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Israel must comply with the demands of the International Atomic Energy Agency if the Mideast is to become a region free of weapons of mass destruction, Syria's foreign minister said Monday. Foreign Minister Walid Al-Moualem echoed calls by many Arab nations during the current U.N. General Assembly session for Israel to comply with the IAEA's demand to submit its nuclear facilities to the agency's safeguard regime and to adhere to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The treaty restricts any nuclear program to nonmilitary purposes. Israel has never said it has nuclear weapons, but is universally believed to possess a sizable arsenal of such warheads.

Israel must comply with the demands of the International Atomic Energy Agency if the Mideast is to become a region free of weapons of mass destruction, Syria's foreign minister said Monday. Foreign Minister Walid Al-Moualem echoed calls by many Arab nations during the current U.N. General Assembly session for Israel to comply with the IAEA's demand to submit its nuclear facilities to the agency's safeguard regime and to adhere to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The treaty restricts any nuclear program to nonmilitary purposes. Israel has never said it has nuclear weapons, but is universally believed to possess a sizable arsenal of such warheads.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit called on the UN Security Council to monitor the Israeli nuclear program, and to further order Mideast countries to strip of nuclear arms, Egyptian daily al-Masri al-Youm reported. "Israel's nuclear capabilities cannto evade world attention," Gheit said in a letter sent to the 15 nation members of the Security Council.

"Israel called "deeply flawed" and "hypocritical" a United Nations resolution ratified by 181 countries that calls for a 2012 conference on a nuclear-free Mideast, and said it would not take part in the talks. "Israel is not obligated by the decisions of this conference, which has no authority over Israel," a statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office distributed to press travelling with him in Toronto said. "It singles out Israel, the Middle East's only true democracy and the only country threatened with annihilation," the statement said. "It ignores the realities of the Middle East and the real threats facing the region and the entire world." "

The head of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog said Monday that tests were inconclusive on the source of traces of uranium found at a Syrian site bombed by Israel. The United States has said that site was an almost completed plutonium-producing reactor. International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei made the comments following a speech in Dubai in which he called for greater international dialogue.

The U.N. nuclear assembly on Saturday passed a resolution urging all Middle East nations to renounce atom bombs in a vote most Arabs boycotted over amendments they felt took pressure off Israel. The vote was 82-0 with 13 abstentions but disenchantment reigned after days of wrangling between Israel and Western nations on one hand and Arab and Islamic states on the other that polarized a body that normally operates on consensus.

If the unthinkable happened, would we be left on the day after, as radioactive dust settled, with the unknowable? If a terrorist nuclear bomb destroyed the heart of a great city, how would we know who did it, with what? Mideast fanatics with a device improvised from stolen uranium? A weapon smuggled in by a rogue regime? A hijacked U.S. bomb? Where do you strike back? How do you head off another attack? U.S. President Barack Obama calls nuclear terrorism "the most immediate and extreme threat to global security." It's an unthinkable that's being thought about daily in classified corners of world capitals.

"As the world grapples with controlling the spread of nuclear weapons, it's a time of complex choices in a Middle East edging between possible confrontation with Iran and possible movement towards Israeli-Palestinian peace. It's also a time of troubled relations between the United States and Israel. And yet at this critical moment, against expectations, there was a rare confluence of interests this week between the region's closest allies. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to skip the world nuclear conference convened by President Barack Obama in Washington. The U.S. leader may well have been quietly pleased by Netanyahu's decision to stay away and to send a lower level delegation. He had no wish to meet with Netanyahu while he's kept waiting for an answer to his demand that Israel changes policy about making peace with the Palestinians. "

"US officials are in talks with Egypt over a plan to make the Middle East a nuclear-free zone, part of an effort to block the Iranian nuclear program, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday. Citing unnamed US officials, the newspaper said the White House wanted to build on a non-binding agreement that emerged from a 1995 UN review of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). That agreement had designated the region as a zone free of weapons of mass destruction: the aim now was to promote a Middle East nuclear weapons-free zone, which would include Israel, the Arab states, Iran and Turkey. The US administration was also seeking a conference on the subject."

"Egypt and the United States were Tuesday trying to work out a compromise at the United Nations to start talks on a Middle East nuclear weapons-free zone, diplomats said. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had Monday told the conference on the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty being held here that the United States is "prepared to support practical measures" towards "the objective of a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction." Egyptian ambassador Hisham Badr on Tuesday told the some 150 nations at the three-week-long NPT meeting that the review conference should support taking "concrete and practical steps" for "the establishment of a Middle Eastern zone free of nuclear weapons, as well as other weapons of mass destruction.""

"In closed-door huddles extending into Thursday night, diplomats at a nuclear treaty conference sought to break a deadlock between the Arabs and Israel's allies over a plan to turn the Middle East into a nuclear weapons-free zone. A deal would likely clear the way for a broader consensus agreement Friday on doing more to check the spread of nuclear arms worldwide, successfully ending a monthlong, 189-nation conference to review and strengthen the 40-year-old Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). A draft final declaration would have the twice-a-decade treaty review session call for the convening of a conference in 2012 "on the establishment of a Middle East zone free of nuclear weapons and all other weapons of mass destruction.""

"Kuwait signed here Wednesday a Memorandum of Cooperation (MOC) with the US Government on nuclear safeguards and other nonproliferation topics. The MOC was signed by Secretary General of the Kuwait National Nuclear Energy Committee (KNNEC) Dr. Ahmad Bishara and the Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Thomas D'Agostino during a ceremony held at the Department of Energy. The MOC proposes cooperation in nuclear legislation and regulations; human resource planning and modeling; nuclear safeguards and security; radiation protection; environmental, safety and health issues; low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste management; reactor operations, safety and best practices. During the ceremony, D'Agostino said "it is clear that both of our countries recognize the importance of preventing nuclear proliferation, and keeping dangerous nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorists and proliferators."

"European experts and a representative of the U.N. nuclear watchdog attended an Arab conference on nuclear power, which ended Friday in Tunis. Yury Sokolov, deputy director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told delegates to the First Arab Conference on the Prospects of Nuclear Power for Electricity Generation and Seawater Desalination his agency believes international cooperation is important to nuclear development, AllAfrica.com reported. He also spoke of the need for transparency. The conference began Wednesday. On the final day a number of resolutions were adopted on the need for training and cooperation among Arab countries, KUNA, the Kuwaiti national news agency, reported."

"* Egypt wants to build four nuclear plants by 2025 * Cairo backed 2012 conference on WMD-free Middle East The U.N. nuclear watchdog is ready to cooperate with plans to build nuclear power plants in Egypt, which is now working on locations for construction, the head of the U.N. body said on Tuesday. Egypt said in March it planned to build four plants by 2025 and inaugurate the first in 2019 in an effort to reduce the most populous Arab country's reliance on oil and gas. Officials hope the programme would add capacity of up to 4,000 megawatts."

"Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said Tuesday his country will not stop its calls on Israel to join the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and submit its facilities to international observation. Following a meeting here with Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Yukiya Amano, Abul Gheit said his country will press ahead with its calls for submitting all Israeli nuclear facilities to international observation, state- run MENA news agency reported. "I can not imagine any one in Egypt would say that we stop calls for submitting Israeli facilities to the observation of international society represented in the IAEA," he said. Meanwhile, Abul Gheit said his meeting with Amano also touched upon ways the international watchdog could help Egypt to carry out its peaceful nuclear program."

"Reliable sources have revealed that as a result of a secret trial, Iranian nuclear whistleblower Amid Nasri has been sentenced to 18 years in solitary confinement. Nasri, a former worker at an Iranian uranium enrichment plant, revealed to the Sunday Times in London that Iran was developing nuclear materials as part of a program to create nuclear weapons. Lured to Rome by a strikingly beautiful Iranian secret agent, Nasri was kidnapped by the secret service and returned to Iran for trial. "

"We've talked often before about Turkey's many embarrassing attempts to build a nuclear reactor. Every time the plan falls down, it gets up again - it's had more comebacks than Freddie Krueger. Unable to admit defeat - and in the face of legal challenges, rigged bidding processes, and ludicrous, record-breaking costs - the country's government have resurrected the plan once again and have drawn up an agreement with Russia to build a nuclear reactor in the south of Turkey. The parliament will vote on the agreement this Friday."

"Nuclear energy is a double-edged sword that should be regulated and put under efficient controls, said Jamal Sharaf Chairman of the Jordan Nuclear Regulatory Commission JNRC. He told participants in a nuclear safety course held in cooperation with the Arab Atomic Energy Agency, that safety is the mainstay of radiation protection and control. Sharaf said that the JNRC was ready to receive Arab nuclear staff to be trained on nuclear safety and radiation control, urging broader Arab cooperation in this regard."

"We have seen the decades of suffering by the Palestinian people at the hands of the apartheid government of Israel and yet little has been said about another unseen problem that lies buried beneath the ground. Over a long period of time the Israeli Government has secretly been dumping highly radioactive waste from their Dimona Nuclear Facility on Palestinian land. What is ironic is the basis as to why they have dumped their waste at such locations. Many years ago I started up an environmental action group to safeguard the region I was living in at the time. This would cover all aspects of potential pollution from Gas Turbine Power Stations - Agricultural Pesticides - Air and Water Quality etc."

"The recent disclosure that the U.S. military is expanding its covert operations in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Horn of Africa is widely seen as a dangerous precedent, with Iran as one of the main targets. The Americans and their allies have long been waging a war of the shadows against the Islamic Republic, with Tehran often giving as good as it gets. On May 24, Abdolhamid Rigi, a senior commander of the largest insurgent group in Iran, Jundallah, was hanged for masterminding bombings and the murder of government officials."

Mordechai Vanunu's case is as much about suppressing dissent by a supposedly democratic state as it is a demonstration of western double standards. Had Mordechai Vanunu been, say, an Iranian or a Russian whistle-blower and facing persecution at home, he would have been assured of a prominent place in the western pantheon of heroes. But he is an Israeli dissident and Israel's friends in the West have no time for him. The Morocco-born Mr. Vanunu first hit the headlines more than two decades ago when he revealed details of Israel's secret nuclear programme to a British newspaper - an offence for which he served a long jail term. Since then, he has been fighting an almost lone battle against harassment by successive Israeli administrations even though since his release in 2004 he has not said or done anything to harm the country's security."