1. secrecy shrouds Iran's contingency centers
WASHINGTON - The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) published new evidence on Monday that Iran had been building "contingency centers" in the event of a United States bombing attack as early as 2002, years before it began building the second enrichment facility at Qom.
...The IAEA apparently intended to convey the idea that this was construction on a second enrichment plant. In a story published on November 13 - three days before the report was circulated to IAEA Governing Council members - an Associated Press reporter, George Jahn, reported unnamed diplomats as saying Iran had started building the plant in 2002, that the construction had paused for two years in 2004 because of Iran's suspension of enrichment and had resumed in 2006, when enrichment had been resumed openly.
Independent analysis of satellite imagery has shown, however, that those earlier images were of construction on the general purpose "contingency centers" rather than an enrichment facility. Paul Brannan, a satellite imagery analyst for the Institute for Science and International Security who has analyzed imagery of the same site from 2004 and 2005, concluded in a September 29 report that it was probably a tunnel facility for a purpose other than an enrichment facility.
read more @ asia times
2. media plans stir talk of elite force at helm in Iran
DUBAI: The portfolio of Iran's Revolutionary Guard keeps on growing. Its troops watch over nuclear facilities, its rocket scientists enlarge Iran's missile arsenal and its engineers have taken on a rail line as their latest big-ticket project. Could media mogul be next? Sometime early next year, a new voice is expected to join Iran's state-sanctioned media blitz: a full-service news agency with video, photos and print. The arrival of another government-backed news outlet is not much of a surprise.
...At a meeting of Asia-Pacific news agencies in Tehran on Sunday, Culture Minister Mohammad Hosseini did not specifically mention the plans for Atlas. But he denounced the influence of the "hegemonic powers" through international media organizations. "There is nothing unusual about the Revolutionary Guard moving openly into the media world," said Mehrzad Boroujerdi, an expert in Iranian affairs at Syracuse University. "They have been waging this war for years by going after Web sites and reformist media. It just shows they are getting more savvy about the utility of media - both old and new media.
read more @ kuwait times
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