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Nuclear power? Yes please!
16/05/2005 20:25 - (SA)
Tehran - Feeling the international pressure about Iran's nuclear programme, the Islamic republic's state television network has embarked on giving the Iranian public a crash course in the joys of atomic power.
In a series of prime-time spots entitled Towards Tomorrow, viewers are informed how Iran mines and converts uranium - parts of the nuclear fuel cycle and the focus of Western suspicions that the clerical regime is seeking the bomb.
But keeping true to Iran's assertion it wants only to light up homes - and not attack arch-enemy Israel - state television is drumming home the message of "nuclear electricity, sustainable development and enrichment".
Viewers are shown male and female scientists in green or white overalls, while animated graphics and video footage help explain the science behind Iran's extensive nuclear drive.
'Deserves to be guarded'
"Acquiring this technology is important and praiseworthy, and rightly deserves to be guarded," the infomercials assert, without mention of demands from Europe and the United States that the country abandon the fuel-cycle drive altogether.
The TV spots coincide with mounting tensions about Iran's nuclear programme, with Tehran seeking to end its freeze uranium conversion work - a move that would violate a November 2004 accord with Britain, France and Germany.
Iran has agreed to hold off from resuming uranium
conversion - a precursor to the ultra-sensitive enrichment process - pending emergency talks next week with French foreign minister Michel Barnier, German foreign minister Joschka Fischer and Britain's foreign secretary Jack Straw.
- AFP
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