MOSCOW – MOSCOW (AP) — Russia's nuclear agency said Friday that it will load fuel into Iran's first nuclear power plant next week, defying U.S. calls to hold off the start of the launch.

Rosatom spokesman Sergei Novikov said Friday that uranium fuel shipped by Russia will be loaded into the Bushehr reactor on Aug. 21, beginning the startup process.

"From that moment the Bushehr plant will be officially considered a nuclear-energy installation," he told The Associated Press.

The United States has called for Russia to delay the startup until Iran proves that it's not developing nuclear weapons. Russian officials said that the latest U.N. sanctions against Iran won't affect the Bushehr project.

Russia signed a $1 billion contract in 1995 for building the Bushehr plant, but it has dragged its feet on completing the project for years.

Moscow has cited technical reasons for the delays, but analysts say Moscow has used the project to press Iran to ease its defiance over its nuclear program.

Novikov said that Rosatom chief Sergei Kiriyenko will travel to Bushehr in southern Iran for the Aug. 21 ceremony, which will also be attended by the Iranian Vice President Ali Akbar Salehi, who also heads the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said in March that the Bushehr plant would begin operating this summer. Some Iranian lawmakers have accused Russia of delaying the project under the Western pressure.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/08/13/russian-nuclear-agency-says-launch-irans-nuclear-plant-begin-week/

Grrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaattttttttttttttt........ Just ****ing fantastic.

The beginning of the end to nuclear enrichment in Iran.

Someone's gonna light them up.

I guess they get to join the club America belongs to now.

Good for them.

Everyone needs to have nuclear plants or noone needs to have nuclear plants but we can't have it both ways.

i guess russia is the best one to learn from... the only nation to have a complete meltdown....

Yay for our enemies!!

We have to be fair.

If we and others can have nuclear capability we have to be willing to accept that everyone should have it.

If we want everyone to stop having it then we need to work to make the world nuk free.

No we dont. We have been more than fair. We have not threatened another country with our nuclear missles...Iran has, 4 times.

We have to be fair.

Humans all over the world are as human as we are and deserve the same respect we give ourselves.

No. Sorry. Wrong again. People 'all over the world' are NOT the same everywhere. We should 'respect' the throatcutters from the Seventh Century who want to kill us? Tell ya what - YOU do that ... I'll watch ...

I will tell it to whomever. Muslims believe the same.

Terrorists/Extremists may not agree but that is why they are terrorists.

Hopefully we are not terrorists to other countries.

And you'll be talking until you're blue in the face....Islamics will still want to kill you, no matter how "nice" you try to be

i never really cared for fantasy island very much. i thought it was a dumb show.

they don't listen to women... women are beneath them.

That mentality certainly is La La Land!!
Thank God there are true Americans who realize that our enemies really are enemies and they are a threat, and appeasing them is dumb (like what Oblowme is doing)

Not true at all.

Have spoken to a few Islamic men and they were very respectful to me and were very pro American.

I have pretty much dealt with every kind of human there is.

Thank god there are true patriotic Americans like me to make sure that the extremists in this country are not allowed to perpetrate their hatred in the name of America.

Ah!! you are so full of experience!! So a few Islamic men have agreed with you, and that makes evberything alright!!

I see!!....LOL, we'll deal with the rest of em.

hopefully they will always think that, i hope they don't learn the hard way.

Oh. Right. This is so close to borderline self-delusion it ain't funny ... Somehow, reading the above post has given me the same queasy feeling I associated with castor oil when I was a kid ... 'scuse me for a minit ...