Land Subsidence At Hazardous Levels In Tehran - City Council

The video started circulating on social media on Saturday, a few days after Iranian women launched a campaign against the compulsory Islamic dress code, or hijab. 

In the video a woman fully covered by a long, black ‘chador’ – which is typical of the supporters of the Islamic Republic – is seen shouting at a woman who had unveiled in a transit bus. The quarrel became so frantic that other passengers intervened and kicked the hijab enforcer out of the bus. She was also recording the incident and threatening the hijab-protester to send it to the Revolutionary Guards. 

Some people on social media express doubt that police has been able to identify the hijab challenger in a matter of hours, and they regard the news by the Fars as only a tactic to frighten people whose support for anti-hijab protests are growing. 

In another video released this week, a man started berating a few teenage girls who had removed their hijab at a subway station in Tehran, but other people came to help and sent the angry man away. 

However, Iran has started arresting women who participated in the nationwide civil disobedience campaign against the compulsory Islamic dress code this week.

On July 12, following a call by women’s rights activists for civil disobedience with the hashtag of ‘No2Hijab’ social media exploded with dozens of videos and photos of women unveiling in public.

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani made the remarks on July 16, in reaction to Biden’s address to a summit of regional Arab states in the Saudi city of Jeddah, accusing the Islamic Republic of destabilizing activities in the region. 

Rejecting the US president’s remarks as unacceptable and unfounded, Kanaani said, "Such groundless allegations are in line with Washington’s policy to incite sedition and create tension in the region... by resorting to its failed policy of Iranophobia.”

“False accusations that the United States levels against Iran’s peaceful nuclear program while turning a blind eye to several decades of the Zionist regime’s deception as a regime that is not a member of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) while possessing the biggest nuclear arsenal in the region, are a major sign of hypocrisy of the US government,” he added.

Biden said during his tour that "Around the world, we’re seeing efforts to undermine the rules-based order: with China’s increasingly coercive actions in the Indo-Pacific and beyond; with Russia’s brutal and unprovoked war against its neighboring Ukraine; and with Iran’s destabilizing activities," emphasizing that “It’s only becoming clear to me how closely interwoven America’s interests are with the successes of the Middle East…We will not walk away and leave a vacuum to be filled by China, Russia or Iran.”

The general secretary of oil by-products exporters union, Hamid Hosseini was quoted by Fararu website as saying that Iran has lost about a quarter of its bitumen exports, mainly to India, because of steep discounts by Russia. In the last three months Iran’s monthly exports of the oil by-product dropped from 430,000 tons to 330,000, Hosseini said.

Reports about Russia taking market share from Iran in oil and steel exports emerged in June. Kpler, an industry intelligence firm reported that Iran’s oil sales to China “had halved” in May, as Russia offered larger discounts. Other sources later confirmed the fierce competition for market share, although it is not clear how much sales Iran has lost.

In May, Reza Shahrestani, a member of Iran’s steel producers’ association told local media that exports had stopped from mid-March to early May to China, Afghanistan, Thailand and South Korea, Tehran’s biggest customers, who shifted to buying discounted Russian steel.

The two countries are strategic allies, with Tehran subtly supporting Russia in its Ukraine invasion by blaming NATO expansion for the conflict, but also calling for an end to hostilities.

They are also allies in the Syrian civil war, where Russia intervened in 2015 to save Bashar al Assad’s rule against Sunni rebels. Its air power proved decisive as thousands of Iranian forces were bogged down in fighting. Assad reclaimed most of the territory taken by rebels, but Iran also found a foothold in the country with designs against neighboring Israel.

The loss of market share in bitumen or asphalt exports could cost Iran up to $50,000 million a month, given higher oil prices. At the same time Russia’s ambassador in Tehran Levan Dzhagaryan (Jagarian) on Saturday criticized Iran for owing Moscow hundreds of million of dollars and not making payments.

All types of exports are vital for Iran amid US oil and banking sanctions. The government faces a more than a 50-percent budget deficit, with annual inflation at 55 percent and popular discontent rising.

In recent days, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has accused Russia and Iran of preparing a military drone deal, with Moscow sending a delegation to Iran to review options to buy drones to use in Ukraine. Iran has tried to dispel concerns by saying that it would not side with warring sides, but there is some evidence of Russian interest in acquiring Iranian drones.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is scheduled to visit Tehran on Tuesday, July 19 and will meet Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The visit follows US President Joe Biden’s tour of the Middle East, and is seen by some as Putin’s answer to American efforts at unifying its regional allies.

Iran’s anti-West and pro-Russia posture increasingly raises questions even among some Islamic Republic politicians. Also, the business community, which can be considered loyal to the regime have begun expressing concern over Russia competition.

The Wall Street Journal wrote on July 16, “Within Iran, the fight has highlighted divisions over the country’s alignment with Russia, which the Tehran government has backed through the Ukraine invasion while the Iranian business community privately simmers over what it sees as unfair competition.”

According to information obtained by Iran International July 16, these hackers – or the so-called Iranian Cyber Army -- work for Naji Technology and Afkar System companies, which are affiliated with the IRGC. 

In their report, the hacktivist group, called ‘Lab-Doukhtegan’ or ‘Sealed Lips’, said these IRGC hackers “repeatedly attacked targets in the US and Europe with the aim of extortion," making use of "the security loopholes discovered in European and American organizations.”

Early in June, the ranking member of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee condemned the cyberattack by Iran-backed hackers on Boston Children’s Hospital last summer. 

Describing the attempted attack as “deeply disturbing,” Idaho’s Republican Senator Jim Risch said that “it’s typical of a regime that’s synonymous with global terrorism.”

Later in June, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said an IRGC cyber unit called “Shahid Kaveh” conducted research to damage ships, gas stations and industrial plants in several countries including Britain, the US, France and Israel.

Gantz hinted that Israel -- which is widely believed to have waged cyber war against Iran's nuclear facilities and other infrastructure -- may retaliate physically against enemy hackers.

Iran has been repeatedly accused of cyber-attacks against the West, Israel and rival Arab countries in the Middle East.

Lake Urmia (Orumiyeh), near Western Azerbaijan Province capital of the same name, has lost 95 percent of its water over the past three decades, despite government claims that it has appropriated hundreds of million of dollars to prevent the environmental disaster.

At its greatest extent, Urmia was the largest lake in the Middle East and sixth largest salt lake in the world, with an original surface area of 5,200 square kilometers in 1970s, or 2,000 square miles. It had shrunk to 700 sq km by 2013. The lake began shrinking in the 1980s due to water mismanagement and climate change.

Activists had called for protests Saturday and a few hundred people gathered in Orumiyeh city chanting slogans against the government and parliament. Reports say that authorities have dispatched riot-control reinforcements to West and East Azerbaijan provinces and arrested at least 13 activists and citizens in Orumiyeh, Tabriz and other cities in the region. The detainees have been transferred to unknown locations.

The chief of police in in Western Azerbaijan, Rahim Jahanbakhsh, called the protesters “villains” and anti-regime elements.

Activists had issued calls for protests in the past week, concerned about the complete disappearance of lake Urmia.

In the past decade successive governments pledged money and projects to prevent the shrinking of the lake.

Authorities announced in 2014 that the government of President Hassan Rouhani appropriated 150 trillion rials – which can be about one billion dollars considering the lower rate of dollar against rial back then – were allocated for a seven-year plan as well as another $10 million aid by Japan and some other pledges by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) to save the lake. It is not clear whether or how the earmarked budgets were spent.

The lake began to revive briefly in the spring of 2019 when Iran’s drought came to a temporary end with months of heavy rains and floods. The lake’s surface expanded back to 2,000 sq kilometers by April 2019. But precipitation began to decrease again, with the 2021-2022 season becoming the worst dry period in recent memory.

The lake’s partial recovery would have been a golden opportunity for the government to act to save the ancient body of water, which is part of an ancient sea covering the region, together with Lake Van in present-day Turkey and the Caspian Sea, the largest inland lake.

But the government failed to unwind the disastrous water management mistakes that contributed to Lake Urmia’s gradual death.

Experts say groundwater extraction and using the water of the once bountiful Zarrineh Rud river− which feeds Urmia Lake − for irrigating apple orchards planted in the last two decades have both contributed to the lake shrinking by nearly 95 percent in volume over the past 20 years.

During the presidency of populist politician Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a policy of food self-sufficiency and reinforcing agriculture led to unrestricted use of groundwater, building of ill-planned dams and other unscientific decisions. In 2021 alone, more than 100,000 tons of apples grown in the area went to waste with a failure to secure export markets.