Brazil refuses nuclear inspections

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,9186829%255E1702,00.html

THE Brazilian Government has reportedly refused to allow UN nuclear inspectors to examine a facility for enriching uranium under construction near Rio de Janeiro.

Citing unnamed Brazilian officials and diplomats in Vienna The Washington Post reported the International Atomic Energy Agency and Brazil were at an impasse over the inspections.

Brazil maintains that the facility in Resende will produce low-enriched uranium for use in power plants, not the highly enriched material used in nuclear weapons, according to the report.

Nonetheless, Brazil refuses to let IAEA inspectors see equipment in the plant, citing a need to protect proprietary information, the paper said.

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[arcos]

1. you beat me to it by one and a half mins!

MSNBC link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4661278/

I think this is ridiculous. I understand the need for complete nuclear inspections, but what they are not allowing for inspection is minimal.

"If we don't want these kinds of facilities in Iran or North Korea, we shouldn't want them in Brazil," said former U.S. nuclear negotiator James E. Goodby. "You have to apply the same rules to adversaries as you do to friends. I do not see that happening in Brazil."

Why shouldn't they be applied to YOURSELF too, then?


The Brazilian official acknowledged that inspectors are not permitted to see all the equipment at the Resende plant, but he said the IAEA is free to conduct sensitive tests on the surroundings, as well as uranium fed into the centrifuges and exiting the other end.

The coverings are "necessary to protect our technological breakthroughs," said the diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. He said the IAEA is "politically motivated to insist on visual access. We say that visual access is not indispensable.

I don't see anything wrong with his...

[Judi Lynn]

2. Ah, the terrifying "dual use" agenda!

Just throw Brazil into the mix of countries _Bush will have his State Department psychopaths harrassing continually.

He already has had his ambassador Donna Hrinak (over 30 years on the job as a FINE ambassador before the Selection) warning Brazil to support the US against Hugo Chavez, basically:

US Ambassador to Brazil Warns Lula About Venezuela Issues

Venezuelanalysis.com
March 09, 2004

Caracas, Venezuela, Mar. 09 (Venezuelanalysis.com).- Last Sunday, United States Ambassador to Brazil Donna Hrinak, gave a strong caution to the Brazilian government with relation to the South American giant's relationship with Venezuela and Cuba.
During a conference at Florida International University last Sunday, Hrinak said that her government expects Brazilian President Lula da Silva to convince Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez to adopt a "democratic solution" to the current political situation.

Hrinak was referring to the process of referenda currently underway in Venezuela to recall several lawmakers and President Chavez. After counting and validating 3.4 million signatures collected by opponents of Chavez, electoral authorities are requesting about a million of those listed in petitions with irregularities to confirm or deny their willingness to sign and their identity, in order to decide if the recall on Chavez should take place. Political opposition to Chavez and the commercial media, accuse the President of manipulating the process of recall.

Hrinak warned President Lula to "carefully calibrate his opposition" to certain political issues such as the current situations in Venezuela and Cuba, which are part of the main focus of the Bush administration in Latin America.
(snip)

http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/brazil/1642.html

Wouldn't you imagine claiming Brazil is close to entering the "axis of evil" list, becoming a "nookular threat" will provide _Bush with his excuse to act like an total ass toward them, trying to punish Brazil for electing a leftist President?

[NNN0LHI]

3. I posted this story over a year ago here at DU

http://www.loper.org/~george/archives/2003/Jan/12.html

Nuclear Proliferation: Brazil Needs A-Bomb Ability, Aide Says, Setting Off Furor

"RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan. 8 — A senior official in the left-wing government that took power last week has set off a furor here and alarmed neighboring countries by arguing that Brazil, Latin America's largest nation, should acquire the capacity to produce a nuclear weapon.

"Brazil is a country at peace, that has always preserved peace and is a defender of peace, but we need to be prepared, including technologically," Roberto Amaral, the newly appointed minister of science and technology, said in an interview with the Brazilian service of the BBC that was broadcast on Sunday night. "We can't renounce any form of scientific knowledge, whether the genome, DNA or nuclear fission," he added.

Mr. Amaral's remarks, coming as the United States faces a nuclear crisis with North Korea and is preparing for war with Iraq over its weapons programs, has reawakened debate over Brazil's own nuclear energy and research program, the most advanced in Latin America.

On Tuesday, a spokesman for President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was quick to distance the new president from Mr. Amaral's pronouncement that "mastery of the atomic cycle is important" to Brazil, saying that the minister's remarks were not an expression of official policy. "The government favors research in this area solely and exclusively for peaceful purposes," the spokesman, André Singer, told reporters at a news briefing in Brasília.

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[Crachet2004]

4. This is what pisses me off.

America's treatment of, and attitude towards other nations around the globe, is making the whole world a lot unsafer-thanks to George Bush.

I just wonder how many nations already have a nuclear weapon or two, you know, just in case...and how many others have the components lying close by, for quick assembly. I'll bet the list is long.

I think already, we are probably living in a sort of global MAD scenario, and that it is far too late to ever put the 'genie' back in the bottle. Too many different governments, in too many different countries, for too long a time, have had too many reasons to proliferate, for me to believe otherwise...both as recipients and donors of this technology.

To be a nation today without a nuke would be like being in prison without a shiv...somebody is eventually gonna punk you-sooner probably, rather than later.

And then, when the world community hears the US and Israel (followed closely by Russia), reserve the right of first strike for self defense, how are they supposed to act? I would think it would only intensify the motivation to acquire a commensurate ability.

The fact is, the US is NOT going to take over the world, we are not nearly strong enough. Nations of the world are not going to sit still and be bumped off one by one...eventually they will band together, and proliferate clandestinely, if nothing else. And even if we do take everyone out, one by one (like Dick Cheney has said he wants to: 'multi-generational, blah, blah blah'), it is apparent from Iraq that we simply do not have the wherewithal to occupy them, once conquered. Even WITH a draft, it cannot be done. Were we to attack, conquer, and have to occupy even one more small nation, Syria lets say, we would be completely bogged down and militarily tapped out on the ground...with no end in sight.

In other words, if Vietnam happened today, somebody behind the scenes would probably just give North Vietnam nukes, and that would be that. Russia, the Europeans, and China all have made it crystal clear, that our posturing does not impress them. We cannot conquer the world...all we have managed to do is piss everyone off at the same time-and what does that mean for nuclear proliferation?

There has never been a weapon built that remained unused. The current US drive towards One World, under our corporate hegemony, only accelerates the arrival of a time when such use becomes our new reality. The stated willingness of Bush to use these weapons first, has only made the unthinkable, a lot more thinkable...and again, I'd like to thank George Bush for that!

We need to change our whole approach to the world at large. Get back to our roots as an unentangled, progressive, enlightened nation, with a strong continental defense. The world is too connected these days for the old methods of control to work much longer. The lessons and lies with regards to Iraq are being driven home on a muchly compressed time frame, vis a vis Vietnam.

The truth always comes out...and these days, it happens in a hurry...and for this, no thanks to George Bush.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

5. Add this country to the list of countries we have either invaded,...

...threatened, or will soon threaten. That list is getting longer by the day.

[NNN0LHI]

6. kick