Iran, officially known as Islamic Republic of Iran, is a country in the Middle East. It was known as Persia until 1935. The country was run by a Shah from the early 1950s till 1979, when he fled the country. After, the country was under the control of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomenei. The country also has a president, which they democratically elect, or so it seems that they democratically elect the leader. Currently the president of Iran is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was elected in June 2009.
The country has many natural resources, including the much coveted oil. They also have a large abundance of natural gas; their reserves are only second to Russia. Currently the country is trying to enrich uranium, for weapons and for an alternative source of energy. People are worried about the enrichment of uranium, especially the United States.
Iran has begun picking out potential sites for their uranium plants, they have about 20 that they will propose to the president. They want to start construction of at least two plants by next year. (The Iranian New Year is in March.) Iran is trying to stress the point that the plants are for civilian energy. But of course the thought of nuclear weapons looms in the air.
The United Nations nuclear inspection agency has announced publicly that Iran may be working on nuclear weapons. A lot of the information that made the inspection agency publicly make that announcement was from the International Atomic Energy Agency. The IAEA wants Iran to do some explaining, like "Whether it has carried out activities involving high-precision detonators fired simultaneously. Some nuclear-weapon designs require such detonations before they explode" (csmonitor).
But, all this worry may be in vain. It seems that Iran is having trouble with the enrichment equipment. So, Iran's uranium plans may be put on hold, at least for a while.
Encyclopedia Britannica
Inspectors: Iran possibly working on nuke. What's the evidence?
Iran weighs sites for uranium enrichment plants, official says
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Good post, though it could use a few links in the text to point the reader to more background info. Also, we need to add some influence from non-western sources in your intro. Your writing is objective, but your sources seem one sided. Excited that this is your topic - I think it might be an eventful month to follow Iran.
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