Next Nuclear Talks between Iran and Three European Countries Due on Jan 13

FILE PHOTO: Iranian flag flies in front of the UN office building, housing IAEA headquarters, in Vienna, Austria, May 24, 2021. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Iranian flag flies in front of the UN office building, housing IAEA headquarters, in Vienna, Austria, May 24, 2021. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner/File Photo
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Next Nuclear Talks between Iran and Three European Countries Due on Jan 13

FILE PHOTO: Iranian flag flies in front of the UN office building, housing IAEA headquarters, in Vienna, Austria, May 24, 2021. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Iranian flag flies in front of the UN office building, housing IAEA headquarters, in Vienna, Austria, May 24, 2021. REUTERS/Lisi Niesner/File Photo

The next round of nuclear talks between Iran and three European countries will take place on Jan. 13 in Geneva, Iran's semi-official ISNA news agency cited the country's Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi as saying on Wednesday.
Iran held talks about its disputed nuclear program in November, 2024 with Britain, France and Germany.
Those discussions, the first since the US election, came after Tehran was angered by a European-backed resolution that accused Iran of poor cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog.
Tehran reacted to the resolution by informing the IAEA watchdog that it plans to install more uranium-enriching centrifuges at its enrichment plants.
UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi told Reuters in December that Iran is "dramatically" accelerating its enrichment of uranium to up to 60% purity, closer to the roughly 90% level that is weapons grade. Tehran denies pursuing nuclear weapons and says its program is peaceful.
In 2018, the then administration of Donald Trump exited Iran's 2015 nuclear pact with six major powers and reimposed harsh sanctions on Iran, prompting Tehran to violate the pact's nuclear limits, with moves such as rebuilding stockpiles of enriched uranium, refining it to higher fissile purity and installing advanced centrifuges to speed up output.
Indirect talks between US President Joe Biden's administration and Tehran to try to revive the pact have failed, but Trump said during his election campaign in September: "We have to make a deal, because the consequences are impossible. We have to make a deal".



China Discovers Cluster of New Mpox Strain

A woman walks on the Youyi Bridge at the Liangmahe river in Beijing, China on Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
A woman walks on the Youyi Bridge at the Liangmahe river in Beijing, China on Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
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China Discovers Cluster of New Mpox Strain

A woman walks on the Youyi Bridge at the Liangmahe river in Beijing, China on Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
A woman walks on the Youyi Bridge at the Liangmahe river in Beijing, China on Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

Chinese health authorities said on Thursday they had detected the new mutated mpox strain clade Ib as the viral infection spreads to more countries after the World Health Organization declared a global public health emergency last year.
China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention said it had found a cluster outbreak of the Ib subclade that started with the infection a foreigner who has a history of travel and residence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Reuters reported.
Four further cases have been found in people infected after close contact with the foreigner. The patients' symptoms are mild and include skin rash and blisters.
Mpox spreads through close contact and causes flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions on the body. Although usually mild, it can be fatal in rare cases.
WHO last August declared mpox a global public health emergency for the second time in two years, following an outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that spread to neighboring countries.
The outbreak in DRC began with the spread of an endemic strain, known as clade I. But the clade Ib variant appears to spread more easily through routine close contact, including sexual contact.
The variant has spread from DRC to neighboring countries, including Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, triggering the emergency declaration from the WHO.
China said in August last year it would monitor people and goods entering the country for mpox.
The country's National Health Commission said mpox would be managed as a Category B infectious disease, enabling officials to take emergency measures such as restricting gatherings, suspending work and school, and sealing off areas when there is an outbreak of a disease.