Eye on Iran: Russia to Build Two New Nuclear Plants in Iran

Join UANI           Top Stories Trend: "Iran announced that it has signed a final protocol with Russia on building two new nuclear power plants. The Deputy Head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization , Behrouz Kamalvandi, said the protocol was signed last month, Iranian IRIB news agency reported on April 22. He went on to say that Iran is also negotiating with some European and Asian countries on building new nuclear power plants without unveiling any further details. The head of the AEOI, Ali Akbar Salehi, said on April 13 that Iran has a contract with Russia which was signed in 1992 and it obligates Moscow to build four other nuclear power plants for Tehran. Salehi said Iran will start construction of its second nuclear plant this year. 'Two years from now, we will start the construction operation of the third plant,' he explained, adding that the country will continue building the next one two years after that. Earlier this month, Russia's Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation said Tehran and Moscow were negotiating the construction of a second unit at the Bushehr nuclear power plant." http://t.uani.com/QuEFyi Trend: "India's oil imports from Iran increased by 117.3 percent in March compared to the same month of the last year and stood at 387,240 barrels per day (bpd). Iranian shipments to India in the first quarter of this year also rose about 42.9 percent from the same period in 2013, Reuters reported based on trade sources on April 22. Iran exported averagely 358,000 bpd of crude oil to India during the first quarter of the current year, while the figure was 250,600 bpd in the same period in 2013. India's oil import from Iran also indicates a rise by 45.6 percent in March compared to the February, the report said. India imported 266,000 bpd of Iranian oil in February." http://t.uani.com/1jCDtkD Free Beacon: "The United States has released $1 billion in cash assets to Iran in April alone under the interim nuclear deal aimed at ratcheting back Iran's nuclear program, according to the White House. The Obama administration unfroze Iranian assets totaling $550 million on April 10 and another $450 million on April 15. The United States has now released $2.55 billion to Iran since February, when the scheduled cash infusions first began... While the White House maintains that Iran will receive about $7 billion in economic relief under the interim accord, outside experts calculate that with oil revenues and other business deals Iran could pocket at least $20 billion over the next several months...  'Iran is on pace to receive at least three times the amount of sanctions relief than the White House originally predicted,' according to Matan Shamir, research director for the advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI). Iran has earned some $7.33 billion in extra profits from crude oil exports from November through February of this year, according to Shamir... Iran exported 1.61 billion barrels of crude oil in February alone, resulting in about $2.71 billion in extra profits. 'The additional oil revenues alone have already exceeded that $6 to $7 billion figure,' said UANI's Shamir. 'Iran is now exporting more than twice the oil it was exporting before the Geneva deal was signed, which translates to $7.33 billion in extra oil revenue for the regime through February.'" http://t.uani.com/1mzxnqy        Nuclear Program & Negotiations Reuters: "Iran said on Monday it was drafting a comprehensive account of its nuclear activities, but did not indicate whether this would be made available to help the final diplomatic push to resolve a decade-old dispute with the West over the programme. The move could meet Western demands for greater transparency to address concerns that Iran may have been trying to develop a nuclear weapons capability, but Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman for Iran's atomic energy agency, made no mention of this. 'There are various files on our atomic programme, but we're lacking a comprehensive document, which we are writing now,' the official IRNA news agency quoted Kamalvandi as saying. 'This is time-consuming, as we need to coordinate with other government bodies, but we hope to have it finished in eight months.' This timeframe would take the report past a July 20 deadline for the conclusion of the talks between Iran and six world powers - the United States, France, Germany, Britain, China and Russia." http://t.uani.com/1hkCUtc Reuters: "President Hassan Rouhani's government confirmed rumors on Monday it had reshuffled the leadership of Iran's atomic agency to sideline nuclear experts opposed to talks on its atomic program with the West... After long evading the sensitive issue, a spokesman for the agency finally offered an answer on Monday. 'Only a limited number of people were concerned and they were neither scientists nor were they fired,' said Behruz Kamalvandi, a liaison between the nuclear agency and national parliament." http://t.uani.com/1kWCBKt Sanctions Relief Trend: "The latest statistics of Iran's customs administration indicates that the country's non-oil trade volume has increased significantly after president Hassan Rouhani took office in last August. Iran's non-oil exports value increased by 0.5 percent during the last Iranian calendar year (ended on March 20) and stood at $41.628 billion, according to the country's customs administration's 'complete data' which was made public on April 20. The report indicates that Iran's non-oil exports' value during the first half of the last Iranian calendar year was about $17.972 billion, some 14 percent less than the same period of preceding year. However the figure stood at $23.656 billion during the second half of the year, some $5.684 billion more than first half. Commenting on the significant increase of exports during the second half of last Iranian calendar year, the country's official IRNA news agency called it a success for Rouhani's administration... Comparing the last Iranian year's first and second six-month periods, indicates that the trade of the country's sanctioned goods has risen during the Rouhani's administration. For instance, Iran's condensate exports approximately doubled during the second half of the last Iranian calendar year and stood at $6.91 billion... Petrochemical exports which also share some 25 percent of Iran's total non-oil exports stood at $6.242 billion during the second half of that last Iranian calendar year, some 140 percent more than in the first half." http://t.uani.com/1hbCVUo Human Rights Fox News: "The American pastor imprisoned in Iran for his Christian faith has sent an Easter message from his hospital bed to his family of supporters across the globe, reminding them of the importance of faith. Saeed Abedini, the 33-year-old Idaho resident who has served one year of an eight-year prison term in Iran for practicing his Christian faith, has passed the letter to family members who were permitted to visit him at the Tehran hospital where he has been for more than five weeks, according to his attorneys. The following letter was passed to Abedini's wife, Naghmeh, who is at their Boise-area home with their two children." http://t.uani.com/1gOU56U IHR: "A juvenile offender was hanged in the Vakilabad prison of Mashhad (Northeastern Iran) on Sunday. He was convicted of a murder committed when he was 16 year old. On Thursday three juvenile offenders were hanged in the Bandar Abbas prison (Southern Iran). Iran Human Rights (IHR) urges the international community to react to the juvenile executions in Iran." http://t.uani.com/1hbDbmn Al-Monitor: "Iran's penal authorities sought on Monday to discredit reports of a violent clash last week inside the political detainee block in Tehran's Evin Prison, calling them fabrications fomented by enemies of the government. The head of the Iran Prisons Organization, Gholam Hossein Esmaili, was quoted by the official news media as saying that the incident in question, which a variety of news outlets said occurred on Thursday, was nothing more than resistance to a routine and successful inspection for contraband such as cellphones. Foreign-based Persian-language satellite news channels and opposition websites, which have wide audiences in Iran although they are officially banned, reported that Evin security guards in Ward 350, backed by agents of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and the Intelligence Ministry, had stormed the cellblock in a violent clash that left more than 30 detainees injured, some seriously." http://t.uani.com/1eZDEd0 Domestic Politics Reuters: "Iran will start cutting gasoline subsidies this week, an official said on Monday, a move that will test President Hassan Rouhani's public support as higher petrol prices add to inflation in a country already squeezed by economic sanctions. The amount of the subsidy cut - and the corresponding rise in fuel prices - has yet to be announced... Rouhani says tackling inflation is a priority, and the rate has dropped below 35 percent as his administration introduced more conservative monetary and fiscal policies. But, temporarily at least, subsidy reform could undo that." http://t.uani.com/1eZBCJT Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) a program of the American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran, Inc., a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Eye on Iran is not intended as a comprehensive media clips summary but rather a selection of media elements with discreet analysis in a PDA friendly format. For more information please email Press@UnitedAgainstNuclearIran.com United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a non-partisan, broad-based coalition that is united in a commitment to prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons.  UANI is an issue-based coalition in which each coalition member will have its own interests as well as the collective goal of advancing an Iran free of nuclear weapons.