Iran’s stocks of key nuclear materials have increased but are still within the limits set by a 2015 deal with world powers, the latest International Atomic Energy Agency report on the matter said Friday.
Despite an announcement from Iran earlier this month that it no longer considered itself bound by the agreed restrictions on stocks of enriched uranium and heavy water, stocks of both did not exceed the ceilings set in the 2015 agreement, the report said.
As of May 26, Iran had 125.2 metric tonnes of heavy water, an increase of 0.4 tonnes on February but still under the 130-tonne limit.
As of 20 May, Iran had 174.1 kg (383 pounds) of enriched uranium, up from 163.8 kg in February but again within the relevant limit.
The report does say that “technical discussions… are ongoing” with Iran in relation to its installation of up to 33 advanced IR-6 centrifuges, but does not specify the content of these discussions.
Earlier this month Iran announced it was suspending some of its commitments under the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
The move came a year after US President Donald Trump pulled out of the deal. His administration has also reinforced economic sanctions against the Islamic republic.
As well as no longer respecting the limits on stocks, Iran has also said it will increase production of uranium and heavy water.
The report also confirms Iran has not breached the uranium enrichment level of 3.67 percent specified in the JCPOA.
Since Iran made its announcement earlier this month, there had been “no changes” in the level of co-operation received from Iran, according to a senior Vienna-based diplomat.
The latest report comes amid heightened tensions between Washington and Tehran in recent weeks.
The United States has beefed up its military presence in the Middle East in response to alleged threats from the Islamic republic.
The United States risks losing its measles “elimination status” if current outbreaks continue, US health authorities said Thursday.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Thursday there have been 971 cases of measles reported in the US so far this year, which means more people have caught the disease in the last five months than in any entire calendar year since 1992, which saw 963 reported cases.
Authorities declared measles eliminated in the US in 2000, a goal set in 1966 with the introduction of the vaccine.
Measles is considered eliminated when there is an absence of continuous disease transmission for 12 months or more in a specific geographic area, according to the CDC.
An ongoing outbreak in and around New York City that started last fall is threatening the US’s “elimination status” — if it continues for four more months, the country will no longer be able to say it has eliminated measles.
Even though the New York mayor began requiring city residents in heavily affected areas, many with large Orthodox Jewish communities, to be vaccinated starting in April, the city still had 173 cases that month and 60 in May.
The US has never counted zero measles cases. Since 2000, the number has fluctuated between a few dozen and a few hundred cases per year, with 667 cases recorded during a 2014 outbreak in Ohio, especially in Amish communities.
The disease’s resurgence can mostly be traced back to un- or under-vaccinated travelers who brought the infection back with them from abroad — that’s what happened last year when cases were reported throughout the country, originating from the Philippines, Israel and Ukraine.
Moscow: Russia rebuffed as a baseless smear on Thursday a U.S. allegation that Moscow may be conducting low-level nuclear tests in violation of a moratorium.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Russia was in full compliance with the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which Moscow ratified in 2000.
It called for the United States itself to ratify the treaty.
“Such accusations are absolutely groundless and aimed at trying again to smear our country,” the ministry statement said.
“We again call on the United States to show a responsible approach and to ratify the CTBT, without which its entry into force is not possible,” Russia’s statement said.
China accused the United States of “naked economic terrorism” on Thursday as Beijing ramps up the rhetoric in their trade war.
The world’s top two economies are at loggerheads as trade talks have apparently stalled, with US President Donald Trump hiking tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods earlier this month and blacklisting telecoms giant Huawei.
“We are against the trade war, but we are not afraid of it,” vice foreign minister Zhang Hanhui said at a press briefing to preview President Xi Jinping’s trip to Russia next week.
“This premeditated instigation of a trade conflict is naked economic terrorism, economic chauvinism, and economic bullying,” Zhang said, stressing that China opposes the systematic use of sanctions, tariffs and protectionism.
“There is no winner in a trade war,” he warned.
China has hit back with its own tariff increase on $60 billion in US products that will take effect Saturday, while state media has suggested that Beijing could stop exports of rare earths to the United States, depriving Washington of a key resource used to make hi-tech products.
Meanwhile, state media and officials have stepped up the rhetoric as the Communist Party digs in for what could be a long fight with the United States.
Muzaffarnagar (Uttar Pradesh) May 30: 11 accused were acquitted here on Wednesday by a local court in connection with the 2013 communal riots in Muzaffarnagar district.
Public Prosecutor Dushyant Tyagi, while speaking to media, said, “The local court acquitted 11 accused in a case related to the 2013 Muzaffarnagar communal riots. The acquittal was done due to lack of evidence.”
“Three witnesses in this case, who were present on behalf of the prosecution, turned away from their statements,” he added.
According to Tyagi, the case against the 11 accused was registered in relation to robbery and arson during the time of riots.
The clashes that broke out in Muzaffarnagar and Shamli districts of Uttar Pradesh between the Hindu and Muslim communities claimed 62 lives while injuring 93 others and rendering more than 50,000 homeless.
The riots took place over a minor altercation between Hindu and Muslim youths at Kawal village in Muzaffarnagar district.
France must stop the “inhumane treatment” of children of jihadists stranded in Syria who are not being allowed to come to the country, its rights ombudsman said Wednesday, warning that Paris was flouting its UN obligations.
The statement by France’s Human Rights Defender Jacques Toubon came as controversy intensifies over the reluctance of French authorities to take in the children of French citizens affiliated with Islamic State (IS) jihadists in Syria and Iraq.
“The French state needs to adopt effective measures allowing the halt to the inhumane and degrading treatment of children and their mothers and put an end to the violations of the rights of the child,” Toubon said.
He alleged violations of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which France is a signatory.
The human rights defender leads an independent state institution set up in 2011 and enshrined in the constitution to defend people whose rights have been violated.
Toubon had been asked to give an opinion on the issue by the lawyers of several families with French citizens held in Syria and Iraq.
According to the French foreign ministry, some 450 French citizens linked to IS are either detained by Kurdish forces in northern Syria or being held in refugee camps.
But France is reluctant to bring back foreign fighters or their families after suffering a wave of deadly jihadist attacks that have killed more than 250 people since 2015.
It has said it would consider requests for their return, but only on a case-by-case basis. Since March it has repatriated five orphans and a three-year-old girl whose mother was sentenced to life in prison in Iraq.
In April, France’s State Council, which rules on the constitutionality of policies and laws, rejected several requests to intervene, saying it was a French diplomatic matter outside the council’s jurisdiction.
“Finally a national authority has condemned France and urged it to respect its international and European obligations,” said lawyer Marie Dose, who represents several of the affected families, after Toubon’s statement.
Lawyers William Bourdon and Vincent Brengarth, who represented families who sought the opinion, welcomed the recognition “of the extreme seriousness of the violation of fundamental rights”.
“We expect that the French authorities will organise the repatriation (of the children) as soon as possible,” they said in a statement.
The grandparents of two children stranded with their French jihadist mother at a camp in Kurdish-held Syria filed a lawsuit with the European Court of Human Rights earlier this month over France’s refusal to allow them home.