Reuters: Iran has secretly built thousands of nuclear fuel enrichment machines and intends to use them at hidden sites across the country, an exile group said on Monday, citing what it said was an Iranian state document. The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which has provided accurate information on Iran’s nuclear programme in the past, said it obtained a copy of a report by Iran’s powerful Supreme National Security Council written a week after last month’s presidential elections.

AFP: German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer urged Iran Monday to return to talks with the European Union on its nuclear program and warned of “disastrous consequences” if Tehran were to acquire an atomic bomb.
Fischer told reporters that the basis for any talks must remain the suspension of operations at the uranium conversion facility at Isfahan, which Tehran announced Monday it was resuming.

AFP: Britain reacted with concern to news that Iran has resumed ultra-sensitive nuclear fuel work at its uranium conversion plant in Isfahan despite warnings from the international community. A Foreign Office official said Britain would discuss “next steps” with its international partners at an emergency meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency on Tuesday.

AFP: The United States considers reports that Iran has restarted nuclear activities “unfortunate” and would expect Tehran to be taken before the United Nations, a State Department official said Monday. The official, who asked not to be named, made his comments after the vice president of Iran’s Atomic Energy Agency announced the resumption of uranium conversion at its Isfahan plant despite warnings by the international community.

CNN: Iran has restarted a nuclear facility for uranium conversion, saying the process is for producing nuclear fuel.
Tehran said Monday’s resumption would not include the enrichment of uranium, which the United States and some other countries fear could be part of a covert nuclear weapons program.

Iran Focus: London, Aug. 08 – Ali Larijani, a top confidant of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, will take over as Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and Iran’s new chief nuclear negotiator, the country’s state-run news agency, IRNA, reported. IRNA quoted Ali Aghamohammadi, the spokesman for the SNSC, as saying that the hard-line former head of state broadcasting was expected to soon be officially appointed to the post by Iran’s new ultra-conservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Reuters: Iran resumed uranium conversion on Monday at its facility near Isfahan, a move EU officials have warned will probably see its nuclear case sent to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions. “The uranium conversion facility in Isfahan has started its activities under IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) supervision,” Mohammad Saeedi, deputy head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, told reporters at the plant.