Iran Smuggling Uranium?

Shades of Yellowcake! Here we go again

Shades of Yellowcake! Here we go again, see the article at the Times UK:

IRAN is seeking to import large consignments of bomb-making uranium from the African mining area that produced the Hiroshima bomb, an investigation has revealed.A United Nations report, dated July 18, said there was “no doubt” that a huge shipment of smuggled uranium 238, uncovered by customs officials in Tanzania, was transported from the Lubumbashi mines in the Congo.  

Tanzanian customs officials told The Sunday Times it was destined for the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, and was stopped on October 22 last year during a routine check.

The disclosure will heighten western fears about the extent of Iran’s presumed nuclear weapons programme and the strategic implications of Iran’s continuing support for Hezbollah during the war with Israel.

It has also emerged that terror cells backed by Iran may be prepared to mount attacks against nuclear power plants in Britain. Intelligence circulating in Whitehall suggests that sleeper cells linked to Tehran have been conducting reconnaissance at some nuclear sites in preparation for a possible attack.

Not to worry for now, this was intercepted in October. If you are in the UK you might urge the authorities to beef up security at reactors however.

Update, more on this and the state of the Democratic Republic of Congo at Counter Terrorism Blog.

UN ceasefire: as meaningfull as 1559?

So you will not see countries clamoring to move forces into Lebanon for quite a while because hostilities will still be underway. International forces are not going to come in until Israel gets the full pin on their opponent in other words. Look for this to run several more weeks, no matter what resolutions are made.

For some pretty good analysis of todays UN draft resolution, please see Walid Phares’ article at Counter Terrorism Blog, which outlines current positions pretty well.

There are a LOT of handwringers out there at the moment, but right now Israel wins even if this stops tomorrow, which is not going to happen. Let me explain.

Continue reading “UN ceasefire: as meaningfull as 1559?”

Photos, lies, and photoshop

Charles at Little Green Footballs is pointing out a probably doctored photo at Reuters, see the LGF article here.

Meanwhile, Silent Running catches secondary explosions from an AP photo, probable ammo or missile fuel explosion after the Israeli hit in a civilian area. It’s a spectacular photo so I can see why AP is running with it, but the significance of the secondary fireball is beyond them.

India Reopens Blogging

Indian security officials are declaring that their blocking of blogs has proven counterproductive, and they have reopened many blocked sites in India. I am curious if you can get to The Jawa Report and others now from there.

CAUTION: You can tell that Capitalism is winning quite handily over Communism in India, turn on your pop up blockers before you follow this link folks!

The clampdown on blogging following 7/11 has been revoked not because the blogging community expressed unhappiness at the restriction, but intelligence agencies pointed out that the ban was limiting their scope of investigations into the 7/11 Mumbai train blasts, which claimed nearly 200 lives.

With the ban revoked, investigating agencies have started keeping a close tab on online chat rooms and blogs for any “circumstantial evidence” linked to the serial blasts. The restriction on blogging, which was imposed immediately after the blasts, was lifted about ten days ago.

An intelligence official involved in cybertracking of clues linked to 7/11 said, “The clampdown on a few sites was invoked as banned organisations were found to be using chat rooms and blogs to send messages