Obama May Cede Iran's Nuclear Rights

From the April 10, 2009 Asia Times
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KD10Ak03.html

So, apparently the Obama Administration's way to confront Iran's nuclear ambitions and promote nuclear non-proliferation is to...encourage Kazakhstan, the world's #2 holder of uranium reserves after Australia, to create an international uranium fuel bank. The theory, as I read it, is that Iran would stop sensitive internal uranium enrichment if it could obtain the uranium globally and peacefully for use in nuclear power plants. I need to do some more research on whether this uranium from a fuel bank can't be used for weaponization.

The article's author, a former Indian diplomat, editorializes (there's a lot of this with The Asia Times) that Kazakhstan President Nurusultan Nazarbayev (who according to the author, supposedly could've been the Soviet Union's PM if not for its collapse) is a shrewd veteran politician who's been trying to build support for this global uranium bank for a while. Apparently, the Japanese are big supporters of this idea as it is the world's 3rd largest importer of uranium, after the US and France, and it gives them a stable source. China and Russian are understandably not pleased with improved US-Japanese-Central Asian relations. Companies from both nations had been trying to persuade Kazakhstan to grant exclusive contracts, thereby increasing their influence on yet another Central Asian energy-rich nation.

US Electricity Grid Mapped by Spies

From the Wall Street Journal, April 8, 2009.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123914805204099085.html

Foreign cyber intrusions into US systems has been going on for a while but the big reveals in 2008 were that these intrusions increased, that Chinese and Russian sources attempted to map the US electrical grid, and these intruders left malicious software that when activated could disrupt electrical systems. When could these programs be activated? Well, according to intelligence officials...during a war.