Raisi Says Iran Not Seeking Nuclear Weapons

Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi arrives at Bandaranaike International Airport in Katunayake near Colombo on April 24, 2024. (AFP)
Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi arrives at Bandaranaike International Airport in Katunayake near Colombo on April 24, 2024. (AFP)
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Raisi Says Iran Not Seeking Nuclear Weapons

Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi arrives at Bandaranaike International Airport in Katunayake near Colombo on April 24, 2024. (AFP)
Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi arrives at Bandaranaike International Airport in Katunayake near Colombo on April 24, 2024. (AFP)

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said on Saturday his country was not seeking to develop nuclear weapons despite assertions from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it was close to acquiring enough material to develop a bomb.

“Iran is not planning on acquiring nuclear weapons because Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had issued a fatwa against them,” said Raisi according to the Arab World Press.

IAEA chief Rafael Grossi had recently stated that Iran was weeks rather than months away from obtaining enough enriched uranium to develop a nuclear bomb.

“This does not mean that Iran possesses or will possess a nuclear weapon in that period of time,” he added in a report earlier this week.

Raisi, meanwhile, claimed that Tehran’s “nuclear ideology” does not at all include the development of nuclear arms.

He stressed that Iran was seeking to use nuclear technology for peaceful means.

He called for lifting the sanctions imposed on his country, declaring that they will not yield their desired results.

Vienna has hosted numerous rounds of talks between Iran and western powers with the aim of reviving Tehran’s 2015 nuclear agreement that the United States withdrew from in 2018.

An informed source denied claims that Iran was pursuing direct negotiations with the US to restore the deal, reported Iran’s IRNA news agency last week.

It said Tehran and Washington were still exchanging messages “within specific frameworks” and that top Iranian negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani was following up on the negotiations.

Iran is enriching uranium to up to 60%, close to the roughly 90% that is weapons grade, at its Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP) in its sprawling Natanz complex and at its Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant (FFEP), which is dug into a mountain.



UN Says 14 Million Children Did Not Receive a Single Vaccine in 2024

A mother holds her baby receiving a new malaria vaccine as part of a trial at the Walter Reed Project Research Center in Kombewa in Western Kenya on Oct. 30, 2009. (AP)
A mother holds her baby receiving a new malaria vaccine as part of a trial at the Walter Reed Project Research Center in Kombewa in Western Kenya on Oct. 30, 2009. (AP)
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UN Says 14 Million Children Did Not Receive a Single Vaccine in 2024

A mother holds her baby receiving a new malaria vaccine as part of a trial at the Walter Reed Project Research Center in Kombewa in Western Kenya on Oct. 30, 2009. (AP)
A mother holds her baby receiving a new malaria vaccine as part of a trial at the Walter Reed Project Research Center in Kombewa in Western Kenya on Oct. 30, 2009. (AP)

More than 14 million children did not receive a single vaccine last year — about the same number as the year before — according to UN health officials. Nine countries accounted for more than half of those unprotected children.

In their annual estimate of global vaccine coverage, released Tuesday, the World Health Organization and UNICEF said about 89% of children under one year old got a first dose of the diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough vaccine in 2024, the same as in 2023. About 85% completed the three-dose series, up from 84% in 2023.

Officials acknowledged, however, that the collapse of international aid this year will make it more difficult to reduce the number of unprotected children.

In January, US President Trump withdrew the country from the WHO, froze nearly all humanitarian aid and later moved to close the US AID Agency. And last month, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said it was pulling the billions of dollars the US had previously pledged to the vaccines alliance Gavi, saying the group had “ignored the science.”

Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic, has previously raised questions the diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough vaccine, which has proven to be safe and effective after years of study and real-world use. Vaccines prevent 3.5 million to 5 million deaths a year, according to UN estimates.

“Drastic cuts in aid, coupled with misinformation about the safety of vaccines, threaten to unwind decades of progress,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

UN experts said that access to vaccines remained “deeply unequal” and that conflict and humanitarian crises quickly unraveled progress; Sudan had the lowest reported coverage against diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough.

The data showed that nine countries accounted for 52% of all children who missed out on immunizations entirely: Nigeria, India, Sudan, Congo, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Yemen, Afghanistan and Angola.

WHO and UNICEF said that coverage against measles rose slightly, with 76% of children worldwide receiving both vaccine doses. But experts say measles vaccine rates need to reach 95% to prevent outbreaks of the extremely contagious disease. WHO noted that 60 countries reported big measles outbreaks last year.

The US is now having its worst measles outbreak in more than three decades, while the disease has also surged across Europe, with 125,000 cases in 2024 — twice as many as the previous year, according to WHO.

Last week, British authorities reported a child died of measles in a Liverpool hospital. Health officials said that despite years of efforts to raise awareness, only about 84% of children in the UK are protected.

“It is hugely concerning, but not at all surprising, that we are continuing to see outbreaks of measles,” said Helen Bradford, a professor of children’s health at University College London.

“The only way to stop measles spreading is with vaccination,” she said in a statement. “It is never too late to be vaccinated — even as an adult.”