Iran Focus
London, 19 July – Iranian teachers have launched a protest movement over their low salaries, which has gained momentum in recent days, according to social media reports.
The campaign, which has the slogan “No! to Payslips and Salaries”, was launched by several teachers’ rights activists following an announcement by the Ministry of Education that they would be increasing teachers’ salaries six to ten per cent for the 2018-19 school year, according to local news website Khabar Online.
Iran Focus
London, 19 July – The Iranian Mullahs’ survival is based on sectarianism and terrorism, which are enshrined in their constitution.
The mullahs use the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to spread sectarianism and terrorism at home and abroad through the use of their different forces. The IRGC’s Basij forces crush dissent among the Iranian people through violence, arbitrary arrests, and threats against family members. Whilst the IRGC’s foreign forces are divided into two parts. First, the Quds Force and the Iranian army, who make up the Iranian-nationality forces. Second, the proxy militias that Iran controls all over the Middle East, from Pakistan to Iraq to Afghanistan.
Iran Focus
London, 19 July – European authorities thwarted a bomb plot by Iran on the June 30 Free Iran gathering in Paris, which is organized by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).
Assadollah Assadi, the intelligence station chief at the Iranian embassy in Vienna, orchestrated the plot. He commissioned two people of Iranian descent to drive the car filled with explosives towards the gathering, which was attended by over 100,000 people.
Iran has tried to claim that this foiled plot was a “false flag” operation organised by the Iranian Resistance, but a senior US State Department official dismissed this as ridiculous, while the opposition’s intelligence sources inside the government report that this attack was planned months ago and was approved by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani.
Iran Focus
London, 19 July – Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said that the country has increased its uranium stockpile and is increasing its to weapons grade. He said that before the 2015 Iran nuclear deal was agreed, Iran had imported 550 tons of uranium.
Its has now reached around 950 tons because it has since acquired another 400 tons.
Furthermore, the head of the nuclear agency said that a new factory has been built. It is apparently capable of producing enough rotors for more than fifty IR-6 centrifuges per day for uranium enrichment.
Iran Focus
London, 18 July – For more than ten years, large parts of Iran have been immensely affected by drought. The rainfall in the country is currently at the lowest level that it has been for fifty years. Official figures indicate that this year has seen more than 25 per cent less rain than last year.
To make the situation even more critical, this summer is turning out to be extremely hot. This and the annual increase in the consumption of electricity is causing power shortages to become more and more commonplace.
Iran Focus
London, 18 July – The European Union has been trying to take a number of steps to ensure that European companies stop pulling out of business deals with Iran.
When U.S. President Donald Trump announced that sanctions on Iran would effect all those that do business with Iran, many companies started to wind down business and pull out of trading with the country altogether. Many EU companies have decided that remaining in Iran is not worth the risk of getting entangled in sanctions and potentially losing access to the U.S. financial system.
Iran Focus
London, 18 July – The re-imposition of sanctions by the US, following President Trump’s exit from the Iran nuclear deal, will likely make it impossible to purchase any form of Iran insurance using a Lloyd’s of London platform. This will only worsen struggles for European insurers that have been providing Iranian coverage.
In May, President Trump announced that the US would be leaving the Iran nuclear deal. The other members of the P5+1 world powers that originally joined the United States in the Iran accord chose to keep their promise. They have also offered Iran the economic support to help the country to overcome the loss of income that will follow the sanctions that the United States reinstates.
Iran Focus
London, 18 July – A top Iranian official threatened on Tuesday that Iran is ready to increase its uranium enrichment to higher levels if their ongoing talks with Europe are unable to save the Iran nuclear deal.
Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman and vice-president of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, said: “We have of course adopted some measures in order to prepare the ground for eventually increasing the level of enrichment if it is needed and if the negotiations with the Europeans fail. We are of course continuing to carry out and implement our obligations based on the [2015 nuclear deal or Joint Comprehensive Place of Action (JCPOA)], but at the same time, taking every scenario into consideration, we are preparing ourselves.”
Iran Focus
London, 18 July – The recent crackdown on Iranian students has been heavily criticised by university professors and others who are calling on President Hassan Rouhani, who they believe is responsible for the pressure, to take action.
More than 100 university professors have signed an open letter to Rouhani criticizing the arrests and pointing out that it seems like the government is “trying to silence dissenting voices in the universities”.
The letter read: “It seems that most of the detainees are individuals involved in legal activities, and perhaps some had criticized your government’s work on campuses. We want you to act upon your promises to defend the rights of the people, support a [safe] space for students for criticism, and protect [them].”
Iran Focus
London, 17 July – Ever since U.S. President Donald Trump announced that Iran would once again face the sanctions that were lifted when the 2015 nuclear deal was signed, officials in the country have tried to downplay the impact that they will have. Several officials have publicly said that sanctions are nothing more than a minor inconvenience and other officials have said that Iran is perfectly capable of adapting to sanctions and finding ways around them, as it has done in the past.
However, the Health Minister of Iran, Hassan Ghazizadeh, said at the weekend that the impact will not be quite as easy to deal with as some officials are making out. The Health Minister is a very outspoken official that is not a fan of President Hassan Rouhani. He said that the upcoming sanctions are a “storm” that will “rattle our lives” and said that there is no point in pretending that it is not the case.
