Reuters: Iran has started building a research reactor that could eventually produce enough plutonium for one bomb per year, ignoring calls to scrap the project, diplomats close to the United Nations said on Thursday.
Iran Starts Building New Nuclear Plant – Diplomats
Diplomats: Iran building tunnels for arms
AP: Fearing airstrikes, Iran is using reenforced materials and tunneling deep underground to store nuclear components – measures meant to make the facility resistant to “bunker busters” and other special weaponry, diplomats said Thursday. The diplomats spoke as a 35-nation meeting of the U.N. atomic watchdog agency ended more than three days of deliberations focusing on Iran and North Korea, which are both accused of seeking to develop nuclear weapons.
A journalist banned from working for two years, a daily suspended and nine journalists summoned
Reporters Without Borders: Reporters Without Borders condemned government hounding of the press after an independent journalist was given a six-month suspended sentence, a daily newspaper was suspended and nine journalists summoned. A high court in Tehran on 1st March upheld a suspended jail term imposed in March 2004 against Mohammad Hassan Alipour, editor of the daily Aban, along with a two-year ban from working.
Iran refuses to go beyond nuclear treaty obligations
AFP: Iran refuses to go beyond its treaty obligations to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to prove the peaceful aims of its nuclear energy programme, a senior official said Thursday. IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei “has no right to demand anything that goes beyond international rules”, said Hossein Mussavian, spokesman for Iran’s nuclear negotiating team.
Iran pouring foundation for heavy-water nuclear reactor – diplomats
AFP: Iran is pouring the concrete foundation for a heavy-water nuclear reactor which can make weapons-grade plutonium and which the UN atomic agency had asked it not to build, diplomats said Thursday. The work at a 40-megawatt reactor at Arak, southwest of Tehran, began in September, just after the UN atomic agency had asked Iran to refrain from building the reactor as a “confidence-building measure” that it does not …
U.S. Official Says Iran, Syria ‘Against All of Us’
Reuters: The United States kept up the pressure on Iran and Syria on Wednesday as a senior White House security official urged the international community to demand that Tehran and Damascus stop supporting terrorism.
“State sponsors of terrorism such as Iran and Syria are with
the terrorists and therefore against all of us,” said Frances Townsend, homeland security adviser to President Bush.
Carrots for Tehran?
Washington Times – Editorial: Director-General Mohammed ElBaradei and the International Atomic Energy Agency, under fire from Washington for failing to vigorously challenge Iran’s nuclear-weapons program, are taking a tougher line toward Tehran. As President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice prepare to discuss joining the European Union’s efforts to use some incentives to persuade Iran to change its behavior …
Bush, Advisers Huddle Over Iran
Los Angeles Times: President Bush and his closest foreign policy advisers convene Thursday to grapple with an important shift in U.S. policy toward Iran: how best to support a European diplomatic initiative to prevent the Middle East nation from becoming a nuclear weapons state. The discussions follow a working lunch Wednesday at the White House that included Vice President Dick Cheney, national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, during which the Europeans’ strategy to offer economic incentives was discussed, according to administration officials.
Girls in Iran being sold in Pakistan on daily basis
Iran Focus: Tehran, Mar. 02 At least 54 Iranian girls and young women, between the ages of 16 and 25, are sold on the streets of Karachi in Pakistan on a daily basis, according to report outlining the latest statistics. The report also revealed that there are at present at least 300,000 runaway girls in Iran, adding that the estimated number of women under the absolute poverty line was more than eight million.
Girls in Iran being sold in Pakistan on daily basis
Iran Focus: Tehran, Mar. 02 At least 54 Iranian girls and young women, between the ages of 16 and 25, are sold on the streets of Karachi in Pakistan on a daily basis, according to report outlining the latest statistics. The report also revealed that there are at present at least 300,000 runaway girls in Iran, adding that the estimated number of women under the absolute poverty line was more than eight million.
