News round-up & update for July 27th & 28th »

Timcheh-Mahdiyeh, Tehran’s historic bazaar outlet in danger of demolition

Adel Azar

* * Adel Azar, Director of the Iranian Center for Statistics in Iran has finally admitted that 40 million, out of the 70 million population of Iran lives on or below the poverty line. The Iranian Student’s News Agency reported that Azar has announced: “Today due to extremely serious unemployment, unrelenting and ever-increasing inflation and a lack of accountability of the expenditure of cash flow, 10 million people live under the poverty line and the other 30 million, just on the poverty line. And though Iran is endowed with such extensive natural resources, a large majority of Iranians are near destitution.”

* * And below is yet more videos of Tehran’s long gas station lines.

* * Below: Video of William Hague, British Foreign Minister: Tougher EU sanctions on Iran “increase pressure”

Hamid Massouminejad

* * Mohammadali Hosseini Iran’s ambassador to Italy announced that, Hamid Massouminejad, an Iranian who was arrested is no longer under house arrest in Milan though forbidden to leave Italy. The ambassador said that the Milan prosecutor signed the release order, which was also approved by the prosecutor on Monday. Though the case is not closed, Hosseini described it as a “positive step”.

In December 2009, Hamid Massouminejad and Ali Damirchilo along with five Italians were arrested and charged with smuggling arms to Iran via the United Arab Emirates and Romania. In May Massouminejad’s was permitted by the Milan prosecutor to be detained under house arrest.

* * Below: A video of the Friday, July 23rd football game where the spectators throw bottles of water at the regime’s agents who are standing on the edges of the pitch. Even the TV announcer (speaking in Persian) mentions it.

Ahmadi Beeghash

* * Ahmadi Beeghash, member of Iranian Parliament (Majles) who is in charge of travel protocol to Gaza, announced that despite continued requests, the government of Egypt has refused to allow four of the Iranian MP’s, to travel to Egypt, following their trip to Gaza. Beeghash added: “We four members of the Majles have coordinated all our efforts and we have even purchased our plane tickets in order to travel to Egypt, however and unfortunately the Egyptians announced that they will not be issuing visas to us. So far the Egyptian government has created a lot of serious problems for us. The Egyptians knew we were traveling to Gaza and requested information about our work and we provided them with resumes and all kinds of background information but they have refused us. The Iranian leadership supports those “innocent” Palestinian leaders and we are planning to travel to Gaza to deliver that message and let them know that the Majles supports them.”

Cyrus Sazdaar

* * Oil specialist teams leaving Iran in droves. Kalameh website reports that Cyrus Sazdaar, member of the Energy Commission of the Iranian Majles said: “We’ve been producing oil for over 100 years and yet, we’re still importing refined oil. We are partners in most of the oil fields and if we cannot even yield from these shared fields, the fields will be lost to the future generations as “our neighbors” will reap the benefits. Unfortunately we seem to have neglected this fact; perhaps there are other reasons, concealed reasons which we are unaware of. If we invest $40 million in gas and oil production, we can glean $60 million per year but unfortunately we are seeing that after 100 years or more of oil production, when it comes to provisions, we are still dependent on foreign sources. In the area of gas and oil, two things are a threat to us. First, the negligence of the planners has put us in a situation where we cannot take any steps forward technologically and industrially and second our oil specialists are leaving Iran in droves. We need to pay attention to these issues. Unfortunately when it comes to investment, our officials failed and now our relations with the world at large is such that we cannot attract any foreign investments; that then is coupled with the departure of all specialists. Today, we are the importers of gas; why is Turkmanestan the exporter? The contract that have been signed for this deal is going to put us in the same position as we are in with our oil…where we see that now we are unable to provide for the country’s petrol usage.”