Consortium News Israel and the neocons still seek an excuse to bomb Iran, now citing false claims about its supposed noncompliance with the nuclear deal. The new water carrier is U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar describes.By Paul R. Pillar
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the agreement that limits Iran’s nuclear program, is for Donald Trump one more of the Obama administration’s achievements to be trashed. It goes alongside the Affordable Care Act, the Paris climate change agreement, and other measures (most recently the “dreamers” program involving children of illegal immigrants) as targets for trashing because fulfilling campaign rhetoric is given higher priority in the current administration than whether a program is achieving its purpose, whether there are any realistic alternatives available, or what the effects of the trashing will be on the well-being of Americans and the interests and credibility of the United States.
Nikki Haley, whose foreign policy experience has consisted of these past few months as the U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations, has assumed the role of chief public trasher of the JCPOA for the administration. Evidently no demands on the time of the U.S. ambassador in New York, from the issue of North Korea (which has real, not imagined, nuclear weapons) to the war in Syria were too important to keep her from giving a speech at the American Enterprise Institute that represented the administration’s most concerted and contrived public effort so far to lay groundwork for withdrawing from the JCPOA.
Haley has warmed to this cause both because of her own previous parochial interests, including those associated with financial contributions she has received, and because it is a convenient vehicle for playing to Trump’s urges. Haley evidently feels no obligation to perform as one of the “adults” in the administration to whom the country looks to contain those urges.
The speech at AEI was Trumpian in some of the tactics it employed. The performance should cement the ambitious Haley’s place on Trump’s short list of candidates to become Secretary of State once Rex Tillerson’s unhappy and probably short tenure in the job ends. The speech also used more twisted versions of familiar rhetorical twists that have been heard before from diehard opponents of the JCPOA…….https://consortiumnews.com/2017/09/06/nikki-haley-falsely-accuses-iran/
Haley: Trump ‘has grounds’ to say Iran violating nuclear deal, Politico, By NAHAL TOOSI, 09/05/2017
Donald Trump’s U.N. ambassador says the president “has grounds” to declare that Iran is not complying with the 2015 nuclear deal, stoking doubts about whether Trump intends tokeep an international agreement and core legacy achievement for former President Barack Obama.
Nikki Haley, speaking Tuesday in Washington, said she did not know what Trump plans to do next month when he is due to certify to Congress whether Tehran is complying with the agreement. But she appeared to lay the groundwork for Trump to declare that Iran is in violation of the deal……..http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/05/trump-iran-violate-nuclear-deal-nikki-haley-242331
Contradicting Trump, U.N. Monitor Says Iran Complies With Nuclear Deal, NYT, By RICK GLADSTONE, AUG. 31, 2017Iran is adhering to the limits placed on its nuclear activities under the 2015 agreement with six world powers, the United Nations monitor said Thursday in a quarterly report that could further complicate President Trump’s vow to find the Iranians in violation of the accord.
U.S. pressure or not, U.N. nuclear watchdog sees no need to check Iran military sites, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-nuclear-inspections-idUSKCN1BB1JC ,Francois Murphy, VIENNA , 31 Aug 17, – The United States is pushing U.N. nuclear inspectors to check military sites in Iran to verify it is not breaching its nuclear deal with world powers. But for this to happen, inspectors must believe such checks are necessary and so far they do not, officials say.
Last week, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley visited the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is scrutinizing compliance with the 2015 agreement, as part of a review of the pact by the administration of President Donald Trump. He has called it “the worst deal ever negotiated”.
After her talks with officials of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, Haley said: “There are… numerous undeclared sites that have not been inspected. That is a problem.” Iran dismissed her demands as “merely a dream”.
The IAEA has the authority to request access to facilities in Iran, including military ones, if there are new and credible indications of banned nuclear activities there, according to officials from the agency and signatories to the deal.
But they said Washington has not provided such indications to back up its pressure on the IAEA to make such a request.
“We’re not going to visit a military site like Parchin just to send a political signal,” an IAEA official said, mentioning a military site often cited by opponents of the deal including Iran’s arch-adversary Israel and many U.S. Republicans. The deal was struck under Trump’s Democratic predecessor Barack Obama.
IAEA Director-General Yukiya Amano frequently describes his Vienna-based agency as a technical rather than a political one, underscoring the need for its work to be based on facts alone.
The accord restricts Iran’s atomic activities with a view to keeping the Islamic Republic a year’s work away from having enough enriched uranium or plutonium for a nuclear bomb, should it pull out of the accord and sprint towards making a weapon.
Donald Trump’s nuclear obsession with Iran is misplaced, The US president would be better advised to try defusing tensions with North Korea, Ft.com Roula Khalaf, 30 Aug 17,
Donald Trump had two nuclear tantrums this summer, though you may know about only one of them. He warned North Korea it would face “fire and fury like the world has never seen” if it made further threats to the US, and set much of the world fretting about nuclear war as a consequence. The former director of national intelligence James Clapper noted that there is nothing to stop Mr Trump from carrying out a first strike, which, as he rightly puts it, is “pretty damn scary”. Also scary is Mr Trump’s determination to reopen another nuclear dispute that was parked in 2015, thanks to deft diplomacy by his predecessor. He doesn’t rage as much about Iran as North Korea but Mr Trump hates the Iran nuclear deal, which rolled back Tehran’s enrichment programme in exchange for a lifting of international sanctions. Every time the state department confirms Iran is in compliance with it (Congress mandates this every 90 days), the president has a fit.
This summer, according to US media, during one such episode, Mr Trump ordered his lieutenants to come up with a reason why Iran is flouting the agreement next time they report back to him. For foreign policy watchers, this brought back memories of George W Bush’s obsession with Saddam Hussein and the resulting politicisation of intelligence on weapons of mass destruction to justify the invasion of Iraq. The consequences of that misguided adventure are still spilling Iraqi and American blood……
With the crisis intensifying in North Korea — which, unlike Iran, does have nuclear weapons — ensuring an Iranian nuclear programme stays inactive for a decade is rather reassuring. Though the circumstances and the nature of the regimes of North Korea and Iran are different, the same painstaking multilateral diplomacy that produced the deal with Tehran will be needed to resolve the stand-off with Pyongyang peacefully….
while it would have been preferable to force Iran into a total surrender, it was not possible. If there had been a better deal to be had, the six world powers involved in the talks would have negotiated it. Mr Trump fancies himself as a master negotiator, but he would meet his match if he sat down with the Iranians. The US administration is under the impression that undermining the nuclear agreement would force Iran into submission to its Sunni Arab neighbours. More likely, quite the opposite would happen. Mr Trump is obsessing about Iran for the wrong reasons. More useful would be to study the nuclear agreement for the lessons it might offer about dealing with North Korea. roula.khalaf@ft.comhttps://www.ft.com/content/3534bbf6-8c96-11e7-9084-d0c17942ba93
According to a report by the UNEP, the World Food Programme and the National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA), the biggest climate hazards to Afghan livelihoods are drought and floods, caused by irregular snowmelt or rainfall.
global warming should be taken as seriously as fighting insurgents. “Terrorism is not going to be lingering here for ever,” he says. “But climate change is an ongoing death sentence.”
How climate change is a ‘death sentence’ in Afghanistan’s highlands, Global warming should be taken as seriously as fighting insurgents, say those witnessing the savage impact first-hand, Guardian, Sune Engel Rasmussen , 28 Aug 17 ,
The central highlands of Afghanistan are a world away from the congested chaos of the country’s cities. Hills roll across colossal, uninhabited spaces fringed by snow-flecked mountains, set against blistering blue skies.
In this spectacular, harsh landscape, one can pinpoint more or less where human settlement becomes impossible: at an altitude of 3,000 metres (9,840ft).
This is where Aziza’s family lives, in the village of Borghason. In a good year, they just about survive by cultivating wheat and potatoes for food and a small income. However, when the rains fail, as they increasingly do, the family is plunged into debt, unable to reimburse merchants for that year’s seeds. “Last year, we had to borrow money from the bazaar,” Aziza says.
Things are about to get tougher. The precariousness of life in Bamiyan, one of Afghanistan’s poorest provinces, leaves villages like Borghason at the mercy of climate change.
On a recent visit, the Guardian trekked from freshwater lakes surrounded by jagged massifs at 4,500 metres down to villages at the receiving end of erratic weather, a common result of global warming. Warmer temperatures melt the mountain snow earlier, resulting in an increased flow of water before farmers need it.
These are irregularities that farmers living at the margins of economic sustainability cannot afford. “People are surviving,” says Andrew Scanlon, country director for the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). “[But] their ability to bounce back is almost zilch.”
Farmers say unanimously that temperatures have risen over the past decades. Rain is scarcer and more unpredictable. “People know about climate change even if they don’t call it that,” says Fatima Akbari, the UNEP’s country assistant. “They know all about change in water and weather.”
Despite 15 years as one of the world’s biggest receivers of international aid, much of it to agriculture, Afghanistan remains woefully underdeveloped and largely defenceless against jolts from nature. Western donors primarily poured money into short-sighted programmes such as heavy engineering and cash-for-work schemes, designed for “quick impact”, Scanlon says.
“Soldiers and engineers were on six-month contracts and needed to quickly win hearts and minds,” he adds. Governments and engineers got accustomed to short time frames. Meanwhile, little was done to build long-term resilience. Winning hearts and minds was meant to win the war, yet climate change endangers that elusive victory.
Although research on the topic in Afghanistan is limited to small-scale anthropological analyses, studies from Iraq and elsewhere link global warming and security. According to the UNEP, about 80% of conflicts in Afghanistan are related to resources like land and water – and to food insecurity, an immediate consequence of global warming.
According to a report by the UNEP, the World Food Programme and the National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA), the biggest climate hazards to Afghan livelihoods are drought and floods, caused by irregular snowmelt or rainfall.
Bamiyan is the epicentre. The mountains in Shah Foladi, one of four recognised national parks, feed both the Kabul basin and the Helmand river, which runs south for 700 miles (1,126km). In Helmand, water has instigated conflict for decades and been central to foreign intervention since the early cold war, when the US got involved in irrigation projects.
Despite fighting a worsening war against insurgents, the Afghan government seems, to an extent, aware of the need to address the risks of global warming. “In the region, Afghanistan is the most vulnerable country facing the ravages of climate change,” says Prince Mostapha Zaher, grandson of the former king Mohammad Zahir Shah and director general of the NEPA…….
Women are particularly affected by erratic weather. In Borghason, when the rains fail, farmers switch crops from barley to wheat, which is less ideal as livestock feed, says Chaman, an older woman in the village. As a result, women – who are tasked with fetching water and tending livestock – have longer distances to hike.
If Report Says Iran Is Abiding by Nuclear Deal, Will Trump Heed It?,NYT, By GARDINER HARRIS AUG. 27, 2017 WASHINGTON — Within days, international monitors will send an inspection report on Iran’s nuclear facilities to governments around the world, touching off a chain of events that could lead to another clash between President Trump and congressional Republicans, or even his own top advisers.
Strong indications’ Trump won’t recertify Iranian compliance with nuclear deal
There are more signs the Trump administration is preparing a case to decertify Iran’s compliance with the international nuclear deal.
Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, this week visited the atomic watchdog agency in charge of monitoring Iran’s compliance.
On Thursday, Tehran said it “is abiding by its duties and responsibilities” and accused Washington of using the issue “for ill-wishing political means.” CNBC
Jeff Daniels | @jeffdanielscaThe Trump administration is giving “strong indications” that it is preparing a case to decertify Iran‘s compliance with the international nuclear agreement, an expert says.
If that happens, though, some analysts believe it risks alienating U.S. allies. In addition to the United States and Iran, the 2015 nuclear agreement was signed by Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China and the United Nations.
The White House sent Nikki Haley, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, to Vienna on Wednesday to meet with officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is responsible for monitoring and verifying Iran’s commitments under the 2015 agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
On Thursday, Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency quoted from a letter sent by Iran’s foreign minister to the U.N. agency saying the country “is abiding by its duties and responsibilities” with regard to nuclear weapons and agreements. He accused Washington of using the issue “for ill-wishing political means.”
During her visit, Haley “discussed the IAEA’s verification and monitoring of Iran’s nuclear-related commitments,” according to a statement by the agency. It provided no additional information, and a statement from Haley’s office discussed her visit but shed no light on imminent action.
Last week, Haley said the Tehran government should be held accountable for “its missile launchers, support for terrorism, disregard for human rights, and violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions. Iran cannot be allowed to use the nuclear deal to hold the world hostage.”
The Trump administration has certified Iran’s compliance twice under a law that requires it to notify Congress of Iran’s compliance every 90 days. The next review ends in October.
Analysts say recent actions by the U.S. demonstrate that President Donald Trump plans to renege on the Iran nuclear agreement. During the election campaign, he threatened to rip up the agreement, calling it “the worst deal ever.”
The actions include new U.S. sanctions imposed on Iran and a comment last week by a U.S. official that Iran is in breach of “the spirit” of the nuclear accord. New sanctions were designed to punish Iran for its human rights record, rocket launches as well as its role in terrorism and arms smuggling.
“He’s given strong indications that he’s just not going to recertify it,” said John Glaser, director of foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, the libertarian think tank.
“If we were to leave the deal or deliberately abrogate it, we’d be isolated internationally and we wouldn’t be able to do anything like reapply sanctions that would do any kind of damage on Iran,” he added. “That’s because the rest of the international community would not sort of play along.”
Glaser said the other parties to the agreement “agree that Iran is compliance with the deal and agree that the deal should be kept in place because it’s a robust, nonproliferation agreement. It has kind of taken military conflict against Iran because of the nuclear program off the table.”
Kingdom launched a renewable energy programme this year, and winning bid for first utility-scale solar project is due in November
Khobar, Saudi Arabia: Saudi Arabia and China are to cooperate on nuclear energy projects following discussions between the two countries this week on ways to support the kingdom’s nuclear energy programme, state news agency SPA reported.
Saudi Arabia has been for years trying to diversify its energy mix so that it can export more of its oil, rather than burning it at power and water desalination plants.
It launched a renewable energy programme this year with the announcement of the winning bid for its first utility-scale solar project due in November.
In addition to that programme, Riyadh is in the early stages of feasibility and design studies for its first two commercial nuclear reactors, which will total 2.8 gigawatts.
China’s leading state nuclear project developer China National Nuclear Corp (CNNC) has now signed a memorandum of understanding with the Saudi Geological Survey (SGS) to promote further existing cooperation between the two sides to explore and assess uranium and thorium resources, SPA said…….
Shoddy translation in the Western media is increasing nuclear tensions–again, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Ariane Tabatabai, 25 Aug 17, “…….Inaccurate translations, imprecise analyses, and poor reporting have long plagued discussion of Iranian nuclear affairs in Western, English-language media. Now, though, this kind of irresponsibility is particularly alarming, because the nuclear agreement signed in 2015 between Iran and six world powers is in a fragile state. The agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, curbs Iranian nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief, and is critical to advancing the US objective of keeping Tehran away from the Bomb without resorting to military force. US President Donald Trump has gone from pledging to dismantle the deal to trying to kill it by a thousand cuts. Meanwhile, various American interest groups are jumping in to advocate for their own preferred Iran policy options, including leaving the JCPOA and pursuing regime change. All this makes it even more critical than before for journalists and experts to get the facts right.
In foreign policy reporting, especially during periods of heightened tension and escalation, translations are a particularly challenging part of the journalist’s job. Mistranslations and inaccurate reporting can be consequential, as even the slightest mistakes can change meaning and generate crises……
the bottom line of all statements coming out of Tehran about the nuclear deal is that the country is committed to preserving it. This is currently the consensus within the regime; whether everyone likes it or not, the JCPOA is the law of the land. Yet given US threats to renege on the deal, Rouhani also has to hedge. So he is laying out his country’s options and the possible outcomes should America withdraw from the process. It is in this area that many reporters have translated his statements inaccurately.
For example, on August 15, Reutersinaccurately reported that Rouhani said his country “could abandon its nuclear agreement with world powers ‘within hours’ if the United States imposes any more sanctions.” The article went on to misquote Rouhani as saying: “If America wants to go back to the experience (of imposing sanctions), Iran would certainly return in a short time—not a week or a month but within hours—to conditions more advanced than before the start of negotiations.” In fact, what Rouhani said was: “New US officials should know that the failed experience of sanctions and coercion brought their previous governments to the negotiating table. And if they want to return to that experience, surely, in a short amount of time, not in a period of weeks and months, but hours and days, we will return to a much more advanced situation than that of the beginning of the talks.” In other words, Rouhani wasn’t threatening to leave the JCPOA if the United States imposed more sanctions on it—as the article’s title suggested and its content indicated—but to resume elements of its program if Washingtondecided to leave the JCPOA. At the same time, Rouhani reiterated that his country’s preferred course of action was to preserve the deal—but he wanted the United States to know that Iran, too, had options……
These inaccuracies would be problematic under normal circumstances, but they are particularly irresponsible at a time of heightened tensions, during which misperceptions could quickly torpedo the nuclear deal and put the United States and Iran on a collision course. Right now, the Trump administration is reviewing its policy on the JCPOA, Iranian support for the deal is diminishing, and hawks on both sides see this fragile state of affairs as an opportune moment to kill it off completely. If journalists are to hold those in power accountable, they must be held accountable themselves. http://thebulletin.org/shoddy-translation-western-media-increasing-nuclear-tensions-again11046?platform=hootsuite
Iran’s top priority to protect nuclear deal from US http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/08/20/irans-top-priority-protect-nuclear-deal-us-rouhani Rouhani, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said Sunday the top foreign policy priority for his new government was to protect the nuclear deal from being torn up by the United States. “The most important job of our foreign minister is first to stand behind the JCPOA, and not to allow the US and other enemies to succeed,” Rouhani told parliament, using the technical name for the 2015 deal that eased sanctions in exchange for curbs to Iran’s nuclear programme.
“Standing up for the JCPOA means standing up to Iran’s enemies,” he said on the last day of debates over his cabinet selections. Rouhani indicated a week ago that Iran was ready to walk out on the nuclear deal if the United States continued to apply fresh sanctions.
US President Donald Trump repeatedly threatened to tear up the deal during his campaign, and it has come under mounting pressure after Tehran carried out missile tests and Washington imposed new sanctions — with each accusing the other of violating the spirit of the agreement.
But Rouhani has insisted it remains Iran’s preferred way forward, not least to help rebuild the struggling economy and create jobs.
“The second responsibility of the foreign ministry… is to get involved in economic activities. It should help attract foreign investment and technology,” Rouhani said, adding that Iran needed $200 billion in investments for the oil and gas sector alone.
Parliament approved 16 of his 17 cabinet picks, rejecting his suggested minister of energy, a reformist named Habibollah Bitaraf. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who was the charismatic face of Iran’s nuclear negotiations, retained his position.
So did Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, who recently struck a billion-dollar deal with French giant Total.
Rouhani, a political moderate, worked hard behind the scenes to secure support for his choices, including from the supreme leader and the military. He began his second term earlier this month after winning a resounding victory over a hardline challenger in May, vowing to continue his outreach to the world and improve civil liberties at home.
But he has angered reformists by again failing to appoint a single woman minister, and looks no closer to securing the release of jailed opposition leaders — one of whom, Mehdi Karroubi, briefly went on hunger strike this week to demand a trial after six years under house arrest.
Rouhani has yet to appoint a minister of science, research and technology, which conservatives consider to be a sensitive post.
Trump may be planning to make a very bad decision on the Iran deal WP, 20 Aug 17 “……According to international inspectors and the U.S. intelligence community, Iran has largely abided by the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal, which greatly reduced its stockpile of enriched unranium and placed strict limits on its nuclear activities. If the regime continues complying, it could be a decade or more before Iran could again threaten to become a nuclear power. Yet perversely, Mr. Trump is matching his passivity toward Iran’s regional meddling with an apparent determination to torpedo the nuclear pact.
After grudgingly certifying in July that Iran was meeting the terms of the deal — a test mandated by Congress every 90 days — Mr. Trump told the Wall Street Journal that he planned to find the regime noncompliant when the next certification is due in October. How to reach such a finding if the intelligence community judges otherwise? According to Foreign Policy, Mr. Trump ordered a group of political aides, including now- fired strategist Stephen K. Bannon, to cook up a rationale — something that presumably will be made easier by their lack of data or expertise.
The real experts puzzle over what Mr. Trump could hope to accomplish by announcing that Iran is noncompliant — other than satisfying what appears to be his compulsive urge to spoil President Barack Obama’s legacies. Without proof of Iranian noncompliance, U.S. partners in the nuclear deal, including the European Union, Russia and China, would surely refuse to support the nullification of the accord or the reimposition of sanctions. Iran might respond to decertification by resuming uranium enrichment, even if Mr. Trump did not reimpose U.S. sanctions. That would present the White House with the ugly old problem of how to stop Iranian progress toward a bomb. Could Mr. Trump credibly threaten Iran with military action even while using the threat of force against North Korea?….https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/trump-may-be-planning-to-make-a-very-bad-decision-on-the-iran-deal/2017/08/20/1faf5642-81e2-11e7-b359-15a3617c767b_story.html?utm
“We will insist on our stance when talking with the Americans,” Dzhagaryan said in an interview with ISNA, stressing that the nuclear agreement must be fully implemented.
He said Russia is deeply concerned about U.S. President Donald Trump’s bashing of the nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
“The European countries are also very concerned and oppose [such rhetoric],” the Russian diplomat said, adding, “This is not a deal between Iran and America, but rather a multilateral agreement.”
“As you know, Russia has put a lot of effort into reaching the JCPOA,” the diplomat remarked.
Dzhagaryan also expressed the hope that China, along with U.S. allies including France, Germany, and especially Britain would persuade Washington to soften its tone on the nuclear accord.
On the recent U.S. sanctions that targeted Russia, Iran and North Korea, the diplomat said he regards all of them as “illegal”.
“However, we urge North Korea not to carry out missile tests, as it will be used as a pretext by the Americans to expand their military presence in the region,” he pointed out.
He also pointed to the economic benefits following the nuclear agreement, saying although he is satisfied with the level of Tehran-Moscow political ties, he cannot be content with the level of economic transactions between the two countries.
Russia has long supported the full implementation of the JCPOA and belives the full implementation of the deal would benefit all countries, Russia’s top diplomat in Iran asserted.
On Friday, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova reiterated her country’s stance, saying the Kremlin keeps on supporting the international pact.
Talking to reporters, she invited all the other signatories to the deal to stick to it.
Russian has all the time declared its stance regarding the international deal clearly and Moscow was actively involved in conclusion of the JCPOA, she said.
Zakharova stressed that Russia played an important role in preventing the Iran nuclear issue to be drawn into a military conflict.
In certain tense conditions, she said, the U.S. would say Iran’s nuclear program needed military solution.
But Russia insisted clearly on its stance on solving the nuclear issue through negotiations and it will never change its standing regarding the deal, said Zakharova.
Iran’s Rouhani urges EU’s active role in JCPOA implementation, Trend, 16 August 2017Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has called on the European Union to play a more active role to help the full implementation of the country’s nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), for the benefit of the Middle East and Europe, PressTV reported.
“The full implementation of the JCPOA benefits the EU and the region, so it is essential that the EU step up its efforts and role in this regard,” Rouhani said during a meeting with the new Austrian ambassador to Tehran, Stefan Scholz, on Wednesday.
Rouhani said the post-JCPOA era had offered a good opportunity for the further promotion of ties between Iran and the European countries, including Austria. Hailing Austria’s successful hosting of the Iranian nuclear negotiations, Rouhani said all parties would reap the benefits of the JCPOA.
“The JCPOA is a win-win agreement, which on the one hand, removed false concerns of certain Western countries, and on the other hand, lifted cruel sanctions against the Iranian nation,” the Iranian president said, adding that the agreement had brought about peace and provided a suitable economic condition for investors.
He said Iran was keen to seize the post-JCPOA opportunities for investment and expand economic ties, especially banking transactions.
The Austrian envoy, for his part, lauded the Tehran-Vienna ties as deeply-rooted and based on mutual respect, and said his country supported Iran’s policies at the international arena……https://en.trend.az/iran/politics/2787546.html
Jordan in talks with Russia on financing solutions for nuclear reactor2017-08-17 AMMAN, (Xinhua)— Jordan on Wednesday said talks were still ongoing with Russia to secure the best financing solutions to build the country’s first nuclear power plant.
The Jordan Atomic Energy Commission said in a statement that the two countries were still committed to the project to build a nuclear power plant in Jordan with two reactors each having a capacity of 1,000 megawatts.
Russia’s Rosatom, the state atomic energy corporation, has been keen on implementing the project since its inception and is involved in the project with all its technical and financial aspects, the commission said, quoted by the Jordan Times.
The commission’s statement came following some local reports claiming that the Russian company was looking into withdrawing from the project and it has already submitted a request to Jordan in this regard…….
Jordan will secure 1.5 billion U.S. dollars and Russia will do the same for building the plant, which is estimated to cost 10 billion dollars. The rest will be financed by banks and funds.
It launched a renewable energy programme this year with the announcement of the winning bid for its first utility-scale solar project due in November.
nuclear-news 