Monitoring Desk
JEDDAH: Amidst tensions with the US over broad sanctions after Washington along with world powers walked out of the country’s nuclear deal, Iran on Saturday started building a new nuclear power station in the country’s southwest, according to an announcement by Iranian state TV.
The revelation also comes amid widespread anti-government demonstrations in Iran that have shaken the theocratic authority of the country and erupted when a young woman died while in police detention.
After being detained in Tehran on September 16 for allegedly violating the nation’s dress code for women, Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman of Kurdish descent, passed away.
The country’s main television and radio agency reported that the new 300-megawatt plant, known as Karoon, will be constructed over the course of eight years and cost roughly $2 billion. According to the statement, the plant will be situated close to Iran’s western border with Iraq in the oil-rich Khuzestan province.
Protest against Masha Amini’s Death
The contradicting tolls are lower than the toll provided by Human Rights Activists in Iran, a US-based NGO that has been been following the demonstration since it began.
According to the group’s most current update, 469 individuals have died in the protests and the harsh security force response that followed, while 18,210 more have been arrested.
Volker Turk, the UN’s human rights chief, reported last week that 14,000 people, including children, had been detained during the crackdown on the protests.
Separately, the US Navy reported on Saturday that it had stopped a fishing boat that was attempting to smuggle 50 tons of weapons and a crucial component for missiles from Iran to Yemen on Thursday in the Gulf of Oman.
