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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Iran plans 20 reactors with Russian aid; $215 million for 2 now |
| 2006-01-16 |
| Iran has allocated the equivalent of $215 million for the construction of what would be its second and third nuclear power plants, state radio reported Monday. The report did not give the location of the new reactors, but last month Iran said it planned to build new plants in the southern Iranian provinces of Khuzestan and Bushehr. Iran's first reactor has been built at Bushehr with Russian assistance and is due to come on stream this year. "Some 1,940 billion rials have been allocated for the building of two nuclear power plants in the draft budget bill for the next Iranian year," the head of Iran's Management and Planning Organization, Farhad Rahbar, told Tehran radio. The US dollar trades at about 9,000 rials on the open market, and the Iranian new year begins March 21. Iran plans to build 20 more nuclear plants, and Russia has offered to build some of them. Iran is under increasing international pressure over its nuclear program as it insists on controlling the whole fuel cycle - from mining uranium to enriching it to the point where it can be used in reactors. The West objects to Iran's enriching uranium as the process can be used to produce material for nuclear bombs. The United States accuses Iran of trying secretly to build nuclear weapons, a charge Iran denies. Britain, France and Germany, with US backing, have been trying to persuade Iran to import nuclear fuel, but Iran has rejected this. |
| Posted by:lotp |
| #3 Putin isn't that stupid. The Russian 'commercial' nuclear plants aren't particularly efficient, aren't particularly safe and their byproducts aren't that easy to convert to bombs (it may even be easier to just start from scratch with uranian ore). Russian military reactors do produce very enriched endproduct. |
| Posted by: mhw 2006-01-16 15:36 |
| #2 Let's see Andropov was the protege of Suslov Putin was the protege of Andropov But... Andropov is prez of Russia not the USSR So, is the KGB still in Putin? and since Suslov was party... Is the Party still in Putin? Then Is the Cold War over in Putin's view? |
| Posted by: 3dc 2006-01-16 14:18 |
| #1 Clearly Putin has forgotten his own country's victims to Muslim terrorist. Beslan school and the Moscow Theater just to name two attacks. What could he be thinking in helping Islamics build nuke plants? I've never trusted Putin but I've never thought he was stupid. Until now. |
| Posted by: Icerigger 2006-01-16 12:39 |