Bushehr

From Free net encyclopedia

Bushehr or Bushire (بوشهر), pop. 165,377 (in 2005 [1]), is a city on the southwestern coast of Iran, on the Persian Gulf. It is the chief seaport of the country and the administrative centre of Bushehr province. Its location is 28° 59' N, 50° 49' E, about 400 km south of Tehran. The local climate is hot and humid. Image:Busher.png Bushehr was founded in 1736 by Nadir Shah. Prior to that, it was called Reshahr, and was the seat of the Nestorian Christian expansion of the 5th century.

In 1763 the Persian ruler Karim Khan granted the British East India Company the right to build a base and trading post there. It was used as a base by the British Royal Navy in the late 18th century. In the 19th century, Bushehr became an important commercial port. It was occupied by British forces in 1856, as part of the British invasion of the country. Bushehr surrendered to the British on December 9, 1856.

It was occupied by the British again in 1915, the second time due to German intrigue, most notably by Wilhelm Wassmuss.

In previous centuries, many Africans settled in Bushehr. Although there is no discernible linguistic influence from Africa in Bushehr, there are cultural and genetic influences.

Industries include fishing and a thermoelectric power plant, while the inland area (also called Bushehr) produces Shiraz wine, metalwork, rugs and other textiles, cement, and fertilizer. The Iranian navy maintains a base here.

Bushehr is twelve kilometres from the site of a nuclear power plant being built in cooperation with Russia. The work was begun by the Bonn firm Kraftwerk-Union A.G., a unit of Siemens AG, which contracted to build two nuclear reactors based on a contract worth $4 to $6 billion, signed in 1975.

Work stopped in January 1979, and Kraftwerk-Union fully withdrew from the project in July 1979, with one reactor 50% complete, and the other reactor 85% complete. They said they based their action on Iran's non-payment of $450 million in overdue payments. The company had received $2.5 billion of the total contract. Their cancellation came following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and the realization that the Iranian government would uniltaterally terminate the contract themselves.

The reactors were then damaged by multiple Iraqi air strikes between February 1985 and 1988. Iran subsequently requested that Siemens finish construction, but Siemens declined due to diplomatic pressure from the United States. Shortly afterwards Iraq invaded Iran and the nuclear programme was stopped until the end of the war.

In 1995, Russia signed a contract to supply a light water reactor for the plant. Although the agreement calls for the spent fuel rods to be sent back to Russia for reprocessing, the US has expressed concern that Iran would reprocess the rods itself, in order to obtain plutonium for atomic bombs.

In August 2004 a top U.S. arms-control official stated that Tehran could develop nuclear weapons within three years if left unchecked. U.S. Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton said in Washington that "Iran has told the EU three [Britain, France, and Germany] that it could possess nuclear weapons within three years." The U.S. National Intelligence Estimate contradicts this claim [2]. For context see Iran and weapons of mass destruction#Nuclear_weapons.

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Postage stamps

Bushehr has long been of interest to stamp collectors, since, during their 1915 occupation, the British issued postage stamps. The occupation lasted only from August 8 to October 16, when it was terminated by agreement with the Persian government. The British wasted no time getting their stamp program started; the first overprints, on Persian stamps of 1911, and reading "BUSHIRE / Under British / Occupation.", appeared on August 15. The same overprint was applied in September, to the series of Persian stamps issued in 1915. All of these overprints are uncommon, the cheapest costing US$25 and the rarer varieties ranging up to US$6,000. As might be expected, forgeries have appeared.

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