Iran Relents on IAEA Inspections at Two Sites, Ending Standoff
Reuters
Iran said on Wednesday it was ending a months-long standoff with the UN nuclear watchdog by granting it access to two sites suspected of once hosting secret activities, easing diplomatic pressure on Tehran as Washington seeks to reimpose sanctions. Wednesday’s breakthrough in the dispute over the sites was announced in a joint statement by Tehran and the International Atomic Energy Agency during IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi’s first visit to the Islamic Republic since he took over the role in December. “Iran is voluntarily providing the IAEA with access to the two locations specified by the IAEA,” Grossi and Iran’s nuclear agency chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, said in the joint statement, confirming an earlier report by Reuters.
Iran Nuclear Deal: UN Rejects U.S. bid to ‘Snapback’ Iran Sanctions
BBC News
The UN Security Council has blocked a controversial bid by the U.S. to trigger the “snapback” of all sanctions on Iran lifted under a 2015 nuclear deal. Indonesia's permanent representative, who holds the rotating presidency, said many of the 15 member states contested the move because the US withdrew from the accord two years ago. The U.S. envoy accused them of “standing in the company of terrorists”. Iran's foreign minister said “lawless bullying” had left the U.S. isolated. The Trump administration attempted to initiate the snapback process last week, after the security council rejected a draft U.S. resolution that would have extended indefinitely an arms embargo on Iran due to expire in mid-October.
U.S. Nuclear Weapons Budget Could Skyrocket if Russia Treaty Ends
Joe Gould | Defense News
The New START nuclear pact’s demise could cost the Department of Defense as much as $439 billion for modernization, plus $28 billion in annual maintenance costs, the Congressional Budget Office said in a report published Tuesday. That price estimate, as the United States and Russia remain at odds over the treaty, reflects a threefold increase in weapons production costs. With Washington and Moscow’s responses to the expiration of New START unclear, CBO explored several possible paths, including other less expensive options. “If the New START treaty expired, the United States could choose to make no changes to its current plans for nuclear forces, in which case it would incur no additional costs,” the CBO study found. “If the United States chose to increase its forces in response to the expiration of the treaty, modest expansions could be relatively inexpensive and could be done quickly. Larger expansions could be quite costly, however, and could take several decades to accomplish.”
North Korea Puts Focus on Big Problems Piling Up at Home
Timothy W. Martin and Andrew Jeong | Wall Street Journal
In a year that once looked primed for outward provocation through its weapons program, North Korea has instead turned inward in recent months. Pyongyang in recent weeks has reshuffled its leadership and made a rare admission of defeat on its five-year economic policy. Further keeping the regime focused on the homefront are widespread flooding due to torrential rain and the task of keeping the coronavirus out of a country under-equipped to deal with a massive outbreak. Meanwhile, Pyongyang has halted major weapons tests, and its nuclear talks with Washington remain gridlocked, with little likelihood of progress before a U.S. election that will decide the fate of President Trump, who has met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un three times.
Chinese Military Fires ‘Aircraft-Carrier Killer’ Missile Into South China Sea in ‘Warning to the United States’
Kristin Huang | South China Morning Post
China launched two missiles, including an “aircraft-carrier killer”, into the South China Sea on Wednesday morning, a source close to the Chinese military said, sending a clear warning to the United States. The move came one day after China said a U.S. U-2 spy plane entered a no-fly zone without permission during a Chinese live-fire naval drill in the Bohai Sea off its north coast. One of the missiles, a DF-26B, was launched from the northwestern province of Qinghai, while the other, a DF-21D, lifted off from Zhejiang province in the east. Both were fired into an area between Hainan province and the Paracel Islands, the source said.
Missiles are Advancing So Quickly That Their Names Need to Change, Report Finds
Paul Sonne | Washington Post
Missiles are developing so quickly that the old conventions for naming them no longer suffice, according to a new report, which suggests scrapping catchall descriptors like cruise, ballistic and hypersonic and moving to a more precise taxonomy for characterizing both U.S. and foreign missiles. The report from the Aerospace Corporation, a nonprofit space research corporation in California, argues that the boundaries between the established categories of missiles are blurring as technology advances, and in many cases blurred many years ago, underscoring the “need for more nuanced distinctions.” One example the authors cite is China’s DF-100 anti-ship missile. Though described as a cruise missile, it travels at speeds and distances traditionally associated with ballistic missiles and uses a large rocket booster to launch akin to those that power ballistic missiles. Simply dubbing it a cruise missile would fail to capture its full range of capabilities, the authors suggest.