UANI

The NY Times reported on an IAEA briefing stating that Iran has has improved centerfuge capacity while at the same time blocking attempts at inspection of key enrichment facilities. "In a six-page report, the agency charged the Iranians with continuing to stonewall about what some Western governments suspected was Iran’s past research on designing a nuclear weapon. The agency acknowledged that it had failed 'to make any substantial progress' in its investigation. 'We seem to be at a dead end,' said a senior official with links to the agency. 'We would describe it as a gridlock."... In another revelation, the agency said for the first time that a foreign expert or group of experts may have helped Iran with experiments on a detonator that could be used in the implosion of a nuclear weapon." Read More

The AP reported that the IAEA has released photographs showing that Iran attempted to refit their long-range ballistic missiles to carry a nuclear warhead. "The U.N. nuclear monitoring agency shared new photos and documents purporting to show that Iran tried to refit its main long-distance missile to carry a nuclear payload, said diplomats who attended the meeting Tuesday.... Part of the report spoke of what appeared to be drawings and calculations by Iranian engineers on reconfiguring its Shahab-3 missile to be able to carry a nuclear payload, and the presentation Tuesday went into greater detail, the diplomats said." Read More

France announced that it supported increasing sanctions against Iran and that the recent IAEA report on Iran's nuclear program "very worrisome." "We have no other choice than to work in the days and weeks to come toward a new Security Council sanctions resolution," French Foreign Ministry spokesman Eric Chevallier said.... However, Russia and China, who like the U.S. and France have veto power over U.N. Security Council resolutions, would likely resist a fourth round of sanctions against Iran. Britain, the fifth veto-wielding member of the Security Council, is aligned with the U.S. and France." Read More

The AP reported that the the top military adviser of Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei announced that the Revolutionary Guard  is now "in charge of defending the country's territorial Persian Gulf waters in what appeared to be a hardening of its stance in the vital oil route. U.S. commanders in the Gulf have in the past said they find Guards ships more confrontational than the regular Iranian navy, which until the new order was responsible for Iranian defenses in the Gulf." Read More 

According to the AP, in a meeting between German and Iranian officials, "Germany's foreign minister criticized Tehran for insufficient cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog at a meeting Monday with his Iranian counterpart and urged a constructive response to international efforts to defuse tensions over its nuclear program, an official said." Read More

AFP reported that at a Doha press conference, the Iranian Defence Minister denied "that his country was running sleeper cells in the six Arab monarchies of the Gulf....Adel al-Assadi, who was consul general in Dubai with the rank of ambassador before defecting in 2001, has said Iran's Revolutionary Guards started to set up the sleeper cells right after the 1979 Islamic revolution." Read More

The Philadelphia Inquirer editorialized on President Ahmadinejad's upcomming visist to NY. "Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is coming to the United Nations next week. If he holds a news conference, he will, of course, be challenged on Iran's suspect nuclear program and his unrelenting rhetoric about Israel. But here's a question that might get at the Iranian president's vision for his country: 'Why have you jailed two Iranian doctors who pioneered the treatment of Iranian victims of HIV/AIDS?'" Read More