Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced on Saturday that his country now has 6,000 centrifuges, double the number previously reported and a major step forward in the country's development of nuclear weapons.
The announcement comes a week after the U.S. reversed its policy on Iran by attending a face-to-face meeting in Geneva with representatives from Tehran. Ahmadinejad has suggested he has gained the upper hand." Iran's resistance make the United States change its stance and take part in the talks without suspension of uranium enrichment," he said, "We consider it as a good step forward."
Over the weekend, Iran announced it would no longer cooperate with U.N. experts investigating nuclear weapons work, presumably ending an already impotent effort. The announcement came from Iranian Vice-President Gholam Reza Aghazadeh who, after meeting with the IAEA head, Mohamed ElBaradei, said that investigating such allegations "is outside the domain of the agency."
On the heels of the upcoming meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement in Tehran, the Iranian regime also announced expanded political and economic cooperation with Daniel Ortega's Nicaragua. According to the Tehran Times, Iranian foreign minister Manuchehr Mottaki stressed "Iran's readiness to expand ties and cooperate with the Latin American state in energy field [sic]."
Closer to home, on the 55th anniversary of the start of the Cuban Revolution, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez wrote in a letter to Cuba's Fidel Castro that President Bush is seeking to relive the Cold War. "Bush, when his inevitable decline is arriving, wants to relive the Cold War," he wrote, "The fact that Russia has stood up has enraged the hawks and they're trying, through transnational communication, to press the fear buttons." The letter was published on the web site of a Cuban daily newspaper.
Chavez was fresh off a trip to Russia, where he sought to acquire an air defense system and military equipment and said Russian navy ships were welcome in Venezuelan ports.
