Iran test-fired missiles yesterday to show it was prepared to head off any military threat, four days before the Islamic Republic is scheduled to hold rare talks with world powers worried about its nuclear ambitions.
The missile maneuvers coincide with escalating tension in Iran’s nuclear row with the West, after last week’s disclosure by Tehran that it is building a second uranium enrichment plant.
News of the nuclear facility south of Iran added a sense of urgency to a crucial meeting in Geneva on Thursday between Iranian officials and representatives of six major powers.
An Iranian official warned “fabricated Western clamor” over the new plant would negatively affect the talks at which the six powers want Iran to agree to open its facilities to inspection to prove its program is for power and not nuclear weapons.
Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s International Atomic Energy Agency envoy, said, referring to the six powers’ concern over the new plant: “This Western approach will have a negative impact on Iran’s negotiations with the five-plus-one countries.”
US President Barack Obama said on Saturday the discovery of the secret nuclear plant in Iran showed a “disturbing pattern” of evasion by Tehran that added urgency to its talks on Thursday with world powers.
Obama warned Iran on Friday it would face “sanctions that bite” if it did not come clean.
Earlier this month, Obama dropped a plan by the previous administration to deploy missiles in Poland that had been proposed as a shield amid concerns Iran was trying to develop nuclear warheads it could mount on long-range missiles.
Iran’s missils “give us the possibility to confront every kind of threat with a long-lasting defense deterrence,” Iranian General Hossein Salami said yesterday.
“The message of this maneuver is for some domineering countries whose intention is to create fear, to say that we are able to come up with an appropriate response to their enmity with high speed and precision,” Salami, head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) air force, said on the IRGC Web site.
The IRGC launched at least two different types of short-range missiles on the exercise’s first day and also tested a multiple missile launcher, Iranian media said.
State radio said the IRGC would test-fire the Shahab 3 missile, which Iranian officials say has a range of about 2,000km, today, potentially putting Israel and US bases in the Gulf within reach. It was last tested in the middle of last year.
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
‘ARMED GROUP’: Two defendants used Chinese funds to form the ‘Republic of China Taiwan Military Government,’ posing a threat to national security, prosecutors said A retired lieutenant general has been charged after using funds from China to recruit military personnel for an “armed” group that would assist invading Chinese forces, prosecutors said yesterday. The retired officer, Kao An-kuo (高安國), was among six people indicted for contravening the National Security Act (國家安全法), the High Prosecutors’ Office said in a statement. The group visited China multiple times, separately and together, from 2018 to last year, where they met Chinese military intelligence personnel for instructions and funding “to initiate and develop organizations for China,” prosecutors said. Their actions posed a “serious threat” to “national security and social stability,” the statement