Scientists have uncovered 1,537 defects at the aluminum core in Israel’s Dimona nuclear reactor in the Negev desert. The findings of the study, which used ultrasound testing, was released at a scientific forum held in Tel Aviv this month. Growing fears over the safety of Israel’s aging atomic research center have provoked fresh questions over its future and a dilemma over the secrecy of the country’s alleged nuclear arsenal. Press TV reports: According to the report, there are growing calls for new safeguards and even a new research center – which could present Israel with a decision on whether to acknowledge for the first time that it has nuclear weapons. The US-based Institute for Science and International Security estimated in 2015 that Israel had 115 nuclear warheads. Israel has strongly opposed other regional powers, most notably Iran, obtaining nuclear technology which the country says it wants to generate electricity. In the 1980s nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu, a former technician at Dimona, told a British newspaper that the center was used to create nuclear weapons. He was later jailed for 18 years for the revelations. The core of the Dimona reactor was provided by France in the late 1950s and went online [...]