Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - September 5, 2020, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A13 SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2020 ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM A 13NEWS I WORLD 1926 McGillivray Blvd., Winnipeg MB R3Y 1Y3 • 204-560-0286 FULL AUTO DETAILING ALL MAKES & MODELS AUTOPLEX 1100 TEMPLETON AVE. WPG. 204.632.4053 | 204.697.9320 COMPLETE INTERIOR AND EXTERIOR DETAILING XPEL PAINT PROTECTION FILM INTERIOR CLEAN PACKAGE WINDOW TINTING Packages starting at $189.95 Book Your Appointment Today! Starting at $399 $6495As low as $149.95 Beat the Fall Rush! BOOK TODAY!! as low as EXTERIOR POLISH starting at $9995 Celebrations Dinner Theatre has REOPENED with the fun show Old Time Rock & Roll Seating is Limited Call 204-982-8282 for your tickets N EW DELHI — Defence ministers of India and China have met in the Russian capital to try to solve rising tensions along their disputed border in the eastern Ladakh region, where a clash in June killed 20 Indian soldiers. Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh tweeted about his meeting Fri- day night with Chinese counterpart Gen. Wei Fenghe that lasted about two hours. He didn’t give any details about the outcome of the first direct high-level contact between the two sides in the months-long standoff. The ministers met on the sidelines of a meeting of the defence chiefs of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The body comprises China, India, Pak- istan, Russia, Kazakhstan, Krgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. In his address, Singh said “peace and security in the region demands a cli- mate of trust, non-aggression, peaceful resolution of differences and respect for international rules.” Troops on both sides are aggressively deployed in the Karakorum mountains in the Ladakh region. The two Asian giants share thousands of kilometres (miles) of disputed border. Both have accused the other of fresh provocations, including al- legations of soldiers crossing into each other’s territory this week and vowed to protect their territorial integrity. India’s army chief, Gen. M.M. Nara- vane, visited the region on Thursday and Friday. He met with soldiers and local commanders deployed in difficult high altitude terrain, an Indian Defence Ministry statement said. Earlier this week, India said its soldiers had thwarted “provocative” movements by China’s military over the last weekend. In turn, China’s De- fence Ministry accused Indian troops of crossing established lines of control and creating provocations along the disputed border. The Line of Actual Control, the dis- puted and undemarcated 3,500-km bor- der between India and China, stretches from the Ladakh region in the north to the Indian state of Sikkim. The standoff is over disputed portions of a pristine landscape that boasts the world’s highest landing strip, a glacier that feeds one of the largest irrigation systems in the world, and is a critical link in China’s massive Belt and Road infrastructure project. The two nations fought a border war in 1962 that also spilled into Ladakh and ended in an uneasy truce. Since then, troops from opposing sides have guard- ed the undefined mountain border area, occasionally brawling. They have agreed not to attack each other with firearms. Rival soldiers brawled bitterly in May, and in June fought with clubs, stones and fists, leaving 20 Indian soldiers dead. China did not report any casualties. Accusing each other of instigating the violence, both sides have pledged to safeguard their territory but also try to end the standoff, which has dramatic- ally changed the India-China relation- ship. Several rounds of military and diplomatic talks on the crisis have been unsuccessful. — The Associated Press VIENNA — Iran continues to increase its stockpile of enriched uranium in violation of limitations set in a landmark deal with world powers, but has begun providing access to sites where it was suspected of having stored or used undeclared nuclear material and possibly conducted nuclear- related activities, the UN’s atomic watch- dog agency said Friday. The International Atomic Energy Agency reported in a confidential docu- ment distributed to member countries and seen by The Associated Press that Iran as of Aug. 25 had stockpiled 2,105.4 kilograms of low-enriched uranium, up from 1,571.6 kg last reported on May 20. Iran signed the nuclear deal in 2015 with the United States, Germany, France, Britain, China and Russia. Known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, it allows Iran only to keep a stockpile of 202.8 kg. The IAEA reported that Iran has also been continuing to enrich uranium to a purity of up to 4.5 per cent, higher than the 3.67 per cent allowed under the JC- POA. It said Iran’s stockpile of heavy water — which helps cool nuclear react- ors — had decreased, however, and is now back within the JCPOA limits. The nuclear deal promised Iran eco- nomic incentives in return for the curbs on its nuclear program. U.S. President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the deal unilaterally in 2018, saying it needed to be renegotiated. Since then, Iran has slowly violated the restrictions to try and pressure the remaining nations to increase the incentives to offset new, economy-crip- pling U.S. sanctions. Those countries maintain even though Iran has been violating many of the pact’s restrictions, it is important to keep the deal alive because the country has con- tinued providing the IAEA with critical access to inspect its nuclear facilities. The agency had been at a months- long impasse over two locations thought to be from the early 2000s, however, which Iran had argued inspectors had no right to visit because they dated to before the deal. After IAEA director general Rafael Grossi personally visited Tehran in late August for meetings with top officials, he said Iran had agreed to provide in- spectors access. In its report, the IAEA said inspect- ors had visited one site and would visit the other this month. It didn’t detail their findings. The ultimate goal of the JCPOA is to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb, which Iran insists it does not want to do. Still, since the U.S. withdrawal, it has stockpiled enough enriched uranium to produce a weapon. According to the Washington-based Arms Control Association, Iran would need roughly 1,050 kg of low-enriched uranium — under five per cent purity — in gas form and would then need to enrich it further to weapons-grade, or more than 90 per cent purity, to make a nuclear weapon.” Before agreeing to the nuclear deal, however, Iran enriched its uranium up to 20 per cent purity, which is just a short technical step away from the weapons-grade level of 90 per cent. In 2013, Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was already more than 7,000 kg with higher enrichment, but it didn’t pursue a bomb. — The Associated Press IAEA: Iran continues to expand stockpile of enriched uranium KIYOKO METZLER AND DAVID RISING ASHOK SHARMA Indian, Chinese defence ministers meet amid border tension JOSE LUIS MAGANA / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES Indian Defence Minister Shri Rajnath Singh gave no details of the meetings. A_13_Sep-05-20_FP_01.indd A13 2020-09-04 11:16 PM ;