Iranian technicians were to break UN seals on the Isfahan nuclear plant yesterday, allowing uranium processing to resume, a spokesman for Iran's Supreme National Security Council said.
Officials from the UN's nuclear watchdog agency were to supervise the removal of the UN seals, the first step toward restarting central Iran's Isfahan Nuclear Conversion Facility, Ali Agha Mohammadi, spokesman for Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said in a report from the official IRNA news agency.
Reprocessing uranium is a step below uranium enrichment, which is to remain suspended, said Mohammadi. The US claims the Iranian nuclear program is designed to produce atomic weapons, a claim Iran denies.
The work is to resume at the Isfahan plant, which converts uranium ore concentrate, known as yellowcake, into uranium gas, the feedstock for enrichment. Uranium enriched to high levels can be used for nuclear bombs; at low levels it is used as fuel for nuclear energy plants.
Earlier yesterday, Iran's parliamentary speaker said Tehran was giving European negotiators until 5pm local time yesterday to submit an incentives package to Iran before it would announce any such resumption.
But Iran's instructions to the IAEA appeared to be a break from that arrangement. No details were immediately available on the apparent change in the plan.
Iran's apparent decision to restart a step in uranium reprocessing could trigger a call by European and US officials to haul Iran before the UN Security Council for possible sanctions over its nuclear program.
European diplomats said Sunday that if Isfahan were restarted, an emergency IAEA board meeting would be called to set a deadline for the Iranians to "see the error of their ways" and stop their enrichment activities.
If such a deadline were not met, a Security Council referral was a likely next step, the officials said.
Iranian officials have signaled an intensifying impatience with the slow pace of negotiations with Europe, and an incoming conservative administration in Tehran has showed signs of wanting to harden the country's stance.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
‘COMING MENACINGLY’: The CDC advised wearing a mask when visiting hospitals or long-term care centers, on public transportation and in crowded indoor venues Hospital visits for COVID-19 last week increased by 113 percent to 41,402, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, as it encouraged people to wear a mask in three public settings to prevent infection. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said weekly hospital visits for COVID-19 have been increasing for seven consecutive weeks, and 102 severe COVID-19 cases and 19 deaths were confirmed last week, both the highest weekly numbers this year. CDC physician Lee Tsung-han (李宗翰) said the youngest person hospitalized due to the disease this year was reported last week, a one-month-old baby, who does not
RSS