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)
Kamalvandi meets with Director General of International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, Rafael Grossi at Khomeini Airport, Nov.2021. (AP)
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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)
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.



Evacuations and Call for Aid as Typhoon Usagi Approaches Philippines

A villager on a wooden boat paddles on a flooded village caused by Typhoon Toraji in Tuguegarao city, Cagayan city, Philippines, 13 November 2024. (EPA)
A villager on a wooden boat paddles on a flooded village caused by Typhoon Toraji in Tuguegarao city, Cagayan city, Philippines, 13 November 2024. (EPA)
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Evacuations and Call for Aid as Typhoon Usagi Approaches Philippines

A villager on a wooden boat paddles on a flooded village caused by Typhoon Toraji in Tuguegarao city, Cagayan city, Philippines, 13 November 2024. (EPA)
A villager on a wooden boat paddles on a flooded village caused by Typhoon Toraji in Tuguegarao city, Cagayan city, Philippines, 13 November 2024. (EPA)

The Philippines ordered evacuations Wednesday ahead of Typhoon Usagi's arrival, as the UN's disaster office sought $32.9 million in aid for the country after recent storms killed more than 150 people.

The national weather service said Usagi -- the archipelago's fifth major storm in three weeks -- would likely make landfall Thursday in Cagayan province on the northeast tip of main island Luzon.

Provincial civil defense chief Rueli Rapsing said mayors had been ordered to evacuate residents in vulnerable areas, by force if necessary, as the 120 kilometers (75 miles) an hour typhoon bears down on the country.

"Under (emergency protocols), all the mayors must implement the forced evacuation, especially for susceptible areas," he told AFP, adding as many as 40,000 people in the province lived in hazard-prone areas.

The area is set to be soaked in "intense to torrential" rain on Thursday and Friday, which can trigger floods and landslides with the ground still sodden from recent downpours, state weather forecaster Christopher Perez told reporters.

He urged residents of coastal areas to move inland due to the threat of storm surges and giant coastal waves up to three meters (nine feet) high, with shipping also facing the peril of 8–10-meter waves.

A sixth tropical storm, Man-yi, is expected to strengthen into a typhoon before hitting the center of the country as early as Friday, Perez said.

With more than 700,000 people forced out of their homes, the successive storms have taken a toll on the resources of both the government and local households, the UN said late Tuesday.

About 210,000 of those most affected by recent flooding need support for "critical lifesaving and protection efforts over the next three months", the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement.

"Typhoons are overlapping. As soon as communities attempt to recover from the shock, the next tropical storm is already hitting them again," UN Philippines Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Gustavo Gonzalez said.

"In this context, the response capacity gets exhausted and budgets depleted."

The initiative "will help us mobilize the capacities and resources of the humanitarian community to better support government institutions at national, regional and local levels," Gonzalez added.

More than 28,000 people displaced by recent storms are still living in evacuation centers operated by local governments, the country's civil defense office said in its latest tally.

Government crews were still working to restore downed power and communication lines and clearing debris from roads.

About 20 big storms and typhoons hit the archipelago nation or its surrounding waters each year, killing scores of people and keeping millions in enduring poverty.

A recent study showed that storms in the Asia-Pacific region are increasingly forming closer to coastlines, intensifying more rapidly and lasting longer over land due to climate change.