Russia Starts Fueling Up Iran's First Nuclear Plant

Put the geopolitical maneuvering aside for the moment. The launching of the first nuclear power plant in Iran, which began today with the loading of nuclear fuel rods in the Bushehr nuclear power plant, represents a major achievement in the face of the British Empire's policy of "technological apartheid" and genocide against developing sector nations. Together, Russian and Iranian nuclear specialists, accompanied by Iran's atomic chief Ali Akbar Salehi, and Russia's nuclear agency head Sergei Kiriyenko, attended the ceremony, after which the low-enriched uranium rods began to be packed into the reactor.

The process of loading is expected to take a week, after which time it will take two to three months until the plant begins to produce the much-needed electric power. The plant will initially function as a 500 megawatt reactor, but eventually be raised to 1000MW. The Russian-Iranian contract calls for Russians, and the IAEA, to continue to supervise operations, and for the spent fuel rods to be returned to Russia.

The activation of the plant occurs 36 years since Iran, then under the Shah, began to pursue the use of peaceful nuclear energy, with contracts for two plants to be built by Germany in Bushehr. That was 1975, a period when the Non-Aligned Movement nations, headed by such statesmen as India's Indira Gandhi, were fighting vigorously for their fundamental rights to the world's most advanced science and technology.

The British Empire, however, was equally determined to prevent these nations (actually, all nations) from developing. Thus they deployed their puppets, among them, Henry Kissinger, to carry out intense intimidation to prevent economic development. Governments were toppled — as in the case of Iran — and leaders were killed — as in the case of Pakistan's Zulfikar Ali Bhutto—in order to prevent these nations from "going nuclear."

Following the British-backed Khomeini revolution, Iran's nuclear program was scrapped. During the subsequent Iran-Iraq war, a typical geopolitical operation in which the British sought to have each side kill off as many of the other as possible, Bushehr was bombed by the Iraqis. It was not until 1995, that the Russians made the contract with Iran for finally developing the Bushehr plant.

While there were many delays, presumed to be related to Russia's applying political pressure against Iran's more radical inclinations, in the face of British-American pressures, the Russian government has now delivered on its promise to complete the peaceful nuclear plant.