A senior military commander warned yesterday that any attack on Iran would start a new world war, as Tehran pressed on with its controversial nuclear drive despite the risk of further UN sanctions.
“Any aggression against Iran will start a world war,” deputy chief of staff for defense publicity Brigadier General Masoud Jazayeri said in a statement carried by the state news agency IRNA.
Iran is under international pressure to halt uranium enrichment, a process that lies at the core of fears about Iran’s nuclear program as it can make nuclear fuel as well as the fissile core of an atomic bomb.
“The unrestrained greed of the US leadership and global Zionism ... is gradually leading the world to the edge of a precipice,” Jazayeri said, citing the unrest in Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan and Georgia.
“It is evident that if such a challenge occurs, the fake and artificial regimes will be eliminated before anything,” he said, without naming any countries.
Iran said on Friday it had increased the number of operating centrifuges at its uranium enrichment plant to 4,000.
The number was up from the 3,000 centrifuges that Iran announced in November that it was operating at its plant in the central city of Natanz. Still, it was well below the 6,000 it said last year it would operate by this summer, suggesting the program may be behind schedule.
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Reza Sheikh Attar, who visited Natanz last week, said Iran was preparing to install even more centrifuges, though he did not offer a timeframe.
The UN has already imposed three rounds of sanctions on Iran for its refusal to freeze its enrichment program, which can be used to produce either fuel for a nuclear reactor or the material needed for a nuclear warhead.
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
SHARED VALUES: The US, Taiwan and other allies hope to maintain the cross-strait ‘status quo’ to foster regional prosperity and growth, the former US vice president said Former US vice president Mike Pence yesterday vowed to continue to support US-Taiwan relations, and to defend the security and interests of both countries and the free world. At a meeting with President William Lai (賴清德) at the Presidential Office in Taipei, Pence said that the US and Taiwan enjoy strong and continued friendship based on the shared values of freedom, the rule of law and respect for human rights. Such foundations exceed limitations imposed by geography and culture, said Pence, who is visiting Taiwan for the first time. The US and Taiwan have shared interests, and Americans are increasingly concerned about China’s
RSS