“The UN will authorize 10 million dollars from a central emergency response fund,” Ban told journalists. “We will also establish a working group to look at Chile’s most urgent needs,” he said.

During the same conference, Bachelet said that she welcomed 2 million dollars’ worth emergency material from China on an early Friday.

“This is a gesture that shows the excellence of the links we have had with China,” Bachelet told the press conference in response to a question from Xinhua. “It has been the same with the free trade agreement and the cultural exchanges we have had,” she added.

Chile experienced an earthquake measuring 8.8 magnitude on the Richter scale six days ago, which killed 279 people, at the last official count, but which may prove to have killed more than 1,000 once all the dead have been confirmed.

Chinese officials said Friday’s flight represented the furthest geographical distance that the nation had sent aid and the furthest geographical distance from which Chile had received assistance. It is the first time China has sent a cargo plane to South America carrying material alone.

“It is not easy to cross the world,” Bachelet told media. This really expresses the authentic willingness to support Chile, and ” we are very grateful,” she added.

Chile has received aid from 86 nations and 16 non-government organizations. Bachelet also highlighted aid from Bolivia, sent by both Chileans living there and Bolivia’s government, even though the two nation’s have not had diplomatic relations since the mid- 1980s. Ban said that 14 UN agencies are taking part in such efforts.

Ban and Bachelet said that they had already begun working with Sebastian Pinera, who will take over Chile’s presidency on March 11.

Related:

Chile looks ahead at “enormous task” in rebuilding, Chilean UN envoy says

UNITED NATIONS, March 5 (Xinhua) — Chilean UN Ambassador Heraldo Munoz said here Friday that with the “broad estimate” of damage for the quake-hit South American country being at around 30 billion U.S. dollars, Chile is planning for the “enormous task” in rebuilding.

“What we have ahead is enormous task of reconstruction,” Munoz told reporters at a press conference at the UN Headquarters in New York. “But Chile is standing up — we are recuperating.” Full story

Chile announces national mourning period for quake victims

SANTIAGO, March 4 (Xinhua) — The Chilean government announced on Thursday that a three-day national mourning period will start Sunday for victims killed in last week’s massive quake.

According to a law signed by President Michelle Bachelet, Chileans are asked to demonstrate national flags in front of their homes during the period, so as to pay tribute to the victims and offer condolence to their families.

[Xinhua]

Speaking at the end of a regional summit in Mexico Mr Lula criticised the UN for not pushing more forcefully to reopen the debate.

His intervention came ahead of a meeting later today between Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, and the Argentine Foreign Minister Jorge Taiana

“Our attitude is one of solidarity with Argentina,” Mr Lula said. “What is the geographical, political and economic explanation for England to be in the Malvinas? What is the explanation for the United Nations never having that decision?

“Could it be because the UK is a permanent member of the UN’s Security Council where they can do everything and the others nothing? It is not possible that Argentina is not the owner while England is, despite being 14,000km away.”

At the Rio Group summit in Mexico yesterday, Buenos Aires won unprecedented support from other Latin American states for its demand that the UK stop drilling for oil in waters near the islands.

The row was sparked by the arrival of the offshore oil rig Ocean Guardian, which began drilling 60 miles north of the islands after Argentina announced new shipping controls. Britain and Argentina fought a two-month war over the islands in 1982.

David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, insisted yesterday that the exploration was fully within international law although ministers admit privately that the UK has been preparing for a diplomatic confrontation with Argentina for months.

Argentina scored a diplomatic coup at the Rio Group summit in Cancun when 32 Latin American and Caribbean leaders backed their “legitimate rights” in the sovereignty row with Great Britain.

Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan President, used a television address to reiterate his support, bellowing: “Give the Falkland Islands back to Argentina, Queen of England.”

But it was the backing of countries such as Chile and Brazil — which is itself pressing for permanent Security Council membership — that will be of most concern.

Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Argentina’s President, said that Britain had broken a UN resolution forbidding unilateral development in disputed waters. She accused Britain of double standards in its pursuit of the islands’ natural resources but ruled out any military engagement or attempt to block shipping.

British officials said that Gordon Brown and Mr Miliband would wait for the outcome of events at the UN before deciding how to respond. Diplomats in Latin America believe that President Kirchner is using the issue for domestic purposes. “This is principally a PR campaign, not a serious legal or diplomatic effort,” said one.

The US offered Britain only tepid support. The State Department said that it took no position on the sovereignty claims of either country.

White House officials contacted by The Times would not be quoted on the dispute — not for fear of being drawn into a diplomatic showdown but because, as one admitted, it had barely registered as a concern for the Administration. A generation ago President Reagan was slow to back publicly Britain’s efforts to recapture the islands, but US intelligence proved critical to British military success.

[Times Online]

Reporting from Vienna and Beirut – The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog for the first time Thursday explicitly voiced concern that Iran is trying to make a nuclear bomb, amid signs of fraying relations between the agency’s inspectors and authorities in the Islamic Republic.

The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that Iran last week produced its first batch of 20% enriched uranium, based on scientific data it was given by Iranian officials who plan to use the more highly purified nuclear fuel at a Tehran medical reactor.

The IAEA also said it had not yet resolved questions about documents that suggest Iran was engaged in experiments consistent with a clandestine nuclear program. Iran has called the documents forgeries.

“The information . . . raises concerns about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile,” the report said.

Iran ignored such language and said the report, the first under new IAEA chief Yukiya Amano, affirmed the civilian nature of its nuclear program.

“The new director-general of the IAEA has confirmed that Iran’s nuclear activities are peaceful and that there are no deviations in material or activities toward military purposes,” Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s nuclear envoy, told state news media.

U.S. officials said the report was in line with their concerns about Iran’s nuclear activities.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said the report demonstrates “the failure of the Iranian government to live up to its international obligations.”

Iran insists its program is wholly for peaceful purposes. The U.S. and its allies strongly suspect Iran seeks to build a nuclear weapon.

Iran’s current stock of 3.5% enriched uranium can fuel a power reactor, while rates of 60% purity are required to serve as fissile material for a nuclear bomb. Western officials had doubted Iran’s claims that it had produced the more highly refined uranium but warned that such a step would escalate tensions. A United Nations-backed offer to swap Iran’s uranium for fuel plates for the reactor foundered.

The report said Iran had produced about 4,550 pounds of low-enriched uranium so far, which experts say is almost enough, when further processed, for two nuclear bombs.

On Sunday, Iran moved almost all of its enriched uranium to the site producing the 20% uranium, raising suspicions that it might plan to convert far more of its stockpile into higher-grade material than necessary for the medical reactor.

Though Iran has promised to never withdraw from the IAEA-monitored Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the report suggested new frictions with the agency.

“In its factual presentation, [the IAEA] has once again shown the lack of cooperation on the part of Iran,” said a Western diplomat in Vienna, where the agency is based, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The IAEA report took Iran to task on several counts, but mostly over a disagreement on whether Iran must abide by an annex to the treaty requiring more transparency.

It accused Iran of producing the 20% enriched uranium without inspectors present and after the agency had asked to install more surveillance equipment.

On Dec. 2, the IAEA asked Iran to clarify its stated intention to build 10 new enrichment plants and requested that it provide details of new facilities as required by international law.

Iran responded 15 days later that it had suspended its adherence to that rule in 2007 and it would “provide the agency with the required information if necessary.”

Iran also barred inspectors from taking samples of 756 barrels of heavy water discovered by the IAEA last fall at the Esfehan conversion facility. The plutonium in the spent fuel of heavy-water nuclear reactors can be used to make atomic bombs.

Iran says it made the material itself, but some analysts suspect it was secretly imported; Iran has refused to let inspectors have access its heavy-water production plant near Arak.

Satellite imagery shows the plant is running, the report said, even though the U.N. Security Council has told Iran to halt production.

[Los Angeles Times]

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates spoke to leaders in Turkey, Italy and France about the “urgent need” to move forward on sanctions as soon as possible, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell told reporters.

Asked how quickly sanctions could be in place, Morrell said Gates, who visited Paris this week, believed it could happen “in weeks, not months”.

In an interview with Fox News, a transcript of which was released on Tuesday, Gates said: “It is always a negotiating process and we’re just at the beginning of it.”

“I think it’s going to take some period of time; I would say weeks, not months, to see if we can’t get another U.N. Security Council resolution,” he added.

Asked what would happen if China or any other country opposed a resolution, Gates said: “All I can say is we have been successful in getting several security council resolutions so I’m optimistic we’ll be successful again.”

Morrell said Gates “clearly thinks time is of the essence” to approve the resolution in order to provide a “legal platform” for the European Union and others to “take action on their own”.

Iran began work on Tuesday to produce higher-grade nuclear fuel for a Tehran research reactor, an official said. It aims to produce uranium enriched to a level of 20 percent for a reactor making medical isotopes.

[Reuters]