not violate UN sanctions leveled after their most recent missile test. It seems that the North Koreans have found a loop-hole in the UN sanctions, and the Chinese are funneling cash through it. This may make North Korea more willing to talk, or it could embolden them to hold out for more from the international community.

China has decided to invest about $10 billion in North Korea to revive the communist neighbor’s faltering economy, a report said Monday.

The move comes as Beijing, the host nation for the six-party denuclearization talks, is making an effort to motivate the impoverished country to rejoin the multinational forum.

The decision was made when Wang Jiarui, chief of the Chinese Communist Party’s international department, visited Pyongyang last week, Yonhap reported.

A U.S. congressional report, meanwhile, said China’s supportive policy toward North Korea remains unchanged despite the North’s continued missile firings and nuclear ambitions.

U.S. Wants Sanctions In Weeks as Iran Ups Enrichment

Natanz - Iran's Underground Uranium Development Site

Iran continues to enrich uranium in blatant defiance of the U.N. Security Council. The Iranian government has said that they will be stepping up their uranium enrichment levels from 3.5%  to 20%. This is worrisome because although it takes 90% purity to make a nuclear bomb, the low-level enrichment of nuclear materials is the most time-consuming and difficult step in the process. 20% enrichment would mean that the Iranians are that much closer to possessing weapons grade nuclear material.

The Pentagon said on Tuesday that the United States wanted a U.N. Security Council resolution “within weeks” to tackle Iran’s nuclear program as Iran said it had begun making higher-grade nuclear fuel.

The Islamic Republic, which denies its program has military aims, announced on Sunday it would produce uranium enriched to a level of 20 percent for a Tehran research reactor making medical isotopes for cancer patients.

This followed a failure to agree terms for a proposed nuclear swap with major powers, under which Iran would send most of its low-enriched uranium abroad in return for such fuel.