Dimona

[Moses]

Vanunu plans new book about life in prison

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Etgar Lefkovits, THE JERUSALEM POST Dec. 19, 2004

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Eight months after being released from prison, nuclear spy Mordechai Vanunu said Sunday that he plans to write a new book about his life in Israeli jail as soon as he is permitted to go abroad.

The 50-year-old former nuclear technician, who converted to Christianity in the 1980s, has been staying in a Jerusalem Anglican church since April, when he was freed from prison after serving an 18-year sentence for revealing Israel's nuclear secrets.

According to the terms of his release, Vanunu is barred from leaving the country's borders, as well as from meeting with foreigners and discussing his work at Israel's top-secret nuclear facility.

"The real reason behind the restrictions is to silence the issue of nuclear weapons in Israel," Vanunu said Sunday at a press conference at an east Jerusalem hotel.

Vanunu added that he is planning on writing a book about his life in prison as soon as he gets abroad, noting that he could not write it in Israel due to the military censor.

"I have no more secrets...all what I said is written in the newspapers over the last eighteen years," he said, referring journalists at the press conference to a book detailing his past revelations.

Vanunu was rearrested last month, and detained for 12 hours after giving dozens of interviews with the foreign press in violation of the terms of his release.

However, no further charges were pressed against him, although security officials have not returned him personal computer to date, he said.

During a remand hearing last month, police representatives said that that they found notebooks with diagrams - which they suspect are sketches of the Dimona nuclear facility -- as well as "loads of information" which they said Vanunu has not revealed yet.

Widely reviled by Israelis as a traitor, Vanunu's revelation and imprisonment made him a hero to international anti-nuclear and far-left activists alike. Earlier this month, he was elected as the rector of Scotland's Glasgow University.

"Nuclear weapons are only gas chambers perfected. For people who know what gas chambers are how can you even think about building perfected gas chambers," said 1976 Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire, who flanked Vanunu at his Jerusalem press conference.

Maguire, who made the trip to Jerusalem from Northern Ireland to be with Vanunu ahead of Christmas, urged Israel to allow him to go abroad and rescind the "severe restrictions" it had imposed on Vanunu following his release from jail.

Maguire added that she would nominate Vanunu for next year's Nobel peace prize.

Two months after his release from jail, Vanunu had petitioned the High Court against the restrictions placed on him by the defense establishment.

His appeal was rejected by Israel's highest court, with the judges ruling that the restrictions placed on Vanunu were not meant to prevent him from expressing his opinion regarding Israel's nuclear policy but rather to ensure that he does not reveal any of the state's secrets, which he became privy to during his work at the Dimona facility.

"We are still in the battle to release Mordecai Vanunu." said Israeli Arab MK Issam Mahoul (Hadash), a long time Vanunu supporter who called Vanunu a "hero and spy of peace."

For his part, Vanunu reiterated Sunday that he hopes to emigrate to the United States, where his adopted parents live, as soon as possible.

His biological family in Israel have cut off virtually all contact with him following his conviction and subsequent conversion to Christianity.

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This article can also be read at www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1103429251340&p=1078027574097

[Moses]

US asked to take firmer line against N-proliferation

By Khalid Hasan
WASHINGTON: The United States and its allies have failed to take a “firmer line” against states outside the circle of five recognised under the NPT, according to an expert.

Henry D. Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Centre, maintains in a paper contributed to a new book on the subject published by the Strategic Studies Institute that the US and its allies would have to actively contest the notion that all states have a natural right to acquire nuclear weapons. He also wants the notion challenged that if a nation’s security is threatened, it has a right to break out of the NPT. He warns that if that were not done, North Korea’s recent accumulation of nuclear technology under false “peaceful” pretenses and its withdrawal from the Treaty is sure to be only the first of such defections. The US and its allies, he recommends, should also take a stronger stand against non-NPT states.

Sokolski charges that the US and its allies have frequently done the contrary of what he recommends. “For example, Israel’s India’s and Pakistan’s possession of nuclear weapons has been excused as being ‘understandable’. Recently, the chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission visited two of India’s nuclear weapons production reactors and extended American nuclear ‘safety’ cooperation to New Delhi. Earlier, the US government did all it could to waive and bend mandatory legal sanctions directed against India’s and Pakistan’s nuclear tests in 1998. More recently, the United States refused to identify Pakistan as a nuclear proliferator despite repeated reports of Pakistani nuclear assistance to North Korea and Iran. As for Israel, the United States did far too little to stop its nuclear weapons programme and has done nothing publicly to get it to stop production of plutonium at its weapons plant at Dimona.”

He points out that while Washington protested against North Korea’s violation of the NPT, it did little or nothing to Pyongyang’s actual withdrawal from the Treaty. He argues that the notion that states have a right to nuclear weapons and that, if this right is not exercised, they should be compensated with free access to all types of nuclear technology has “more than run its course” in the case of Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Referring to an Irish resolution introduced at the United Nations as far back as 1958-59, Sokolski argues that “if we want an NPT agreement that will reduce rather than fan further nuclear proliferation,” a return to that resolution would be the best route to take. “That will require that the Unites States and other nuclear technology exporting states recognise that much of what they are willing to share is too close to bomb-making and a nation quickly diverting such technology to military ends cannot be safeguarded against.”

Sokolski believes that light water reactors in Iran will bring it dangerously close to having a large arsenal of near-weapons-grade plutonium after only 15 months of operations. The same is true of North Korea if either of the two light water reactors the United States, Japan and South Korea are helping to build are completed. “It is even clearer that Russia’s, Pakistan’s and China’s sharing of fuel fabrication, plutonium separation and uranium enrichment technology and hardware with Iran and North Korea simply is too close to bomb-making to allow for any monitoring that would afford timely warning of possible military diversion,” he writes.

The nuclear expert warns that if nothing is done to shore up US and allied security relations with the Gulf Cooperation Council states and with Iraq, Turkey and Egypt, Iran’s acquisition of even a nuclear weapons breakout capability could prompt one of more of these states to try to acquire nuclear weapons option of its own. If the US fails to hold North Korea accountable for its violation of the NPT or lets it hold one or more nuclear weapons, while appearing to reward its violation with a new deal, South Korea and Japan – and later perhaps Taiwan – will have a powerful basis to question Washington’s security commitment to them and their pledges to stay non-nuclear.

Sokolski is of the view that if there is support for stronger action, exports made outside established international procedures might be banned and targeted for interdiction. “The rule would apply not just to Iran, which has announced its desire to export its nuclear expertise, but to China, North Korea and Pakistan, who trade in nuclear and missile technology. It also could include Israel, which has exported technology to China, and India, a state that announced a military cooperative agreement with Iran and its intent to export military technology internationally.” If the UN cannot be persuaded to adopt such a measure, countries might then choose to act on their own. He includes among “currently worrisome cases” Pakistan contemplating transferring nuclear warheads legally under its control to Saudi Arabia, “as its generals have privately suggested they might.” He proposes that any strategic weapons-related assistance “a Pakistan, or a North Korea, China, Iran or Russia might want to give to other states should be announced before shipment or else run the risk of being interdicted.

In his opinion, “this international common usage would give the world’s Indias, Israels and Pakistans who cannot be made weapons state members of the NPT a formal way to uphold international nonproliferation norms.

[Moses]

Arab-Israel peace key to WMD-free Middle East: Elbaradei

DUBAI (Reuters) -- Arab-Israeli peace efforts are key to ridding the Middle East of weapons of mass destruction, IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said on Monday, refusing to comment on reports U.S. officials were monitoring his telephone calls.

"I don't think we will be able to force Israel outside the peace process to give up weapons of mass destruction," ElBaradei said at the Arab Strategy Forum in the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai.

ElBaradei declined to comment on a report in the Washington Post on Sunday that U.S. officials had listened in on some of his telephone conversations with Iranian diplomats for evidence of missteps that could be used to force his ouster.

"I won't talk," he said when repeatedly asked by journalists about the Washington Post report.

The United States has long sought to block ElBaradei from seeking a third term as International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief.

Addressing the conference, the UN nuclear watchdog chief said the Arab-Israeli conflict was one of several threats to the security of Arab countries.

Israel refuses to admit or deny it has any nuclear weapons under a policy of "strategic ambiguity" but many of its Arab neighbors have refused to sign international treaties banning the proliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, citing Israel's supposed nuclear capability.

International experts calculate Israel has up to 200 warheads, based on estimates of plutonium produced at its Dimona desert reactor.

Elbaradei said poverty and a lack of human rights were also problems as they bred terrorism.

"Security problems are much more accentuated in the Arab world, they are in the extreme... Terrorism flourishes with all these security threats," he said. "We need to address the causes of terrorism, which are deeply rooted in many of our societies. We should not be surprised at the level of radicalism."

[Moses]

w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m

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Last update - 01:43 10/12/2004

Is Dimona's reactor suffering from old age?


By Ze'ev Schiff

Among the complaints against Israel concerning the nuclear issue is the claim that the nuclear reactor in Dimona poses a serious safety threat to its surroundings due to its very advanced age. Our neighbors Egypt and Jordan have also voiced such contentions. Others argue that because Israel is not a signatory to the international Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), it cannot receive assistance from other countries in renovating the reactor in Dimona.

All of these contentions are erroneous. First, the reactor in Dimona has already undergone various fundamental renovations, and more than just once or twice. Second, it is not true that Israel was rejected when approaching other countries for assistance in revamping the reactor. Third, it is not true that safety-related assistance for reactors is not extended to countries that are not signatories to the NPT.

The director general of the Atomic Energy Commission in Israel, Gideon Frank, explained in response to these questions: "Israel does not need assistance from abroad. It can renovate the reactor in Dimona by itself. We have all the necessary know-how, including the engineering, technological and other information. There is no need to approach others." The fact that Israel, for many years, has been a member of the committee of experts on reactor security of the International Atomic Energy Agency testifies to Israel's level of knowledge in this area.

According to Frank: "There is practical significance to the age of a nuclear reactor that has undergone the required improvements and whose systems have been replaced by more modern ones." Israel's commission is so self-confident on this issue that it declared on its Web site during a recent discussion of reactor safety: "We are even stricter than others!"

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission used to grant licenses to operate reactors for 40 years. In recent years, this has changed and the operating licenses have been extended, after examining the reactor, to 60 years. Of 104 American reactors, 86 will receive such extensions, as well as approval for increasing their output. One of the reactors, which is located in a populated area in Gettysburg, Maryland, is now more than 40 years old. In the U.S., these reactors are usually used to generate power. The potential danger in power-generating reactors, due to pressure and high temperatures, is much higher than in research reactors, like the one in Dimona, which operate at temperatures of 40 to 50 degrees Celsius.

In comparison to Israel, which independently oversees the safety of its Dimona reactor, there are two other examples of how relations have been handled with two countries, India and Pakistan, which are not signatories to the NPT and which have also conducted nuclear tests. Canada, which sold reactors to India and Pakistan, felt it had been deceived when both countries violated their agreements with Canada. In 1974, Canada cut off its nuclear relations with India and in 1979 did the same with Pakistan. Following the accident at the Chernobyl reactor, Canada was ready to resume nuclear relations in the area of safety with these two countries. Pakistan accepted the offer and India, surprisingly, rejected it.

On the other hand, India reached agreement with Washington on the issue of nuclear safety. Nuclear relations between the two countries had also been cut off after a nuclear test conducted by India in 1998. But in 2002, President Bush announced the resumption of nuclear ties with India in the realm of safety. Washington had been ready to add two new areas to the discussions with India. Thus, the subject of nuclear safety is not always linked to diplomatic issues.

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[Moses]

MKs plan rare visit to Dimona reactor

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By JPOST.COM STAFF, THE JERUSALEM POST Dec. 7, 2004

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MKs Yuval Steinitz, Ehud Yatom (Likud), and Yossi Sarid (Yahad) will visit the Dimona nuclear reactor shortly, Army Radio reported.

The purpose of this rare visit will be to evaluate claims of environmental damage as a result of the reactor.

The planned visit comes following a proposal by MK Zahava Gal-On (Yahad) in which she claimed that the reactor is old and out of date, and therefore requires environmental and international supervision.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon retorted that the reactor in Dimona is, "small and safe," and that Israel can provide the necessary supervision alone without international aide.

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This article can also be read at www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1102389541583&p=1078027574097

[Moses]

w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m

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Last update - 01:58 01/12/2004

A vision for safer [sic!! Safer for whom?] warfare - the crewless ship, plane, tank[/size]


By Amnon Barzilai

Do Hezbollah's unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) mean there is a balance of aerial power on Israel's northern border? Developers at Aeronautics Defense Systems, which makes UAVs, aren't worried.
At the company's test laboratories in Yavneh, they are already working on the battlefield of the future. Small ships, planes, all-terrain vehicles and, someday apparently, tanks and submarines will all have something in common: Their crews will not be in any danger - because they will not have crews. Future war vehicles will be controlled from a distance and their abilities are slowly approaching those of manned vehicles.

At the beginning of November, Aeronautics launched Seastar - the first unmanned maritime vehicle - and moved one more step closer to realizing the company's vision of developing and manufacturing unmanned platforms for use in the sea, air and on land, mainly for military purposes.

It will be about two years until the completion of the development of Aeronautics' first unmanned all-terrain vehicle.

"In order to make a breakthrough in the development of unmanned systems," explains Aeronautics CEO and board chair Avi Leumi, "one has to replicate human abilities electronically and this means being the closest to God."

Aeronautics is not losing any time. In recent months, the company has embarked on an acquisition campaign, buying up new companies that will complement its technological abilities.

Technological limits

In the past year, Aeronautics has acquired partial ownership in two companies: BVR Systems, which makes tactical simulators, and Controp Precision Technologies, which makes aerial photography systems. Aeronautics is also involved in a joint venture with a Russian company to supply UAVs to the Russian Defense Ministry, has found a way to improve the performance of UAV engines in Italy, and is providing financial backing to two startups in Israel and the United States.

Aeronautics hopes its big business breakthrough will come from a cooperation agreement signed with General Dynamics for the manufacture and marketing of UAVs in the United States.
The main obstacle in the efficient operation of UAVs is the technological limitations of UAV engines. UAVs that spend many hours in the air have to fly at altitudes of between 1,000 and 20,000 feet. However, the changes in air conditions (temperature, humidity, rain) that are part and parcel of flying at various altitudes are detrimental to engine function.

"To this day, engines are considered the most problematic aspect of UAVs worldwide," says Leumi. "Car manufacturers will not develop an engine for a UAV because the demand is too low, but a regular engine does not have a system for commanding and controlling the UAV after takeoff. That is why optimization cannot be achieved in the work environment."

The search for a solution took Aeronautics executives to northern Italy, where they met Guido Zanzottera, a world-renowned expert who developed a small computerized engine that runs on heavy fuel. Zanzottera, whose company employs 12 workers, sells engines to UAV manufacturers in the United States and England and has estimated annual sales of 5 million euros. Aeronautics decided to purchase Zanzottera's enterprise outright.

World leaders
Another daring decision was to buy into BVR, based in Rosh Ha'ayin. BVR was controlled by Elisra Electronic Systems, of the Koor Group, and had accumulated heavy losses in recent years. Aeronautics joined the group of investors that purchased Elisra's share in BVR. The group, whose members are equal partners in their 60 percent share of the company, includes a company based in Singapore [What is the name of the company?] and businessman Aviv Tzidon, one of BVR's founders. Aeronautics and the Singaporean company invested about $5.5 million each and one of Aeronautics' conditions during negotiations was that Tzidon stay on to run the company.

"Until now, simulators and operational systems have been totally separate," says Leumi, explaining the significance of Aeronautics purchase of BVR. "Now the trend throughout the world is to switch to integrated systems with simulators, including for UAVs and missiles. We made the right move - in addition to ongoing operations, BVR has tremendous knowledge, as well as patents registered in the U.S. The company is already recovering and I can say that on paper, at least, we have made astronomical profits."
Controp of Hod Hasharon, in which Aeronautics now has a 20 percent stake, makes aerial photography systems and night vision systems. Controp competes with Israel Aircraft Industries, Elbit Systems and the Rafael Armament Development Authority, which are all considered world leaders in their fields.

"Night vision systems are essential combat equipment and every military unit will have one," says Leumi. "We believe the optics and night vision industry will grow exponentially throughout the world."

Aeronautics continued to improve its capabilities when it acquired the Tel Aviv startup CommTact, which has four workers and develops data-link communication. It also put $1 million in a startup in Dimona for manufacturing land-based optic radar and invested a similar sum in an American startup that makes crystals for thermal cameras.

"What interests us is the development of technologies for controlling the whole chain of operations, such that they will all work toward the same vision," concludes Leumi.
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[Lani]

Safer for those who joined the military and who chose a profession that is inherently dangerous to themselves and to those they are trained to kill.

. This makes it safer for those who volunteered to go into harms way and even more dangerous for civilians who happened to make the fatal error of being born in a country currently labelled as 'the enemy'.

Safer for civilians would be nice, safer for all humankind (which doesn't seem to have much kindness lately) would be even nicer.

[Moses]

It is truly frightening that the Israeli media describes unmanned armaments as "safe". Clearly the only lives that are valued are those of the Israeli military.

[Lani]

Yeah, the only lives that matter are 'our citizens lives', American or Israeli.
It seems that when any group really buys into the concept of being the chosen people or the best people in the world, no other lives have meaning or value. We have become the fascist obscenity we fought to defeat in WWII.

When will we get it?
We are all members of the same race, HUMAN!
Isn't it time to become Humane Beings?

[Moses]

The Mideast Mirror reports that a “long simmering dispute between the U.S. and Israel over Israeli arms sales to China burst back into the open” recently when it was reported that the U.S. is “demanding that Defense Ministry Director General Amos Yaron be replaced because he was not fully forthcoming about an Israeli deal with the Chinese.” The issue revolves around “a highly sophisticated airborne radar system,” Phalcon, which has been a source of tension between the U.S. and Israel for years. The imbroglio was severe enough that in 2000 “then President Clinton had to phone then-premier Ehud Barak to tell him on the eve of the Camp David summit that if Israel did not immediately cancel the deal with the Chinese, Washington would cancel the summit.” The U.S. subsequently demanded “that Israel cease all weapons deals with China, which Israel promised to do.” But “a few months ago, during a routine conversation between Yaron and Douglas Feith, the number three man at the Pentagon, Yaron…made an incidental mention of a routine Israeli resupply of parts for a Harpy unmanned airborne vehicle system Israel sold” to China in the 1990s. Apparently, Feith “was shocked to hear about the resupply,” thinking “that Israel had broken its promise to stop selling strategic weapons to the Chinese.” Feith’s shock seems a little disingenuous. According to a 2003 New York Times article, Bernard L. Schwartz, chairman and chief executive of Loral Space and Communications, at one time retained Feith as part of a “prominent team” to defend Loral when it “faced government accusations that it improperly transferred rocket technology to China.” -- aaiusa.org/countdown/c122204.htm

[Moses]

(JTA) - Nobel laureate blasts Israel

A Nobel Peace Prize laureate compared Israel's presumed nuclear arsenal to Hitler's gas chambers. On Sunday, Mairead Corrigan Maguire called on Israel to lift travel restrictions on nuclear whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu. Maguire was awarded a Nobel prize in 1976 for her efforts to reach peace in Northern Ireland. "When I think about nuclear weapons, I've been to the Auschwitz concentration camp," Maguire said during a joint news conference with Vanunu in Jerusalem. "Nuclear weapons are only gas chambers perfected," she said, "and for a people who know what gas chambers are, how can you even think of building perfect gas chambers?"

[Moses]

feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/redir.php?jid=94dbab74dbf3ec34&cat=c08dd24cec417021


Last Update: 22/12/2004 19:35


By The Associated Press


TEHRAN - Iran has arrested more than 10 people on charges of revealing its nuclear secrets to Israeli and U.S. intelligence agencies, Intelligence Minister Ali Yunesi said.

Yunesi said they were detained in Tehran and in the southern Hormozgan province during the Iranian year that began March 21, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

"These people were spying for Mossad and CIA," IRNA quoted Yunesi as saying. He was referring to the Israel's external secret service and the Central Intelligence Agency.

The United States accuses Iran of running a secret program to build a nuclear bomb. Iran says its nuclear programs are purely for energy.

The minister said the identity of those detained will not be revealed before they stand trial but said three of them were employees of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran and the rest were not government employees.

They are now in the hands of the hard-line Revolutionary Court, which deals with security crimes, Yunesi said.

Earlier this month, the Intelligence Ministry said it had arrested a spy who had been pretending to work on nuclear centrifuges in order to cast doubt on Tehran's recent agreements to suspend such work.

Iran agreed last month to suspend uranium enrichment and all related activities to try to ward off sanctions for which the United States has pressed. Centrifuges can spin gas into enriched uranium, which can then be used to produce energy or bombs.

The International Atomic Energy Agency agreed to police suspension of Iran's nuclear activities. Under the agreement reached last month with France, Germany and Britain, Iran has suspended its enrichment activities during negotiations with the Europeans on economic, political and technological aid from the 25-nation European Union. Those talks started earlier this month.

Tuesday in Vienna, where the IAEA is based, diplomats told The Associated Press that Tehran is still turning tons of raw uranium into uranium metal and has said it would continue to do so until February, exploiting a loophole in its deal with the Europeans. The metal is a precursor of uranium hexafluoride - a substance that can then be used to produce weapons-grade uranium.

Iran says it will judge within three months whether to continue suspension. Tehran has threatened to resume all nuclear activities it has suspended if the talks fail to make progress.

[Moses]

Israel's Secret Weapon

Broadcast on BBC Two on Monday, 17 March, 2003

This film is the story of the bomb, Vanunu and Israel's wall of silence.

Click here to watch it online.
207.44.245.159/article6558.htm