Iran has agreed to a nuclear fuel swap – a deal that will require Tehran to send a portion of its uranium abroad in exchange for 20 per cent enriched nuclear fuel. The agreement, brokered by Turkey and Brazil, has been met with mixed reactions. Has Iran managed to split the international community? And is it an attempt to stave off further sanctions?

German TV interviews Noam Chomsky questioning him about Obama, Iran, and nuclear weapons.

Free Iran:  With all due respect to Mr. Chomsky, he epitomizes what’s wrong with America’s left.  His dislike for rightwing client states of America blinds him to what this regime is doing internally to the Iranian people.  Yes, there is hypocrisy when it comes to the way America treats Israel, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, etc. but that doesn’t make what this regime is doing any more legitimate.  Mr. Chomsky spent most of the time during this interview bashing America’s policy and, in effect, justifying this regime’s policies but barely uttered a word about Iran’s human rights record.  That’s not right!  The Iranian people deserve better than this from America’s so-called liberal intellectuals.  Sometimes, I feel I am an equal opportunity offender.  But America’s left has been extremely disappointing and hypocritical.

TEHRAN — Iran has so far produced five kilograms of 20 percent enriched uranium, atomic chief Ali Akbar Salehi said on Wednesday, in defiance of world powers who want Tehran to end the controversial nuclear work. Go to AFP.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki will fly to New York next month to attend a Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review meeting, a top official said on Wednesday. Go to AFP.

The goals of President Obama’s Nuclear Security Summit are so modest and uncontroversial that the event can’t be anything but a success. But the real action is taking place on the sidelines of the Washington sit-down, where the President is lobbying world leaders one by one to back new sanctions against Iran. And on that front, his prospects remain decidedly mixed. Go to Time.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. intelligence agencies believe Iran won’t be capable of producing nuclear weapons for at least a year but that it probably would be technically able to do so if it chooses within 3-to-5 years, U.S. officials said on Tuesday. Go to Reuters.

IN 2007 armed gunmen attacked a nuclear facility in South Africa, breaching heavy security before they were chased off (and never caught). The incident illustrated that the possibility of nuclear materials falling into the wrong hands is far from an abstract one. Go to Economist.

PARIS — As pressure mounts for new sanctions against Iran, experts say its alleged nuclear weapons programme is struggling to find scientists and technicians and faces sabotage by Western and Israeli agents. Go to AFP.

Ali Akbar Salehi is a fan of America.

He’s also the Head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Agency; the man at the helm of Iran’s uncompromising – and expanding – uranium enrichment, which has provoked a new international push for United Nations sanctions.

Nevertheless, “I have a lot of respect for President Obama,” Salehi tells CBS News. “I have a lot of respect for the U.S.” Go to CBS News.

Here is a timeline of Iran and its nuclear programme in the last year: Go to Reuters.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used the official ceremony for Holocaust Remembrance Day on Sunday to warn about the Iranian threat. “The world gradually accepts Iran’s statements of destruction against Israel and we still do not see the necessary international determination to stop Iran from arming,” Netanyahu said, calling on “all enlightened countries” to strongly condemn Iran and act with “genuine determination” to prevent it from building nuclear weapons. Go to Haaretz.

As far as grand summitry goes, an American President hasn’t hosted something like the current two-day talk-in on nuclear security in Washington since—well, as the Obama Administration described it, not since the San Francisco Conference of 1945. That meeting created the United Nations and helped establish the postwar world order. The agenda for the party that started yesterday is far more modest, but also hard to dislike. Go to WSJ.

President Barack Obama shares President Ronald Reagan’s desire to rid the world of nuclear weapons. He also shares Reagan’s conviction that as long as nuclear weapons exist, the United States must maintain its deterrent capability through a stockpile of nuclear weapons that are secure, safe and reliable. Go to WSJ.

President Obama’s talk about a world free of nuclear weapons seems to have little connection to the passive U.S. responses to North Korea’s and Iran’s nuclear activities. Go to WSJ.

…Throughout the two-day gathering, Iran will be a subtext as Obama works to gain support for a fourth round of UN sanctions against Tehran for its refusal to shut down what the United States and many key allies assert is a nuclear weapons program. Go to original article.