India defended on Saturday a safeguards agreement with the UN atomic energy agency for a sensitive deal on its nuclear reactors, saying it guaranteed uninterrupted fuel supplies for its plants.
Government officials said the safeguards agreement — submitted to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) last week — ensured there would be no abrupt disruption of fuel supplies for its civilian nuclear power plants.
“Discontinuity in the operation of a reactor cannot happen suddenly,” Anil Kakodkar, the chief of India’s Atomic Energy Commission, told reporters.
Under the agreement, India will open its civilian nuclear facilities to international inspection, a condition it must meet to help seal a controversial pact to share nuclear technology with the US.
The Indian government faces a confidence vote in parliament on July 22 following a political crisis sparked by its decision to push ahead with the deal.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh argued the pact is crucial for India’s energy security and continued strong economic growth.
But left-wing parties, who withdrew crucial support for the ruling coalition over the pact, insisted the deal would bind India too closely to the US and ran counter to India’s non-aligned status.
They also said they believe that allowing UN inspections of the country’s civil nuclear program — as demanded by the US — would harm India’s strategic weapons program.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home