Iran Says Fire at Nuclear Site Caused ‘Significant Damage’
(Bloomberg) -- Iran said a fire that broke out at its Natanz nuclear facility last week had caused “significant damage” to a building that was used to develop advanced centrifuges.
A number of “measuring devices and advanced tools” were destroyed in the July 2 blaze, and work has already started on reconstructing the building with “more advanced equipment and a bigger site,” Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman for the Atomic Energy Agency of Iran, told the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency.
According to Kamalvandi, Iran expedited work on a project to develop centrifuges with 190,000 SWU, or separative work units (used to measure a centrifuge's capacity to enrich uranium), at the site in June 2018 following an order from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Khamenei's instruction came within a month of the U.S.'s withdrawal from the multilateral nuclear deal. He has been calling for Iran to acquire centrifuges with that capacity since 2014.
The fire at Natanz came the same week as two explosions in Tehran province, including one near the Parchin military base and another at a medical clinic which killed 19 people.
Iran's top security body has investigated the incident but said it had to withhold its conclusions over what caused the incident for security reasons.
Iran Identifies Cause of Fire at Key Natanz Nuclear Facility
©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
-
Opinion | India at 38: From Innovation Overperformer to Innovation Powerhouse
India now has 453 VC-backed deep science startups, 18 of them late-stage, after 117 percent growth since 2020. Laurus Labs, at USD 9.3 billion, is the most valuable deep science company in any middle-income economy outside China.
-
Navigating Energy Crossroads: S Jaishankar's Call For Diversified Supply Chains At G20 Ministerial Meeting
As geopolitical fault lines continue to test maritime trade routes and commodity flows, Jaishankar's message remains pertinent: true economic resilience requires open markets, protected transit lines, and a genuine commitment to multilateral cooperation rather than coercion.
-
Indians Are Travelling, But Not Every Journey Is A Holiday | The Week In Whys
Pilgrims, patients and working women are the real travellers, and the system hasn't quite caught up with them.
-
Getting To Work Costs Women More | The Reason Why
It is not just about women paying more than men. It is about women paying much more in cities than in villages.
-
AI Bias In Investing Cannot Be Eliminated, But It Can Be Governed
Framing is a particularly important example as identical financial information presented in terms of gains rather than losses can lead an LLM to reach a different assessment.
-
Joining The Dots | Dark Skies, Steady Diya: Why Hope Holds This Diwali
With war, a weak rupee and foreign outflows weighing on sentiment, policymakers at the NDTV World Summit and market veterans at NDTV Profit Ignite: Diwali Edition offered the same advice: stay invested and filter out the noise.
-
The Curious Case of Equitas Small Finance Bank And A CEO Who Quit For Stock
PN Vasudevan believes persistent investor concerns over a perceived conflict of interest had become a governance overhang on Equitas Small Finance Bank's stock, even as the lender improved profitability and asset quality.
-
Talking Points This Week: AI Cash Burn, A Tiger Comeback And An India That Still Finds Its Own Path
India is not immune to higher oil or tighter global liquidity, yet its earnings base is broader, its domestic policy levers are still available.
-
Foreign Investors Own Half Of HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank. An LTCG Cut Could Matter Most Here
Foreign portfolio investors have US$115 billion parked in HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank. If the government cuts long-term capital gains tax, Jefferies says returning foreign money could land here first.
