Two very large crude carriers loaded with Iranian oil have reached Indian ports, ship tracking data from LSEG shows, as local refiners utilise a temporary waiver granted by the United States last month to resume purchases from Tehran for the first time in seven years. The current waiver is due to expire on April 19. The Iran-flagged Felicity has reached Sikka Port in western India, while the Curacao-flagged Jaya is at the eastern port of Odisha, the data shows. A VLCC carries 2 million barrels of oil. India, the world's third-biggest oil importer and consumer, has not received a cargo from Iran since May 2019 after coming under U.S. pressure not to buy the country's crude. Indian Oil Corp, the country's top refiner, has bought Iranian oil loaded on the Jaya, a vessel under U.S. sanctions, Reuters reported last week. India has also allowed Reliance Industries Ltd, the operator of the world's biggest refining complex, to buy Iranian oil loaded on the Comoros-flagged...
Bombs dropped by American B-2 Stealth Fighter aircraft went through Iran's heavily-guarded Fordow nuclear facility "like butter", US President Donald Trump said.
Speaking to Fox News, Trump said, "They were trying to seal up the entrance to where the bomb would most likely go in and they did that. They were working on that and the bomb went through it like it was butter, like it was absolute butter."
He added that the June 22 strikes, called Operation Midnight Hammer, on Iran's three nuclear facilities - Fordow, Natanz and Ifsahan - "obliterated" the country's nuclear program. Fordow was known as the country's most secretive and heavily protected site, hidden beneath a mountain and designed to resist airstrikes and foreign interference.
Trump said that the bunker-buster bomb strikes reduced Fordow to "just thousands of tons of rock". He went on to insist that highly-enriched uranium was not moved from the site before the attack, a claim made by Israeli officials to The New York Times.
"I think first it was very hard to do. It's very dangerous to do. It's very heavy, very, very heavy. It's a very hard thing to do. Plus, we didn't give much notice because they didn't know we were coming until just then," he said.
Operation Midnight Hammer came as the Iran-Israel conflict continued to escalate, with the two countries continuing strikes against each other since June 13. The US claimed it had given Tehran an ultimatum to stop enriching uranium, the failure of which led to the strikes, that used high-end weaponry, including the dreaded GBU-57 bunker busters and Tomahawk cruise missiles.
While Trump said a day after that Tehran's nuclear program has been set back by decades, UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi says Iran likely will be able to begin to produce enriched uranium "in a matter of months".
In Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures" program, Trump also said US trade talks with Canada will be stopped "until such time as they drop certain taxes".
He went on to say that a group of buyers had been found for TikTok, which faces a looming ban in the United States due to its China ties, adding he could name the purchasers in two weeks. "Very wealthy people. It's a group of wealthy people," the president said, without revealing more except to say he would make their identities known "in about two weeks."
from NDTV News- Special https://ift.tt/V3hNGqP
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