Iran moves closer to making a nuclear bomb

Iran claimed on June 22, to have stockpiled 100kg of enriched uranium, enough in theory to create two nuclear bombs of the kind that destroyed Hiroshima. The news will once again stoke fears that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's regime is seeking to build a nuclear weapon. Iran would need 50kg of weapons-grade uranium in order to make one nuclear weapon equal in power to the one dropped by the Americans in 1945. So far, the regime’s uranium has only been enriched to the level needed for generating electricity in civilian nuclear power stations. But if Iran chooses to enrich it to 84 per cent purity, it would reach weapons-grade level and become the essential material for building a bomb. Mustapha Pourmohammedi, Iran's interior minister, told the official news agency that the moment of maximum international pressure on his country had passed and that Teheran would press ahead with its nuclear programme. "When the world saw that the nation is pursuing this goal with unity, the world has surrendered. We have passed the dangerous moment," he said.