Wired story.

Weinberg and his men proved the efficacy of thorium reactors in hundreds of tests at Oak Ridge from the '50s through the early '70s. But thorium hit a dead end. Locked in a struggle with a nuclear-armed Soviet Union, the US government in the '60s chose to build uranium-fueled reactors -- in part because they produce plutonium that can be refined into weapons-grade material. The course of the nuclear industry was set for the next four decades, and thorium power became one of the great what-if technologies of the 20th century.

Gary Sick comments.

It turns out, the move in and out is a routine operation of no strategic significance that requires about half an hour. The material is now back underground, so the NYTimes can relax its maximum alert status.

What a total farce!

Reuters report.

Iran has moved a stock of enriched uranium back underground after drawing what it needed to refine the material up to 20 percent purity, Tehran's envoy to the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Monday.

BBC report.

Iran is not co-operating with the UN nuclear watchdog's investigation into the country's nuclear programme, the new head of the agency has said.

Iran's insistence its nuclear programme was peaceful could not be confirmed, Yukiya Amano told the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna.

Mr Amano is taking a much more critical line than the organisation has done before, correspondents say.

Michael O'Hanlon and Bruce Riedel in the Financial Times.

The strike option, however, lacks credibility. America is engaged in two massive and unpopular military campaigns in the region. Given Iran's ability to retaliate against the US in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is simply not credible that we would use force in the foreseeable future. Tehran, Moscow and Beijing know this.

Novosti report.

There is no hard proof that Iran is working on nuclear weapons, but Tehran has to clarify several key issues on its nuclear program to avoid fresh international action, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday.

Reuters report.

Washington's clout over its Middle East ally is under scrutiny after Israel's veiled threats to attack Iran preemptively if international diplomacy fails to rein in Tehran's uranium enrichment, a process with bomb-making potential.

Ynetnews report, quoting AFP.

The top US military officer said Monday that any military strike against Iran would not be "decisive" in countering its nuclear program.

"No strike, however effective, will be in and of itself decisive,"Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a news conference, adding that he supported using diplomatic and economic pressure against Iran.

McClatchy report.

With diplomacy failing and precious intelligence just received about two new secret Iranian nuclear facilities, Israel launches a pre-emptive strike against Tehran's nuclear complex. The strike is successful, wiping out six of Iran's key sites and setting back its suspected quest for a bomb by years.

But what happens next isn't pretty.

Nafeez Ahmed comments.

But we now know that the "alleged studies" are an intelligence fabrication. US national security journalist Gareth Porter has recently confirmed from senior US and German intelligence officials that purported evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons programme -- including the IAEA's 'alleged studies' as well as an alleged Iranian 'neutron initiator' document unearthed by the Times -- was forged.

[...]

To understand the Iran nuclear stalemate, just as with the Iraq-WMD fiasco, we need to look beyond official western platitudes, threats and narratives about Iran-WMD to explore the wider geopolitics and pressures emerging in the context of an increasingly strained global hydrocarbon energy system, in which access to the world's largest strategic oil and gas reserves and domination of the world's fast-emerging nuclear market are increasingly urgent problems.

Julian Borger on his Guardian Global Security Blog.

Why would a regime that is normally so paranoid about its LEU leave itself so vulnerable? One possible explanation, being mused on by British government analysts, is that the regime is deliberately inviting an Israeli air strike with the aim of creating a crisis, and using that crisis to crush dissent even more brutally than it is doing currently.

It is a terrifying idea, but not the only possible explanation. It may be, as David Albright at ISIS suggests, that the Natanz technicians were in a hurry to fulfil President Ahmadinejad's orders to enrich to 20%, and it was quicker to drive the whole cask of enriched uranium hexafluoride up the ramp to the pilot plant, than try to decant it into small containers.

A third possibility is that Iran is playing poker, bringing out its trump in an attempt to get the international community to fold, and agree to supply Iran with fuel rods to the TRR without Iran having to export its LEU in advance as it initially agreed to do in Geneva last October. Tehran may believe that the danger of an Israeli air strike is minimal because the repercussions in the Gulf would be so devastating.

New York Times report.

A senior Iranian official said on Monday that his country planned to build 10 more nuclear enrichment plants -- two of them within the next year -- and had identified "close to" 20 sites for such facilities.

Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, also said the plants would use a new kind of centrifuge, but did not provide details.

Xinhua report.

Russia opposes crippling sanctions against Iran over its controversial nuclear program, the Interfax news agency reported on Friday, citing Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov.

"The term 'crippling sanctions' on Iran is totally unacceptable to us. The sanctions should aim at strengthening the regime of non- proliferation," Ryabkov was quoted as saying by Interfax.

"We certainly cannot talk about sanctions that could be interpreted as punishment on the whole country and its people for some actions or inaction," Ryabkov said.

Times report.

The United Nations' nuclear watchdog has radically increased pressure on Iran by publicly describing concerns over atomic weapons for the first time.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it feared that Tehran could be working on "a nuclear payload for a missile" in its bluntest report yet on Iran's uranium enrichment programme.

The White House responded to the report by threatening "consequences" if Iran failed to co-operate with nuclear inspectors.

In the IAEA's first report on Iran under its new director-general Yukiya Amano, tougher language appeared to signal a sea-change in the attitude towards Tehran.

Hurriyet Daily News report.

A major threat to world peace from Iran's obtaining nuclear weapons would be the kick off of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, in which a number of countries including Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt would seek nuclear weapons, the Israeli prime minister told his Greek counterpart at a meeting in Russia.

Haaretz report.

Israel may lack the military means for successful preemptive strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, former Chief of Staff Dan Halutz told Channel 2 news on Saturday.

[...]

"We are taking upon ourselves a task that is bigger than us" Halutz, who stepped down in 2007, said when asked about Israeli leaders' vows to "take care" of the perceived threat.