Brazil denies nuclear wrongdoings

BRASILIA, Brazil, Oct. 1 (UPI) -- Brazil denied any wrongdoing Friday following reports that it may have obtained its nuclear centrifuge technology from a rogue Pakistani scientist.

The nation´s Ministry of Science and Technology said it objected to allegations that were unfounded and based on loose speculation about the origins of Brazil´s uranium refinement abilities.

U.N. nuclear inspections are expected to arrive in Brazil later this month to tour a nulcear plant in Resende, Rio de Janeiro state.

The controversy began earlier this week when a former U.S. Defense Department official told leading Brazilian newspaper Estado de Sao Paulo that the reason the United Nations was interested in inspecting the new nuclear facility in Resende was speculation that the technology at the plant was supplied by former Pakistani nuclear program head Abdul Qadeer Khan, who provided nuclear technology to several rogue nations over the years.

Henry Sokolski, head of the Washington-based Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, told Estado that IAEA officials harbor concerns that "the source of the technology of (Brazilian) centrifuges" was Kahn.

Last week Brazil and the United Nation's nuclear agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, clashed over the terms of inspections at the Resende plant.

Under international law, the plant cannot begin to process uranium until it passes IAEA inspection. Brazil has the world's fourth largest reserves of the raw material used in nuclear power plants and weaponry.