Iran Defends ‘Legitimacy’ of Enriching Uranium to 20% at Fordow https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3751781/iran-defends-%E2%80%98legitimacy%E2%80%99-enriching-uranium-20-fordow
Iran Defends ‘Legitimacy’ of Enriching Uranium to 20% at Fordow
Kamalvandi meets with Director General of International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, Rafael Grossi at Khomeini Airport, Nov.2021. (AP)
The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran defended the legitimacy of its latest step to accelerate uranium enrichment by 20 percent through operating IR-6 centrifuges at its underground Fordow facility.
Iran has escalated its uranium enrichment further with the use of advanced machines at Fordow in a setup that can more easily change between enrichment levels, the UN atomic watchdog said in a report on Saturday seen by Reuters.
Behrouz Kamalvandi, a spokesman for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, said uranium enriched to 20 percent was collected for the first time from advanced IR-6 centrifuges on Saturday. He said Iran had informed the UN nuclear watchdog about the development two weeks ago.
The IR-6 centrifuges have already produced uranium enriched to purity of 20 percent, Kamalvandi stated.
He added that what the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran has done is in line with its legitimate responsibility to launch and power 1,000 (six cascades) of IR6 centrifuges.
"On 7 July 2022, Iran informed the Agency that, on the same day, it had begun feeding the aforementioned cascade with UF6 enriched up to 5 percent U-235," the confidential report to IAEA member states said.
Iran had previously told the IAEA that it was preparing to enrich uranium through a new cascade of 166 advanced IR-6 centrifuges at its Fordow facility. But it hadn’t revealed the level at which the cascade would be enriching.
Tehran’s 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers had called for Fordow to become a research-and-development facility and restricted centrifuges there to non-nuclear uses.
The IAEA reported in April that Iran has uranium enriched to 60 percent purity — a short step to 90 percent.
Iran said it was working to enrich uranium to 20 percent at Fordow, a level well beyond the 3.67 percent agreed under the 2015 deal.
Rescuers Search for Survivors as Indonesian Quake Toll Riseshttps://english.aawsat.com/world/5307312-rescuers-search-survivors-indonesian-quake-toll-rises
A house damaged by a tsunami following a magnitude 7.7 earthquake is seen in Mbay, Nagekeo, East Nusa Tenggara province, Indonesia, 15 August 2026. EPA/IGNASIUS KUNDA
Rescuers Search for Survivors as Indonesian Quake Toll Rises
A house damaged by a tsunami following a magnitude 7.7 earthquake is seen in Mbay, Nagekeo, East Nusa Tenggara province, Indonesia, 15 August 2026. EPA/IGNASIUS KUNDA
Rescuers combed through debris for survivors on Saturday after a powerful earthquake struck off Indonesia's eastern Flores island, killing at least 47 people, according to disaster officials.
The national disaster management agency (BNPB) raised the death toll from 40 late Saturday, and rescue official Fathur Rahman said 50 people were injured in the 7.7-magnitude quake.
Suharyanto, who leads the BNPB, said earlier that people were trapped in several buildings.
"These will be the initial targets of the disaster response teams," said Suharyanto, who like many Indonesians uses one name.
Nearly 160 houses, dozens of educational and health facilities and other public buildings were damaged when the earthquake struck the popular tourist island in Indonesia's east, the BNPB reported.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said preparations were underway to bring aid to some 2,000 people in temporary shelters.
The government sent 50,000 aid packages weighing a total of 275 tons to the area, and European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen offered help from the bloc's Copernicus Earth observation satellites.
"Europe stands ready to deploy Copernicus, our eyes in the sky, to support search and rescue efforts. Indonesia, we stand with you," she wrote on X.
"I have never felt an earthquake this big," Yulian Juita Ekalia, who lives in Ruteng city more than 100 kilometers (60 miles) west of the epicenter, told AFP by telephone hours after the tremor.
"It felt like we were on a trampoline; it was really scary," said the 37-year-old university lecturer, who was jolted awake at around 5:30 am (2130 GMT on Friday).
"As I rushed to get outside, everything in the house fell down: the television, my son's trophies, the dish racks, suitcases on top of the wardrobes. When I got outside, my son and neighbors were already there, screaming in fear."
A handout photo made available by the National Search and Rescue Agency of Indonesia (BASARNAS) shows rescuers evacuating a victim after a 7.7 magnitude earthquake in Maumere, East Nusa Tenggara province, Indonesia, 15 August 2026. EPA/BASARNAS / HANDOUT
Rescue official Fathur told AFP the focus was on locating victims who may be buried under rubble, but rescue efforts have been complicated by landslides cutting off roads.
Many Flores inhabitants were left without electricity and telecommunications.
Residents in Nagekeo, an area close to the epicenter, raced for higher ground as the sea retreated early Saturday -- a possible sign of an approaching tsunami, AFP journalists witnessed.
While a tsunami warning was lifted, authorities urged people not to return to damaged buildings for fear that aftershocks may bring them down.
Hundreds remained outside hours later as dozens of aftershocks shook the island, the strongest measured at a magnitude of 6.1.
Waves of up to 1.6 meters (5.2 feet) were reported in some coastal regions of Flores, according to Indonesia's BMKG geological agency.
Yulian said she had dragged her stove outside and was cooking there, fearing further tremors.
She said she saw patients being treated under emergency tents outside a nearby hospital.
Nagekeo resident Yohanes Babo, 56, said he was at a market when the earth started shaking in the early morning hours.
"The shaking was strong. Thankfully, we were already outside the house," he told AFP.
"People were panicking, running here and there. We're evacuating for the time being... and trying to get to the hills," he said.
The epicenter of the shallow quake was located just off the north coast of the island, US and Indonesian authorities said.
The affected areas have few, if any, high-rise buildings.
A second, deep onland quake was measured at a magnitude of 6.9 near Pematangsiantar on Sumatra island -- thousands of kilometers away -- some 12 hours after the Flores tremor.
There were no initial reports of damage or casualties, and no tsunami alert was issued.
Indonesia experiences frequent earthquakes due to its location in the Pacific "Ring of Fire", an arc of intense seismic activity stretching from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.
Flores was struck by a 7.7-magnitude earthquake in 1992, which triggered a tsunami and resulted in around 2,500 deaths.
A devastating 9.1-magnitude tremor in 2004 struck off the coast of Sumatra and triggered a tsunami that killed 220,000 throughout the region, about 170,000 of them in Indonesia, in one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history.
5 People Shot at Virginia State University as Police Investigate Multiple Shootershttps://english.aawsat.com/world/5307281-5-people-shot-virginia-state-university-police-investigate-multiple-shooters
5 People Shot at Virginia State University as Police Investigate Multiple Shooters
Virginia State Police vehicles line the edge of Highway I-66 in Fauquier County, Virginia - File photo/Reuters
A shooting involving multiple suspects and five people shot at Virginia State University prompted a campus lockdown early Saturday.
It happened near the university's Quad Annexes, where campus police and Chesterfield County officers discovered five people suffering from gunshot wounds outside campus dormitories. Officers responded just before 1:30 a.m. and the lockdown was lifted at about 9 a.m., county police said.
The five were transported to hospitals, and one initially listed as having life-threatening injuries has been upgraded to critical condition, county police said. The others sustained non-life-threatening injuries, police said, The AP news reported.
The university said in a statement that the shooting involves “multiple suspects.” The statement asked people to avoid the immediate area.
“A significant law enforcement presence remains on campus as the investigation into this morning's shooting continues,” the university said after the lockdown was lifted.
The campus had a large law enforcement presence on Saturday morning. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Hanover County Sheriff's Office were assisting, county police said.
Virginia State Police deferred questions to local police, who they said are leading the investigation. County police and campus officials said there would be more information later in the day.
Virginia State University is a historically Black university located in Ettrick, Virginia, about 24 miles south of the state capital of Richmond. The public university has about 5,700 students and was the first fully state-supported four-year college for Black Americans. Most of its students are undergraduates.
The shootings happened just before the start of the academic year at Virginia State. According to the university's website, residence halls opened for students a week ago, and classes are set to begin on Monday. Many students had just completed the university's “New Trojans Experience” for incoming students.
EU Sends Aircraft as Belgium Fights Record Wildfirehttps://english.aawsat.com/world/5307274-eu-sends-aircraft-belgium-fights-record-wildfire
Washington state Department of Natural Resources South Puget Sound region firefighter Kayla Tolbert assists in wildfire suppression efforts in Spokane County, Washington, U.S., August 5, 2026. REUTERS
EU Sends Aircraft as Belgium Fights Record Wildfire
Washington state Department of Natural Resources South Puget Sound region firefighter Kayla Tolbert assists in wildfire suppression efforts in Spokane County, Washington, U.S., August 5, 2026. REUTERS
The European Union deployed three helicopters and two water bomber aircraft to tackle a record wildfire in eastern Belgium, the bloc's crisis commissioner said on Saturday, after Belgium requested emergency reinforcements.
The blaze in the High Fens, Belgium's largest nature reserve, has been burning since Friday and local firefighters, farmers and the army have sought to contain it.
By early Saturday afternoon, it had burned 1,600 hectares, a spokesperson for the administration of the Wallonia region in Belgium told Reuters.
That makes the fire the biggest on record in Belgium, surpassing a blaze in 2011 that burned nearly 1,400 hectares, data from the European Forest Fire Information System showed.
Local authorities on Saturday told residents in the village of Sourbrodt to prepare for a possible evacuation. A children's summer camp in the region was already being evacuated, Belgian Defence Minister Theo Francken said in a post on X. European countries including Belgium suffered their fifth heatwave of the summer this week. Scientists say human-caused climate change has increased the likelihood of the hot and dry conditions that allow wildfires to spread faster and burn longer.
The EU coordinates the deployment of extra resources pooled from European countries, when a country requests emergency help. The aircraft sent to Belgium on Saturday were from the Czech Republic, Sweden and the Netherlands, EU Crisis Commissioner Hadja Lahbib said in a post on X.
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