Iran has resumed operations at its Isfahan plant to enrich uranium ore for reactor fuel. The plant will convert yellowcake, or uranium ore, into uranium hexafluoride gas to be fed into centrifuges for uranium enrichment in the still-closed neighboring Natanz plant. Iran claims the program is purely for civilian purposes and is in compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty and International Atomic Energy Agency regulations. Gholam-Reza Aqazadeh, head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organizaiton (IAO), said that "the West must once and for all accept an atomic Iran." (DPA, Aug. 10) The move comes despite an effort by the European Union to offer Iran aid and other incentives not to resume the enrichment program. (FT, Aug. 9) It should be noted that Iran is still a long way from being able to produce a nuclear weapon. Several kilograms of uranium-235 are needed to reach the critical mass for a nuclear explosion, which would have to be processed from several tons of uranium hexafluoride using equipment the country doesn't currently have. (Nature.com, Aug. 8)

More fodder for the conspiranoia mill is supplied by yesterday's front-page New York Times story (online at TruthOut) providing further confirmation that at least some of the 9-11 hijackers were under surveillance by the government.

Washington - More than a year before the Sept. 11 attacks, a small, highly classified military intelligence unit identified Mohammed Atta and three other future hijackers as likely members of a cell of Al Qaeda operating in the United States, according to a former defense intelligence official and a Republican member of Congress.

An interesting development in the extremely contentious Valerie Plame affair: Deputy Attorney General James Comey, the only Justice Department official overseeing special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into the leak scandal, is leaving to take a job in the private sector. And his likely successor, Associate Attorney General Robert McCallum, is—like the incumbent president whose administration may be responsible for the leak—a Yale Skull & Bonesman! Via TruthOut:

The annual Hiroshima Peace Declaration, delivered this year by the city's Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba, explicitly calls the nuclear powers to task for not living up to their committments under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The historic 60th anniversary of the dawn of the nuclear age comes just two months after the UN conference on the treaty ended in dischord and paralysis. As we noted in 2002, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists "Doomsday Clock" moved forward two minutes that year in response to rising world tensions and lagging support for disarmament efforts. The clock now stands at seven minutes to midnight—the same position as when it debuted in 1947.

TruthOut offers the following tidbit from Newsweek on a National Intelligence Council finding that, contrary to Bush's dearest dreams, Iran "is not in a prerevolutionary state." We wonder if this document was drawn up before several cities in western Iran exploded into rebellion. Yes, we shouldn't underestimate the populist appeal of the newly-elected president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But nor should we underestimate the degree of anger and alienation among Iran's Kurds, Arabs and other minorities—as well as young people tired of the mullahs' repressive rule. If Bush is cultivating illusions that "regime change" in Iran would be an easy affair, his opponents must also avoid the self-deception that everything is hunky-dory in Iran.

AP reported Aug. 2 that federal investigators used provisions of the USA Patriot Act to search and bug a 360-foot tunnel under the US-Canadian border, and eavesdrop as hundreds of pounds of British Columbia-grown marijuana was brought through it. Agents installed surveillance equipment after obtaining a so-called “sneak-and-peek

At least three are dead in a land dispute between Tzeltal Maya ejidos (collective farming communities) in Mexico's conflicted southern state of Chiapas. More than 20 families have been displaced following the violence between the ejidos of El Chamizal and Laguna Semental in Ocosingo municipality. (Proceso's APRO news service, Aug. 5, online at Chiapas95)

In the capital, Tuxtla Guutierrez, the federal Agriculture Secretariat is demanding police evict some 1,000 striking sugar cane workers who began occupying their office Aug. 2. The cañeros, from the communities of Huixtla and Pujiltic, are demanding changes to federal agriculture policy to favor local producers. (APRO, Aug. 5, via Chiapas95) Chiapas sugar producers are threatened by cheap US corn imports, with corn syrup displacing cane sugar from the market. (CIEPAC, Sept. 5, 2001)

Both houses of Congress have now voted to extend the most onerous measures of the PATRIOT Act, which is due to expire in December. (IHT, Aug. 1) But these measures still may not survive judicial review. From Immigration News Briefs, Aug. 6:

Patriot Act Statutes Deemed "Vague"
In a July 28 decision, US District Judge Audrey Collins in Los Angeles ruled that several Patriot Act provisions on material support for terrorist organizations remain unconstitutional. Collins said Congress had failed to remedy all the problems she defined in a Jan. 23, 2004 ruling striking down the statute. "Even as amended, the statute fails to identify the prohibited conduct in a manner that persons of ordinary intelligence can reasonably understand," Collins ruled.