WHO: Small cancer risk after Fukushima accident

LONDON (AP) — People exposed to the highest doses of radiation during Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in 2011 may have a slightly higher risk of cancer but one so small it probably won't be detectable, the World Health Organization said in a report released Thursday.

A group of experts convened by the agency assessed the risk of various cancers based on estimates of how much radiation people at the epicenter of the nuclear disaster received, namely those directly under the plumes of radiation in the most affected communities in Fukushima, a rural agricultural area about 150 miles (240 kilometers) north of Tokyo.

Some 110,000 people living around the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant were evacuated after the massive March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami knocked out the plant's power and cooling systems, causing meltdowns in three reactors and spewing radiation into the surrounding air, soil and water.

Experts calculated that people in the most affected regions had an additional 4 to 7 percent overall risk of developing cancers, including leukemia and breast cancer. In Japan, men have about a 41 percent lifetime risk of developing cancer of an organ, while a woman's lifetime risk is about 29 percent. For those most hit by the radiation after Fukushima, their chances of cancer would rise by about 1 percent.

"These are pretty small proportional increases," said Richard Wakeford of the University of Manchester, one of the authors of the report.

"The additional risk is quite small and will probably be hidden by the noise of other (cancer) risks like people's lifestyle choices and statistical fluctuations," he said. "It's more important not to start smoking than having been in Fukushima."

Experts had been particularly worried about a spike in thyroid cancer, since iodine released in nuclear accidents is absorbed by the thyroid, especially in children. After the Chernobyl disaster, about 6,000 children exposed to radiation later developed thyroid cancer because many drank contaminated milk after the accident.

In Japan, dairy radiation levels were closely monitored, but children are not big milk drinkers there.

WHO estimated that women exposed as infants to the most radiation after the Fukushima accident would have a 70 percent higher chance of getting thyroid cancer in their lifetimes. But thyroid cancer is extremely rare and the normal lifetime risk of developing it is about 0.75 percent. That lifetime risk would be 0.5 percent higher for those women who got the highest radiation doses as babies.

Wakeford said the increase in such cancers may be so small it will probably not be observable.

For people beyond the most directly affected areas of Fukushima, Wakeford said the projected risk from the radiation dropped dramatically. "The risks to everyone else were just infinitesimal."

Some experts said it was surprising that any increase in cancer was even predicted and believe that the low-dose radiation people in Fukushima received hasn't been proven to raise the chances of cancer.

"On the basis of the radiation doses people have received, there is no reason to think there would be an increase in cancer in the next 50 years," said Wade Allison, an emeritus professor of physics at Oxford University, who was not connected to the WHO report. "The very small increase in cancers means that it's even less than the risk of crossing the road," he said.

Gerry Thomas, a professor of molecular pathology at Imperial College London, accused the WHO of hyping the cancer risk.

"It's understandable that WHO wants to err on the side of caution, but telling the Japanese about a barely significant personal risk may not be helpful," she said.

Thomas said the WHO report used inflated estimates of radiation doses and didn't properly take into account Japan's quick evacuation of people from Fukushima.

"This will fuel fears in Japan that could be more dangerous than the physical effects of radiation," she said, noting that people living under stress have higher rates of heart problems, suicide and mental illness.

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Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.

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Lens Blog: The Largely Unknown Photography of Lola Álvarez Bravo

The year 2007 was a pretty good one for rediscovering long-forgotten images in Mexico. Most people already know about Robert Capa’s Mexican suitcase, a trove of his work from the Spanish Civil War. But that same year an unknown archive of vintage prints by Mexico’s greatest photographers was also discovered, left behind in the longtime home of Lola Álvarez Bravo.

The find, known as the Gonzalez-Rendon archive, had prints and original photomontages by Lola, as well as some beautifully printed images by Manuel Álvarez Bravo, to whom she had been married for several years. The find also included work by some of Lola’s students who had gone on to become noted photographers, Mariana Yampolsky and Raul Conde, among them.

Though overshadowed by her more famous partner, who had resisted her foray into photography, Lola ranks among Mexico’s most celebrated photographers, having done portraits of fellow artists and intellectuals as well as work among the indigenous and poor, whom she portrayed with a sense of compassion and social criticism. Her images provide a window in what she — a working photographer and teacher most of her life — valued as an artistic statement.

“It’s what an art historian dreams about, finding the missing pieces,” said James Oles, a lecturer at Wellesley College who was among the first to inspect the images in Mexico. “The material fleshes out some aspects of her work, giving us original titles and dates that radically change the meaning and interpretation of a work of art. And the original photomontages give an idea how she created them.”

Adriana Zavala, an associate professor of Latin American Art at Tufts University, was also among those who got an early look at the trove, which she now thinks consisted of things Lola forget she even had. Since then, she and Rachael Arauz, a specialist in modernist photography, have curated three exhibitions drawn from the archive, including a show that will begin in late March at the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Ariz., which will combine the more recent finds with previously held vintage work.

“It was like the Antiques Roadshow when we found this stuff, went through it carefully and got an opportunity to understand Lola in an ‘unauthorized’ way,” Ms. Zavala said. “This allows us to talk about the encounter between the two different bodies of material.”

Born Dolores Concepcion Martinez in 1903, she grew up in a wealthy family, although she had to move in with relatives when her father died. She first met Manuel in her youth, marrying him in 1925. As an accountant, he was sent to work in Oaxaca, where the couple began to take pictures, Mr. Oles wrote in the recently-published catalog, “Lola Álvarez Bravo and the Photography of an Era,” which he edited and which also includes essays by Ms. Arauz and Ms. Zavala.

The area’s poverty struck her, and it elicited a compassion in her work that was different from her husband’s more complex images.

“Lola was maybe a little more natural,” Mr. Oles said. “She was interested in more candid and less intrusive images. She was certainly more interested in people than things.”

The couple separated in 1934, divorcing in 1949. Throughout, she kept his name and did not remarry. She supported herself as a photographer working for government agencies, as well as teaching, where she influenced many.

“I think Lola was a remarkable photographer, especially given all the challenges she faced,” said Elizabeth Ferrer, who published “Lola Álvarez Bravo” with Aperture. “There were women artists, though women were not supposed to be working in the street but in the studio. But the kind of photography done at the time involved a greater public interface, and the fact that she did that showed her incredible strength and desire to photograph the world around her.”

Although she found her own path apart from her more famous husband — she was more gregarious, enjoying the company of artists, writers and intellectuals — work and circumstance worked against her. It was not until the 1980s, Mr. Oles said, that her work as an artist came to the fore.

Mr. Oles visited her in the early 1990s, around the time when the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona acquired an archive of her work. Lola was moved by her son to another apartment, and she died in 1993.

Fourteen years later, Mr. Oles got a call from a museum in Mexico City. Relatives of one of Lola’s friends, who had bought her old apartment, had been safeguarding several boxes that had been left behind. One of them had taken the time to preserve and order the prints.

“She didn’t sell anything or have it framed in her apartment, but just organized it,” Mr. Oles said. “When I went there, it was amazing. It showed what had been separated at some time by Lola, and God knows when or why, there were a lot of her own photos. Many were by students of hers as well as a group of extraordinary vintage photos by Manuel Álvarez Bravo.”

Her photos — including some vintage prints that were exhibited in Philadelphia in 1943 — shed new light on her work. In some cases, original titles gave new meaning to old images. One shot of an indigenous woman seated against a wrought-iron fence that had long been titled “By the Fault of Others” turned out to have “Death Penalty” (Slide 6) as its original title.

“That changes how we interpret this photo of this woman who looks trapped by this grille,” Mr. Oles said. “You can go into the archive of any major photographer and find images they never printed and exhibit them after their death without knowing what they mean. Finding this material tells us these are the photos she chose which she thought were the key images that she was interested in during that era.”

While her photomontages are well known, the archive has the originals, which she made by gluing together cut-out images she would later photograph for the final montage.

“In Mexico, photomontage was mainly a strategy of media and advertising, not an artistic project,” Mr. Oles said. “What Lola was trying to do was elevate it to the realm of high art and view it as equivalent to muralism. The multiple perspectives of photomontage and the fragmented images resolved into a whole are what a muralist like Diego Rivera does when he shows multiple perspectives of a factory and resolving them together. Lola understood that.”

Among the greatest finds in the archive are works by her students. Even in death, though, Lola’s own images prove to affect a current generation. Mr. Oles said her photos of prostitutes, titled “Triptych of the Martyrs,” has a powerful element of feminist criticism.

“Their faces are obscured with wound-like shadows,” he said. “There is this undercurrent of social critique. Whenever my students see those pictures, they are moved sometimes to the point of tears. I don’t think any of Manuel Álvarez Bravos’s photos move them to tears.”

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The exhibit “Lola Álvarez Bravo and the Photography of an Era” will be on view at the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson from March 30 through June 23.

Follow @dgbxny and @nytimesphoto on Twitter. Lens is also on Facebook.

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This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 27, 2013

An earlier version of this post incorrectly implied that James Oles was the author of "Lola Alvarez Bravo and the Photography of an Era." He edited the catalog, though he also contributed an essay.

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Dancing with the Stars: Kellie Pickler Calls Partner Derek Hough an 'Answered Prayer'

TV Watch

By Monica Rizzo

02/27/2013 at 10:35 AM EST

Kellie Pickler and Derek Hough

Getty(2)

When country singer Kellie Pickler found out Derek Hough would be her Dancing with the Stars pro partner, the first person she wanted to thank was her grandfather, Ken Morton.

"Having Derek as my partner is an answered prayer," Pickler tells PEOPLE. "Right before I left Nashville for L.A., my Grandpa Ken, who is a huge fan of the show, told me he was praying that Derek would be my partner, because that's his favorite male dancer on the show."

Picker, 26, made a splash on season 5 of American Idol, which films at a soundstage next door to Dancing with the Stars. Now she hopes that returning to the building where her career got its start and teaming with three-time DWTS champ Hough, whom she calls "a phenomenal dancer," will bring her luck in the pursuit of the coveted mirror-ball trophy.

And for good measure, she's counting on her Grandpa Ken.

"Now I think I will tell him to pray that we win!" Pickler says.

Dancing's new season kicks off March 18 on ABC.

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Vt. lye victim gets new face at Boston hospital

BOSTON (AP) — A Vermont woman whose face was disfigured in a lye attack has received a face transplant.

Doctors at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital say 44-year-old Carmen Blandin Tarleton underwent the surgery earlier this month.

A team worked 15 hours to transplant the facial skin, including the neck, nose, lips, facial muscles, arteries and nerves.

The 44-year-old Tarleton, of Thetford, Vt., was attacked by her former husband in 2007. He doused her with industrial strength lye. She suffered chemical burns over 80 percent of her body. The mother of two wrote a book about her experience that describes her recovery.

It was the fifth face transplant at the Boston hospital.

Physicians are planning to discuss the case Wednesday at the hospital.

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Wall Street inches up after data

MADRID, Feb 27 (Reuters) - Lionel Messi has rarely been accused of failing to deliver in big games, having scored in two European Cup finals, but after subdued performances against AC Milan and Real Madrid, questions are being asked. The four-times World Player of the Year and leading scorer in one of the greatest club teams of all time, was a shadow of his usual self at the San Siro in a Champions League last-16 first leg last week, when Barcelona slumped to a 2-0 defeat. ...

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Benedict XVI to Keep His Name and Become Pope Emeritus

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI will keep the name Benedict XVI and become the Roman pontiff emeritus or pope emeritus, the Vatican announced Tuesday, putting an end to days of speculation on how the pope will be addressed once he ceases to be the leader of the world’s 1.1 billion Roman Catholics on Thursday.

Benedict, the first pope to resign voluntarily in six centuries, will dress in a simple white cassock, forgoing the mozzetta, the elbow-length cape worn by some Catholic clergymen, the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, told reporters at a news briefing.

And he will no longer wear the red shoes typically worn by popes, symbolizing the blood of the martyrs, Father Lombardi said, opting instead for a more quotidian brown. “Mexicans will be happy to know that the pope very much appreciated the shoes” he received as a gift last year in León, Mexico, he added. “He finds them very comfortable.” It was after the grueling trip in March 2012 that the pope began to seriously consider resigning, the Vatican said after the pope announced his resignation on Feb. 11.

Father Lombardi said the pope had decided on his couture in consultation with other Vatican officials. Benedict will also stop using the so-called fisherman’s ring to seal documents. It will be destroyed by the cardinal camerlengo, the acting head of state of Vatican City during the “sede vacante,” the canon law term used when the papacy is vacant.

As his staff finishes packing up his personal belongings, the pope will hold his scheduled weekly audience Wednesday — to which 50,000 tickets have already been requested — and then meet with several dignitaries, including the presidents of Slovakia and of the German region of Bavaria, who have traveled to Rome to bid their respects.

Thursday will be a day of goodbyes, to the cardinals already present in Rome, and later to some members of the Curia. In the afternoon, he will depart for Castel Gandolfo, the summer residence of popes, where he will remain until restorations are complete on the convent inside the Vatican where he will live out his days.

Father Lombardi said the College of Cardinals would probably begin meeting next Monday to discuss various issues, like the problems facing the church and the qualities required of its next leader, and determine the date of the start of the conclave to choose Benedict’s successor.

Gaia Pianigiani reported from Vatican City, and Elisabetta Povoledo from Rome.

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Rick Springfield Returns to General Hospital with Real-Life Son!

TV Watch

By Raha Lewis and Dahvi Shira

02/26/2013 at 10:40 AM EST

The doctor is in. Again.

Rick Springfield, 63, will reprise his role as Dr. Noah Drake on General Hospital for several episodes in April, he tells PEOPLE exclusively.

As the ABC soap opera marks its 50th anniversary, the "Jessie's Girl" singer will also be joined by his son, Liam Springthorpe, who will make his debut appearance on the show as an undercover cop.

Springfield, who last appeared on the show in March 2012, says the good doctor has a lot of personal baggage to deal with.

"He lost his wife and became a drunk and regretted all these terrible, sinful ways and then cleaned his act up when he almost died from the alcohol," says Springfield. "Now he disappears all the time, going to Doctors Without Borders and going around the world helping people. I guess he's gone from a drunk to being incredibly altruistic. I'm not nearly as altruistic as Noah Drake is."

Liam Springthorpe

Bjorn Photography

Springfield, who hasn't begun filming yet, looks forward to seeing his former costars again.

"I don't think any of us are good at keeping in touch," he says. "It's like workmates that you like, or you get together with an old band and you are instantly back to where you were. There's nothing that needs to be maintained. It wasn't that kind of friendship. It was a work thing."

Springthorpe says he "feels a bit weird" being on the same show as his father, but he's "putting aside the fact that this show sort of launched my dad and just kind of taking it for what it is."

As far as they know, they do not have any scenes together, but Springthorpe actually finds that a relief.

"I think it makes it much more pleasing and applicable for me because I think at least for me personally, I have always tried to keep a bit of distance from … my father's path, and respectfully so," Springthorpe, who has own band called History Lessons, says. "I think this is a really good way to kind of go about getting my foot in the door, meanwhile being comfortable in the process."

PEOPLE Celebrates General Hospital hits newsstands nationwide on March 1, and is also available in hardcover wherever books are sold on March 12. Buy yours on Amazon today!

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Koop, who transformed surgeon general post, dies

With his striking beard and starched uniform, former Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop became one of the most recognizable figures of the Reagan era — and one of the most unexpectedly enduring.

His nomination in 1981 met a wall of opposition from women's groups and liberal politicians, who complained President Ronald Reagan selected Koop, a pediatric surgeon and evangelical Christian from Philadelphia, only because of his conservative views, especially his staunch opposition to abortion.

Soon, though, he was a hero to AIDS activists, who chanted "Koop, Koop" at his appearances but booed other officials. And when he left his post in 1989, he left behind a landscape where AIDS was a top research and educational priority, smoking was considered a public health hazard, and access to abortion remained largely intact.

Koop, who turned his once-obscure post into a bully pulpit for seven years during the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and who surprised both ends of the political spectrum by setting aside his conservative personal views on issues such as homosexuality and abortion to keep his focus sharply medical, died Monday at his home in Hanover, N.H. He was 96.

An assistant at Koop's Dartmouth College institute, Susan Wills, confirmed his death but didn't disclose its cause.

Dr. Richard Carmona, who served as surgeon general a decade ago under President George W. Bush, said Koop was a mentor to him and preached the importance of staying true to the science even if it made politicians uncomfortable.

"He set the bar high for all who followed in his footsteps," Carmona said.

Although the surgeon general has no real authority to set government policy, Koop described himself as "the health conscience of the country" and said modestly just before leaving his post that "my only influence was through moral suasion."

A former pipe smoker, Koop carried out a crusade to end smoking in the United States; his goal had been to do so by 2000. He said cigarettes were as addictive as heroin and cocaine. And he shocked his conservative supporters when he endorsed condoms and sex education to stop the spread of AIDS.

Chris Collins, a vice president of amFAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, said many people don't realize what an important role Koop played in the beginning of the AIDS epidemic.

"At the time, he really changed the national conversation, and he showed real courage in pursuing the duties of his job," Collins said.

Even after leaving office, Koop continued to promote public health causes, from preventing childhood accidents to better training for doctors.

"I will use the written word, the spoken word and whatever I can in the electronic media to deliver health messages to this country as long as people will listen," he promised.

In 1996, he rapped Republican presidential hopeful Bob Dole for suggesting that tobacco was not invariably addictive, saying Dole's comments "either exposed his abysmal lack of knowledge of nicotine addiction or his blind support of the tobacco industry."

Although Koop eventually won wide respect with his blend of old-fashioned values, pragmatism and empathy, his nomination met staunch opposition.

Foes noted that Koop traveled the country in 1979 and 1980 giving speeches that predicted a progression "from liberalized abortion to infanticide to passive euthanasia to active euthanasia, indeed to the very beginnings of the political climate that led to Auschwitz, Dachau and Belsen."

But Koop, a devout Presbyterian, was confirmed after he told a Senate panel he would not use the surgeon general's post to promote his religious ideology. He kept his word.

In 1986, he issued a frank report on AIDS, urging the use of condoms for "safe sex" and advocating sex education as early as third grade.

He also maneuvered around uncooperative Reagan administration officials in 1988 to send an educational AIDS pamphlet to more than 100 million U.S. households, the largest public health mailing ever.

Koop personally opposed homosexuality and believed sex should be saved for marriage. But he insisted that Americans, especially young people, must not die because they were deprived of explicit information about how HIV was transmitted.

Koop further angered conservatives by refusing to issue a report requested by the Reagan White House, saying he could not find enough scientific evidence to determine whether abortion has harmful psychological effects on women.

Koop maintained his personal opposition to abortion, however. After he left office, he told medical students it violated their Hippocratic oath. In 2009, he wrote to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, urging that health care legislation include a provision to ensure doctors and medical students would not be forced to perform abortions. The letter briefly set off a security scare because it was hand delivered.

Koop served as chairman of the National Safe Kids Campaign and as an adviser to President Bill Clinton's health care reform plan.

At a congressional hearing in 2007, Koop spoke about political pressure on the surgeon general post. He said Reagan was pressed to fire him every day, but Reagan would not interfere.

Koop, worried that medicine had lost old-fashioned caring and personal relationships between doctors and patients, opened his institute at Dartmouth to teach medical students basic values and ethics. He also was a part-owner of a short-lived venture, drkoop.com, to provide consumer health care information via the Internet.

Koop was born in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, the only son of a Manhattan banker and the nephew of a doctor. He said by age 5 he knew he wanted to be a surgeon and at age 13 he practiced his skills on neighborhood cats.

He attended Dartmouth, where he received the nickname Chick, short for "chicken Koop." It stuck for life.

Koop received his medical degree at Cornell Medical College, choosing pediatric surgery because so few surgeons practiced it.

In 1938, he married Elizabeth Flanagan, the daughter of a Connecticut doctor. They had four children, one of whom died in a mountain climbing accident when he was 20.

Koop was appointed surgeon-in-chief at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia and served as a professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

He pioneered surgery on newborns and successfully separated three sets of conjoined twins. He won national acclaim by reconstructing the chest of a baby born with the heart outside the body.

Although raised as a Baptist, he was drawn to a Presbyterian church near the hospital, where he developed an abiding faith. He began praying at the bedside of his young patients — ignoring the snickers of some of his colleagues.

Koop's wife died in 2007, and he married Cora Hogue in 2010.

He was by far the best-known surgeon general and for decades afterward was still a recognized personality.

"I was walking down the street with him one time" about five years ago, recalled Dr. George Wohlreich, director of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, a medical society with which Koop had longstanding ties. "People were yelling out, 'There goes Dr. Koop!' You'd have thought he was a rock star."

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Ring reported from Montpelier, Vt. Cass reported from Washington. AP Medical Writers Lauran Neergaard in Washington and Mike Stobbe in New York contributed to this report.

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Consumer confidence rebounds in February

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. consumer confidence picked up much more strongly than expected in February as Americans shrugged off earlier worries over fiscal policy and tax increases, a private sector report showed on Tuesday.

The Conference Board, an industry group, said its index of consumer attitudes accelerated to 69.6, from a downwardly revised 58.4 in January, handily topping economists' expectations for 61. It was the highest level since November.

January was originally reported as 58.6, the lowest level in more than a year.

Consumers last month had been concerned over the impact of Washington's deal on the "fiscal cliff" at the beginning of the year. While the full brunt of tax increases and spending cuts that were scheduled to go into effect was averted, the payroll tax deduction holiday came to an end and weighed on consumer attitudes in January.

"The shock effect caused by the fiscal cliff uncertainty and payroll tax cuts appears to have abated," Lynn Franco, director of The Conference Board Consumer Research Center, said in a statement.

Still, budget issues remain. Government spending cuts of $85 billion are set to come into effect at the end of the week unless Washington can come to an agreement to postpone what is known as the sequester.

The expectations index climbed to 73.8, from 59.9, while the present situation index gained to 63.3, from 56.2.

Stocks on Wall Street rose to session highs shortly after the data as investors were also taking in a report that showed a jump in new home sales in January, as well as comments from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke that strongly defended the central bank's bond-buying stimulus.

"The numbers are all pretty strong. It is a significant rise in confidence and a strong rise in new homes sales - there is not really much to argue in those numbers," said David Sloan, economist at 4Cast Ltd in New York.

Consumers' view on the labor market was mixed. The "jobs hard to get" index edged up to 37 percent from 36.6 percent the month before, while the "jobs plentiful" index also rose to 10.5 percent from 8.5 percent.

Consumers felt better about price increases with expectations for inflation in the coming 12 months falling to 5.5 percent, from 5.7 percent.

(Reporting by Leah Schnurr; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

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Iran Enters Nuclear Talks in a Defiant Mood

TEHRAN — When Iran’s nuclear negotiating team sits down with its Western counterparts in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on Tuesday, it will offer no new plans or suggestions, people familiar with the views of the Iranian leadership say. More likely, they say, the Iranian negotiators will sit with arms crossed, demanding a Western change of heart.

Iran’s leaders believe that the effects of Western sanctions have been manageable, and Iran continues to make progress on what it says is a peaceful nuclear energy program. And Iran’s leaders see that North Korea, which openly admits that it wants nuclear weapons, has performed three nuclear tests without suffering any real penalties.

As a result, Iran’s leaders feel that they, not the West, hold the upper hand in negotiations. “The West has no option but stopping to threaten Iran and reduce sanctions,” said Kazem Anbarloui, the editor in chief of the state newspaper Resalat, who was appointed by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “But it seems they just want to talk for the sake of talks.”

Further signaling that they expect a grand gesture, Iranian officials last week turned down a Western proposal to gradually lift sanctions on trading in gold in return for the closing of a mountain bunker enrichment facility called Fordo. They said the site, which is under an inspection regime by the United Nations nuclear watchdog, would never be shut down, because it afforded protection against attacks, particularly from Israel.

“Such a proposal would only help the Zionist regime to threaten our facilities,” an influential lawmaker, Ala’edin Borujerdi, told reporters. “They would never dare to attack us, but why would we tempt them?”

In recent days, dozens of Iranian politicians have made defiant statements, urging the United States and other nations to accept Iranian nuclear “realities,” which means unconditional acceptance of Iran’s nuclear energy program.

“If they want constructive negotiations, it’s better this time they come with a new strategy and credible proposals,” the top nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, told reporters before his departure to Kazakhstan.

As a sign of their resistance to Western pressures, Iranian officials on Saturday announced the mass installment of higher-yielding enrichment centrifuges, said they had discovered new uranium mines, and designated new sites for future nuclear projects.

“You should raise the level of your tolerance,” Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said on Saturday. “Try to find ways for cooperation with a country that is moving towards technological progress.”

On Sunday, Iranian lawmakers signed a petition urging their negotiating team to defend national interests in Almaty. “The West must learn that Iran’s nuclear train, which moves on the rails of peaceful goals, will never stop,” the petition read, according to the semiofficial Fars news agency.

At the same time, a former top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, who is currently the head of the Iranian Parliament, stressed that reports by the United Nations watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, had no effect on the “will and determination of the Iranian nation.”

Iranian officials do not deny that the sanctions have had an impact — Iran’s oil sales have fallen by more than half because of sanctions, and the national currency lost over 40 percent of its value in 2012, amid the international isolation of its central bank. But they say they are confident that the country can withstand any hardships the West imposes.

“The U.S. government is imposing all its power to impose pressure on us; they tell other countries not to trade with us,” President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Saturday. “We will pass this situation.”

Ayatollah Khamenei gave much the same message in two addresses this month. “If the Iranian people had wanted to surrender to the Americans, they would not have carried out a revolution,” he said in a meeting at his private home, which was broadcast by the Iranian news media. “The people, particularly the underprivileged classes, truly feel the hardships. But they do not separate themselves from the Islamic Republic, because they know that the Islamic Republic and the dear Islam are the powerful hands which can solve the problems.”

In elevators, in private taxis and at family parties in the Iranian capital, many hope that the talks in Almaty will bring an end to the decade-long nuclear standoff. But few expect much. “Both the U.S. and our leaders will never give in,” said one judge who did not want his name mentioned because of the nature of his work. “There can only be one winner and one loser; no compromise.”

Ramtin Rastin contributed reporting.

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