Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature currently requires accessing the site using the built-in Safari browser.
Sanctions never work.
See: Cuba.
Irans Central Bank says the countrys annual inflation rate hit 24.9 percent in October compared to 24.0 the previous month. The figure, reported by the official IRNA news agency Wednesday, was one of the highest inflation rates since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to office seven years ago.
They add to a bleak economic picture which conservatives are pinning on Ahmadinejad, who they supported in his disputed 2009 re-election.
Irans national currency, the rial, lost about 50 percent of its foreign exchange value in less than a week in October, hitting an all-time low of 35,500 versus the dollar. It currently stands at about 32,000, and was close to 10,000 in early 2011. The decline has been blamed on a combination of government mismanagement and sanctions imposed over Irans nuclear program.
Iran inflation soars to 24.9 percent | The Times of Israel
Ehud Barak's assertion that Iran has "essentially delayed their arrival at the red line by eight months," is in line with the timeframe laid out by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in September, when he spoke at the U.N. General Assembly. There, Netanyahu said the world has until next summer at the latest to stop Iran before it can build a nuclear bomb. The West suspects Iran may be aiming toward production of nuclear weapons and has imposed a series of sanctions on the regime.
U.S. lawmakers are currently working on a set of new sanctions that could prevent Iran from doing business with most of the world until it agrees to internationally demanded constraints on its nuclear program. Iran denies it is trying to build a bomb, insisting its program is for peaceful purposes. However, it has restricted access of U.N. inspectors to the country's nuclear sites.
Officials from the U.N. nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency said Friday they would meet with Iranian officials in Tehran next month in an attempt to restart stalled nuclear talks. It would be the first such meeting since early summer, when talks halted over Iran's reluctance to allow IAEA into sites the agency suspects could have been used in secret work on nuclear weapons.
Israel sees Iran's nuclear program as an existential threat, citing Iranian denials of the Holocaust, its calls for Israel's destruction, its development of missiles capable of striking the Jewish state and its support for anti-Israel militant groups. Barak's comments, made during an interview late Thursday on Israel's Channel 2 TV, appeared to be based on an August report by the IAEA. The report said that Iran has converted much of its higher-level enriched uranium into a powder for a medical research reactor that is difficult to reprocess for weapons production.
Read more: Israel defense minister says Iran has slowed down uranium enrichment push by some 8 months | Fox News
Khamenei, whose 2005 edict banning nuclear weapons is regarded as binding in Iran, told a group of visitors to his home in Tehran that his country favoured the worldwide elimination of nuclear weapons. He said that they believe that nuclear weapons must be eliminated, adding that they dont want to build atomic weapons. But if we didnt believe so and intended to possess nuclear weapons, no power could stop us, the New York Times reports.
According to the report, American officials have said that they believe Khamenei exercises full control over Irans nuclear program. But on Thursday, he rejected direct talks with the United States while it was pointing a gun at Iran, and on Saturday he elaborated on the issue. He called on the United States to show logic while talking to Iran, without further elaborating, the report said.
According to the report, he and other Iranian leaders have often emphasised that before any talks can take place, Western sanctions must be lifted and the West must respect what they say is Irans right to a nuclear program monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Khamenei said that this was the only way to interact with the Islamic republic of Iran, and in that case the US administration would receive a proper response from Iran. He pointed to American-devised sanctions, to which a new set of measures was added this month, as the prime example of why negotiations between Iran and the United States would fail, the report said.
According to the report, Iranian oil sales have been reduced by half as a result of the international pressure on Iran, and restrictions on financial transactions and transportation have created many difficulties for Irans leaders. Consumer prices have increased, and the national currency has fallen sharply. Still, shops are fully stocked, restaurants are serving customers, and the construction of buildings and roads continues. He said that they naïvely think that the nation has been exhausted by the sanctions and will therefore yearn for negotiations with the US, it added.
`No power can stop Iran from seeking nuclear weapons`
State news agency IRNA quoted a report by the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI) which said the reserves were discovered in northern and southern coastal areas and had trebled the amount outlined in previous estimates. There was no independent confirmation. With few uranium mines of its own, Western experts had previously thought that Iran might be close to exhausting its supply of raw uranium.
"We have discovered new sources of uranium in the country and we will put them to use in the near future," Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, head of the AEOI, was quoted as saying at Iran's annual nuclear industry conference. The timing of the announcement suggested Iran, by talking up its reserves and nuclear ambitions, may hope to strengthen its negotiating hand at talks in Kazakhstan on Tuesday with the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany.
Diplomats say the six powers, known as the P5+1, are set to offer Iran some relief from international sanctions if it agrees to curb its production of higher-grade enriched uranium. The West says Iran's enrichment of uranium to a fissile purity of 20 percent demonstrates its intent to develop a nuclear weapons capability, an allegation the Islamic republic denies.
FROM MINE TO CENTRIFUGE
Gen. Hamid Sarkheili, a spokesman for the military exercise, said the Guard's electronic warfare unit spotted signals indicating that foreign drones were trying to enter Iranian airspace. Sarkheili said Guard experts took control of one drone's navigation system and brought it down near the city of Sirjan where the military drills began on Saturday. "While probing signals in the area, we spotted foreign and enemy drones which attempted to enter the area of the war game," the official IRNA news agency quoted the general as saying. "We were able to get one enemy drone to land."
Sarkheili did not say whether the drone was American. In Washington, a CIA spokeswoman declined to comment on the report. Iran has claimed to have captured several U.S. drones, including an advanced RQ-170 Sentinel CIA spy drone in December 2011 and at least three ScanEagle aircraft.
State TV said the Guard's military exercise, code-named Great Prophet-8, involved ground forces of the Guard, Iran's most powerful military force. State TV showed tanks and artillery attacking hypothetical enemy positions. He said various systems, including unmanned planes that operate like suicide bombers, were tested. "Reconnaissance as well as suicide drones, which are capable of attacking the hypothetical enemies, were deployed and their operational capabilities were studied," the semi-official Fars news agency quoted him as saying.
Source
Apparently sanctions on Iran are working but people say in spring we will witness the cycle start anew.
The challenge for Western leaders is to continue to stay Israels hand and ensure sanctions enveloping Iran are tightened even further. Do you agree?
Apparently sanctions on Iran are working but people say in spring we will witness the cycle start anew.
The challenge for Western leaders is to continue to stay Israels hand and ensure sanctions enveloping Iran are tightened even further. Do you agree?
The report illustrates a major domestic challenge for North Koreas young leader, Kim Jong-un. A team from the UNs Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), reporting from North Korea, found that 2.8 million North Koreans are in need of regular food assistance amidst worrying levels of chronic malnutrition and food insecurity. It said 4 percent of North Korean children are acutely malnourished. The report did not directly mention North Koreas recent threats against South Korea, its threat of a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the US or Pyongyangs claim to have abolished the Korean War armistice as of Monday.
However, the report said humanitarian aid should be neutral and impartial and must not be contingent on political developments. The OCHA team also found that much of North Koreas support structure is crumbling under the third generation of Kim family rule. Supplies of medicine and equipment are inadequate; water and heating systems need repair and the infrastructure of schools and colleges is deteriorating rapidly, the report said. With little arable land, harsh weather and chronic shortages of fuel and equipment, North Korea has struggled for decades to feed its 24 million people. Its new leader, who took over in December 2011, has made improving the economy a priority and has pledged to improve North Koreans standards of living.
In autumn last year, a UN team visited all nine agricultural provinces of the communist state during the main cereal harvest and estimated that North Korea would need to import 507,000 tonnes of cereals to meet its basic food needs this year. That UN teams report recommended that North Korean farmers be allowed to sell or barter their surplus food at market, rather than turn their excess over to the state. Such incentives should encourage farmers to boost production, according to the joint report last year from the World Food Program and UN Food and Agriculture Organization.
However, the survey also made clear that the problems that have long kept North Koreans undernourished remain: insufficient and inefficient tractors and chronic shortages of fuel, spare parts and tires necessary to run them. Agriculture is North Koreas lifeblood, contributing a quarter of the nations economy and engaging a third of the population. However, many northern farms rely on ox and manual labor because there are not enough tractors and equipment to go around. Foreign food aid and imports make up for the shortfalls. North Korea also suffered a severe famine in the mid and late 1990s.
More than quarter of N Korean youths malnourished: UN - Taipei Times
Wethepeople wrote: And to whoever thinks sanctions against North Korea haven't worked you are sadly mistaken. That is the most isolated country in the world. Take a look at their people. They are in horrible condition...
More than quarter of N Korean youths malnourished: UN
Sun, Mar 17, 2013 - More than a fourth of all North Korean children are stunted from chronic malnutrition, and two-thirds of the countrys 24 million people do not know where their next meal is coming from, the UN said on Friday.
The report illustrates a major domestic challenge for North Koreas young leader, Kim Jong-un. A team from the UNs Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), reporting from North Korea, found that 2.8 million North Koreans are in need of regular food assistance amidst worrying levels of chronic malnutrition and food insecurity. It said 4 percent of North Korean children are acutely malnourished. The report did not directly mention North Koreas recent threats against South Korea, its threat of a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the US or Pyongyangs claim to have abolished the Korean War armistice as of Monday.
However, the report said humanitarian aid should be neutral and impartial and must not be contingent on political developments. The OCHA team also found that much of North Koreas support structure is crumbling under the third generation of Kim family rule. Supplies of medicine and equipment are inadequate; water and heating systems need repair and the infrastructure of schools and colleges is deteriorating rapidly, the report said. With little arable land, harsh weather and chronic shortages of fuel and equipment, North Korea has struggled for decades to feed its 24 million people. Its new leader, who took over in December 2011, has made improving the economy a priority and has pledged to improve North Koreans standards of living.
In autumn last year, a UN team visited all nine agricultural provinces of the communist state during the main cereal harvest and estimated that North Korea would need to import 507,000 tonnes of cereals to meet its basic food needs this year. That UN teams report recommended that North Korean farmers be allowed to sell or barter their surplus food at market, rather than turn their excess over to the state. Such incentives should encourage farmers to boost production, according to the joint report last year from the World Food Program and UN Food and Agriculture Organization.
However, the survey also made clear that the problems that have long kept North Koreans undernourished remain: insufficient and inefficient tractors and chronic shortages of fuel, spare parts and tires necessary to run them. Agriculture is North Koreas lifeblood, contributing a quarter of the nations economy and engaging a third of the population. However, many northern farms rely on ox and manual labor because there are not enough tractors and equipment to go around. Foreign food aid and imports make up for the shortfalls. North Korea also suffered a severe famine in the mid and late 1990s.
More than quarter of N Korean youths malnourished: UN - Taipei Times
