NPEC

Iran claims the Bushier nuclear power plant is fully operational tinyurl.com/6z8dy6sb. Other reports suggest the plant may be on warm or cold shut down. tinyurl.com/d2rpya9u

Plutonium: The Overlooked Path to an Iranian Bomb, the Middle East Broadcast Network does a deep brief on the possibility Iran might mine 200 bombs worth of plutonium contained in spent fuel spent fuel at the Bushier nuclear power plant tinyurl.com/ykdbddn5

Secure World Foundation release its latest Global Counterspace Capabilities report tinyurl.com/269878rv

Pentagon focuses on striking Iranian energy and fuel assets that service both the military and the civilian sector as a way to make sure it is not accused of violating strictures against destroying civilian objects tinyurl.com/5yj3nzya

Can the Israelis kill off Iran’s nuclear expertise and its bomb project? tinyurl.com/ymjvswez

The latest industry pitch for recycling nuclear weapons usable plutonium for use in commercial nuclear fuels tinyurl.com/mr4ceeay

El ultimatum de Trump está tapando algo importante de hoy: Israel atacó Kashan y afectó el corredor ferroviario Xinjiang–Irán (financiado x la Ruta de la Seda), la alternativa terestre de china para comerciar crudo evitando Ormuz. 1er ataque directo a China en la guerra.

US Energy Dept. announces counter drone policy per Congressional authorization to disable drones flying over DOE nuke sites tinyurl.com/4u7cc8m5. Law and DOE policy track NPEC’s recommendations tinyurl.com/5n98ydrr but more is to be done tinyurl.com/ywrfes33

As the world‘s critical civilian infrastructure becomes more vulnerable to military attacks, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory commission relaxes it’s requirements for nuclear, plant operators to drill, realistically against such threats reuters.com/business/energ…

Quad report spotlights NPEC’s analysis of Iran’s other option – – using spent reactor fuel from the Bushier power plant to produce more than 200 plutonium bombs thequadreport.com/guest-commenta…

Major Chinese electrical vehicle vendor deployed, 5000 chargers that can recharge an electric vehicle in nine minutes insideevs.com/news/791930/by…

Miss a tweet? Check out NPEC's latest in this week's first Twitter Wrap! icont.ac/51gdV

Detailed analysis of how Iranian high-altitude ballistic missile cluster bomb attacks against Israel may become a model approach to defeat missile defense systems elsewhere tinyurl.com/s3964tku

After the drone swarm incident at Barksdale Air Force Base, The Washington Post asks if the United States is ready. Not yet is the answer tinyurl.com/mwm5tfx5

The head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Commission says the Bushier nuclear power plant site has been bombed four times so far tinyurl.com/4w6ucsja

Russia says it’s evacuating 198 more Rosatom staff after projectile fragments killed a physical security staffer there tinyurl.com/yc4yeyj9

JUST IN: Four ships left Chinese ports carrying sodium perchlorate and arrived at Iranian harbours after the war began. Sodium perchlorate is a white crystalline salt. When heated, it decomposes and releases oxygen. Mixed with aluminium powder and a polymer binder, it becomes solid rocket fuel. Solid rocket fuel propels ballistic missiles. Ballistic missiles close the Strait of Hormuz. The Strait of Hormuz sets the global oil price. And China, the country that shipped the chemical, is buying that oil at a discount, paying in yuan, while co-authoring a five-point peace plan to end the war the chemical is helping to sustain. The Telegraph reported on April 3rd that the vessels Hamouna, Barzin, Shabdis, and Rayen, all sanctioned Iran-flagged ships, loaded cargo at Chinese chemical ports including Gaolan in Zhuhai and delivered it to Iran since the war began. Analysts assessed the shipments could enable production of hundreds of additional ballistic missiles. In early 2025, over a thousand tons of sodium perchlorate were shipped on similar routes. One shipment was linked to an explosion at Bandar Abbas. Follow the molecule. Sodium perchlorate leaves a Chinese factory in Guangdong Province. It crosses the Indian Ocean on a sanctioned vessel that no Western insurer will touch. It arrives in Iran. It enters a dispersed production facility that the US Air Force has spent five weeks trying to locate and destroy. It is mixed, cast, cured, and loaded into a solid-fuel motor. That motor is fitted to a ballistic missile. That missile is aimed at a tanker, a refinery, a bridge, or a base. The tanker it hits was carrying oil through the strait that the missile was built to close. The oil that does not pass through the strait becomes scarce. The scarcity raises the physical price to $140. And China, whose factory produced the precursor, buys the scarce oil that its own chemical helped make scarce, at prices negotiated bilaterally in a currency that is not the dollar, through a strait it helped close with a chemical it shipped on a vessel it knew was sanctioned. The circle has tracking numbers, port manifests, vessel IMO codes, and satellite timestamps. No government has denied the cargo. China says it “strictly controls dual-use exports.” The vessels are sanctioned. The chemical is a known propellant precursor. And the shipments arrived during a war in which China blocked the UN resolution to reopen the strait, co-authored a peace plan with Pakistan, supplied the rare earth magnets inside every F-35 sent to bomb the missile facilities, and published the tutorial that taught Iran to shoot down the aircraft carrying those magnets. Supplier of the missile fuel. Supplier of the jet engine magnets. Teacher of the countermeasure. Blocker of the resolution. Author of the peace plan. Buyer of the oil. China does not have a side in this war. China has a position at every point on the circumference of a circle whose centre is the Strait of Hormuz and whose radius is measured in the distance a sodium perchlorate molecule travels from a factory in Zhuhai to a missile silo in Khuzestan. The chemical left China. The missile closes the strait. The oil price rises. China buys the oil. The peace plan fails. The war continues. The next shipment loads. The circle turns. open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

“Private” Chinese satellite imagery services with ties to the People’s Liberation Army are selling detailed information on US military operations in the Gulf to I need anyone willing to pay tinyurl.com/fv46a79y

@russianforces @NicoleGrajewski @RCDefense I think this exchange has become that. I’m out

@NuclearPolicy @NicoleGrajewski @RCDefense Of course it's a very political process.

This piece is uninformed and deeply flawed. Iran and Russia have a spent-fuel repatriation agreement (2005), precisely due to this concern. @RCDefense should have fact-checked the piece before running it.

@russianforces @NicoleGrajewski @RCDefense It’s not a very political process if you’re not present and you have sealed cameras that you can’t open up until you come and visit and the intervals are 90 days. Read what I suggested. Also, fake some humility.

@NuclearPolicy @NicoleGrajewski @RCDefense I know the discussion, of course. And it only proves that you can never do verification without judgement. It also proves that verification (and safeguards) is a deeply political process.