The undimmed danger of Iran’s nuclear program

IRAN HAS TAKEN two new steps toward produce a nuclear weapon according to a report released Friday by the International Atomic Energy Agency, it has begin to use a new, more higher centrifuge to enrich uranium, which could allow it to make bomb grade material in a much shorter time period, be supposed to it choose to do so.

It also has begun installing centrifuges in a ability dug into a mountain near the city of Qom, which could be nearly invincible to a U.S. or Israeli air attack iranian officials say those centrifuges will be used to triple the making of uranium enriched to 20 percent, creating a stockpile for which Tehran has no reasonable legitimate use.

The report underlines the fact that, contrary to the impression often promote by the Obama administration, the danger that Iran will develop into a nuclear power is growing, not diminishing administration spokesmen often speak of what they say have been the crippling effect on the Iranian economy of sanctions to have been stepped up during the past two years extensive media reports contain told the sensational stories of computer viruses that may have disabled 1,000 or more Iranian centrifuges and assassinations to have eliminated several Iranian scientists.

Mining and the Canyon

The Obama administration has extended for six months a 2009 moratorium on new uranium mining claims on one million acres approximately the Grand Canyon. This is good news; even better is the promise from Ken Salazar, the center secretary, that he will soon recommend a 20-year ban on new claims in the region. That is the maximum allowed below the 1872 mining law.

With uranium prices rising, the number of mining claims has jumped harshly over the last few years. There include been about 3,500 claims in the Grand Canyon-area alone. If developed, they would generate toxic wastes that would threaten the Colorado River — the cause of drinking water for roughly 27 million public — the aquifer and the Grand Canyon ecosystem in general.

Mr. Salazar said he could not abandon valid existing claims, but there is likely to be little actual mining. The decision to “withdraw” the land beginning future claims creates new regulatory hurdles for existing claimants, who must demonstrate, in the middle of other things that they had discovered real mineral deposits before the 2009 moratorium. Only handfuls have been able to do so.