Iran has know-how for atom bomb: report

IAEA to inspect new Qom site Oct. 25: ElBaradei
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DUBAI: Iran has “sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable” atom bomb according to the tentative conclusions of a confidential report by the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the New York Times reported late Saturday.
The conclusions, according to unnamed European officials, came from intelligence agencies and its own investigations and go beyond the public positions taken by many governments, including the United States, that Tehran had halted its nuclear weapon program.
In 2007 the U.S. intelligence community determined that in 2003 Iran stopped its alleged efforts to design a nuclear warhead and last month the International Atomic Energy Agency said it “has no concrete proof” that Iran ever sought to make or perfect nuclear arms.
IAEA chief Mohammed ElBaradei, due in Iran on Saturday for talks, was quoted Saturday as saying in India that “a major question” about the evidence’s authenticity prevented the agency from “making any judgment at all” on that point.
A senior U.S. official said last week the U.S is revaluating its assessment, said the Times.
The latest report, titled "Possible Military Dimensions of Iran’s Nuclear Program," came just days after Iran revealed a secret underground nuclear enrichment center under construction near the holy city of Qom.
It describes a complex program, started in 2002 by Iran’s Ministry of Defense, "aimed at the development of a nuclear payload to be delivered using the Shahab 3 missile system," which can strike the Middle East and parts of Europe, according to the paper.
But the IAEA report does not say how far work has progressed and is careful to caution in its introduction that the “conclusions are tentative and subject to further confirmation of the evidence,” according to the Times report.
Tehran has repeatedly denied it is developing nuclear weapons and insists its program is for peaceful purposes only. On Thursday Iran met with the six world powers in talks aimed at resolving the standoff over its nuclear program.
From conspiracy to cooperation
Meanwhile the IAEA's ElBaradei said on Sunday the agency will inspect Iran's new uranium enrichment site in Qom on Oct. 25.
ElBaradei said at a news conference with Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, that Iran's relations with the West were moving from "conspiracy" to "cooperation" and that the nuclear dispute could be solved through diplomacy.
"It is important for us to have comprehensive cooperation over the Qom site. We had dialogue, we had talks on clarification of the facility in Qom, which is a pilot enrichment plant," ElBaradei said, adding Iran should have informed the IAEA of Qom when it decided to build the site.
Salehi praised his talks with the U.N. agency chief as "very successful."

Saudi cleric resigns over co-ed university spat

Opposition to mixing gender at KAUST drew criticism
DUBAI: A top Saudi cleric resigned from the board of the Council of Senior Clerics Sunday in the wake of controversy over his statements opposing gender mixing at the first co-ed university in the Kingdom.
Sheikh Saad bin Nasser al-Shethri’s resignation from the senior ulema came just days after he appeared on the Qatar-based al-Majd satellite channel and lashed out at the newly-opened King Abdullah Science and Technology University for offering co-education.
Shithri was one of several clerics who objected to the mixed gender university, which is outside the purview of the conservative cleric-dominated education ministry.
Saudi king Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, who has promoted reforms since taking office in 2005, accepted Shithri's resignation.
The senior cleric said religious scholars should vet the curriculum to prevent alien ideologies such as "evolution" and set up a committee to ensure it does not violate sharia, or Islamic law.
"We are looking at some of the sciences that have included some irregular and alien ideologies, like evolution and such other ideologies," the daily al-Watan newspaper quoted Shithri as saying last week in response to a viewer’s question.
He later withdraw his statements and stressed the importance of the university in the progress of education. He also accused journalists of taking his statements out of context.
Al-Majd TV sought to distance itself from the channel, saying it is not responsible for Shithri’s statements. Executive director Ahmed Saqr stressed that the comments reflected the sheikh’s personal opinion.
Media campaign
Shithri’s statements sparked outrage among Saudi liberals and columnists, who have been supportive of the university and liberalizing education and accused both the Shethri and the station of overlooking the significant educational role of the university and of focusing on minor issues that are likely to spread controversy.
“Amidst the Kingdom’s celebrations marking the opening of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) there were some calls which bore the dust of Tora Bora and belittled this gigantic national accomplishment by raising the issue of co-education,” Khalaf Al-Harbi wrote in the Arabic daily Okaz.
A columnist for the London-based Asharq al-Awsat described the singular focus on co-education as “the chronic state of obsession with virtue creeping in once again.”
"This is a strategy for the conservatives to control the university or at least have a major say in it. This is the old trick for them to have the upper hand to sabotage reform," said Jamal Khashoggi, editor-in-chief of al-Watan.
King Abdullah's University of Science and Technology (KAUST), designed to produce Saudi scientists, is the only educational institution in the kingdom where men and women can mix. It is located near a Red Sea village away from the clutches of religious police.
It has attracted top scientists from around the world with research potential unmatched in many advanced countries and one of the largest endowments in the world.

Aging in muscles likely to be reversed?

NEW YORK: Researchers have discovered a way of boosting the muscle regeneration process in old age back to the levels of the young.
They found that an enzyme that acts as a catalyst to repair and maintenance of muscles is much lower in older people than the young. By increasing its concentration in the elderly, they believe they can restore “youthful vigour” to old muscles.
Scientists hope the breakthrough could lead to new treatments that rejuvenate and strengthen ageing bodies or combat degenerative diseases.
It is well known that as people get older, their ability to restore and rebuild lost muscle is weakened.
Researchers at the University of California, working with colleagues from the Institute of Sports Medicine and Centre of Healthy Ageing at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, compared muscle tissue samples from around 30 healthy men.
Half the volunteers were young 21 to 24-year-olds and half aged between 68 and 74.
At the start of the study, samples of muscle tissue were surgically removed from the participants’ thighs.
The men then had the leg from which the biopsies were taken immobilised in a cast for two weeks so that their muscles atrophied.
After the casts were removed, the men exercised with weights to rebuild their wasted muscles. More tissue samples were removed three days and four weeks after removal of the casts and sent to Prof Conboy’s laboratory.
The scientists found that during the exercise period the muscles of younger volunteers had four times more regenerative stem cells engaged in tissue repair than those of older participants.
Old muscle also showed signs of damaging inflammation and scarring.
Analysis of the samples revealed for the first time a biological pathway involved in muscle repair that relied on an enzyme called mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK).
The enzyme, a type of active protein, stimulated a biological “switch” on muscle stem cells called Notch that triggered growth.
MAPK is known to be important for organ formation during embryonic development in species as wide-ranging as worms, fruit flies and mice.
In old human muscle, MAPK levels were low and prevented tissue repair, the researchers reported in the journal EMBO Molecular Medicine.
The scientists found they could block muscle regeneration in the young tissue samples by artificially reducing MAPK levels.
But the reverse effect was seen when they grew old muscle cells in a solution that forced MAPK activation. Suddenly, the old muscle regained its ability to regenerate.
Professor Irina Conboy, who led the research, said: “Our study shows that the ability of old human muscle to be maintained and repaired by muscle stem cells can be restored to youthful vigour given the right mix of biochemical signals.
“The fact that this MAPK pathway has been conserved throughout evolution, from worms to flies to humans, shows that it is important,” said Prof Conboy.
“Now we know that it plays a key role in regulation and ageing of human tissue regeneration.”

8 U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan

KABUL: Eight U.S. service members were killed in coordinated attacks on two outposts in a remote area of eastern Afghanistan, military officials said Sunday.

The attacks in Nuristan province, which took place Saturday, also killed two Afghan soldiers, NATO's International Security Assistance Force said in a statement.

A spokeswoman for U.S. forces, Capt. Elizabeth Mathias, confirmed that all the Western fatalities were Americans. The deaths marked the largest single losses of American lives in months in a single engagement.

Many remote outposts like the ones that were hit in this assault by what NATO described as "tribal militia" are due to be shut down under a new strategy put forth by U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of all Western troops in Afghanistan.

India raring to buy 50 more fighters from Russia

MOSCOW: India wants to buy another 50 Sukhoi-30MKI multi-role fighters, an Indian daily reported.
According to the daily, the 50 air-superiority fighters will come on top of the 230 already contracted from Russia in three deals worth a total of $8.5 billion.
The paper quoted Indian Air Force (IAF) chief Marshal P V Naik as saying his force was indeed "interested" in acquiring more Sukhois, which will be "the mainstay of India's fighter fleet for the foreseeable future, to further enhance its combat potential."
He stressed, however, that the acquisition was not "country or adversary-specific."
India previously said it was satisfied with the performance of Russian Su-30MKI fighters.
The IAF originally ordered 50 Su-30MKI aircraft from Russia in 1996-98 and an additional 40 planes in 2007. Hindustani Aeronautics (HAL) was also contracted to build 140 aircraft in India between 2003 and 2017 under a licensed production agreement.