The History of the Iranian Nuclear Deal

Editor's Note

Iran sought the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to lift the burden of economic sanctions linked to its nuclear program. Under the international agreement, the European Union lifted its sanctions and the United States suspended the application of sanctions. The deal was signed on July 14, 2015, by Iran, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, Germany and the European Union.

The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has placed far more emphasis on curbing Iran's activities throughout the Middle East than its predecessor did. By reopening the debate on the JCPOA with the threat of withdrawal, Trump hopes to either rein in Iran's regional meddling or persuade Tehran to broaden the deal to include restrictions on its ballistic missile program and its support of militant groups.

• May 12, 2018: The deadline to extend U.S. National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) sanctions waivers expires. 
• May 8, 2018: U.S. President Donald Trump announces that the United States will withdraw from the JCPOA. 
• Jan. 12, 2018: Trump continues to exempt Iran from the package of tough economic sanctions under the JCPOA.
• Jan. 11, 2018: British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson publicly urges the United States not to abandon the deal, arguing that it makes the world safer.
• Oct. 13, 2017: Trump announces his decision to forgo the certification of the JCPOA.
• July 17, 2017: The Trump administration reluctantly certifies Iran's compliance with the JCPOA.
• May 20, 2017: Trump travels to Saudi Arabia to try to drum up support for an Arab coalition to counter Iran's influence in the region.

• May 19, 2017: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani wins a second term.
• Mid-May 2017: For the first time, a set of sanction waivers reaches its expiration date under the Trump administration.
• April 18, 2017: U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson tells Congress that Iran is still complying with the JCPOA but that the National Security Council will lead an interagency review of the deal to determine whether suspending the sanctions served U.S. national security interests.
• Feb. 1, 2017: Then-U.S. national security adviser Gen. Michael Flynn says the United States is putting Iran "on notice." Other officials in the Trump administration echo that sentiment in the following months.
• Jan. 29, 2017: Iran carries out a test of a medium-range ballistic missile.

• Jan. 20, 2017: Trump is inaugurated as U.S. president.
• Nov. 8, 2016: Trump wins the U.S. presidential election. 
• Feb. 25, 2016: Iran elects a new parliament and Assembly of Experts.
• Jan. 16, 2016: JCPOA implementation day — Foreign buyers are now allowed to purchase Iranian oil without incurring penalties from secondary sanctions, opening up Iran's oil exports to all major markets except the United States. Through executive action, the United States suspends all nuclear-related secondary sanctions, including sanctions on non-U.S. entities in business with Iran. The European Union lifts most nuclear-related sanctions, removing the embargo on Iranian oil imports and enabling European companies to invest and operate in Iran.

• Oct. 18, 2015: JCPOA adoption day — Iran begins working to resolve the outstanding issues in its nuclear program. The United States approves sanction waivers contingent on Iran's compliance with the agreement once the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verifies it. The European Union passes legislation to remove sanctions on Iran once the IAEA verifies Iran's compliance.
• July 14, 2015: JCPOA signed — Iran, the United States and five other countries sign the landmark nuclear deal in which Tehran agrees to resolve outstanding issues in its nuclear program in exchange for relief from U.S. and EU sanctions.

The History of the Iranian Nuclear Deal

47 scientific organizations urge Puerto Rico governor not to dismantle statistical agency

Today, 47 US and international scientific organizations and professional societies sent a letter to Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello urging him to keep the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics (PRIS) autonomous and independent. The letter is the latest show of support for the Caribbean island's only independent and dedicated source of statistics.

Earlier this year, Puerto Rico's legislature was considering a proposal that would dismantle PRIS by reorganizing the agency's statistical functions and placing them under the Department of Economic Development and Commerce (DEDC). The plan also requires the DEDC secretary to outsource all statistical functions currently performed by PRIS. Rosselló is expected to present the latest reorganization plan in the coming days, which the legislature must approve by June 30.

Currently, PRIS is an independent government agency of the executive branch with many protections established by law--including having an executive director named to 10-year terms and a board of directors composed by experts--to ensure its impartial collection, production and communication of statistical data. Such protections would be eliminated under the government of Puerto Rico's current reorganization plan.

The letter sent today--led by the American Statistical Association and transmitted by American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Chief Executive Officer Rush Holt--emphasizes the importance of PRIS continuing to operate independently of political influences, bureaucracy, and conflicts of interest. In justifying this call, the letter states: "At this critical historical juncture, Puerto Rico needs accurate, objective and timely statistics. Government statistics empower the economy, serve the health and welfare of citizens, improve governance and inform decisions and policies in the public and private sectors, among many other vital functions. Government statistics are also fundamental to evidence-based policymaking, the engagement of which is on a rapid rise in local, state and federal governments. To address the challenges posed by its decade-long economic recession and the devastation of back-to-back hurricanes, Puerto Rico must chart its path toward sustainable recovery using reputable and reliable data and statistical methods."

Experts believe inaccurate and dated statistical systems underlie many of the problems Puerto Rico is now facing. For example, before Hurricanes Irma and Maria, which devastated the island in September 2017, Puerto Rico lacked the appropriate statistical methods to accurately measure deaths caused by natural disasters. Despite multiple reports that indicate more than 1,000 people died because of Hurricane Maria, the official government death toll remains at 64. Recently, PRIS approved a series of methods to measure the death toll from future natural disasters in Puerto Rico, as well as to produce the final estimates of the Hurricane Maria death toll in Puerto Rico.

Although PRIS has been underfunded for years and must constantly deal with resistance from other local agencies to collaborate, its accomplishments have helped the commonwealth in many ways. For example, its work helped identify Medicaid fraud, saving taxpayers $10 million annually, and revealed a statistical bias in the formulas used to compensate doctors in Puerto Rico under Medicare that cost the local economy about $120 million annually. The agency also played a crucial role in correcting the Consumer Price Index, which the government had been overestimating between 2001 and 2006, causing Puerto Ricans to unnecessarily pay more for everyday items such as gasoline.

Since the plans to dismantle PRIS were announced, the organization has not only received strong and swift support from the scientific community, but from individuals and political leaders in Puerto Rico and the US. A petition, in part organized by the ASA, asking Puerto Rico's political leaders to reconsider its reorganization plans has been signed by more than 3,000 individuals, including former National Institutes of Health Director and Nobel Laureate Harold Varmus and president of the National Academy of Sciences Bruce Alberts. Signifying the importance of the issue, the number of US and international organizations that have signed today's letter rivals the 46 that signed onto this year's statement of support for former Greek chief statistician Andreas Georgiou, who is unjustly facing civil and criminal charges for his leadership to produce the economic statistical data between 2010 and 2015.

There have also been multiple op-eds and articles published by outlets including BBC, NBC News, Sense about Science USA, Scientific American, The Hill, Science and Nature. ASA President Lisa LaVange sent letters to Rosselló, the PR Senate president and the PR House speaker, protesting the plan.

At a moment when Puerto Rico residents are demanding transparency on critical issues such as the restoration of electrical power and proposed education reforms, the island is also debating the best path forward for recovery and trying to project the effects of austerity measures on the Puerto Rican economy. Eliminating PRIS now would be counterproductive. An Institute of Statistics that is autonomous, independent, free of conflict of interests and receiving appropriate levels of funding is key for reliable and publicly accessible statistics, which in turn are of utmost importance to the evidence-based public policies that can lift Puerto Rico out of its crisis.

###

See also the following ASA press releases:

March 22, 2018: Efforts to Dismantle Puerto Rico Statistics Agency Being Fought on Two Intensifying Fronts

February 5, 2018 Calls to Keep Puerto Rico's Institute of Statistics Independent Grow Louder

About the American Statistical Association

The ASA is the world's largest community of statisticians and the oldest continuously operating professional science society in the United States. Its members serve in industry, government and academia in more than 90 countries, advancing research and promoting sound statistical practice to inform public policy and improve human welfare. For additional information, please visit the ASA website at http://www.amstat.org.

For more information:

Steve Pierson 
ASA Director of Science Policy 
(703) 302-1841 
pierson@amstat.org

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

47 scientific organizations urge Puerto Rico governor not to dismantle statistical agency

Puerto Rico to rebuild power grid using US national standard

The new CEO of Puerto Rico’s power company announced Monday that the public agency will immediately adopt a U.S. national standard to design and rebuild the island’s power grid following Hurricane Maria.

That measure will make it easier for the Electric Power Authority to maintain power lines and replace them after a storm, and crews will be able to obtain materials more quickly, CEO Walter Higgins said.

“It’s a great step forward for faster restoration from storms and improving technology of the grid,” he said in a statement. “It ensures that all of our future construction and activities in the grid will be done to a standard that is widely adopted and widely used in the United States.”

It was not immediately clear why Puerto Rico had not previously adopted such a standard and whether the government has already started to rebuild and design a stronger power grid. Higgins was not available for comment, and power company spokesman Carlos Monroig said he did not have details.

More than 29,000 customers remain without power nearly eight months after the Category 4 storm destroyed up to 75 percent of the U.S. territory’s distribution lines. On Monday, a group of neighbors in the southeastern part of the island marched through the streets with Tiki torches and handmade posters that read, “We want power!” Local and federal officials have said a lack of materials and rough terrain have in part delayed power restoration efforts as anger grows over the lack of electricity in dozens of communities.

Higgins said emergency measures taken so far to restore power must be upgraded or replaced to permanent standards.

Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida, a Democrat from Florida who visited Puerto Rico last week, said the U.S. government has to do more to help the island recover from Maria.

“Can you imagine that happening in any of our states on the mainland? Can you imagine the degree of anger and insistence that there be the full recovery?” he said.

In April, federal officials told a congressional hearing that they expected to have a plan by June on how to strengthen and stabilize Puerto Rico’s electrical grid. Many worry the plan comes too late: The Atlantic hurricane season starts June 1, and power outages remain common across Puerto Rico.

Just hours before Higgins’ announcement, Puerto Rico legislators said they would investigate an island-wide power outage that occurred April 18 and scrutinize what kind of steps the power company took to restore electricity and ensure it would not happen again. It was the second such outage in less than two years.

Puerto Rico’s power company is $14 billion in debt and operating with infrastructure nearly three times older than the industry average. The governor announced in January that he aims to privatize the company as local and federal officials continue to restore power, with up to $2 billion of $18.5 billion in disaster recovery grants slated to help rebuild the grid.
Also on Monday, Gov. Ricardo Rossello released details on how his administration plans to use an additional $1.5 billion in federal funds to help the U.S. territory recover from Hurricanes Irma and Maria. At least $817 million will go to rebuilding single-family homes and $45 million will help with mortgage payments.

By DANICA COTO
Puerto Rico to rebuild power grid using US national standard

Federal Response To Puerto Rico Reignites Statehood Push

The federal government's flawed response to Hurricane Maria has rekindled the long-running debate around statehood for the U.S. territory.

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

Now to Puerto Rico and how the federal government's flawed response to Hurricane Maria has rekindled the long-running debate around statehood for the U.S. territory. NPR and the PBS show "Frontline" spent months looking at that response. Here's NPR's Laura Sullivan putting a question to FEMA official Michael Byrne in one of her stories that aired this past week.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

LAURA SULLIVAN, BYLINE: You've got hundreds of thousands of tarps that never arrived. You've got a power restoration company that has no experience restoring power. You've got materials stuck on docks in Florida and Puerto Rico. How is any of this OK?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: A very good question. And for more, I'm joined by our two correspondents - NPR's Adrian Florido, who is in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Good morning to you.

ADRIAN FLORIDO, BYLINE: Good morning, Lulu.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And Laura Sullivan, who is in the studio here in D.C. Good morning.

SULLIVAN: Good morning.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: That was a blockbuster report, I have to say. So, I'm going to start with you, Laura. Can you explain why the statehood debate has become now part of the discussion?

SULLIVAN: You know, the hurricane really shoved this issue to the forefront in a way that it has never been before. Not only did Texas and Florida have an easier time advocating for themselves because they have senators and representatives fighting for them, you know, on the Hill and with the administration...

GARCIA-NAVARRO: After their hurricanes.

SULLIVAN: Exactly, after their hurricanes in Florida and Texas. But also that even the federal response in those states was far more focused and more prepared than it was in Puerto Rico.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: It's Congress ultimately that can decide if Puerto Rico becomes a state. And a recent interview you did has been making big waves on the island, and it's from a congressman in Utah, which is a little bit counterintuitive. Please explain.

SULLIVAN: So I interviewed Congressman Rob Bishop. He's a Republican from Utah. And it's weird because Puerto Rico is a territory. It falls under Congress to oversee it. And Congressman Bishop is the chairman of the committee that oversees Puerto Rico. So that means that a representative from Utah has arguably more power over Puerto Rico's future than anyone. And he shocked people when he broke with some of his party's ranks and told me this.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

ROBERT BISHOP: They should be on a track to statehood. They are Americans. They have a history of patriotism. They are a clear part of the country. And people have to realize how much Puerto Rico has been a part of the United States.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Adrian, this, I think, is a big deal - right? Congressman Bishop here is telling Laura he's supporting Puerto Rican statehood without the preconditions you normally hear. Has he kept to that line, though? He's been on the island this past week.

FLORIDO: Right. So he told Laura that he supported statehood straight up. And then on Friday, he was here in Puerto Rico, and he kind of qualified his position. He said that Puerto Rico would first have to improve its economy and its government. These are the sorts of preconditions, like you were suggesting, that a lot of politicians often place on this - on their support for a statehood. Among statehood proponents here on the island, that usually does not go over well. And it did not go over well with the governor, Ricardo Rossello, who criticized Bishop's new position. And then on Saturday, yesterday, Bishop changed his stance again, saying that there should not be any preconditions for statehood.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: People in the mainland are certainly more focused on Puerto Rico after seeing the devastation and the fallout from the slow response from the federal government. But what are the people in Puerto Rico saying about this issue now? Has it changed?

FLORIDO: I mean, it depends on who you talk to. A proponent of statehood see, you know, the fact that Puerto Rico got so much attention after Hurricane Maria as one of their best opportunities to advance their cause because a lot of Americans on the mainland are paying attention. On the other hand, you've got people who say, you know, that the federal government's response is proof that Puerto Rico needs more autonomy from the federal government so that it can take care of itself. And at the end of the day, I mean, because Puerto Rican politics is so fundamentally built around this question of statehood, there are a lot of Puerto Ricans who just don't think that politicians really have any interest in resolving it because the debate around it is sort of their reason for being.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: All right. So that's the view from Puerto Rico. But, Laura, is there more momentum around this issue on Capitol Hill, which ultimately has the power now that it's been revealed how flawed the government's response was to the storm?

SULLIVAN: Yeah. I mean, having a Republican chairman say that Puerto Rico should be a state is huge because what people on the Hill is saying is actually holding this idea back is not the idea that Puerto Rico has to get its fiscal situation in order, that that's sort of a red herring, but the feeling that Puerto Rico would vote as a Democratic bloc. Republicans don't want to add two Democratic senators and a handful of representatives. But a lot of people in Puerto Rican politics say that many people in Puerto Rico actually are conservative, and it wouldn't be such a sure thing that Puerto Rico would vote that way but that they've been just pushed into the Democratic block by things like frustration with this administration's response to the storm.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: NPR's Laura Sullivan in D.C, thank you very much.

SULLIVAN: Thanks so much.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And Adrian Florido in Puerto Rico, thank you very much.

FLORIDO: Thanks, both of you.

Copyright © 2018 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

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LAURA SULLIVAN y ADRIAN FLORIDO
Federal Response To Puerto Rico Reignites Statehood Push

Naps Can Make Our Brains 'Remember' Things That Never Happened

Our memory is imperfect: We remember some moments but lose others like a problematic tape recorder. Sometimes, we even "remember" things that never happened — a phenomenon that researchers call "false memory" (and a reason why eyewitness testimonies can be misleading).

But where do these false memories come from? Previous studies have suggested that sleep plays a role in the formation of false memories, and in a recent small study, researchers homed in on one particular aspect of sleep, called sleep spindles, as the potential culprit.

Sleep spindles are quick bursts of brain activity during sleep, according to the study, which was published in December in the journal Neuropsychologia. They occur in one of the lighter stages of sleep, called Stage 2, which is defined by a slowed heart rate and no eye movement.

To study how sleep spindles may play a role in the formation of false memories, the researchers recruited 32 well-rested, non-caffeinated university students. The participants were shown a handful of words — all related to the same topic — before being hooked up to a polysomnography device, which monitors brain activity during sleep. The participants were then randomly assigned to one of two groups: a napping group or an awake group. The napping group was sent to a room with a bed and blackout blinds, while the awake group was told to watch a nature documentary or a Mr. Bean cartoon. The polysomnography device recorded brain activity to make sure the napping group was actually asleep and not just lying in bed.  [5 Surprising Sleep Discoveries]

After their respective activities, all of the participants were again shown a series of words and were asked if they had seen the words before. Some of the words were repeats from the first session, but some were new. What's more, the researchers threw in some "lure" words that were related to the topic of all the words but weren't shown to the participants before.

The researchers found that the students who napped were significantly more likely to fall victim to "lure" words and say that they had seen the words before, creating false memories. The findings were what the researchers had predicted based on previous studies.

Right vs. left

But the researchers also wanted to test if one side of the brain was more gullible than the other. To do so,  the researchers designed the experiment so that the words flashed on the screen far to the left or far to the right in a visual field available to only one brain hemisphere at a time. If you blinked, you missed the word, said lead study author John Shaw, a psychology doctoral student at Lancaster University in England. But this wasn't to be annoying, he added; if the words stayed on the screen for longer, then participants' eyes would adjust so that both hemispheres could read the word.

The study found that the right hemisphere of the nappers' brains — which had a greater number of spindles during sleep, as recorded by the polysomnography device — fell more susceptible to "lure" words or false memories than the left. For example, the spindles might promote the word "sleep," telling the brain it remembers it from before, because it goes along with the general gist of words it had previously seen, such as "bed," "dream," "nap" or "snooze," Shaw said.

Sleep spindles have been linked to memory formation before, but previous "studies of [sleep] spindles have only examined true memories," not false memories, Shaw told Live Science. Indeed, sleep spindles are thought to play a very important role in consolidating short-term memory into long-term archives in the brain, and can also aid in cortical development. But this is the first study to find that sleep "spindles are accidentally creating [false] memories," Shaw said.

But don't get too mad at your brain — it's just trying to be efficient. "I think that the sleeping brain spends a lot of time and effort trying to identify the most important aspects of what was learned during the previous day," said Robert Stickgold, director of the Center for Sleep and Cognition at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, who was not part of the study.  

Stickgold noted that the new study doesn't provide enough evidence to undoubtedly say that the right side of the brain is dominant in creating false memories during sleep. "It didn't hit [statistical] significance, but [it] was close," he told Live Science. "But the correlation with sleep spindles is stronger, and I suspect it is real."

Because the study was small, Shaw said he hopes to increase the number of participants with subsequent experiments, in addition to expanding from naps to following the brain's mischief across a full night's sleep.

Originally published on Live Science.

By Yasemin Saplakoglu
Naps Can Make Our Brains 'Remember' Things That Never Happened