In the News
WORLD
TEHRAN, Iran – An Iranian nuclear agency has denied claims by a top lawmaker that the Islamic Republic had begun installing 3,000 centrifuges at a uranium enrichment plant.
Hossein Simorgh, spokesman of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization public relations department, said, “No new centrifuges have been installed in Natanz,” referring to the nuclear facility in central Iran, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
WORLD
TEHRAN, Iran – An Iranian nuclear agency has denied claims by a top lawmaker that the Islamic Republic had begun installing 3,000 centrifuges at a uranium enrichment plant.
Hossein Simorgh, spokesman of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization public relations department, said, “No new centrifuges have been installed in Natanz,” referring to the nuclear facility in central Iran, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
Earlier Saturday, lawmaker Alaeddin Boroujerdi said Iran was currently installing the centrifuges, underlining that the country would continue to develop its disputed nuclear program despite U.N. sanctions.
It was not immediately clear why the two officials made contradicting statements. Iranian officials have in recent weeks said the country was moving toward large-scale enrichment involving 3,000 centrifuges, which spin uranium gas into enriched material.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini refused to elaborate on the discrepancy Sunday, saying only that the contradicting remarks were a “technical matter.”
“Let the organization elaborate on it at a convenient time,” Hosseini said.
Hosseini also said that Russia’s national security adviser, Igor Ivanov, arrived in Tehran on Sunday for talks with top leaders, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ali Larijani, the country’s nuclear negotiator.
NATION
DES MOINES, Iowa – New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton blamed President Bush Saturday for misusing his authority to act in Iraq but conceded, “I take responsibility” for her role in allowing that to happen.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Clinton said she would not cede black votes to Barack Obama and that she had proven as a U.S. senator that gender is irrelevant.
Of her husband, the former president, she said he would have a role in the campaign but “I’m the one running for president.”
Clinton was making her first campaign swing through the early-nominating state, which twice voted for Bill Clinton for president. She met with key activists and held a raucous town hall meeting with 1,500 cheering backers and hundreds of journalists.
“I have said clearly and consistently for quite some time that I regret the way the president misused the authority,” Clinton said. “He misled Congress and the country on what he was seeking and what he intended to do.”
STATE&LOCAL
SUFFOLK – Policing the Internet is paying off for city police.
A man is facing felony drug distribution charges after an investigation that police said started after his brother used his MySpace Web page to boast of their homegrown marijuana crop and the frequency with which both men use marijuana.
Michael Wayne Pilkerton, 20, of Suffolk, was charged after police used an informant to make three marijuana purchases from him in recent months, police said. They said the investigation was launched in March after they learned about the MySpace page.
The page’s creator, Jonathan Pilkerton, was not mentioned any further in a search warrant filed in Suffolk Circuit Court detailing the investigation last week.
