This Al Jazeera report gives some background, ....
... that will help to understand this:
Something that ought to be relevant, to some extent, is that Iran was, at least until early 2014, a trading partner of Bolivia, and was reported by the state run BoliviaTV to have set up a fairly high-tech research and teaching centre near Potosi to do research into production of Lithium ion batteries. Then around a year to eighteen months later, it was reported that the Russian government had funded a US$300 million center for nuclear research in El Alto, La Paz. Early in 2016 I read report in Los Tiempos, here in Cochabamba, which claimed that this research facility would include a Uranium enrichment reactor. I have no idea to what level the propsed facility would have been capable if enriching the natural Uranium that is found in Bolivia. I think the story shows, though, that whether or not the IAEA's assessment of Iran's nuclear capability is something that could reasonably be considered to be a threat to peace in the middle-east depends to a great extent upon the quality of intelligence that one has about what may be going on in other countries like Bolivia and Venezuela, which I am told, also has a Russian reactor, and sources of Uranium ore. Needless to say, the quality of intelligence I have access to is not sufficient to make any such judgement.
... that will help to understand this:
Something that ought to be relevant, to some extent, is that Iran was, at least until early 2014, a trading partner of Bolivia, and was reported by the state run BoliviaTV to have set up a fairly high-tech research and teaching centre near Potosi to do research into production of Lithium ion batteries. Then around a year to eighteen months later, it was reported that the Russian government had funded a US$300 million center for nuclear research in El Alto, La Paz. Early in 2016 I read report in Los Tiempos, here in Cochabamba, which claimed that this research facility would include a Uranium enrichment reactor. I have no idea to what level the propsed facility would have been capable if enriching the natural Uranium that is found in Bolivia. I think the story shows, though, that whether or not the IAEA's assessment of Iran's nuclear capability is something that could reasonably be considered to be a threat to peace in the middle-east depends to a great extent upon the quality of intelligence that one has about what may be going on in other countries like Bolivia and Venezuela, which I am told, also has a Russian reactor, and sources of Uranium ore. Needless to say, the quality of intelligence I have access to is not sufficient to make any such judgement.
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