Iran
Iran says 60% enrichment meant to show nuclear prowess, is reversible
Iran began enriching uranium to 60% purity in order to show its technical capacity after a sabotage attack at a nuclear plant, and the move is quickly reversible if the United States lifts sanctions, the Iranian government said on Tuesday. Talks in Vienna aimed at bringing the United States and Iran back to full compliance with a 2015 nuclear deal have been further complicated by an explosion at Iran’s main uranium enrichment facility at Natanz. Iran has responded by saying it is enriching uranium to 60%fissile purity, a big step towards weapons-grade from the 20% ithad previously achieved. The 2015 pact between Iran and world powers had capped the level of enrichment purity at 3.67% – suitable for generating civilian nuclear energy. Iran denies seeking a nuclear weapon. “The start of 60% ...
Saudi Arabia announces Ramadan starts Tuesday
Saudi Arabia, home to Islam’s holiest shrines, announced that the holy fasting month of Ramadan will start on Tuesday, as Muslims worldwide face coronavirus curbs. “Tomorrow, Tuesday… is the beginning of the blessed month of Ramadan this year,” the kingdom’s supreme court said in a royal court statement. Other Muslim countries, including Sunni-majority Egypt and Lebanon, have also announced that Tuesday marks the start of Ramadan, while Shiite-majority countries like Iran are expected to start a day later. The daytime fasting month of Ramadan is one of the five pillars of Islam. Observant Muslims refrain from eating and drinking from dawn to dusk, and traditionally gather with family and friends to break their fast in the evening. It is also a time of prayers, during which Muslims typicall...
Israel, Bahrain leaders discuss Iran, possible vaccine plant
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Bahrain’s Crown Prince Sheikh Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa on Thursday discussed Iran and the possible involvement of the Gulf state in establishing a vaccine plant in Israel, the two countries said. Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates formalised ties with Israel on Sept. 15 in part over shared concerns about Iran, in a deal forged by former U.S. President Donald Trump. Trump withdrew from a 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers, a move praised by Israel which has objected to the accord. His successor, President Joe Biden, wants to rejoin the deal. But in the week since Washington offered to talk with Tehran about reviving the nuclear deal, Iran has curbed U.N. monitoring and threatened to boost its uranium enrichment. Tehran denies...
Iran’s president warns of coronavirus ‘fourth wave’
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani warned Saturday of a Covid-19 “fourth wave” as cases rise in certain areas of the Middle Eastern country hardest hit by the pandemic. “This is a warning for all of us,” Rouhani said in televised remarks. He said some cities in the southwestern province of Khuzestan were now “red” — the highest on Iran’s colour-coded risk level — after weeks of low alert levels across the country. “This means the beginning of moving towards the fourth wave. We all have to be vigilant to prevent this,” Rouhani added. The country of more than 80 million people has lost close to 59,000 lives out of more than 1.5 million cases of Covid infection. Iran has officially registered less than 7,000 daily infections since late December, but the number has crossed this level since early ...
Iran won’t resume nuclear commitments until US lifts sanctions – supreme leader
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Sunday the US must “completely lift” sanctions first, followed by verification by Tehran, before the Islamic republic returns to its nuclear deal commitments. “If they want Iran to return to its commitments … America must completely lift sanctions, and not just in words or on paper,” Khamenei said in a televised speech to air force commanders. “They must be lifted in action, and then we will verify and see if they have been properly lifted, and then return,” he added. The 2015 landmark deal has been hanging by a thread since US President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from it in 2018 and reimpose sanctions on Tehran. Tehran a year later suspended its compliance with most key nuclear commitments to the deal. The new administration of ...
Twitter suspends ‘fake’ account that carried a link to Iranian Supreme Leader’s website
Twitter said on Friday it had suspended what it said was a fake account that carried a link to the website of Iran’s Supreme Leader on Friday, hours after it carried the image of a golfer resembling former U.S. President Donald Trump apparently being targeted by a drone. The post, on a Persian-language account carrying a link to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s website, had carried the text of remarks by him in December in which he said “Revenge is certain” – referring to the killing of a top Iranian general in a U.S. drone attack. A Twitter spokeswoman said the @khamenei_site account was suspended for violating the company’s platform manipulation and spam policy, specifically the creation of fake accounts. Asked if the @khamenei_site account was fake, she said it was. The golfer image tweet was r...
Joe Biden nominates veteran diplomats for top State posts
Democratic President-elect Joe Biden on Saturday nominated U.S. foreign policy veteran Wendy Sherman, a key negotiator of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, to be the No. 2 official at the State Department. Biden also nominated Victoria Nuland, a retired career foreign service officer who was the top U.S. diplomat for Europe, NATO ambassador and State Department spokeswoman, to be Under Secretary for Political Affairs, effectively the third-ranking U.S. diplomat. Sherman, who has a masters degree in social work, was the State Department counselor from 1997 to 2001, a period when she was also policy coordinator on North Korea. From 1993 to 1996 she served as assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs. Because of her association with the Iran deal, which was fiercely opposed by Repub...
Iran test-fires ballistic missiles on targets at sea
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards test-fired ballistic missiles against targets in the Indian Ocean as they wrapped up a two-day exercise, their official website reported Saturday. The missiles of “various classes” targeted “the enemy’s battleships and destroyed them from 1,800 kilometres (1,125 miles) away,” according to the Sepahnews website. The missiles were fired from central Iran at targets located in the northern Indian Ocean, the Guards said. A video released by state television showed two missiles being launched and targets being hit at sea. Iran’s armed forces chief of staff Major General Mohammad Bagheri was present on the second day of the drill, alongside Guards chief Major General Hossein Salami and aerospace commander Brigadier General Amirali Hajizadeh. “One of our major goals in...
U.S. imposes fresh sanctions on Iran in final days of Donald Trump presidency
The United States on Friday sanctioned companies in Iran, China and the United Arab Emirates for doing business with the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines and on three Iranian entities over conventional arms proliferation. They are the latest in a series of measures aimed at stepping up pressure on Tehran in the waning days of President Donald Trump’s administration, which ends on Jan. 20. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington had sanctioned seven companies, including Chinese-based Jiangyin Mascot Special Steel Co. and UAE-based Accenture Building Materials, and two people for shipping steel to or from Iran. He said Iran’s Marine Industries Organization, Aerospace Industries Organization and the Iran Aviation Industries Organization had also been blacklisted over conven...
PDP raps President Buhari over performance claims
The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, yesterday berated President Muhammadu Buhari over his stewardship in the past five years, saying he has failed to justify the confidence reposed in him by Nigerians. This is even as the party noted Mr. President’s “illusory self-assessment” has validated its position that “he has since abandoned governance for the luxury and pleasures of Aso Presidential villa, having lost sync with the reality of the devastation his incompetent administration has brought to our nation in the last five years.” In a statement signed by its spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, the PDP insisted “that every fair criticism of Buhari’s administration only reveals a litany of failures and a reversal of fortune for our country in the last five years,” adding that, “it is unfortunate tha...
Iran’s smog, blackouts made worse by power-sapping crypto mining
Outages have been compounded by cryptocurrency mining, which uses banks of high-powered computers. Cities across Iran have been cloaked in thick layers of toxic smog and darkened by blackouts, as the alleged use of low-quality fuel and power-sucking cryptocurrency mining deepen the country’s hardships. Tehran’s Hamshahri newspaper, the country’s most-read daily, ran the headline, “20 Days Living in Smoke,” on Wednesday over a photo of the capital covered in smog. Power plants have been forced to switch to burning low-grade fuel oils to generate electricity because high levels of domestic consumption have led to natural-gas shortages, the semi-official Iranian Students’ News Agency reported. Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh denied earlier this week that any of Iran’s power stations are us...
US slaps sanctions on two foundations linked to Iranian supreme leader
The United States on Wednesday blacklisted two Iranian foundations controlled by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and their subsidiaries, saying the institutions enabled Iran’s elite to sustain a “corrupt” system of ownership over large parts of the economy. The designations announced by the US Department of the Treasury target Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order (EIKO) and Astan Quds Razavi (AQR), their leaders and subsidiaries. These are the latest actions to reinforce the “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran pursued by US President Donald Trump’s administration. “These institutions enable Iran’s corrupt leaders to exploit a system of ownership over a wide range of sectors of Iran’s economy,” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement. US-Iranian tensions have risen since T...
