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Olive oil in coffee? New Starbucks line a curiosity in Italy
Putting olive oil in coffee is hardly a tradition in Italy, but that didn’t stop Starbucks interim CEO Howard Schultz from launching a series of beverages that do just that in Milan, the city that inspired his coffee house empire.
The coffee-olive oil concoction — echoing a keto-inspired trend of adding butter to coffee, only with a sugary twist — has provoked both amusement and curiosity among Italians.
Gambero Rosso, an Italian food and wine magazine, called the mixing of olive oil with coffee “a curious combination” but said it was reserving judgment, having not yet sampled the drinks.
It did praise featuring the staple of Italian kitchens as a main ingredient, not just a condiment. The magazine also noted the health benefits of consuming extra virgin olive oil, which some Italians do habitually straight from the bottle.
“Did we need coffee with extra virgin olive oil and syrups? Maybe yes, maybe no,” wrote the magazine’s Michela Becchi. But the chance to promote Italian excellence is a valuable one, she added.
Italy’s olive oil producers’ association, ASSITOL, welcomed “the daring innovation,” saying the line of drinks could ”relaunch the image of olive oil, especially among young people.″ The association has been promoting adding olive oil to cocktails.
Martina Lunardi, a student of cultural mediation, was sticking to her standard cappuccino on a recent Starbucks visit but said she wasn’t offended by the olive oil combos and might even try one someday.
“Anyway, I know where to get a regular cup of coffee,” Lunardi said.
Schultz came up with the notion of adding olive oil to coffee after visiting an olive oil producer in Sicily and teased the idea as a game-changer in his last earnings call. He worked with an in-house coffee drink developer to come up with recipes, the international coffee chain said.
Schultz presided over the launch of “Oleato” — meaning “oiled” in Italian — last week on the eve of Milan Fashion Week, with a Lizzo performance for an invitation-only crowd at the company’s Milan Roastery. The beverages will be rolled out in Southern California this spring and in Japan, the Middle East and Britain later this year.
The La Stampa newspaper in Turin taste-tested four of the beverages, giving them marks of 6.5 to 7.5 on a scale of 10. It noted that the only warm beverage on the menu, a version of caffe latte, “has a strong taste that leaves a pleasant taste in the mouth. Grade: 7.”
“The (positive) sensation is that Oleato could be something to drink all year, but most of all that it could be truly tasty in the summer,″ La Stampa said because most are served with ice.
Tourists who throng the Milan Roastery are enticed to give the drinks a try by placards around the store and a special menu insert advertising the five-drink assortment, which ranges from 5.50 euros to 14 euros ($5.85 to $14.85) for a martini version with vodka.
“It’s good,” said Benedicte Hagen, a Norwegian who recently moved to Milan to pursue a modeling career. “I’m not a big coffee fan, that’s why I like to try drinks like this.”
She was sipping the Oleato Golden Foam Cold Brew, which includes vanilla bean syrup, and said she couldn’t really taste the oil. Still, she acknowledged asking the barista to add a shot of chocolate to make the drink even sweeter and would have added caramel if it had been available.
“It’s not so random,” Hagen decided.
Kaya Cupial’s Oleato Iced Cortado, meanwhile, was in a pretty V-shaped glass and garnished with an orange peel. It’s made with oat milk infused with olive oil, demerara syrup and a dash of orange bitters.
“It’s like normal coffee, but with orange. It’s not strong,” noted the 26-year-old from Warsaw, Poland, who was traveling with a group of friends. They also ordered the Golden Foam Cold Brew along with a pair of ordinary cappuccinos.
It is not the first time Italy has inspired Schultz. He acknowledges his debt to the Milan coffee bar, which he discovered during a trip to Italy in 1983, as his inspiration for building the now-global coffee chain.
Schultz waited until 2018 to bring Starbucks to Italy, aware that he was treading sacred coffee ground. Italians typically take their coffee standing at a bar, chatting with friends or the barista for a few minutes, before continuing their day. It is not something to be nursed.
Since then, Starbucks has opened some 20 stores in northern and central Italy. The Milan Roastery is often packed, while other locations in the city have shifted in the wake of the pandemic.
US, Russia hold highest-level talks since Ukraine invasion
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov talked briefly Thursday in the highest-level in-person talks between the two countries since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But there was no indication of any movement toward easing the intense tensions between their two nations.
The short encounter came as relations between Washington and Moscow have plummeted over Russia’s war with Ukraine and tensions have soared amid a myriad of disagreements, complaints and recriminations on other matters ranging from arms control to embassy staffing and prisoners.
U.S. officials said Blinken and Lavrov chatted for roughly 10 minutes on the sidelines of the G-20 conference of foreign ministers in New Delhi. But there was no sign of any progress and the conference itself ended with the grouping unable to reach consensus on the Ukraine war.
Still, with relations at perhaps their lowest point since the Cuban Missile Crisis during the Cold War, the mere fact that the two men met showed that, at least for the moment, lines of high-level communication between Washington and Moscow remains open.
At a news conference, Blinken said he told Lavrov that the U.S. would continue to support Ukraine for as long as it takes and would push for the war to end through diplomatic terms that Kyiv agrees to.
“End this war of aggression, engage in meaningful diplomacy that can produce a just and durable peace,” Blinken said he had told Lavrov. But, he noted that “President Putin has demonstrated zero interest in engaging, saying there’s nothing to even talk about unless and until Ukraine accepts and I quote ‘the new territorial reality’.”"
Blinken said he also urged Russia to reverse “its irresponsible decision and return to” participation in the New START nuclear treaty.
“Mutual compliance is in the interest of both our countries,” Blinken said he told Lavrov. He added ”that no matter what else is happening in the world, in our relationship, the United States is always ready to engage and act on strategic arms control, just as the United States and the Soviet Union did even at the height of the Cold War."
Blinken said he also urged Moscow to release detained American Paul Whelan and that “the United States has put forward a serious proposal. Russia should take it.”
Earlier, Blinken had told the G-20 meeting that Russia’s war with Ukraine could not go unchallenged.
“We must continue to call on Russia to end its war of aggression and withdraw from Ukraine for the sake of international peace and economic stability,” Blinken said. He noted that 141 countries had voted to condemn Russia at the United Nations on the one-year anniversary of the invasion.
Yet, several members of the G-20, including host India, China and South Africa, chose to abstain in that vote and despite appeals from top Indian officials to look beyond their differences over Ukraine and forge consensus on other issues, the foreign ministers were unable to do so or agree on a final communique.
Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said there were “divergences” on the issue of the war in Ukraine “which we could not reconcile as various parties held differing views.” “If we had a perfect meeting of minds on all issues, it would have been a collective statement,” Jaishankar said.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had earlier appealed for all members of the fractured G-20 to reach consensus on issues of particular concern to poorer countries even if the broader East-West split over Ukraine could not overcome.
“We all have our positions and our perspectives on how these tensions should be resolved,” Modi said. “We should not allow issues that we cannot resolve together to come in the way of those we can.”
China and Russia objected to two paragraphs taken from the previous G-20 declaration in Bali last year, according to a summary of Thursday’s meeting released by India. And Blinken lamented that “Russia and China were the only two countries that made clear that they would not sign off on the text.”
The paragraphs stated that the war in Ukraine was causing immense human suffering while exacerbating fragilities in the global economy, the need to uphold international law, and that “the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible.”
Despite the failure to achieve full consensus, Blinken said it was positive that 18 of the 20 nations had agreed on a statement calling for an end to the war and immediate steps to improve energy and food security that have been badly affected by the conflict.
Lavrov, who did not mention speaking with Blinken when he held a news conference after the G-20 session, told reporters that Moscow would continue to press its action in Ukraine. He shrugged off Western claims of Russia’s isolation, saying “we aren’t feeling isolated. It’s the West that has isolated itself, and it will eventually come to realize it.”
He said Russia remains open to talks on ending the conflict in Ukraine, but he accused the West of effectively blocking such talks.
“They are calling on us to have talks, but I don’t remember any Western colleagues calling on Ukraine to have talks,” he said. “They are encouraging Ukraine to continue the war.”
Lavrov also mocked U.S. threats against China, which has presented a peace plan for Ukraine that has been applauded by Moscow but dismissed by Washington and its Western allies.
“Our Western colleagues have lost self-control, forgotten their manners and put diplomacy aside, switching exclusively to blackmail and threats.” he said.
Russia had no immediate comment on the substance of the conversation, but Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Blinken had asked to speak to Lavrov.
It was their first contact since last summer, when Blinken talked to Lavrov by phone about a U.S. proposal for Russia to release Whelan and formerly detained WNBA star Brittney Griner. Griner was later released in a swap for imprisoned Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, but Whelan remains detained in Russia.
Whelan, a Michigan corporate security executive, has been held for four years on espionage charges that his family and the United States government have said are baseless.
The last time Blinken and Lavrov met in person was in Geneva, Switzerland, in January 2022 on the eve of Russia's invasion. At that meeting, Blinken warned Lavrov about consequences if Russia went ahead with its planned military operation but also sought to address some complaints that Russian President Vladimir Putin had made about the U.S. and NATO.
Those talks proved to be inconclusive — Russia moved ahead with its plans to invade and Blinken then canceled a scheduled follow-up meeting with Lavrov that was set for just two days before Moscow eventually invaded on Feb. 24, 2022.
Multiple crises set to plunge more children into poverty, ILO and UNICEF report warns
The number of children without access to social protection is increasing year-on-year, leaving them at risk of poverty, hunger and discrimination, according to a new report released today by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and UNICEF.
According to the report, an additional 50 million children (aged 0-15) missed out on a critical social protection provision – specifically, child benefits (paid in cash or tax credits) – between 2016 and 2020, driving up the total to 1.46 billion children under 15 globally.
“Ultimately, strengthened efforts to ensure adequate investment in universal social protection for children, ideally through universal child benefits to support families at all times, is the ethical and rational choice, and the one that paves the way to sustainable development and social justice,” Shahra Razavi, director of Social Protection Department at the ILO, said.
Child and family benefit coverage rates fell or stagnated in every region in the world between 2016 and 2020, leaving no country on track to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal of achieving substantial social protection coverage by 2030, as per the report.
In Latin America and the Caribbean, for example, coverage fell significantly from approximately 51 percent to 42 percent. In many other regions, coverage has stalled and remains low.
In Central and South Asia, East Asia and Southeast Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Western Asia, and North Africa coverage rates have been at around 21 percent, 14 percent, 11 percent and 28 percent respectively since 2016.
Failure to provide children with adequate social protection leaves them vulnerable to poverty, disease, missed education, and poor nutrition, and increases risk of child marriage and child labour.
Globally, children are twice as likely as adults to live in extreme poverty – those struggling to survive on less than US$ 1.90 (PPP*) a day – approximately 356 million children.
A billion children also live in multidimensional poverty – meaning without access to education, health, housing, nutrition, sanitation, or water.
Children living in multidimensional poverty increased by 15 percent during the Covid-19 pandemic, reversing previous progress in reducing child poverty and highlighting the urgent need for social protection.
Moreover, the pandemic highlighted that social protection is a critical response in times of crisis.
Nearly every government in the world either rapidly adapted existing schemes or introduced new social protection programmes to support children and families, but most fell short of making permanent reforms to protect against future shocks, according to the report.
“As families face increasing economic hardship, food insecurity, conflict, and climate-related disasters, universal child benefits can be a lifeline,” said Natalia Winder-Rossi, UNICEF Director of Social Policy and Social Protection.
“There is an urgent need to strengthen, expand and invest in child-friendly and shock-responsive social protection systems. This is essential to protect children from living in poverty and increase resilience particularly among the poorest households.”
The report emphasizes that all countries, irrespective of their level of development, have a choice: whether to pursue a “high-road” strategy of investment in reinforcing social protection systems, or a “low-road” strategy that misses out on necessary investments and will leave millions of children behind.
To reverse the negative trend, ILO and UNICEF urge policymakers to take decisive steps to attain universal social protection for all children, including:
· Investing in child benefits which offer a proven and cost-effective way to combat child poverty and ensure children thrive.
· Providing a comprehensive range of child benefits through national social protection systems that also connect families to crucial health and social services, such as free or affordable high-quality childcare.
· Building social protection systems that are rights-based, gender-responsive, inclusive, and shock responsive to address inequities and deliver better results for girls and women, migrant children, and children in child labour for example.
· Securing sustainable financing for social protection systems by mobilizing domestic resources and increasing budget allocation for children.
Strengthening social protection for parents and caregivers by guaranteeing access to decent work and adequate benefits, including unemployment, sickness, maternity, disability, and pensions.
Carbon dioxide emissions reached a record high in 2022
Communities around the world emitted more carbon dioxide in 2022 than in any other year on records dating to 1900, a result of air travel rebounding from the pandemic and more cities turning to coal as a low-cost source of power.
Emissions of the climate-warming gas that were caused by energy production grew 0.9% to reach 36.8 gigatons in 2022, the International Energy Agency reported Thursday. (The mass of one gigaton is equivalent to about 10,000 fully loaded aircraft carriers, according to NASA.)
Carbon dioxide is released when fossil fuels such as oil, coal or natural gas are burned to powers cars, planes, homes and factories. When the gas enters the atmosphere, it traps heat and contributes to the warming of the the climate.
Extreme weather events intensified last year’s carbon dioxide emissions: Droughts reduced the amount of water available for hydropower, which increased the need to burn fossil fuels. And heat waves drove up demand for electricity.
Thursday’s report was described as disconcerting by climate scientists, who warn that energy users around the world must cut emissions dramatically to slow the dire consequences of global warming.
“Any emissions growth — even 1% — is a failure,” said Rob Jackson, a professor of earth system science at Stanford University and chairman of the Global Carbon Project, an international group. “We can’t afford growth. We can’t afford stasis. It’s cuts or chaos for the planet. Any year with higher coal emissions is a bad year for our health and for the Earth.”
Carbon dioxide emissions from coal grew 1.6% last year. Many communities, primarily in Asia, switched from natural gas to coal to avoid high natural gas prices that were worsened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the IEA said.
And as global airline traffic increased, carbon dioxide emissions from burning oil grew 2.5%, with about half the surge resulting from the aviation sector.
Global emissions have grown in most years since 1900 and have accelerated over time, according to data from IEA. One exception was the pandemic year of 2020, when travel all but came to a standstill.
Last year’s level of emissions, though a record high, was nevertheless lower than experts had expected. Increased deployment of renewable energy, electric vehicles and heat pumps together helped prevent an additional 550 megatons of carbon dioxide emissions, the IEA said.
Strict pandemic measures and weak economic growth in China also curtailed production, helping to limit overall global emissions. And in Europe, the IEA said, electricity generation from wind and solar power exceeded that of gas or nuclear for the first time.
“Without clean energy, the growth in CO2 emissions would have been nearly three times as high,” Fatih Birol, the IEA’s executive director, said in a statement.
“However, we still see emissions growing from fossil fuels, hindering efforts to meet the world’s climate targets. International and national fossil fuel companies are making record revenues and need to take their share of responsibility, in line with their public pledges to meet climate goals.”
Though emissions continue to grow at worrisome levels, a reversal that would help achieve the climate goals that nations have committed to remains possible, said John Sterman, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan Sustainability Initiative.
Nations must subsidize renewables, improve energy efficiency, electrify industry and transportation, set a high price for carbon emissions, reduce deforestation, plant trees and rid the system of coal, Sterman argued.
“This is a massive, massive undertaking to do all these things, but that’s what’s needed,” he said.
Ice Age Europeans found refuge in Spain, doom in Italy
New research reveals that the hunter-gatherer people who dominated Europe 30,000 years ago sought refuge from the last Ice Age in warmer places, but only those who sheltered in what is now Spain and Portugal appear to have survived.
Using new genetic analysis of prehistoric human remains, scientists were able to trace the fate of the Gravettian culture, a term used to describe the people who once roamed Europe and produced distinctive tools and art such as the voluptuous ‘Venus’ figurines found at ancient sites across the continent.
The study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, highlights the impact that climate change and migration had on the early inhabitants of Europe. It suggests that those who lived in what is now Italy when the ice expanded southward some 25,000 years ago appeared to have found themselves in a dead end compared to their cousins who lived in region that now covers parts of southern France, Spain and Portugal.
Those who went west survived the worst of the Ice Age, known to scientists as the last glacial maximum, said Cosimo Posth, a researcher at the University of Tuebingen who led the study.
“To our big surprise, in Italy the population that was present before the last glacial maximum completely disappears,” said Posth. “They didn’t make it.”
Genetic analysis of individuals from Italy after the last Ice Age shows the dark-skinned, dark-eyed Gravettian population was replaced by newcomers from the Balkans, who brought blue eyes and a touch of Near Eastern ancestry with them.
The researchers analyzed 116 new genetic samples they added to 240 ancient specimens already known, covering a span from about 45,000 to 5,000 years ago.
The Gravettians who survived the Ice Age in Spain, meanwhile, mixed with migrants from the east as Europe warmed again almost 15,000 years ago and then swiftly repopulated the continent from Iberia to Poland and the British Isles, dominating it for thousands of years.
The genetic footprint of the Gravettians can be found in the last Spanish hunter-gatherer populations until the arrival of the first farmers, who migrated to Europe from Anatolia some 8,000 years ago, said Posth.
In an accompanying commentary published by Nature, Ludovic Orlando of the Center for Anthropobiology and Genomics in Toulouse, France, said the study showed how climate change affected populations in Europe and that ancient human cultures weren’t always ethnically homogenous.
Orlando, who was not involved in the study, said the findings also demonstrate how fluid Europe’s genetic history was. “No modern population can claim a single origin from the human groups that first became established on the continent,” he said.
Posth hopes to delve deeper into the history of ancient migration in Europe, particularly the mysterious people who arrived from the Balkans around the time of the last glacial maximum.
Blinken warns Central Asia of dangers from war in Ukraine
The Biden administration on Tuesday pledged to support the independence of the five Central Asian nations, in a not-so-subtle warning to the former Soviet states that Russia’s value as a partner has been badly compromised by its year-old war against Ukraine.
In Kazakhstan for meetings with top Central Asian diplomats, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said no country, particularly those that have traditionally been in Moscow’s orbit, can afford to ignore the threats posed by Russian aggression to not only their territory but to the international rules-based order and the global economy. In all of his discussions, Blinken stressed the importance of respect for “sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence.”
The Central Asian states have hewed to a studied position of neutrality on Ukraine, neither supporting Russia’s invasion nor U.S. and Western condemnations of the war.
“Ever since being the first nation to recognize Kazakhstan in December of 1991, the United States has been firmly committed to the sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of Kazakhstan and countries across the region,” Blinken said after meeting in Astana with the foreign ministers of the so-called C5+1 group, made up of the U.S. and Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
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“In our discussions today, I reaffirmed the United States’ unwavering support for Kazakhstan, like all nations, to freely determine its future, especially as we mark one year since Russia lost its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in a failed attempt to deny its people that very freedom,” Blinken told reporters at a news conference with Kazakh Foreign Minister Mukhtar Tileuberdi.
Tileuberdi thanked Blinken for the U.S. commitment to Kazakhstan’s freedom, but signaled that his country was unlikely to adopt either a pro-Russian or pro-Western position. Tileuberdi said Kazakhstan would continue to act in its own national interest given “the complex international situation.”
“Our country continues a balanced multilateral foreign policy,” he said.
Tileuberdi noted that while Kazakhstan has very close and historic ties with both Russia and Ukraine, it would not allow its territory to be used for any Russian aggression or sanctions evasion. He added that even though Kazakhstan shares the world’s longest land border with Russia, it did not see a threat from Moscow.
Blinken also held separate meetings in Astana with the foreign ministers of Kyrgyzstan, Tajiistan and Turkmenistan. After visiting Kazakhstan, Blinken arrived in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, on his first trip to Central Asia as secretary of state.
None of the five former Soviet republics in Central Asia, traditionally viewed as part of the Kremlin’s sphere of influence, publicly backed the Russian invasion. Kazakhstan welcomed tens of thousands of Russians fleeing from the military call-up last fall. Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has spoken by phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy three times since Russian troops rolled into Ukraine last February, calling for a diplomatic resolution of the conflict in accordance with the U.N. charter and international law.
However, all five Central Asian republics, along with India, which Blinken will visit next after Uzbekistan, abstained in a vote to condemn the invasion as a violation of core international principles last week at the U.N. General Assembly, on the first anniversary of the war.
“If we allow (those principles) to be violated with impunity, that does open the prospect that Russia itself will continue to consider further aggression against other countries, if it sets its sights on them, or other countries will learn the wrong lesson and would-be aggressors in every part of the world will say ’well, if Russia can get away with this, then we can too,’” Blinken said. “That’s a recipe for a world of conflict, a world of instability, a world that I don’t think any of us want to live in.”
“So, that’s why it’s been so important for so many countries to stand up and say, no we don’t accept this,” he said.
The U.S. has for decades sought — without great success — to wean the former Soviet nations of the region from Moscow’s influence. Some, notably Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, assisted the U.S. logistically during its 20-year conflict in Afghanistan, but their ties to Russia remain deep and extend to the economic, military and diplomatic spheres as members of the Commonwealth of Independent States, a Moscow-dominated grouping of ex-Soviet nations.
Uranium particles enriched to 83.7% found in Iran: UN report
Inspectors from the United Nations nuclear watchdog found uranium particles enriched up to 83.7% in Iran’s underground Fordo nuclear site, a report seen Tuesday by The Associated Press said.
The confidential quarterly report by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency distributed to member states likely will raise tensions further between Iran and the West over its nuclear program. That’s even as Tehran already faces internal unrest after months of protests and Western anger over sending bomb-carrying drones to Russia for its war on Ukraine.
The IAEA report only speaks about “particles,” suggesting that Iran isn’t building a stockpile of uranium enriched above 60% — the level it has been enriching at for some time.
The IAEA report described inspectors discovering on Jan. 21 that two cascades of IR-6 centrifuges at Iran’s Fordo facility had been configured in a way “substantially different” to what had been previously declared. The IAEA took samples the following day, which showed particles up to 83.7% purity, the report said.
“Iran informed the agency that ‘unintended fluctuations’ in enrichment levels may have occurred during the transition period,” the IAEA report said. “Discussions between the agency and Iran to clarify the matter are ongoing.”
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The IAEA report also said that it would “further increase the frequency and intensity of agency verification activities” at Fordo after the discovery.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations told the AP that Massimo Aparo, a top IAEA official, visited the Islamic Republic last week “and checked the alleged enrichment rate.”
“Based on Iran’s assessment, the alleged enrichment percentage between Iran and the IAEA is resolved,” the mission contended. “Due to the IAEA report being prepared before his trip, his trip’s results aren’t in it and hopefully the IAEA director-general will mention it in his oral report to the board of governors” in March.
A spokesman for Iran’s civilian nuclear program, Behrouz Kamalvandi, also sought last week to portray any detection of uranium particles enriched to that level as a momentary side effect of trying to reach a finished product of 60% purity. However, experts say such a great variance in the purity even at the atomic level would appear suspicious to inspectors.
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Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal limited Tehran’s uranium stockpile to 300 kilograms (661 pounds) and enrichment to 3.67% — enough to fuel a nuclear power plant. The U.S.′ unilateral withdraw from the accord in 2018 set in motion a series of attacks and escalations by Tehran over its program.
Iran has been producing uranium enriched to 60% purity — a level for which nonproliferation experts already say Tehran has no civilian use. The IAEA report put Iran’s uranium stockpile as of Feb. 12 at some 3,760 kilogram (8,289 pounds) — an increase of 87.1 kilograms (192 pounds) since its last quarterly report in November. Of that, 87.5 kilograms (192 pounds) is enriched up to 60% purity.
Uranium at nearly 84% is almost at weapons-grade levels of 90% — meaning any stockpile of that material could be quickly used to produce an atomic bomb if Iran chooses.
While the IAEA’s director-general has warned Iran now has enough uranium to produce “several” bombs, months more would likely be needed to build a weapon and potentially miniaturize it to put it on a missile. The U.S. intelligence community, as recently as this past weekend, has maintained its assessment that Iran isn’t pursuing an atomic bomb.
“To the best of our knowledge, we don’t believe that the supreme leader in Iran has yet made a decision to resume the weaponization program that we judge they suspended or stopped at the end of 2003,” CIA Director Williams Burns told CBS’ “Face the Nation” program. “But the other two legs of the stool, meaning enrichment programs, they’ve obviously advanced very far.”
But Fordo, which sits under a mountain near the holy Shiite city of Qom, some 90 kilometers (55 miles) southwest of Tehran, remains a special concern for the international community. It is about the size of a football field, large enough to house 3,000 centrifuges, but small and hardened enough to lead U.S. officials to suspect it had a military purpose when they exposed the site publicly in 2009.
Meanwhile, a top Defense Department official told the U.S. House of Representative’s Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that Iran could make enough fissile material for one nuclear weapons in under two weeks if Tehran choose to pursue it.
“Iran’s nuclear progress since we left the (deal) has been remarkable,” Colin Kahl said. “Back in 2018, when the previous administration decided to leave the (deal), it would have taken Iran about 12 months to produce one bomb’s worth of fissile material. Now it would take about 12 days.”
Any explanation from Iran, however, likely won’t be enough to satisfy Israel, Iran’s regional archrival. Already, Israel’s recently reinstalled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has threatened military actions against Tehran. And Israel and Iran have been engaged in a high-stakes shadow war across the wider Middle East since the nuclear deal’s collapse.
Meanwhile Tuesday, Germany’s foreign minister said both her country and Israel are worried about the allegations facing Iran over the nearly 84% enriched uranium.
“We are united by concern about the nuclear escalation on Iran’s part and about the recent reports about the very high uranium enrichment,” Annalena Baerbock said. “There is no plausible civilian justification for such a high enrichment level.”
Speaking in Berlin, Israel’s visiting foreign minister, Eli Cohen, pointed to two options to deal with Iran — using a so-called “snapback” mechanism in the Security Council resolution that enshrined the 2015 nuclear deal to reimpose U.N. sanctions, and “to have a credible military option on the table as well.”
“From our intelligence and from our knowledge, this is the right time to work on these two specific steps,” he said.
Flurry of drone strikes hits Russia as TV, radio are hacked
Regional officials in southern and western Russia reported a string of drone attacks near the border with Ukraine and deep inside the country that resulted in no casualties, as the war with Kyiv trudged on Tuesday.
At the same time, the hacking of Russian TV channels and radio stations as well as the temporary closure of St. Petersburg’s airport fed suspicion that Kyiv could be behind the disruption.
A flurry of drone attacks on Monday night and Tuesday morning targeted regions inside Russia along the border with Ukraine and deeper into the country, with one drone crashing just 100 kilometers (60 miles) away from Moscow, according to local Russian authorities.
A drone fell near the village of Gubastovo, roughly 100 kilometers southeast of Moscow, Andrei Vorobyov, governor of the region surrounding the Russian capital, said in an online statement.
The drone didn’t inflict any damage, Vorobyov said. He didn't specifically describe the drone as Ukrainian, but said that it likely targeted “a civilian infrastructure object.”
Russian forces early Tuesday shot down a Ukrainian drone over the Bryansk region, local Gov. Aleksandr Bogomaz said in a Telegram post. He said there were no casualties.
Three drones also targeted Russia’s Belgorod region on Monday night, with one flying through an apartment window in its namesake capital, local authorities reported. Regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said the drones caused minor damage to buildings and cars but no casualties.
While Ukrainian drone strikes on the Russian border regions of Bryansk and Belgorod that lie north of Ukraine’s Sumy region are not unusual, the hits on the Krasnodar and Adygea regions further south are noteworthy.
A fire broke out at an oil depot in Russia’s Krasnodar region, which neighbors Adygea, on Monday, Russia’s state RIA Novosti agency reported. Russian Telegram channels claimed that two drones exploded near the depot.
A drone also exploded overnight over Adygea, which lies some 600 kilometers (370 miles) east of Crimea, regional Gov. Murat Kumpilov said on Telegram. He said no one was hurt in the attack, which damaged some farm buildings.
Ukrainian authorities offered no immediate acknowledgement or comment on the reported strikes. Last year, Russian authorities repeatedly reported shooting down Ukrainian drones over annexed Crimea. In December, the Russian military said Ukraine used drones to hit two bases for long-range bombers deep inside Russian territory.
Separately, the local government of St. Petersburg — Russia’s second-largest city some 1300 kilometers (800 miles) north of the border with Ukraine — said early Tuesday that it was temporarily halting all flight departures and arrivals at the city’s main airport, Pulkovo. It did not give a reason for the move.
Hours earlier, unconfirmed reports on Russia's Telegram social network referred to the air space over St. Petersburg being shut down and to Russian warplane overflights. It was not immediately clear whether this was connected to the alleged uptick in drone attacks in Russia’s south.
The Russian military said its air defense forces in Western Russia conducted drills on “detection, interception and identification” of enemy targets in its air space, as well as in coordination with civilian air traffic services in an emergency situation.
The Russian Defense Ministry didn’t specifically mention St. Petersburg, but its statement appeared designed to explain the temporary closure of the air space.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refused to comment on the situation in St. Petersburg, urging reporters to wait for details from the country’s aviation authorities or the military.
He noted, however, that President Vladimir Putin had “full information” on the situation.
Speaking at Russia’s main security agency, the FSB, Putin urged the service to tighten security on the border with Ukraine.
Russian media reported on Tuesday morning that in several Russian regions an air raid alarm interrupted the programming of several TV channels and radio stations.
Footage posted by some news sites showed TV sets displaying a yellow sign with a person heading to a bomb shelter, with a female voice repeating: “Attention! Air raid alarm. Everyone should head to a shelter immediately.”
Russia’s Emergency Ministry said in an online statement that the announcement was a hoax “resulting from a hacking of the servers of radio stations and TV channels in some regions of the country.”
Inside Ukraine, authorities said Tuesday that at least two civilians were killed by renewed Russian shelling in the southern city of Kherson and surrounding villages and 17 more were injured in fighting over the previous 24 hours.
The fiercest fighting continued to be in eastern areas of Ukraine, where Russia wants control over all four of the provinces it illegally annexed in September.
Ukrainian officials said Russian forces have deployed additional troops and equipment, including modern T-90 tanks, in those areas.
Meanwhile, satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press appear to show a Beriev A-50 early warning aircraft was parked at a Belarus air base just before a claimed attack by partisans there.
Images from Planet Labs PBC shows the A-50, a late Soviet era aircraft known for its distinctive rotodome above its fuselage, parked at the northern apron of the Machulishchy Air Base near Minsk, Belarus’ capital, on Feb. 19.
A lower-resolution image taken on Feb. 23 shows a similarly-shaped aircraft still parked there, though heavy cloud cover has blocked any images since.
Belarusian opposition organization BYPOL claimed that guerrillas damaged the A-50 in an attack Sunday.
Swiss regulator: Credit Suisse made 'serious breach' of law
Swiss regulators have found that Credit Suisse made a “serious breach” of law in connection with a now-bankrupt firm linked to Australian financier Lex Greensill and have opened a probe that could lead to penalties against four former bank managers.
Switzerland's financial markets authority, FINMA, said Tuesday that it has concluded enforcement proceedings opened two years ago against Credit Suisse after bank partner Greensill Capital went bankrupt. At the time, Credit Suisse closed four funds linked to the partnership, in which bank clients had invested about $10 billion.
Credit Suisse's problematic ties to Greensill Capital were one of a string of troubles that have led in part to repeated shake-ups of top management and corporate restructurings in recent years. Greensill Capital also was the target of inquiries in the United Kingdom, with accusations that the firm founded by Greensill, an ex-adviser to former British Prime Minister David Cameron, won lucrative government contracts before going bust.
In Switzerland, FINMA said that in closing its probe, top executives at Credit Suisse will now be required to periodically review about 500 of its most important business relationships and record the responsibilities of about 600 of its highest-ranking employees. The authority said it also had opened four enforcement proceedings against former bank managers, which it did not identify.
“FINMA concluded that Credit Suisse Group seriously breached its supervisory duty to adequately identify, limit and monitor risks in the context of the business relationship with Lex Greensill over a period of years,” it said. “FINMA thus concludes that there has been a serious breach of Swiss supervisory law.”
The authority works with financial institutions — banks, insurance companies and even the Swiss stock exchange — to ensure that proper internal controls and stability are in place. FINMA is limited in its ability to issue penalties but has the power to revoke business licenses in the extreme. It would be up to prosecutors to pursue more severe penalties or fines if warranted.
In Greensill's “supply chain finance” model, his firm positioned itself between businesses and their suppliers, paying invoices that suppliers gave to their customers for a fee. The claims against those customers to recover the payments were then turned into securities that could be sold. The financial products over time became far riskier than first indicated.
FINMA said Credit Suisse “made partly false and overly positive statements” to the authority about how claims were chosen and the exposure to some debtors.
In a statement, Credit Suisse welcomed the closure of the case without mentioning Greensill by name. The Zurich-based bank said it has taken measures to strengthen governance and control since March 2021 and has dismissed “several managers and employees" in its asset management division, among other steps.
Why TikTok is being banned for some government employees
The White House is giving U.S. federal agencies 30 days to delete popular Chinese-owned social media app TikTok from all government-issued mobile devices amid growing concerns about security. Canada announced a similar ban.
Congress, the White House itself and more than half of U.S. states had already banned TikTok amid concerns that China could use its legal and regulatory powers to obtain private user data or to try to push misinformation or narratives favoring China. U.S. armed forces have prohibited the app on military devices, and the European Union's executive branch has temporarily banned TikTok from employee phones.
More than two-thirds of American teens use TikTok, which is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese company that moved its headquarters to Singapore in 2020. It has been targeted by critics who say the Chinese government could access user data such as browsing history and location.
China says the bans reveal Washington’s own insecurities and are an abuse of state power.
Here's what to know:
WHAT ARE THE CONCERNS ABOUT TIKTOK?
Both the FBI and the Federal Communications Commission have warned that ByteDance could share TikTok user data with China’s authoritarian government.
There are also concerns that the company is sending masses of user data to China, in breach of stringent European privacy rules.
Additionally, there’s been concern about TikTok’s content and whether it harms teenagers’ mental health.
WHO HAS PUSHED FOR TIKTOK RESTRICTIONS?
In 2020, then-President Donald Trump and his administration sought to ban dealings with TikTok’s owner, force it to sell off its U.S. assets and remove it from app stores. Courts blocked Trump’s efforts to ban TikTok, and President Joe Biden rescinded Trump’s orders after taking office but ordered an in-depth study of the issue. A planned sale of TikTok’s U.S. assets was shelved.
In Congress, concern about the app has been bipartisan. Congress passed the “No TikTok on Government Devices Act” in December as part of a sweeping government funding package. The legislation does allow for TikTok use in certain cases, including for national security, law enforcement and research purposes.
House Republicans are expected to move forward Tuesday with a bill that would give Biden the power to ban TikTok nationwide. The legislation, proposed by Rep. Mike McCaul, looks to circumvent the challenges the administration would face in court if it moved forward with sanctions against the social media company.
WHAT DOES TIKTOK SAY?
TikTok has questioned the bans, saying it has not been given an opportunity to answer questions and governments were cutting themselves off from a platform beloved by millions.
Responding to the U.S. announcement, TikTok spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter said Monday: “The ban of TikTok on federal devices passed in December without any deliberation, and unfortunately that approach has served as a blueprint for other world governments. These bans are little more than political theater.”