Fresh Concerns about Iranian Scientist

August 30, 2012 | Edited by Benjamin Loehrke and Leah Fae Cochran

Re-emergence - Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, an Iranian scientist previously involved in research relevant to nuclear weapons development, is believed to be involved in setting up a possible nuclear research institution in Tehran, reports Jay Solomon of the Wall Street Journal citing information obtained from unnamed IAEA officials.

--Fakhrizadeh’s apparent re-emergence has raised new concerns about the status of Iran’s nuclear program. Read the full story here. http://on.wsj.com/Ro639M

Tweet - @armscontrolwonk: WSJ article by @SpoonSolomon on Iran, Fakhrizadeh & SPND confirms my post last week. Compare: http://owl.li/dlybm

Welcome to Early Warning - Subscribe to our morning email or follow us on twitter.

--Have a tip? Email earlywarning@ploughshares.org. Want to support this work? Click here.

Radar love - The core radar infrastructure of the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system (GMD) “consists of Upgraded Early Warning Radars, which have essentially no discrimination capability”. This leaves the GMD system “vulnerable to defeat by the simplest of countermeasures, even unintentional ones,” writes George Lewis in a technical brief on radar resolutions at Mostly Missile Defense. http://bit.ly/PubYLd

Tweet - @FitzpatrickIISS: Imagine Brits' surprise to read RNC platform claim that "the US is the only nuclear power not modernizing its nuclear arsenal."

Scrap that - A plan to cut 34 security guard jobs from the Y-12 guard force was dropped after protesters broke into the site in late June, reports Frank Munger at the Knoxville News Sentinel. The jobs were slated to be axed in September as part of a “workforce restructuring plan” proposed by the contractor of the installation and approved by the NNSA. Full story here. http://bit.ly/NYZY4e

Award - A new prize to recognize non-proliferation work was awarded to and named after former Senators Richard Lugar and Sam Nunn on Wednesday, for their work denuclearizing ex-Soviet states. The award is called “The Nunn-Lugar Award for Promoting Nuclear Security”, and will be awarded biannually. The Boston Globe has the story. http://bo.st/Tw3RPe

Ban gets frank with Khamenei - “UN chief Ban Ki-moon and Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sparred in an unusually frank verbal duel on Wednesday over Tehran's disputed nuclear programme, betraying high tensions on the issue,” reports Marc Burleigh at AFP. http://bit.ly/Puf3uz

NAM summit - “Iran has no interest in nuclear weapons but will keep pursuing peaceful nuclear energy, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told heads of state from developing countries in Tehran,” reports Reuters.

-- “Iran, hosting a summit of the 120-nation Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), is hoping the high-profile event will prove that Western efforts to isolate it and punish it economically for its disputed nuclear programme have failed.” Full story here. http://reut.rs/QVWs9H

Reykjavik - Michael Douglas, a Ploughshares Fund board member, has already occupied the Oval Office as President Andrew Shepherd. Now he is in talks to play the part of President Ronald Reagan in a new film Reykjavik, covering the the historic summit between Reagan and Gorbachev. http://bit.ly/OyMrjf

A stronger watchdog - “The IAEA is the only existing organization that is capable of ensuring all states are living up to the highest standards of [fissile materials] protection,” writes Teresa Chan of The Fissile Material Working Group.

--Participant countries in the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul expressed an interest in expanding the role of the IAEA in nuclear security. The agency does not presently have the resources, authority or budget to assume this role. Chan recommends ways this can be corrected in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. http://bit.ly/SXtvPl

Largesse - “Last year, global military spending reportedly exceeded $1.7 trillion...This largesse includes billions of dollars more for modernizing nuclear arsenals decades into the future. This level of military spending is hard to explain in a post-Cold War world and amid a global financial crisis,” writes UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in The China Daily.

--”Nuclear weapons' budgets are especially ripe for deep cuts. Such weapons are useless against today's threats to international peace and security. Their very existence is destabilizing: The more they are touted as indispensable the greater is the incentive for their proliferation.” http://bit.ly/RuuLJC

Discover Russia! - Aeroflot has a rather unfortunate ad in the Brussels subway featuring a beautiful photo of Moscow and the Kremlin - with a column of missile launchers rolling down the Kremlevskaya Naberezhnaya.

--Contrary to news reports, the missiles are not nuclear ICBMs. Jeffrey Lewis at Arms Control Wonk checked out the image and notes that the launchers are instead SA-21 Growler missile defense interceptors and Iskander tactical ballistic missiles. http://bit.ly/PznrgM