Nuclear Weapons

[In 1995] President Boris Yeltsin was informed that a nuclear missile was speeding towards the heart of Russia. Russian nuclear forces, already on a hair-trigger alert, were put on even higher alert, ready to launch at his command.

The fate of the planet hung in the balance as hundreds of millions of people were going about their daily lives.

Russian policy called for a “launch on warning.” “Use them or loose them.”

Yeltsin wisely waited. And within those fateful moments, the Russians were able to declare a false alarm. An unimaginable nuclear disaster had barely been avoided.

China coal mine accident traps at least 43

A coal excavator. File picture.
Image by: HO / REUTERS

An accident at a coal mine in China trapped at least 43 workers underground on Thursday, state media and officials said, the latest in a string of incidents to hit the country's vast mining industry.

Rescuers had rushed to the scene of the accident, which occurred early Thursday morning in the southwestern province of Yunnan, the official Xinhua news agency said.

The cause of the accident was not immediately clear. Xinhua said there had been a gas leak, indicating a possible explosion, while a local mine safety official told AFP the mine may have been hit by a "coal and gas outburst."

An outburst is a sudden and violent ejection of coal, gas and rock from a coal face in an underground mine, which can seriously hurt people and damage machinery.

The accident comes days after a rock blast in a coal mine in the central province of Henan trapped dozens of workers underground, most of whom were eventually pulled out after a 40-hour rescue operation, though 10 were killed.

Coal mine accidents are common in China, where work safety is often neglected by bosses seeking a quick profit.

Last year, 2,433 people died in coal mining accidents in the country, according to official statistics -- a rate of more than six workers per day.

Labour rights groups, however, say the actual death toll is likely to be much higher, partly due to under-reporting of accidents as mine bosses seek to limit their economic losses and avoid punishment.

China's rapid economic growth has caused demand for energy, including coal, to surge.

The Asian nation is the world's leading consumer of coal, relying on it for 70 percent of its growing energy needs.

Over the past eight years it has on average built one coal-fired power station a week. And with the arrival of winter, mines are operating at full capacity.

Fatalities at Chinese coal mines peaked in 2002 when 6,995 deaths were recorded, sparking efforts by the government to boost safety standards.

In its latest campaign, the government last year issued a policy that required six kinds of safety systems -- including rescue facilities -- to be installed in all coal mines within three years.

But accidents still occur on a regular basis. Last month, a gas explosion at a state-owned coal mine in the central province of Hunan left 29 miners dead.

Earlier in October, blasts at mines in the southwestern city of Chongqing and the northern province of Shaanxi killed 13 and 11 miners respectively.

Telaviv mum on Iran nuclear report

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks from his office in Jerusalem September 10, 2011, after rioting forced the evacuation of Israel's Cairo embassy. File photo.
Image by: RONEN ZVULUN / REUTERS

Israeli officials are tight-lipped following the release of a damning report by the UN nuclear watchdog on Iran's controversial nuclear programme.

"We're studying the report," said an official in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's bureau.

Israel's military radio said Netanyahu had ordered his ministers not to comment on the matter out of concern that any statement or Israeli move would draw international criticism and play into Iran's hands.

But opposition leader and Kadima party chairman Tzipi Livni said publication of the report meant Israel should push the world to act firmly to stop Iran.

". Israel must galvanise the free world to stop Iran," she said. "Determination and diplomatic wisdom are crucial now." Head of the Knesset's foreign and defence committee Shaul Mofaz said the "severe report" provided the free world with the opportunity to "take action" against Iran.

Chavez says unknown submarine enters Venezuelan seas

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. File photo.
Image by: JORGE SILVA / REUTERS

Venezuela president Hugo Chavez said on Wednesday an unidentified nuclear-powered submarine violated Venezuelan territorial waters this week and was chased away by the South American nation's navy.

"It escaped because it is much faster than our vessels," Chavez said in a late-evening call to state television. "We're investigating, fortunately our marines resisted provocation."

Chavez is wont to raise the specter of possible foreign threats to his socialist government, especially from the United States. He gave scant details of the incident that he said took place on Tuesday.

"We can't accuse anyone because we don't have details," he said. "You know how the empires used to go around the Caribbean poking their noses everywhere using satellite spying."

Drug-traffickers in the region are known to have begun using submarines to transport cocaine from Colombia to the United States and further afield.

"Obviously, from its speed and size, it's a nuclear-powered submarine. Anyway, we're checking," Chavez added.

In brief comments, he also lambasted U.S. drug and crime official William Brownfield for remarks this week about an "explosion" of drug trafficking through Venezuela.

A former ambassador to Venezuela, Brownfield is currently the top official for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs at the U.S. Department of State.

Chavez said Brownfield was "ridiculous" and his government would give a formal response shortly.

Iran nuclear issue

China urges peaceful resolution to Iran nuclear issue

Iranian students holding pictures of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei stand in front of an anti U.S. mural, painted on the wall of the former U.S. Embassy in Tehran November 4, 2011.
Image by: RAHEB HOMAVANDI / REUTERS

China called on Wednesday for a peaceful resolution of the Iran nuclear issue after the International Atomic Energy Agency concluded Tehran appears to have conducted work on designing an atomic weapon.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said China was still studying the report, but urged Iran to show "flexibility" and "sincerity".

"China advocates using peaceful means to resolve the Iran nuclear issue," he told a daily news briefing.

Russia arrests 'cemetery collector' with 29 bodies

Grainy police video images of the man's cramped flat showed what look like several life-sized female dolls without faces, some with platinum blond wigs.

"During a search of his flat and garage, 29 self-made, life-size dolls dressed in the clothes of buried people were found," a spokesman for police in Nizhny Novgorod, 400 km (250 miles) east of Moscow, said on Tuesday.

"It was ascertained that he used mummified human bodies from graves to make them (the dolls)."

Police described the man, who was arrested following the desecration of graves in the area, as a local historian and an expert in the study of place names.

Media cited friends as saying they had never seen the dolls and that he was a learned, if eccentric, man.

Iran nuclear standoff enters more dangerous phase-UK

Iranian workers stand in front of the Bushehr nuclear power plant, about 1,200 km south of Tehran. File picture
Image by: STRINGER/IRAN

The standoff over Iran's nuclear programme is entering a more dangerous phase and the risk of conflict will increase if Iran does not negotiate, British Foreign Secretary William Hague warned.

He said Britain was considering further sanctions on Iran's financial and energy sectors after a U.N. nuclear agency report that he said "completely discredited" Iran's assertion that its nuclear programme was peaceful.

He said Britain, one of six powers that have been handling the nuclear dispute with Iran, wanted a negotiated solution and was not advocating military action, but he said no option had been taken off the table.

"We are entering a more dangerous phase ... The longer Iran goes on pursuing a nuclear weapons programme without responding adequately to calls for negotiations from the rest of us, the greater the risk of a conflict as a result," Hague told parliament.

The U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said in a report that Iran appeared to have worked on designing an atomic bomb and may still be conducting secret research to that end.

There has been heightened speculation in the Israeli media that Israel may strike against Iran's nuclear sites and speculation in the British press about a possible U.S. strike.

Iran rejected the IAEA report as politically motivated and said it was ready for negotiations, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.

Hague said Britain was "prepared to have further talks but only if Iran is prepared to engage in serious negotiations about its nuclear programme without preconditions."

PRESSURE

"If not, we must continue to increase the pressure and we are considering with our partners a range of additional measures to that effect," Hague added.

As well as talking to allies about further sanctions, Britain was considering further unilateral measures if Iran failed to "comply with (its) responsibilities," he said.

"We are looking at additional measures against the Iranian financial sector, the oil and gas sector, and the designation (on a sanctions list) of further entities and individuals involved with their nuclear programme," he said.

Hague did not say in which forum Britain would seek more sanctions. But he recognised the difficulty of gaining agreement on more U.N. Security Council sanctions given likely Russian and Chinese resistance. However, he said there "will be a strong case for further discussions at the U.N."

Government sources said Britain was more likely to pursue further sanctions with like-minded countries or at the EU level.

The IAEA report was "bad news" for nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, Hague said.

Iran's nuclear programme "threatens to drive a coach and horses through the (nuclear) Non-Proliferation Treaty ... It makes it much more likely that other states in the region will develop their own nuclear weapons programmes and the world's most unstable region will be in possesion of the world's most destructive weapons," he said.

Israel, Iran's arch-foe and a close strategic ally of Western powers, is widely believed to have the Middle East region's only nuclear arsenal, dating back decades. It has never confirmed or denied this, under a policy of ambiguity to deter attacks by Arab and Iranian enemies.

Iran mastered critical steps to build nuke: report

The Iranian government has mastered the critical steps needed to build a nuclear weapon after receiving assistance from foreign scientists, The Washington Post reported late Sunday.

Citing unnamed Western diplomats and nuclear experts familiar with new intelligence to be released to the United Nations, the newspaper said a former Soviet weapons scientist had allegedly tutored Iranians on building high-precision detonators of the kind used to trigger a nuclear chain reaction.

Crucial technology linked to experts in Pakistan and North Korea also helped propel Iran to the threshold of nuclear capability, the report said.

An intelligence update will be circulated among International Atomic Energy Agency members on Tuesday or Wednesday. It is expected to focus on Iran's alleged efforts towards putting radioactive material in a warhead and developing missiles.

Iranian officials have already seen the Vienna-based IAEA's information, diplomats told AFP, and Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said in comments published in Iran on Sunday that it was based on "counterfeit" claims.

However Western officials said the intelligence reinforced concerns that Iran continued to conduct weapons-related research after 2003 when, according to US intelligence agencies, Iranian leaders halted such experiments in response to international and domestic pressures, The Post said.

The paper noted that one key breakthrough that had not been publicly described was Iran's success in obtaining design information for a device known as a R265 generator.

The device is a hemispherical aluminum shell that is lined with pellets of high explosives and electrically wired so the detonations occur in split-second precision, the report said. The explosions compress a small sphere of enriched uranium or plutonium to trigger a nuclear chain reaction.

Creating such a device is a formidable technical challenge, and Iran needed outside assistance in designing the generator and testing its performance, the paper said.

According to the intelligence provided to the IAEA, key assistance in both areas was provided by Vyacheslav Danilenko, a former Soviet nuclear scientist who was contracted in the mid-1990s by Iran's Physics Research Center, the paper said.

Danilenko offered assistance to the Iranians over at least five years, giving lectures and sharing research papers on developing and testing an explosives package that the Iranians apparently incorporated into their warhead design, said The Post, citing two officials with access to the IAEA's confidential files.

Australian cat walks 3,000 km

That is the barely credible story from Sheree Gale, the owner of transcontinental tabby Jessie, who took 15 months to make the great trek from a farm near Darwin back to a homestead near Adelaide.

"I've heard too many stories like this not to believe Jessie's owners," Sydney veterinarian Peter Higgins said Tuesday.

"Cats and dogs don't have the cognitive ability that we have but if you think about it logically they instinctively know how to get back to where they came from. It's what they do in the wild."

Gale had two cats, Jessie and Jack, when she moved to Darwin in 2010. Jack missed the flight because he was off wandering.

Gale was in touch with the family who rented her house and learned that Jack had returned and taken up residence.

"In May 2011 they told us that Jessie had rocked up. They sent us photographs and it was her. It was definitely Jessie," Gale told national broadcaster ABC.

She agrees that it is difficult to believe a 10-year-old cat would make that 3,000-kilometre journey.

"I know it seems totally ridiculous," she said. "But when you think she's an old farm cat who is tough as nails who has never been to a vet in her life and has walked for several kilometres a day."

Gale reckons it is unlikely that a farm cat like Jessie, timid and unused to vehicles, hitched a ride on a truck or on the train.

She also said that timing was important.

"Mother Nature was on her side because it was the year of the big wet season, which was closely followed by the mouse plague and the grasshopper plague and so there was food and water all the way down. Another year and I don't think she would have made it," she said.

Gale said she would not be separating Jessie and Jack again.