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Liz Truss has said the 400 million that Britain owes Iran is a legitimate debt that the Government wants to pay.

The Foreign Secretary was asked about the amount at a Chatham House event on Wednesday, where she set out her foreign policy aims.

Ms Truss said the Government was going to work night and day to prevent the Iranian regime from ever getting a nuclear weapon.

Richard Ratcliffe, the husband of Iranian detainee Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe (Aaron Chown/PA)

(PA Wire)

But she said they were also working to resolve the issue over the debt relating to a cancelled order for 1,500 Chieftain tanks dating back to the 1970s which has been linked to the continued detention of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and other UK-Iranian dual nationals held in the country.

Ms Truss said: We do want to pay this debt, we recognise its a legitimate debt.

But of course, there are lots of issues, which Im sure you are quite well aware of.

She added that she had spoken to her Iranian counterpart, but said: It is not simple, for various reasons.

And she said: Im also pressing for the return of our unfairly detained British nationals, including Nazanin.

Ms Truss also warned Iran that a meeting in Vienna on Thursday was the countrys last chance to revive a nuclear deal.

The Foreign Secretary previously said a meeting at the end of November was the countrys last opportunity to agree to the original JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, known as the Iran nuclear deal).

Richard Ratcliffe and his daughter, Gabriella, protest in Parliament Square, London about the continued detention of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe (Kirsty OConnor/PA)

(PA Media)

On Wednesday she said: This is really the last chance for Iran to sign up, and I strongly urge them to do that, because we are determined to work with our allies to prevent Iran securing nuclear weapons.

So they do need to sign up to the JCPOA agreement. Its in their interest.

Iran has ramped up its uranium enrichment since the US, under former president Donald Trumps leadership, withdrew from the landmark nuclear agreement between world powers and Iran in 2018.

The US has offered to lift some sanctions in exchange for Iran returning to full compliance with its nuclear commitments.

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Truss: We want to pay 400 million we owe Iran - The Independent

8 December In a new commitment to support national immunization efforts, the World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) have signed an agreement for a partnership to strengthen the local vaccine cold chain system, with a focus on remote and underprivileged areas of the country.

The high calibre joint agreement was signed by WHO Representative and Head of Mission Dr Syed Jaffar Hussain and UNIDO Representative Ms Maryam Javan Shahraki, during an official ceremony at the WHO country office on 6 December, in the presence of authorities from the Expanded Programme on Immunization, International Relations Department of the Ministry of Health and Medical Education and United Nations Resident Coordinator in the Islamic Republic of Iran Mr Stefan Priesner.

The cooperation will lay the foundation to equip cold rooms located in the provinces of Golestan in the northeast, and Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad in the west, with eco-friendly, resilient, and sustainable cooling systems within the framework of a project titled Developing sustainable and resilient cold chain to facilitate access to COVID-19 tools in Islamic REpublic of Iran. It has been defined and funded to support the Ministry of Health and Medical Education in line with a global mutual agreement in place between the two UN agencies since 1989, according to which various two-way activities including on personnel, joint projects, and financing services are foreseen and committed globally.

It aims to promote the sustainable eco-friendly cold chain system and create an innovative business model through cooperation with the public or private local communities in combination with technical knowhow, as well as shared expertise of both agencies in industrial, technical, and health-related areas to effectively support the government to respond to and cope with the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.

The novel coronavirus pandemic has overwhelmed economies and societies around the world, including the Islamic Republic of Iran, increasing the need for safe and effective vaccination for all as a critical measure to control the epidemic in countries, where the success of immunization efforts depends on maintaining cold chains.

The purpose of the vaccine cold chain is to maintain product quality from the time of manufacture until the point of administration by ensuring that vaccines are stored and transported within WHO-recommended temperature ranges. The vaccine cold chain is a global network of cold rooms, freezers, refrigerators, cold boxes, and carriers that keep vaccines at just the right temperature during each link on the long journey from the manufacturing line to the syringe.

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WHO and UNIDO support immunization infrastructure in Islamic Republic of Iran by enhancing sustainability and resilience of cold chain systems - Iran...

The NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery is delighted to welcome back visitors to its space for the exhibition Modernisms: Iranian, Turkish, and Indian Highlights from NYUs Abby Weed Grey Collection. This is the first physical exhibition in the gallery since it moved to virtual programs in the spring of 2020, and it will remain open to the public through February 5, 2022.

Modernisms first opened in New York City in 2019 and traveled to the Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University in the US before making its way to the UAE. The exhibition is the second collaboration between The NYUAD Art Gallery and NYUs Grey Art Gallery. A number of works in the exhibition have remained in storage for the past half-century and this is the first time that many of them are returning to the wider MENASA region.

Abby Weed Grey was a North American collector who made multiple trips abroad in the 1960s and early 1970s, to explore and collect modern art from across Asia. She made eight trips to Iran, and four trips each to India and Turkey, where she acquired the prints, drawings, paintings, and sculpture that came to form the nucleus of the Abby Weed Grey Collection of Modern Asian and Middle Eastern art, housed at New York Universitys Grey Art Gallery.

Modernisms at the NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery sheds new light on famed artists such as Parviz Tanavoli, Fahrelnissa Zeid, and M.F. Husain, and also includes the collectors personal letters, journals, invoices, catalogues, invitations, and photographs from the Abby Weed Grey Papers in the NYU Archives. The archives make visible how these artists drew on their specific heritages while also engaging in global discourses around key issues of modernity.

To visit the exhibition, book a free ticket to reserve a timeslot.

For more information, please visit nyuad-artgallery.org.

Link:
The NYUAD Art Gallery Shows Rare Collection of Work From 1960s Iran, Turkey, and India - Hyperallergic

The significance of Kharg to the Iranian Navy had prompted speculation that the ship might have been sabotaged, potentially by Israel. Iran has suffered a string of curious fires, including some at port facilities, as well as explosions at various important sites in the country, such as ones linked to the country's controversial nuclear program, in recent years. Reports at the time indicated that Israel, or agents working on its behalf, carried out at least some of those attacks, possibly in coordination with the United States. Since at least 2019, Israel and Iran have been conducting a shadow war against each other's commercial and military vessels, as well.

There were new reports just this weekend about an explosion near Iran's Natanz nuclear facility, which authorities claimed was related to a drill that involved the shootdown of an unmanned aircraft. Separately, one of Iran's knock-offs of the U.S. RQ-170 stealth drone crashed in the country under curious circumstances, as you can read more about here.

However, there are no indications that what happened to Talayieh is related to any of this or is anything more than an accident. It remains to be seen what, if anything, the regime in Iran will say about the incident.

Update 12/7/2021:

There are now unconfirmed reports that a person may have died in this dockyard accident involving Talayieh.

Contact the author: joe@thedrive.com

Continued here:
Iran's Newest Warship Has Fallen On Its Side In A Dry Dock (Updated) - The Drive

TEHRAN The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Iran office in collaboration with Tottori University Arid Land Research Center (ALRC), held 5 series of webinars with the theme of Research and Development on Arid Land Agriculture in Iran and Japan for the Ministry of Agriculture in Iran.

In Iran, where most of the land is in either arid or semi-arid areas, drought and water shortages are becoming serious problems as a result of climate change. Drying and desertification are beyond the framework of a country and must be considered as global issues that need to be addressed not just by Iran but also by its surrounding areas.

Global warming due to climate change is one of the biggest challenges of the 21st century.Tottori University Arid Land Research Center (ALRC) is the only arid land research institute in Japan. Japan is not an arid area. However, in order to address problems such as droughts, desertification, and so on, research on arid land had started by utilizing the experience that made agriculture possible through developing sand prevention technology using tree planting and still sand dunes in the Tottori Sand Dunes. Today, the center became a joint research basement of universities and research institutes around the world.

For this series webinar, 4 professors at the ALRC gave lectures on the following themes of "Introduction of the Research and Activities of Arid Land Research Center (ALRC)", Water Productivity and Optimized Irrigation, Wheat varieties Suitable for Arid Land Breeding, and Drought Management.

The total number of participants was nearly 364. The fifth one was a presentation by the Iranian side regarding the Arid Land Agriculture research and application as well as a discussion for the future possible cooperation.

For Tottori University, Iran was the first partner country when the center started its first overseas academic research in the late 1970s and has a lot of joint researches and joint dissertation writing on some specific themes.

Since both have the same mission and direction to solve global problems in arid areas beyond the framework of the country, it was found that there is potential to carry out joint research in many fields.

Climate change, a major problem in Iran

Climate change is one of the most important problems in Iran that can exacerbate drought and water stress, so it is necessary to make serious plans at the national level to address the phenomena.

Increasing consumption of fossil fuels by humans, especially after the Industrial Revolution, has led to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions and ultimately climate change, and now tackling this phenomenon has become one of the most important concerns worldwide.

Temperature change, sea-level rise, coastal degradation, destruction of agricultural and food products, deforestation, depletion of freshwater resources, regional climate change in the high and northern hemispheres, changes in rainfall and wind direction, rising natural disasters such as tornadoes and floods, intensifying droughts and developing desert areas, increasing air pollution due to rising hot winds and the potential impact on the spread of diseases such as malaria are some of the known consequences of climate change.

According to scientists, global warming due to climate change is one of the biggest challenges of the 21st century.

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Japan holds webinars on arid land agriculture in Iran - Tehran Times