So the IAEA “announced”:http://iaea.org/newscenter/news/2011/cleanlabext.html a few days back that it has opened the Safeguards Clean Laboratory Extension, which is part of the Environmental Sample Laboratory located at SAL. That laboratory, as the IAEA “explains,”:http://www.iaea.org/OurWork/SV/Safeguards/analytical-services.html analyzes environmental samples in order to help “detect the absence of undeclared material and activities in” IAEA member-states.

This is distinct from the Nuclear Material Laboratory, which is also located at SAL and analyzes nuclear material samples collected from member-states’ declared nuclear facilities in order to “verify States’ nuclear material accountancy declarations.”

Anyway, the clean lab extension houses a new Large Geometry Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometer (LG-SIMS) which, according to the IAEA, is pretty amazing:

bq. If human vision were as acute as the LG-SIMS, we would be able to sort through millions of objects in the asteroid belt to detect a single tennis ball. This level of resolution is needed when the Clean Laboratory Extension is analysing minute particles whose weight is measured in “femtograms”. That unit is equivalent to a quadrillionth of a gram, roughly 10 000 times smaller than a grain of sand, or about the weight of a human cell. Such precise analysis allows forensic experts in Seibersdorf to determine a uranium isotope particle’s distinctive fingerprint. Those clues then yield information about where it was mined, how it was processed and to which level of enrichment.

That paragraph is IAEA-speak for “dog’s bollocks.”

You all know that ISIS and “Arms Control Wonk”:http://lewis.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/4447/iaea-dg-reports-on-iran-dprk posted the IAEA reports on “North Korea”:http://isis-online.org/uploads/isis-reports/documents/IAEA_DPRK_2Sept2011.pdf and “Iran.”:http://isis-online.org/uploads/isis-reports/documents/IAEA_Iran_2Sept2011.pdf

Each document has several interesting aspects, but I was struck by the section of the N Korea report which explains that Libya told the IAEA in 2003 that it had imported from the AQK network “two small cylinders containing UF6 in September 2000, and one large cylinder containing UF6 in February 2001.”

This is significant, I think, because it’s the first time that the IAEA has confirmed that the natural UF6 in the large container “very likely” originated in North Korea. That wasn’t “so clear”:http://www.armscontrol.org/print/1763 a few years ago. This also, of course, indicates that North Korea had non-trivial “undeclared conversion capabilities prior to 2001.” There have been question marks about such a capability.

Interestingly, the report says that the UF6 in the other two containers probably didn’t come from N Korea, even though all three containers were in that country. The report does not say where this UF6 came from.

Not bad for one paragraph.

*UPDATE:*

Ah. ISIS “noticed this as well.”:http://isis-online.org/isis-reports/detail/isis-analysis-of-iaea-safeguards-report-on-the-democratic-peoples-republic-/

Well.

The IAEA is “hosting”:http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/2011/prn201112.html the Forum on Experience of Possible Relevance to the Creation of a Nuclear-Weapons-Free Zone in the Middle East 11/21-22. Interesting.

It’d have more of a ring if his name were “Tinneur,” but nothing to be done about that.

Anyway, I recently ran across “this link”:http://www.parlament.ch/e/organe-mitglieder/delegationen/geschaeftspruefungsdelegation/fall-tinner/Pages/default.aspx which includes all of the public Swiss government documents related to the Tinner matter. Take a look.

On a related note, I’ve occasionally imagined that AQK’s haggling might have gone something like this:

The Wonk was “kind enough”:http://lewis.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/4383/libyas-scud-b-force to cite “a piece”:http://www.armscontrol.org/print/1549 I wrote way back when regarding Libya’s Scud-B missiles, so I was inspired to blog this small item.

As you likely know, Libya has destroyed its CW munitions, but not all of its agent. Yet there are still OPCW reports and “documents”:http://www.opcw.org/news/article/opcw-expresses-concerns-over-chemical-weapons-stockpiles-in-libya/ which refer to Libya’s “chemical weapons.”

My understanding is that the OPCW uses the terms “chemical “weapons” and “chemical agents” interchangeably. That makes sense, given the definitions in “Article II”:http://www.opcw.org/chemical-weapons-convention/articles/article-ii-definitions-and-criteria/ of the CWC:

bq.. 1. “Chemical Weapons” means the following, together or separately:

a. Toxic chemicals and their precursors, except where intended for purposes not prohibited under this Convention, as long as the types and quantities are consistent with such purposes;

b. Munitions and devices, specifically designed to cause death or other harm through the toxic properties of those toxic chemicals specified in subparagraph (a), which would be released as a result of the employment of such munitions and devices;

c. Any equipment specifically designed for use directly in connection with the employment of munitions and devices specified in subparagraph (b).

p. Stay dry.

The IAEA recently posted “a letter”:http://iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Infcircs/2011/infcirc823.pdf from Iran’s Mission to the IAEA which criticized IAEA DG Amano’s May “report”:http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2011/gov2011-29.pdf to the BoG.

Para 9 of the letter includes this line:

bq. …the DG’s report which marked [sic] as “Restricted Distribution” is disseminated on the ISIS website upon its distribution exactly on the date of its issuance.

Making friends, ISIS is…

Former President of Pakistan, “Pervez Musharraf,”:http://www.presidentofpakistan.gov.pk/index.php?lang=en&opc=2&sel=4&pId=10 on “CNN last month:”:http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1107/21/sitroom.02.html

bq.. BLITZER: How many nuclear bombs does Pakistan have?

MUSHARRAF: I don’t know.

BLITZER: About?

MUSHARRAF: No idea.

BLITZER: A hundred?

MUSHARRAF: Well, I don’t know. I don’t know.

BLITZER: But you knew when you were the president.

MUSHARRAF: Oh, no…

BLITZER: You wouldn’t even know that as president of Pakistan?

MUSHARRAF: No, not at all. They don’t give me that figure. I mean, why am I concerned whether it is 98 or 89 or something? I am not concerned about the figures.

BLITZER: Let me…

MUSHARRAF: What difference does it make if we are 94 or whether it’s
54 or 94 or 150 or — what does that mean?

p. To be fair, I’m not sure there are that many leaders of states with nuclear weapons who know exactly how many they have.

KCNA had some “kind words”:http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2010/201011/news10/20101110-03ee.html for my ACA successor Peter Crail’s Nonproliferation and Disarmament “Report Card.”::http://www.armscontrol.org/reports/2009to2010ReportCard

They described the report card as

bq. nothing but a despicable plot to weaken the DPRK’s nuclear deterrence for self-defence and isolate it in the international arena as it was part of the U.S. nuclear policy.

I’m not sure I understand…that’s hardly nothing.

The NYT “has it.”:http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/UNSCR_Iran_18_May_2010_to_UNSC.pdf

[Insert brilliant analysis.]