Iran issued a bank note emblazoned with a nuclear symbol, in a move seen as an assertion of the national will in the face of international sanctions over its insistence on enriching uranium.
The new note for 50,000 rials (US$5.40) also reflected rising inflation, a fact that has brought criticism of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's policies. It is worth more than twice the previously highest denomination note for 10,000 rials.
The note is printed in orange, green and blue and shows a nuclear symbol -- electrons flying around a nucleus -- on a map of Iran. A brief text next to the symbol gives a quote from Islam's Prophet Muhammad: "Men from the land of Persia will attain scientific knowledge even if it is as far as the Pleiades." The Pleiades is a cluster of stars.
In conformity with the law, the new note also bears a portrait of the the father of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
State television on Monday said the Central Bank had issued 6 million of the new notes, and will introduce another 6 million within the next two weeks.
The nuclear program is a source of national pride in Iran. Even government opponents support the program.
However in recent months, reformists and conservatives have criticized President Ahmadinejad's harsh rhetoric, saying it has brought more harm than good.
The US and some of its European allies have accused Iran of seeking uranium enrichment as a part of a secret program to build nuclear weapons.
Enriched uranium is used as fuel in nuclear reactors but, enriched to a higher level, it is used in atomic bombs.
Iran denies that it is trying to build nuclear bombs, saying its program is strictly limited to generating electricity.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion