#AceWorldNews Iranian nuclear officials have neutralized several plots to sabotage the country’s atomic industry, including at the Arak heavy water reactor, which is still under construction, local media report.
Asghar Zarean, a senior official in charge of nuclear security at the International Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said Saturday that Tehran’s domestic intelligence agencies uncovered a number of plots over the past few months.
“Several cases of industrial sabotage have been neutralized in the past few months before achieving the intended damage, including sabotage at a part of the IR-40 facility at Arak,” the organization said, according to the semi-official Fars News Agency.
English: Flag of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), an organization of the United Nations Deutsch: Flagge der Internationalen Atomenergieorganisation (IAEO), eine Organisation der Vereinten Nationen (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The UN’s nuclear agency revealed Sunday that Iran moved towards cooperation in terms of allegations that it is designing atomic weapons.
The development could significantly impact upcoming negotiations in Vienna – due to start February 18 – between Iran and the six world powers.
Iran had earlier promised to clear up “any ambiguities” regarding its uranium enrichment program.
On Saturday, Iran resumed talks with the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). In line with the framework, Iran is expected to take six practical measures by this Tuesday – including an additional IAEA visit to an unfinished heavy-water reactor at Arak and another inspection of Gachin Mine in Bandar Abbas Port in southern Iran.
Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have agreed one seven more concrete measures regarding the country’s nuclear program which will be taken by May 15, the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) reports.
Behrouz Kamalvandi, a spokesman for the nuclear watchdog, said that inspection of Parchin nuclear site is not among the seven measures agreed by Iran and the IAEA. Iran’s envoy to the IAEA Reza Najafi said details of the measures will be released soon.
The agreement comes one day after the IAEA arrived in Tehran to build on a framework agreed upon by Iran and global powers in November. The first three-month period of cooperation between Iran and the agency ends on Sunday.
#AceWorldNews says Tehran may modify Arak heavy-water reactor it is official.
An Iranian official said for the first time that Iran may modify a heavy-water reactor near Arak. “We can do some design change… in order to produce less plutonium in this reactor, and in this way allay the worries and mitigate the concerns,” Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, told Press TV.
The statement signals a willingness to compromise as the uncompleted Arak heavy water reactor was a stumbling block that almost derailed nuclear talks last November, Bloomberg reported.
UN nuclear inspectors visited an Iranian uranium mine for the first time in nearly a decade Wednesday, media in Tehran reported. A three-member team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) went to the Gchine mine near the southern Gulf port of Bandar Abbas, Reuters quoted a spokesman for Iran’s atomic energy organization as saying.
The IAEA last visited the facility in 2005. Allowing the IAEA to go to Gchine was among six steps Iran agreed to under a November 11 cooperation agreement with the UN nuclear watchdog.
IAEA inspectors start visiting Gachin mine in Iran(theiranproject.com)
UN Experts to Visit Iranian Uranium Mine(israelnationalnews.com)
“Guccifer” – the Romanian hacker renowned for accessing the private emails of former US president George W. Bush and various key entertainment figures appealed his arrest on Friday, according to Reuters. Marcel Lazar Lehel, whose name roughly translates as “Small Fume” was detained in Bucharest on Wednesday after hacking the email accounts last February. Leading Romanian lawyer, Catalin Dancu, stated there was “close to no chance” of the request for release being granted.
Three suspected militants have been killed in a drone strike in Yemen, east of the capital Sanaa. Local officials and tribal sources told Reuters that it was a US drone which killed the trio. A succession of explosions was heard by witnesses, after which a car with the charred remains of three bodies was found. Fifteen people were killed and a further five injured in December when a US drone struck a wedding party.
Argentinian authorities on Friday lifted restrictions in place since 2011 that limited the purchase of foreign currency, AFP reported. The announcement came a day after the peso suffered its worst single-day dive since the 2002 financial crisis. Jorge Capitanich, President Cristina Kirchner’s cabinet chief, said the government has decided “to authorize the purchase of dollars for holding or savings.” At a rate of 8.01 pesos to the dollar, the peso “has reached a level acceptable to the objectives of economic policy convergence,” he said. The peso plunged by more than 11 percent against the dollar on Thursday.
UN nuclear watchdog inspectors will visit Iran’s Gchine uranium mine in the coming days, under a cooperation agreement signed late last year. The move was announced by Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Reuters reported. Amano did not give further details about the planned visit.
Three suspected militants have been killed in a drone strike in Yemen, east of the capital Sanaa. Local officials and tribal sources told Reuters that it was a US drone which killed the trio. A succession of explosions was heard by witnesses, after which a car with the charred remains of three bodies was found. Fifteen people were killed and a further five injured in December when a US drone struck a wedding party.
Some 3,000 workers have rallied against laws that Serbian government officials say are a key to economic reform, but which could lead to further job losses, AP said. Demonstrators marched in downtown Belgrade on Friday, demanding that new labor, bankruptcy and privatization laws be withdrawn. They also want the economy minister, Sasa Radulovic, to resign. Radulovic has insisted that the laws are necessary to restart Serbia’s economy. The reform bills are yet to be approved in Parliament.
Fierce clashes broke out between about 2,000 supporters of deposed Islamist President Mohamed Morsi and Egyptian security forces in Cairo on Friday, Reuters reported. They happened hours after a suicide bomber attacked a major police compound in the capital. The fighting took place on the road that leads to the Pyramids of Giza. Some Islamists burned tires and hurled petrol bombs at security forces, who responded by firing tear gas.
An explosion in an apartment building on Friday morning in Nice, in the south of France, has killed a four-year child and injured four others – two of them were hospitalized. The multi-story building was seriously damaged, local media say. The blast ripped through two apartments, and parts of the roof and wall crumbled. The cause of the explosion was not immediately clear.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said on Friday that if no serious work sessions were held by Saturday, the government delegation would leave, Reuters reported. “If no serious work sessions are held by [Saturday], the official Syrian delegation will leave Geneva due to the other side’s lack of seriousness or preparedness,”state television quoted Muallem as telling UN mediator Lakhdar Brahimi. Brahimi and a Syrian government delegation reportedly met on Friday at the UN in Geneva. The mediator is due to meet the Syrian opposition delegation later on Friday.
More than 65,000 people have fled fighting in the Iraqi cities of Fallujah and Ramadi during the past week, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said on Friday. More than 140,000 have been made homeless since fighting broke out at the end of last year, Reuters quoted UNHCR spokesman Adrian Edwards as saying.
British Prime Minister David Cameron said Friday he was confident he could renegotiate his country’s relations with the EU to allow it to remain in the bloc. “I’m confident that we’ll have a successful renegotiation and a successful referendum,” Reuters quoted him as saying at the World Economic Forum in Davos. He referred to his plan to reshape his country’s EU ties before offering Britons an in/out referendum if he is re-elected next year.
Face-to-face talks between the Syrian government and the opposition will not take place on Friday, the UN said. It also confirmed that the Syrian mediator, Lakhdar Brahimi, will meet Syrian government and opposition delegations separately on Friday, Reuters reported. The opposition delegates earlier said they would not meet with the delegation led by Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem until it endorses the Geneva communique of June 30, 2012, calling for a transitional governing body to be established. Syria’s Information Minister, Omaran Zoabi, said Damascus will not accept opposition demands to form a transitional body. The Syrian delegation also said it is ready to discuss a ceasefire and the exchange of prisoners of war.
The UN World Food Program may have lost more than 3,700 tons of food in looting in South Sudan, enough to feed 220,000 people for a month, Reuters reported. WFP’s warehouses in Malakal had been almost entirely emptied, spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said on Friday in Geneva. The agency was working to recover lost stocks wherever possible and trying to protect remaining stocks.
One man has been killed and another is in a life-threatening condition after an attack in a courthouse in Frankfurt, German police said. The suspected attacker used a firearm and wielded a knife, dpa reported. He was arrested shortly afterward.
Philippine police have arrested four men and seized 1 billion pesos ($22 million) worth of methamphetamine. This was the second large drug bust in Manila in 10 days. The National Police anti-illegal drugs task force said the men were driving a van filled with five wooden crates containing 200kg of crystal methamphetamine when they were stopped on Friday. Last week, the National Bureau of Investigation arrested four Canadian men suspected of trafficking drugs from Mexico in separate raids. Agents recovered $2.25 million worth of cocaine, methamphetamine and MDMA, which is similar to Ecstasy.
Syria peace talks on verge of collapse before they begin(reuters.com)
Brahimi ends talks with Syrian government(worldbulletin.net)
Syrian opposition delegation unprepared for serious talks – Syrian FM Muallem(en.itar-tass.com)
A general view shows map of area of the Iranian nuclear power plant of Natanz, 270 kms south of Tehran (AFP Photo)The European Council has announced that certain EU sanctions against Iran will be suspended.
Press release on #Iran: EU suspends certain sanctions as Joint Plan of Action enters into force. http://t.co/0noR9jz9AU
— EU Council Press (@EUCouncilPress) January 20, 2014
The decision will ease restrictions on trade in petrochemicals, precious metals and the provision of insurance for oil shipments. The ban on vessels to transport Iranian crude will also be lifted as part of the Joint Plan of Action, struck in November 2013 between Tehran and the so-called P5+1 (Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the US).
Earlier in the day, Tehran announced a halt in its uranium enrichment program. Centrifuge cascades at Iranian nuclear plants were disconnected under the supervision of UN nuclear inspectors, who arrived in Iran over the weekend to check Iran’s compliance with the deal.
ISIS-DigitalGlobe satellite imagery analysis of the Natanz Uranium Enrichment Plant in Iran. February 25, 2006. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In line with the implementation of the Geneva joint plan of action, Iran suspended the production of 20 percent enriched uranium in the presence of UN nuclear watchdog inspectors at Natanz and Fordo sites,” AFP cited Mohammad Amiri, director general for safeguards at Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation.
Apart from suspending enrichment of uranium to 20 percent – the level that’s close to the one needed for nuclear weapons production – Iran has also pledged to dilute half of the stockpile of the already enriched material.
A confidential report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), obtained by Reuters, has confirmed that Iran “has ceased enriching uranium above 5 percent U-235 at the two cascades at the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP) and four cascades at the Fordo Fuel Enrichment Plant (FFEP) previously used for this purpose.”
The same report states that Iran has stopped “conducting any further advances” to its activities at the Arak heavy-water nuclear reactor, which Western powers feared could produce plutonium to be used as bomb fuel.
According to the agreement Iran is freezing parts of its nuclear program in exchange for the easing of sanctions by the EU and the US, including lifting restrictions on Iranian exports of petrochemicals. Iran will also be able to import parts for its auto manufacturing industry and trade in gold and other precious metals.
The value of sanctions relief could amount to $7 billion, according to US government estimates.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is expected to try to persuade Western companies to invest in Iran at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday. Several European political and trade delegations have already visited the country in recent weeks, signaling a thaw in the EU-Iran relations.
The interim nuclear deal with Iran which came into force Monday will be in effect for six months, until the country and the P5+1 strike a permanent agreement, supposed to bring more stability to the volatile Middle East.
Achieving that won’t be easy though, as RT’s Middle East correspondent Paula Slier reports from Tel Aviv, where the government is the main opponent of the accord.
“What is not clear in how the US is going to maneuver its way forward,” Slier says. “It has a very fine line to walk. On the one hand you have Israel that continues to say that this was the deal with the devil. But on the other hand you have Iran, which Barack Obama is urging to come to the party, and he himself needs to show transparency and commitment while not alienating his friend, Tel Aviv, in the region.”
There are also threats for more sanctions coming from a group of US senators, who have prepared legislation to enact new economic constraints in case no new deal is reached in six months.
Tehran has long been irritated by the plans voiced in the US Congress.
“Those in the United States who are pushing for more sanctions have to see what this policy has produced and whether it is worth risking. I don’t want to get engaged in a childish discussion on whether Iran is bluffing or not. They can test us,” Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif told RT’s Sophie Shevardnadze earlier in January.
Iran starts implementing nuclear deal, IAEA report shows – Times of India(timesofindia.indiatimes.com)
IAEA confrims Iran’s halt to enrichment as part of nuclear deal(thehindu.com)
Tehran starts implementing nuclear deal – IAEAIran has halted its most sensitive nuclear activity under a deal with six world powers, a confidential UN atomic agency report said. The International Atomic Energy Agency’s report, obtained by Reuters, also said Iran had begun diluting its stockpile of uranium enriched to the fissile concentration of 20 percent. This level took the country closer to the capability of producing fuel for an atomic bomb – a goal Tehran has always denied. Iran’s move paves the way for the easing of some Western sanctions imposed on the country.09:01
Vietnam on Monday sentenced 30 drug smugglers to death in the communist country’s largest-ever narcotics case, involving nearly two tons of heroin, AFP reported. The 30 men and women, all Vietnamese, in the northern province of Quang Ninh, were found guilty of drug trafficking and given the death penalty. A further 59 defendants were handed sentences ranging up to life in prison, presiding Judge Ngo Duc said. This was Vietnam’s “largest ever trial in terms of defendants, the number of death penalties given out and the amount of heroin involved,” according to Duc.
08:29
UN nuclear inspectors have begun disconnecting some centrifuges used for enriching uranium at Iran’s Natanz plant, Iranian state television said. The move is part of a nuclear deal with six world powers due to take effect on Monday. “The International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors in the Natanz plant are disconnecting cascades,”Reuters quoted the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Akbar Salehi, as saying on television. The official, who was referring to interlinked networks of centrifuges, added that “the sanctions iceberg against Iran is melting.” Tehran is expected to suspend its higher-grade uranium enrichment in return for some easing of Western sanctions.
07:12
River levels were receding early on Monday in southeastern France after “historic” floods left two people dead, AFP reported. A third man disappeared while out on his boat and 4,000 homes have been left without power after the deluge in the department of Var, officials said. More than 150 people were airlifted to safety. In the town of Hyeres, Mayor Jacques Politi spoke of “a historic flood.” Var prefecture official Emmanuel Dupuis said the area was “at the end of the crisis,” warning that the slightest rain could cause further damage as the ground remained saturated.
06:27
A suicide bomber killed 10 people in a crowded market on Monday near the Pakistani army headquarters in the city of Rawalpindi, Reuters reported. The market is 10 minutes’ walk from the army headquarters and is considered one of the most secure areas of the city. The attack, not far from the capital, Islamabad, comes a day after a Taliban bombing killed 20 Pakistani soldiers near the tribal region of North Waziristan.
03:18
A strong 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck the North Island of New Zealand on Monday afternoon, with tremors felt in Wellington and other parts of the country. The epicenter of Monday’s earthquake was approximately 129 kilometers northeast of Wellington. The depth of the shake was recorded at 65 kilometers according to the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences, the country’s seismological agency. There is no immediate word on damage or casualties.
00:54
A South Korean trade agency employee has been kidnapped by four unknown assailants in Libya, the country’s Foreign Ministry announced. Han Seok-woo, the head of the Libya unit of the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) was kidnapped in the early hours of Monday morning as he was returning home after his work at the trade office in Tripoli.
Iran: “IAEA Inspectors Arrive in Tehran to Facilitate Implementation Towards Landmark Deal with Six other Powers”(acenewsservices.com)
“Nuclear talks with Iran postponed to Feb. 8 – IAEA”(aceworldwideservices.com)
Iran starts implementing nuclear deal, IAEA report shows – Times of India(timesofindia.indiatimes.com)
UN Experts to Visit Iranian Uranium Mine(israelnationalnews.com)
Iran to halt 20pc uranium enrichment Monday noon(debka.com)
#AceWorldNews says UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Tuesday that a planned meeting with Iran next week had been postponed to February 8, without giving a reason, Reuters reported. The IAEA wants Iran to address allegations that it has researched how to develop nuclear bombs. Tehran says the nuclear program is entirely peaceful. In November, Iran and the IAEA agreed a cooperation pact, and six initial steps include access to two nuclear-related facilities and the provision of information.
– OCTOBER 11, 2013POSTED IN: ISRAEL & THE MIDDLE EAST, NEWS
Two technicians help produce zirconium at the Isfahan nuclear facility in central Iran, on March 30, 2005.
An exiled opposition group claimed Thursday that Iran has transferred a research centre leading its alleged attempt to develop nuclear weapons to a new location in order to hoodwink the world.
“In order to hide its nuclear activities, the Iranian regime is currently in the process of a vast operation moving the centre responsible for research and planning of the military nuclear project,” Mehdi Abrishamachi of the National Council of Resistance of Iran told a press conference in Paris.
According to the opposition group, which has made significant revelations about Iran’s nuclear programme in the past, the bulk of the centre’s activities have been moved from a defence ministry property in the east of Tehran to a new site around three kilometres (two miles) away.
Those activities left at the first site could all be regarded as of dual-use — related to either civil or military uses of nuclear technology — enabling the regime to disguise their military nature in the event of inspection, according to the NCRI.
“The transfer started at the beginning of September and is not finished but the essential has been done,” Abrishamachi said.
The NCRI said it had submitted its information, including a list of 100 alleged employees of the centre, to the International Atomic Energy Agency on Wednesday.
Iran denies seeking to develop a nuclear weapons capacity and has said it wants to sign a nuclear proliferation accord with the West. Negotiations on the subject between Tehran, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany, are due to resume next week in Geneva.
The talks will be the first since the election in June of new Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.
