Iran announced on Thursday it had agreed to share peaceful nuclear technology with Nigeria, aiming to help Africa’s biggest oil producer boost its electrical-generation output.
The head of the Iranian delegation said it was his country’s right to share its nuclear know-how with Nigeria. Mohammad Ali Zeyghami, a top commerce official, said fossil fuels would one day disappear and that it was crucial to develop clean energy.
“Nobody can limit the use of knowledge anywhere in the world,” Zeyghami said.
Tijanni Kaura, a senior Nigerian Foreign Ministry official, stressed that the agreement dealt only with power production and shouldn’t be misconstrued as an attempt to gain a nuclear weapons program.
“Nigeria is never entering into any agreement with Iran for any matter that has to do with weapons,” Kaura said.
“There shouldn’t be a misunderstanding between exploration or uses of energy to provide power and the uses of energy for weapons ... so that our relationship with Iran will not be misconstrued by Nigerians and the entire international community,” Kaura said.
Iran has refused to comply with repeated international demands to halt nuclear enrichment, a process that can be used to produce fuel for nuclear weapons or nuclear energy. The US suspects the country is trying to make weapons, but Iran says its only aim is power production.
Nigeria is Africa’s biggest petroleum producer, but neglect and corruption have left it with almost no way to refine crude oil into fuels used to power electricity-generating stations.
Most of the country’s 140 million inhabitants see only a few hours of state-provided electricity per day, and industry must rely on costly diesel generators to power plants.
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
A retired US colonel behind a privately financed rocket launch site in the Dominican Republic sees the project as a response to China’s dominance of the space race in Latin America. Florida-based Launch on Demand is slated to begin building a US$600 million facility in a remote region near the border with Haiti late this year. The project is designed to meet surging demand for the heavy-lift rockets needed to put clusters of satellites into orbit. It is also an answer to China’s growing presence in the region, said CEO Burton Catledge, a former commander of the US Air Force’s 45th Operations
Germany is considering Australia’s Ghost Bat robot fighter as it looks to select a combat drone to modernize its air force, German Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius said yesterday. Germany has said it wants to field hundreds of uncrewed fighter jets by 2029, and would make a decision soon as it considers a range of German, European and US projects developing so-called “collaborative combat aircraft.” Australia has said it will integrate the Ghost Bat, jointly developed by Boeing Australia and the Royal Australian Air Force, into its military after a successful weapons test last year. After inspecting the Ghost Bat in Queensland yesterday,
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RSS