Wednesday, December 02, 2009 TEHRAN: Iran hit out at its longtime nuclear partner Russia Tuesday over a yes vote for a censure motion at the UN atomic watchdog and insisted it was serious about plans for 10 more uranium enrichment plants. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that despite the support given in the International Atomic Energy Agency vote on Friday by Russia and China, Western governments would not succeed in their efforts to isolate Iran. In a rare tirade against the government that has been building Iran's first nuclear power plant in the Gulf port of Bushehr and had been expected to deliver advanced air-defence missiles for its facilities, Ahmadinejad said Russia had made a "mistake" in its vote at the IAEA. "Russia made a mistake. It does not have an accurate analysis of today's world situation," Ahmadinejad said in a televised interview.He vowed that despite the setback Western powers would not succeed in isolating Iran and dismissed any possibility of military action, a resort never ruled out by Israel or the United States. "Any finger which is about to pull the trigger will be cut off," Ahmadinejad said. "They need us more than we need them. It is psychological warfare and isolating Iran is impossible."He said that despite Friday's censure vote, which was backed by 25 out of 35 voting members of the IAEA to just three against -- Malaysia, Venezuela and Cuba -- Iran was deadly serious about its plans to build 10 additional uranium enrichment plants as a riposte.The vote called on Iran to stop construction of its second uranium enrichment plant under construction near the central Shiite shrine city of Qom.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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