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)

An Aug. 9 AP story (online at TruthOut) reveals that Judge John G. Roberts Jr., President Bush's nominee for the Supreme Court, was on a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that ruled last month to allow military tribunals for Guantanamo detainees. Lawyers for one detainee have now appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court.

Haroon Rashid Aswat, a suspect in the London bombings, is in a British prison after having been extradited from Zambia. Authorities assert that he met with Osama bin Laden at a training camp in Afghanistan. He may also face extradition to the US on charges of seeking to establish a terrorist camp in Oregon. (London Times, Aug. 9)

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.

Interesting analysis of the recent indictment of "former" AIPAC officals

by Robert Dreyfuss at tompaine.com
August 09, 2005

Important new details of the U.S.-Israeli espionage case involving Larry Franklin, the alleged Pentagon spy, two officials of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, and an intelligence official at the Embassy of Israel emerged last week. Two AIPAC officials—who have left the organization—were indicted along with Franklin on charges of "communicat[ing] national defense information to persons not entitled to receive it." In plain English, if not legal-speak, that means spying.

But as the full text of the indictment makes clear, the conspiracy involved not just Franklin and the AIPAC officials, Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, but at least several other Pentagon officials who played intermediary roles, at least two other Israeli officials, and one official at a "Washington, D.C. think tank." It's an old-fashioned spy story involving the passing of secret documents, hush-hush meetings and outright espionage, along with good-old-boy networking.

Mauritania's recently-ousted president Maaoya Sid'Ahmed Ould Taya, now in exile in Niger, pledged to return to power, and appealed to the Mauritanian armed forces to launch a counter-coup on his behalf. He made the appeal in an interview on Dubai-based Al-Arabiya TV, broadcast throughout the region, including in the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott. Taya said he would "return soon" and issued orders "in my capacity as president of the republic to the armed forces to restore the natural order and put an end to this crime."

A top Bosnian Serb war crimes fugitive wanted by the UN's International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia for atrocities during the 1992-95 Bosnia war was arrested in Argentina Aug. 8. Milan Lukic, who went underground after the war ended, is being held in a Buenos Aires jail. Lukic was indicted on several counts of crimes against humanity by the tribunal at The Hague in 2000. A Belgrade court also convicted him for the 1992 slaying of 16 Muslims and later sentenced him in absentia to 20 years in prison.

The bio-chemical warfare tests in New York City, initially scheduled for two days ago, went ahead today. New York's ABC News reports Aug. 8 that scientists in midtown Manhattan used perfluorocarbon, "a harmless gas," which was tracked with electronic monitors.