Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: Iran Not Seeking Nuclear Weapons

This is the REAL face of Iran… any questions? Don’t buy into rightwing lies… what they really want to do is to destroy a non-capitalist state… think on that. Iranians aren’t monsters… they’re human beings…

______________________________

On Saturday, Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei said that Iran isn’t seeking to develop nuclear weapons. He posted on his website, “We believe that nuclear weapons must be eliminated. We don’t want to build atomic weapons. However, if we didn’t believe so and intended to possess nuclear weapons, no power could stop us”. On 14 February, talks between Iran and the IAEA failed to produce a deal on granting IAEA inspectors access to the Parchin facility, which they suspect Iran could use to produce nuclear weapons.

Moscow doesn’t see enough signs that Iran is ready to meet UN and IAEA demands concerning Iran’s nuclear programme. This came in a statement by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov in the run-up to the six international mediators’ talks with Iran in the Kazakh city of Almaty on 26 February. The six mediators are known as P5+1, or the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany. According to Rybakov, the demands on Tehran, including the one that it stop enriching uranium to 20 percent, are still in force. He pointed up that we’re approaching a time when we should make specific decisions.

Iran will never renounce its right to develop nuclear energy for a variety of peaceful needs. It also urges the Western powers raising concerns over its nuclear energy programme to resolve their disagreements with it through talks. On Wednesday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke about this in Teheran at the start of yet another round of negotiations between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The International Atomic Energy Agency reported no breakthrough at the nuclear talks with Tehran. According to the UN body’s chief inspector, Herman Nackaerts, the IAEA is ready to continue negotiations on Iran’s nuclear programme. However, he added that the atomic watchdog needed more time to move the debate.

16 February 2013

Voice of Russia World Service

http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_02_16/Iran-not-seeking-nuclear-weapons-Khamenei/

Israel Downgrades Iranian Nuclear Threat

______________________________

On Wednesday, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said in an interview with the Daily Telegraph that Tehran put its nuclear arms plans on hold. He based his conclusion on reports that Iran reoriented about one-third of its 20 percent-enriched uranium towards civilian uses. By downgrading the Iranian military threat, Israel actually acknowledged what Tehran stated repeatedly, namely, that it enriches uranium to a 20 percent level for medical purposes.

In Barak’s opinion, Iran was forced to reverse its plans, fearing that Israel and the USA might launch a military operation that would completely dash its hopes of ever making a nuclear bomb. Ehud Barak advocates preventive strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, a view shared by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but opposed by Washington. Differences between the two allies sharpened to such an extent that US President Barack Obama didn’t find time to receive the Israeli premier in the White House during his visit to the UN General Assembly.

Sergei Demidenko of the Institute for Strategic Assessments and Analysis in Moscow, said, “The latter circumstance could’ve prompted the Israeli leadership to soften its stance. This explains Mr Barak’s statement. The USA has no intension of bombing Iran. It burnt itself on Iraq. However, Iran is not Iraq. Quite evidently, Israel won’t use force against Iran unless the USA supports it. Nevertheless, bombing the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak in 1981, using just one fighter squadron is one thing, whilst attempting to suppress powerful infrastructure well-protected from the air and from the ground, and to suppress Iran’s retaliatory capabilities, is quite a different thing. It’s a big and complicated operation that Israel’s hardly able to launch on its own”.

In the same interview, Barak said, however, that Iran is 8-10 months from making a nuclear bomb. Commenting on the latter statement, Russian analyst Sergei Druzhilovsky said, “Fuelling the myth about the Iranian threat is in Israel’s interests. Firstly, it wants to divert attention from its own nuclear programme… a well-known trick, a thief shouts, ‘Catch the thief’. Secondly, passions over Iran will help it to forge an anti-Iranian coalition in the West. Iran is an orthodox Muslim country where one can always find something one doesn’t like”.

Recently, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov confirmed Moscow’s position on the issue. He said that there’s no evidence whatsoever of Iran developing nuclear weapons. There are questions pertaining to its past nuclear activity and they must clarify them in close cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

31 October 2012

Konstantin Garibov

Voice of Russia World Service

http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_10_31/Israel-downgrades-Iranian-nuclear-threat/

Editor’s Note:

Here’s another sign that Romney’s ship is sinking fast and irretrievably. Even the Likudniks are retreating from a confrontation with Iran. Willy’s out on a limb, all alone. He’ll get support from his gibbering ignorant Evangelical/Mormon base, but few others. His defeat may galvanise the Republican Party to repudiate its present slavery to Radical Evangelical interests. If they don’t, they’re doomed to be a perpetual minority in most of the country outside of the holier-than-thou South.

BMD

 

Russia Denounced EU Sanctions Against Iran

______________________________

Earlier today, Vladimir Chizhov, the Russian Ambassador to the EU, said in an interview with Interfax that Russia condemned the EU sanctions against Iran. He felt that the sanctions imposed on Tehran have exhausted their potential. According to Chizhov, Russia believes that continuing to use sanctions to exert pressure on Iran’s wrong, since they’re bleeding the Iranian economy dry and are affecting the living standards of its population. Besides, the sanctions were untimely, as they were imposed at a time when efforts to settle the Iranian nuclear issue had already begun… Tehran’s cooperating with the IAEA delegation as well as being in contact with the Big Six group of negotiators. Chizhov said that he’s certain that the oil embargo’s also harming EU interests, as Europe’s biggest consumers of Iranian oil, Greece, Spain, and Italy, were hit hardest by the current Euro Zone crisis.

2 February 2012

Voice of Russia World Service

http://english.ruvr.ru/2012/02/01/65068768.html

Sergei Yolkin’s World: Molluscs Monitor the Water

Molluscs Monitor the Water

Sergei Yolkin

2011

_______________________________

Molluscs used to monitor drinking water quality in the reservoir of the Artyom waterworks in Primorye Krai haven’t indicated a raised level of background radiation, a spokesman for Primvodokanal said. A 9.0 magnitude earthquake occurred off the northeast coast of Japan on 11 March. Starting from this date, there were explosions at the first, third, and second reactor units at the NPP Fukushima-1, as well as an explosion and fire at the fourth reactor. According to the IAEA, following a fire in the fourth block and an explosion of accumulated hydrogen, radiation leaked into the atmosphere. A column of white smoke rose over the plant for a few hours after the incident. In addition, there was a release of steam from the second unit. If the level of radiation in the reservoir’s water exceeds the limits set for safety, the molluscs will change due to reaction with heavy metal ions.

16 March 2011

RIA-Novosti

http://rian.ru/caricature/20110316/354585682.html