'Pakistan, N. Korea aided Iran's nuclear program'

The next IAEA report on the Iranian nuclear program will reveal that Tehran received assistance from several foreign countries, including Russia, Pakistan and North Korea, Western diplomats said Tuesday.

According to several media outlets, including the Washington Post, the UN's nuclear watchdog has concluded

that Iran's nuclear program received assistance from Russian scientists on "how to build high-precision detonators that can be used to trigger nuclear chain reactions."Former Soviet scientist Vyacheslav Danilenko was allegedly contacted by Iran's Physics Research Center in the mid-1990s to assist in its nuclear efforts. Documents obtained by the IAEA suggest he helped design a high-explosive device used to trigger a nuclear chain reaction.

The UK's Daily Telegraph reported the some of the findings substantiate reports suggesting that Abdul Qadeer Khan, who is considered the "father" of Pakistan's atom bomb, gave Iran the necessary blueprints for a neutron initiator – a key element in nuclear bombs.

North Korean scientists have reportedly provided mathematical formulas and codes involved in designing a nuclear device.

The IAEA has reportedly obtained evidence supporting the claim that Iran has implemented a computer simulation of a nuclear warhead.

David Albright, a former IAEA official who reviewed the report's findings, was quoted as saying that Iran "has sufficient information to design and produce a workable implosion nuclear device using highly enriched uranium as its fissile core."

While speculations about a possible strike against Iran's nuclear facilities have grown, the United States, UK and Russia have said that "tough diplomacy" has yet to be exhausted.

The international community is pushing for a new round of sanctions on Iran, which experts say are likely to have a more significant "bite."

Israel said it expects the international community to impose "debilitating sanctions" on the Islamic Republic.

"Even if the UN Security Council will find it hard to issue dramatic sanctions, Iran could still suffer from financial sanctions – it has financial interests which are vulnerable," a Jerusalem source said.

Q & A: Understanding the Saudi-Iran rivalry

Why are Saudi Arabia and Iran rivals?

The rivalry revolves around ethnicity, religion, oil and influence. Saudi Arabia is predominantly Arab and Sunni while Iran is majority Shia and Persian. The former has the largest proven oil reserves in the world. The latter

has the second largest. Both countries consider themselves to be the leader of the Muslim world. Their animosity flared in the wake of the 1979 Iranian revolution. Iran’s newly installed ruling Shia clergy unnerved conservative Sunni Saudi Arabia. Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomaini exacerbated matters by criticizing Saudi Arabia for its support of Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. While relations between the two countries improved slightly after Ayatollah Khomaini’s death in 1989, they soured again when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005.

What is the evidence of this rivalry?

Before allegations of an assassination plot surfaced, the most prominent evidence of Saudi Arabia and Iran’s rivalry was their efforts to influence the many protests across the Middle East, which has sparked a proxy war for regional dominance. Saudi’s King Abdullah felt so threatened by the democratic revolutions that he announced a series of measures such as raising of public-sector salaries and launching new social programs to shore up stability. While Iran has historically fed off unrest – recent conflicts in Iraq, southern Lebanon and Gaza have increased its power – the protests in Syria, its ally, hit close to home for Mr. Ahmadinejad. The rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran was perhaps most keenly felt in Bahrain. When pro-democracy demonstrations erupted, Saudi Arabia sent in troops to crush them, fearing Shia protesters would overthrow Bahrain’s Sunni king.

What are the implications of this plot on this rivalry?

The immediate result with be further entrenchment on both sides of the Saudi-Iran divide. Relations have recently been somewhat strained between the United States and Saudi Arabia over the events of the Arab Spring. The historic alliance between the two countries will undoubtedly strengthen in the face of the alleged Iranian plot. Iran will become further isolated. The stage is set for a potentially dangerous confrontation.

Iran sentences 2 U.S. hikers to 8 years in prison

Two American men arrested more than two years ago while hiking along the Iraq-Iran border have been sentenced to eight years in prison on charges that include espionage, state TV reported Saturday, a sharp blow to hopes their release was imminent.

The announcement seemed to send a hard-line message from Iran's judiciary - which answers directly to the

ruling clerics - weeks after the country's foreign minister suggested that the trial of Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal could clear the way for their freedom.

It also was likely to raise speculation about Iran using the Americans, both UC Berkeley graduates, as political bargaining chips, and could bring added tensions to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's expected visit to New York next month for the annual General Assembly at the United Nations.

In Washington, State Department Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland restated U.S. appeals for their release.

"It is time to reunite them with their families," she said.

A spokeswoman for the men's relatives said only that the families were aware of the report and awaiting confirmation. "They are asking for privacy during this difficult time," Samantha Topping said.

The Americans, whose final court hearing was three weeks ago, deny the charges and say they were only hiking in a scenic and largely peaceful area of northern Iraq near the porous border.

They were detained in July 2009 along with a third American, Sarah Shourd, who was released in September 2010 on $500,000 bail and returned to the United States. Shourd's case "is still open," the state-run TV website irinn.ir reported.

Bauer and Fattal, both 29, have been sentenced to three years each for illegal entry into Iran and five years each for spying for the United States, the website quoted "informed sources" at Iran's judiciary as saying. It was not immediately clear if that includes time served. They have 20 days to appeal the sentence.

Their Iranian attorney, Masoud Shafiei, said he had not been notified of the verdict but will definitely appeal.

The Americans say they mistakenly crossed into Iran when they stepped off a dirt road while hiking near a waterfall in the Kurdish region of Iraq. While other parts of Iraq remain troubled by violence, the semiautonomous Kurdish north has drawn tourists in recent years, including foreigners.

Earlier this month, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said he hoped "the trial of the two American defendants who were detained for the crime of illegally entering Iran will finally lead to their freedom." Their lawyer also had expressed hope they might receive a pardon for the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

Shourd is back living in Oakland; Bauer grew up in Onamia, Minn.; and Fattal is from suburban Philadelphia.

Their case most closely parallels that of freelance journalist Roxana Saberi, an Iranian American who was convicted of spying before being released in May 2009. Saberi was sentenced to eight years in prison, but an appeals court reduced that to a two-year suspended sentence and let her return to the United States.

At the time, a spokesman for the Iranian judiciary said the court ordered the reduction as a gesture of "Islamic mercy" because Saberi had cooperated with authorities and expressed regret.

5 foreign journalists freed by Libya and Iran

The Libyan government released four foreign journalists on Wednesday and a fifth reached freedom in Qatar after disappearing while on assignment in Syria, the latest reporters to be freed after being swept up while covering unrest in the Middle East.

Americans Clare Morgana Gillis and James Foley, along with British freelance reporter Nigel Chandler and Spanish photographer Manuel Varela, appeared at a Tripoli hotel after being released from six weeks of detention in Libya.

Earlier, Iranian-born Dorothy Parvaz, who has U.S. and Canadian citizenship and works for Al-Jazeera television, arrived at her network's home base in Doha after being freed by Iran. All five were reported in good health.

"I've spoken to our son," Diane Foley of Rochester, N.H., told The Associated Press. "He's in good health, he's feeling very, very relieved. He's feeling very hopeful."

She said the first thing he said to her on the phone was " 'Hey, ma, it's me. It's Jim. I'm fine, we're at a hotel.' "

She said he told her that the four were to be taken early today to the border with Tunisia, where they would cross out of Libya.

Three of the journalists — Gillis, who freelances for The Atlantic magazine and USA Today; Foley, who writes for the Boston-based news agency GlobalPost; and Varela, who works under the name Manu Brabo, were detained on April 5 near the Libyan town of Brega.

Chandler was detained separately.

They were freed a day after the Libyan government said it had given them a one-year suspended sentence on charges of illegally entering the country.

The 39-year-old Parvaz, who previously worked as a reporter and columnist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, disappeared soon after arriving in Syria on April 29 to cover the anti-government protests there. The Damascus government disclosed on May 4 that she had been deported to Iran.

There was no word on the fate of another missing journalist, photographer Anton Hammerl, who disappeared in Libya about the same time as the four journalists released Wednesday. Gillis said she had not seen him.

Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said Libya holds no other reporters. "At the moment, I think we have released all journalists, unless some have been captured in the past two days and I haven't heard about it," he said.