Recovered girl Dr. Aafia's daughter

Source: PressTV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=122999§ionid=351020401


Pakistan confirms that an 11-year old girl, who has been in US custody for seven years and let loose in Karachi by unknown people, is the daughter of Aafia Siddiqui.

Daily Times, quoted the country's Interior Minister, Rehman Malik, confirming the girl, Maryam Khan, as the daughter of Aafia Siddiqui.

A US citizen and MIT graduate, Aafia Siddiqui, disappeared on a trip to Pakistan. Six years later, it was known that she had been kept at the Bagram US Airbase, in Afghanistan.

Reports of rape and torture shows she has been kept under inhumane conditions at the base. She was later transferred to the US and was charged with attempted murder and links with al-Qaeda. She was given a sentence of 40 years.

This is despite of the fact that Aafia's finger prints were not found on the weapon that she had supposedly used. She was convicted for firing at FBI agents and US military personnel in a police station in Afghanistan's Ghazni.

Chairman of the Senate's Standing Committee on Interior, Senator Talha Mehmood, slammed the US for keeping the child in a military jail in a cold, dark room for seven years.

He noted that the act is in violation of human rights, and threatened to stop cooperating with Washington in the region, should Afia Siddiqui not be returned to Islamabad.

Fauzia Siddiqui, Aafia's sister, following a meeting with Pakistani interior minister, expressed hope that the country's Premier Yousuf Raza Gilani would press for Aafi release in his trip to the US.

Aafia's sentence to jail has triggered protests in Pakistan, as millions of her supporters asked for the immediate release and return of Aafia, calling it "a question of honor for Pakistan."

Obama urges China to toe the line on Iran sanctions

Source: PressTV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=122252§ionid=351020104


US President Barack Obama has urged his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao to assist Washington in its drive to impose further sanctions against Iran.

Obama made the request in an hour-long telephone call with the Chinese chief executive on Thursday.

According to the White House, Obama "underscored the importance of working together to ensure that Iran lives up to its international obligations."

Obama's remarks come just a day after Iran's top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili arrived in China to discuss a range of issues, including Tehran's nuclear work, with the Beijing officials.

"The West's efforts to prevent certain countries from acquiring nuclear technology could put global security in danger," Jalili said in a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi on Thursday.

The Iranian negotiator further stressed that a full commitment to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) by all countries was the best way to ensure peace and stability in the world.

Meanwhile, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Qin Gang said Thursday that Beijing would seek a peaceful solution to the Iranian nuclear issue.

Qin Gang also declared China's support for Tehran's right to develop civil nuclear energy.

The US has stepped up its efforts to push other key world powers into passing new sanctions against Iran at the United Nations Security Council.

China and Russia, two of the five veto-wielding members of the council, have repeatedly called for a diplomatic solution to Iran's nuclear issue.

Tehran, as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, rejects the accusations that it is pursuing a military nuclear program, describing the allegations as "baseless" and "politically-motivated," and has opened its nuclear facilities to intrusive inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The IAEA has in turn reported that there is no evidence of diversion of nuclear materials from civilian to military purposes by Iran.

IAEA confirms 20% uranium enrichment in Iran

Source: PressTV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=118942§ionid=351020104


The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has confirmed that Iran has produced its first batch of 20 percent enriched uranium at the Natanz enrichment plant.

IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano said in his first report on Iran that Iranian experts carried out the enrichment for producing nuclear fuel for the Tehran research reactor between February 9 and 11.

"Iran provided the agency with mass spectrometry results which indicate that enrichment levels of up to 19.8 percent (uranium) were obtained," the report says.

Iran announced on February 9 that it had started enriching uranium to the level of less than 20 percent to meet the country's fuel requirements for the reactor producing medical radioisotopes, after the potential suppliers failed to provide the fuel under a UN deal.

Two days later, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad formally declared that Iran had successfully produced the first stock of the 20-percent enriched uranium, a declaration which was met with cynicism in the West.

The report noted that Iran started enriching uranium to a higher level in the presence of IAEA inspectors.

"On February 10, when the agency inspectors arrived at the PFEP (Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant), they were informed that Iran had already begun to feed the UF6 (uranium hexafluoride) into one cascade the previous evening," Amano said in his report to the IAEA Board of Governors.

The report also verified the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran.

"The information available to the agency is extensive… broadly consistent and credible in terms of the technical detail, the time frame in which the activities were conducted and the people, and organizations involved," the report said.

However, the IAEA called on Iran to further discuss and cooperate on alleged issues.

"Iran has not provided the necessary cooperation to permit the agency to confirm that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities," it added.

"Altogether this raises concerns about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile," Amano said.

Iran has repeatedly denied it is working on sensitive nuclear materials and insists its uranium enrichment plants and other facilities are only geared toward civilian nuclear energy applications.