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China Holds Five Military Exercises Simultaneously

reporter 1222 — Mon, 28 Sep 2020 14:01:40 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – China began five military exercises simultaneously along different parts of its coast on Monday, the second time in two months it will have such concurrent drills.

Two of the exercises are being held near the Paracel Islands in the disputed South China Sea, one in the East China Sea, and one in further north in the Bohai Sea, the Maritime Safety Administration said in notices on its website.

In the southern part of the Yellow Sea, drills including live-fire exercises will be held from Monday to Wednesday, it said in another notice, Reuters reported.

All ships are prohibited from entering the area, it said.

In a bid to train a combat-ready military force, China holds military drills periodically, but rarely do multiple exercises happen at the same time.

Last month, China announced four separate exercises, from the Bohai Sea to the East and Yellow Seas and down to the disputed South China Sea, in what Chinese military experts said was a rare arrangement of drills.

The United States sent spy planes into a no-fly zone over Chinese live-fire military drills last month. In response, China lodged “stern representations” with the United States.

China and the United States have recently been at loggerheads over a range of issues from Taiwan to the coronavirus pandemic to trade.

China has also held frequent military activities near Chinese-claimed Taiwan and has taken the usual step of declaring that such drills are directed at Taiwan.

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Ferry Accident Left 23 Dead in Bangladesh

reporter 1222 — Mon, 29 Jun 2020 11:07:05 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Twenty-three people died and dozens more were missing on Monday after a ferry capsized in the Bangladesh capital Dhaka following an accident with another ferry, rescue officials said.

“We have so far recovered 23 bodies from the ferry in the accident,” Bangladesh fire brigade official Enayet Hossain told AFP.

“There were 50 people on board… Our rescue divers are still searching,” she said.

The Morning Bird vessel was hit by another ferry at Farashganj, just meters (yards) from the country’s largest river port Sadarghat.

Several witnesses told local television stations that the boat was carrying more than 50 people, with many stuck in cabins.

Ferry accidents are common in Bangladesh due to poor safety standards in the country’s many shipyards. The ferries are often overcrowded and sink in bad weather.

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Dead Sea’s revival with Red Sea canal edges closer to reality

reporter 1222 — Sun, 18 Mar 2018 08:25:22 +0000

Israel and Jordan have long pursued a common goal to stop the Dead Sea from shrinking while slaking their shared thirst for drinking water with a pipeline from the Red Sea some 200 kilometres away.

Geopolitical tensions have stalled efforts to break ground on the ambitious project for years, but the end of the latest diplomatic spat has backers hoping a final accord may now be in sight.

The degradation of the Dead Sea, on the border of Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian West Bank, began in the 1960s when water began to be heavily diverted from the Jordan River.

“Before 1967, the water was just a 10-minute walk from my house,” said Musa Salim al-Athem, a farmer who grows tomatoes on the banks on the Jordan side.

“Now it takes an hour,” he said, standing amid the resulting lunar landscape of spectacular salt sculptures, gaping sinkholes and craters.

“Only the sea can fill up the sea.”

“Since 1950, the amount flowing in the Jordan has dropped from 1.2 billion cubic metres per year (42 billion cubic feet) to less than 200 million,” said Frederic Maurel, an engineering expert at the French development agency AFD.

Heavy production of potash, used for making fertiliser, has also accelerated evaporation that has seen the sea’s surface area shrink by a third since 1960.

Experts say water levels are falling one metre (three feet) a year, and warn it could dry out completely within 30 years.

– ‘Economic treasure’ –

Already 100 years ago, Theodor Herzl, the father of modern political Zionism, had envisaged filling the Dead Sea via a canal dug to the Mediterranean.

The sea’s natural beauty and mineral-rich black mud have also provided a source of tourism revenue.

“The Dead Sea has historical, biblical, natural, touristic, medical and industrial values that make it an invaluable cultural, environmental and economic treasure,” said Avner Adin, a specialist in water science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

After years of studies, the $1.1 billion Red Sea “Peace Conduit” deal was signed by Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian authorities in 2013.

The project, located entirely on Jordanian territory, includes a desalination plant near Aqaba.

After producing drinking water, the remaining highly saline liquid will be sent by pipeline to fill the Dead Sea, powering two hydroelectric plants along the way.

A subsequent 2015 deal would see Israel get 35 billion cubic metres of potable water from the desalination plant for its parched southern regions.

The mostly desert Jordan, for its part, would get up to 50 billion cubic metres of freshwater from the Sea of Galilee.

Israel also agreed to sell 32 billion cubic metres to the Palestinian authorities.

Jordan announced in November 2016 that it had chosen five international consortiums to build the first phase of the canal.

But talks on how to finance the deal, which calls for $400 million of public funding, and geopolitical flare-ups have kept the project from moving forward.

– ‘Diplomatic hazards’ –

Some $120 million has already been pledged by donors including the US and Japan, while France’s AFD agency has secured the backing of the EU and some member states for $140 million in preferential loans to Jordan.

Talks were frozen last year after an Israeli security guard shot and killed two Jordanians at the Israeli embassy in Amman, prompting a diplomatic standoff that ended only in January.

“We have never been so close to starting the project,” Maurel said. “It only needs a final push by the Jordanian and Israeli authorities.”

A diplomatic source in Amman said the project remained essential for the region given the environmental and economic stakes, “but it’s still at the mercy of diplomatic hazards.”

For Adin at the Hebrew University, “It seems to be that the situation is improving. The main obstacle in my mind could be financial.”

Officials in Jordan say they are determined to press ahead with or without Israel to cope with the needs of a rising population which has been swelled by about one million refugees fleeing the war in neighbouring Syria.

“We are proceeding with the project because desalination eventually is the future of Jordan when it comes to water,” said Iyad Dahiyat, secretary general of the country’s water authority.

“Water is part of the stability of the kingdom itself,” he added. “It’s a national security issue.”

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ICAPP can help resolve S China Sea dispute

reporter 1222 — Mon, 01 Jan 2018 14:45:49 +0000

TEHRAN – Secretary Gen. of Islamic Coalition party said Mon. that the capacities of the International Conference of Asian Political Parties (ICAPP) can be used to help resolve the South China Sea dispute.

Mohammad Nabi Habibi, Secretary-General of the Islamic Coalition Party, made the remark in a meeting with Vietnamese Ambassador to Tehran, Nguyen Hung Tach, adding “we are ready to lend our support in good will to the settlement of the South China Sea dispute.”

China is involved in territorial disputes in the South China Sea with Vietnam, Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei.

Habibi went on to add, “we have a lot in common with Vietnam on Asian policies, and are a member of ICAPP, therefore, in addition to the capacities of my party and our country, we will also try to use the capacity of ICAPP in resolving the South China Sea issue.”

The Vietnamese ambassador, for his part, hailed the good negotiations between the Iranian and Vietnamese delegations that took place on the sidelines of ICAPP.

He also stressed the need for a collective fight against terrorism in the region, underscoring the role of parties as a neutral mediator for reducing tensions and disputes.

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Petrobras to look for oil in Iran’s share of Caspian Sea

reporter 1222 — Sat, 23 Sep 2017 05:45:26 +0000

Brazil has voiced interest in looking for hydrocarbon reserves in the Iranian share of the Caspian Sea.

This was announced by Brazil’s Ambassador to Tehran Rodrigo de Azeredo Santos in a meeting with Yousef Etemadi, the acting managing director of Iran’s Khazar Exploration and Production Company (KEPCO).

Santos emphasized that Brazil’s Petrobras was ready to cooperate with the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) and its subsidiary companies like KEPCO in conducting exploration operations in the Caspian Sea.

He further emphasized that this would be in line with the discussions that Brazil’s Energy Minister Fernando Coelho Filho had with Iran’s Petroleum Minister Bijan Zangeneh during a recent visit to Tehran.

Etemadi, for his part, said KEPCO had been able to obtain an extensive experience in studying the hydrocarbon prospects in the Caspian Sea, but would nonetheless appreciate the opportunity of cooperating with global energy corporations in finding oil and gas reserves in the sea.

He also emphasized that KEPCO was satisfied with previous instances of cooperation with Petrobras.

The Brazilian state company was involved in the exploration of Iran’s Tusan block in the Persian Gulf. However, it announced in 2009 that the project was not economically feasible.

It had also won a deal from the NIOC to look for oil and gas reserves in a block in the Caspian Sea but declared – again in 2009 – that it would not begin the exploration operations.

This was because, as Reuters reported, the block it had targeted “appeared to hold mostly natural gas, rather than oil, in an area that did not have the necessary infrastructure for gas production”.

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