IRAN
Enrichment stepped up
The government was yesterday to inform the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna over its start of a process to increase the nation’s uranium enrichment capacity, Atomic Energy Organization spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi told Iranian Students News Agency. Kamalvandi said the nation had the capacity to accelerate production of centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Monday said that he had ordered preparations to increase uranium enrichment capacity if a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers falls apart after the US withdrawal from it last month. European signatories of the accord back the deal, but have concerns over Tehran’s ballistic missile program and its influence in the Middle East. Under the agreement with the US, France, Germany, Britain, Russia and China, Tehran strictly limited uranium enrichment capacity to satisfy the powers that it could not be used to develop nuclear bombs. In exchange, Iran received relief from sanctions.
UNITED STATES
Students to tour nation
High school students in Parkland, Florida — where a former student shot dead 17 people in February — are to start traveling across the nation this month to urge young people to stand up and vote against the powerful gun lobby. The national tour announced on Monday and dubbed “March For Our Lives: Road to Change” is to begin on Friday next week and is scheduled to make 50 stops in more than 20 states — “places where the NRA [National Rifle Association] has bought and paid for politicians who refuse to take simple steps to save our lives,” the movement’s Web site said. The goal is to “hold politicians accountable,” said Cameron Kasky, a teenage activist who helped found the March For Our Lives campaign after surviving the carnage at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. “Our generation and many generations that are helping us can change the game,” the 17-year-old said. “We do not have to surrender to dirty, awful politics.”
UNITED STATES
Incoming asteroid burns up
A boulder-size asteroid disintegrated harmlessly over Africa, just hours after its weekend discovery. It was only the third time scientists had spotted an incoming asteroid on a direct collision course with Earth. NASA reported the latest episode on Sunday night. The asteroid was discovered out near the moon’s orbit early on Saturday, aiming straight for Earth. Asteroid trackers at NASA and elsewhere quickly determined the rock — 1m to 2m across — was too small to pose any danger. It burned up in the Saturday evening sky over Botswana, eight hours after first being spotted. NASA said the scramble among scientists and asteroid observers was a good training exercise.
FRANCE
Record price for Van Gogh
A painting by a young Vincent van Gogh was sold at an auction in Paris on Monday for more than 7 million euros (US$8.2 million), the Artcurial auction house said. Raccommodeuses de Filets dans les Dunes (Women Mending Nets in the Fields) dates from 1882 and was bought by a US collector in a hot bidding battle that boosted the selling price far above the estimated value of between 2 million and 5 million euros. “It’s a world record for a Van Gogh landscape, in the Dutch period, sold at auction,” Artcurial said. Monday’s event was the first auction of a painting by the Dutch artist in more than two decades in the nation.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the