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TOP STORIES
Angry miners grieving the deaths of dozens of co-workers
trapped after an explosion blocked the convoy of President Hassan
Rouhani over the weekend, an extraordinary display of public anger
two weeks before presidential elections. Workers from the
Zemestan-Yurt coal mine in northern Iran, some of whose faces were
still black from their failed attempts to rescue at least 35 miners
stuck in several shafts since Wednesday, blocked the car carrying Mr.
Rouhani on Sunday. The incident was shown in video clips posted by
the semiofficial Fars news agency. Mr. Rouhani, who is fighting to be
re-elected on May 19, remained in the armored car, with bodyguards
hanging from all sides protecting him. Dozens of miners and grieving
family members surrounded the vehicle, some wearing hard hats,
blocking it from moving.
Iran tested a high-speed torpedo on Sunday that is capable
of reaching speeds of 200 knots per hour, according to a U.S.
official. The test was conducted in the Strait of Hormuz, the vital
waterway between the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea. The Hoot
torpedo has been tested over the past decade, with the most recent
test taking place in February, 2015. It is believed it is able to
reach a speed four times faster than the top speed of traditional
torpedoes. According to the U.S. official, the torpedo was tested on
Sunday in an area directly south of Bandar Abbas, home to an Iranian
naval base located along the Strait of Hormuz. Sunday's test appeared
to be a speed test given that it was not aimed at a target barge. A
torpedo moving at such a high rate of speed would require a
sophisticated guidance system to accurately strike its target. The
torpedo is believed to have a range of six miles.
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani launched a scathing
attack on his conservative election rivals Monday, saying their era
of "violence and extremism" was over. The semiofficial ISNA
news agency said Rouhani did not name any of his five election rivals
in the campaign speech, but appeared to be referring to Ebrahim
Raisi, who is close to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
"The people of Iran shall once again announce that they don't
approve of those who only called for executions and jail throughout
the last 38 years," he told a packed stadium in the western city
of Hamedan, referring to the Islamic Revolution of 1979. "We've
entered this election to tell those practicing violence and extremism
that your era is over."
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS
Visits from Iranian unmanned aerial vehicles designed
for surveillance have become commonplace here, where the Bush and
ships from its strike group patrol and launch airstrikes on Islamic
State targets in Iraq and Syria. While small Iranian vessels continue
to approach the carrier and harass U.S. ships elsewhere in the
region, the spy drones appear more regularly, said Capt. Will
Pennington, commanding officer of the Bush. "That is a
capability that the entire world is getting, and Iran is no
different," he told Military.com in an interview. "These
aren't small, radio-controlled drones. They're reconnaissance."
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Pakistan's foreign office has summoned the Iranian
ambassador over an ultimatum by the head of Iran's armed forces that
his country will attack areas sheltering "terrorists" in
Pakistan unless it tightens control over its borders and stops what
he calls cross-border attacks. Major-General Mohammad Baqeri made the
comments on Monday, nearly two weeks after 10 Iranian border guards
were killed in clashes near Mirjaveh, a town near the Iran-Pakistan
border. Jaish ul-Adl (Army of Justice), a Sunni armed group fighting
for independence in Iran's Sistan-Baluchestan province, claimed
responsibility for the attack. It said it had shot the guards with
long-range guns fired from inside Pakistan.
Iran's Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli has
called on Pakistan to take swift measures to improve security along
its borders with Iran. In a telephone conversation with Pakistani
Federal Minister for Interior and Narcotics Control Chaudhry Nisar
Ali Khan on Monday, Rahmani Fazli said Islamabad should prevent the
infiltration of terrorists into Iran, smuggling of narcotics and
illegal crossing into Iran by Afghan nationals from the Pakistani
border. He pointed to the recent terrorist crime against Iranian
border guards serving on the country's southeastern frontier near the
town of Mirjaveh and added that the incident was not expected
considering the cordial relations between the two countries The
Iranian minister invited Ali Khan to pay a visit to Tehran and said,
"We are ready to hold a conference on cooperation on security,
economic and border issues as soon as possible."
HUMAN RIGHTS
Political prisoner Hamid Babaei is
being refused hospital treatment by the authorities of Rajaee Shahr
Prison in Karaj, west of Tehran, an informed source told the Center
for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI). "Hamid's chest pains started
two weeks ago for unknown reasons," the source told CHRI on May
5, 2017. "The prison clinic prescribed pain killers and told him
he would be dispatched to a hospital if his condition worsens, but
he's really suffering. They haven't even checked his blood pressure
or measured his heart beat." Political prisoners in Iran are
singled out for harsh treatment, which often includes denial of
medical care. Babaei has consistently argued that he was imprisoned
for refusing to operate as an informant for Iran's Intelligence
Ministry while he was in Belgium completing his PhD as a foreign
student.
Iranian activists have shared a video
on social media platforms showing poor citizens in the southern
Iranian city of Minab rushing to a truck carrying rotten food to be
discarded in a remote area. The citizens can be seen clamoring over
the truck's contents and proves the extent of rampant poverty
gripping parts of the country. The video shows hundreds of people
rushing toward the truck as the driver, who wanted to bury the rotten
food in a nearby landfill, stepping aside to make way for those who
took cans and cartons of expired produce, according to the YJC news
agency. The news agency said that Iranian actor Parviz Parastui was
the first to share the video on his Instagram account and said:
"In the city of Minab, officials threw rotten food to destroy
it, but the poor and hungry citizens rushed to take it".
DOMESTIC POLITICS
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Monday that voters
in next week's presidential election do not want someone who is only
familiar with "execution and imprisonment," an apparent
criticism of a hard-line rival who is a longtime judge. The semi-official
ISNA news agency says Rouhani did not name any of his five election
rivals in the campaign speech, but appeared to be referring to
Ebrahim Raisi, who is close to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Rouhani is running for re-election as a moderate who will push for
improved relations with the West and greater freedoms within Iran.
His administration struck a landmark nuclear deal with world powers
in 2015, but his push for expanded liberties has been fiercely
resisted by hard-liners, who dominate Iran's judiciary and security
services.
Two weeks ahead of the Iranian presidential election,
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has increased his
criticisms of the policies endorsed by President Hassan Rouhani. A
week after indirectly criticizing the president for suggesting that
diplomacy had averted war, Khamenei criticized a United Nations
education program that some conservative Iranian detractors say
promotes gender equality. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's
criticism of a UNESCO program promoting gender equality is seen as an
attack on President Hassan Rouhani. "These are not things the
Islamic Republic can carry on its shoulders and submit to them,"
Khamenei said of Education 2030, which is a part of UNESCO's program
to wipe out poverty through development. The program, which Iran
endorsed in 2015, aims to "ensure inclusive and equitable
education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all."
Alireza Zolfaghari had briefly returned to Tehran to
visit his family when an Iranian government official contacted him
through LinkedIn. The 33-year-old, who has Iranian and British
citizenship, was surprised by the approach last year, but intrigued
by the pitch: move back from the UK, set up a business with support
from the government and help develop Iran's economy. "I was
encouraged to see technocrats in the government of [President Hassan]
Rouhani who gave me grants and office space to launch a
start-up," Mr Zolfaghari says. After finishing his PhD in
engineering and spending 11 years in the UK, Mr Zolfaghari moved to
Tehran in December to look for business opportunities. He is one of
hundreds of dual nationals Mr Rouhani's centrist government has lured
back to the Islamic republic in a bid to reverse decades of
"brain drain".
Iranian rescue workers on Tuesday pulled out the 43rd
and last body of victims killed in a mine explosion after six days of
round-the-clock digging, the state broadcaster reported. The
explosion happened on Wednesday in Zemestan Yort mine in Golestan province
when workers tried to jump-start an engine in a tunnel filled with
methane gas. The bodies of 26 miners were recovered on the second day
while rescue teams had to work four more days to gradually access the
rest who were trapped in the excavation shafts. The final toll was
higher than expected as it had been unclear how many unregistered
day-labourers were trapped by the explosion.
OPINION & ANALYSIS
Iranian voters head to the polls later this month to
elect their next president, without much of a choice. The contest is
shaping up as a race between several Islamic hard-liners and one
hard-liner whom the Western media prefer to cast as a moderate. The
unelected Guardian Council eliminated more than 1,600 candidates,
including 137 women, who are constitutionally prohibited from holding
that office. The Council deemed only six candidates morally sound,
which in Iran means thoroughly committed to Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei, the nuclear program and the destruction of Israel.
Among the challengers, Ebrahim Raisi has garnered the greatest
attention. The 56-year-old cleric is a protege of Mr. Khamenei, and
our sources say he enjoys the support of elements of the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps and the security apparatus.
As the Trump administration is undergoing a major Iran
policy overhaul, senior American officials should comprehend the fact
that the upcoming May 19 presidential election will not result in any
fundamental - or nonfundamental, for that matter - change in the
Iranian regime's behavior. The so-called election to be held in Iran
will be neither free nor fair. However, this development bears major
significance due to a series of political, economic and social crises
this regime is facing internationally and domestically. Certain is
the fact that, after the elections, the regime in Tehran will surface
far weaker and more fragmented than before, as two major Iran experts
explained recently. The Iranian opposition National Council of
Resistance of Iran Foreign Affairs Committee hosted an online
conference last week with former Italian foreign minister Giulio
Terzi and the NCRI's Foreign Affairs Chairman Mohammad Mohaddessin
providing their analysis and views.
Iran will elect a new president on May
19. But the real event will take place days before, on May 14, and it
will offer more insight into the nature of the regime than managed
elections ever could provide. May 14 will mark the ninth anniversary
of the arrests of the Iranian Baha'i leadership, known as the Yaran.
These seven men and women managed the religious and worldly needs of
Iran's Baha'i, who make up the country's largest non-Muslim minority.
Iranian authorities condemned them to 20-year prison terms for their
alleged misdeeds-charges that included "corruption on
earth," "insulting religious sanctities,"
"espionage for Israel," and "propaganda against the
system." The group's secretary was arrested on March 5, 2008,
and was also sentenced to 20 years in prison. From the Iranian revolution
in 1979 to this day, the regime has shown the Baha'i no mercy. The
Iranian Baha'i community has faced continued oppression on the
economic front and in the denial of educational opportunities.
Iran is in the midst of an intense election campaign
with six presidential candidates pledging how they would address the
country's economic issues through their respective policies. While
incumbent Hassan Rouhani and First Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri are
focused on justifying a continuation of their government's economic
policies, the other four candidates are presenting economic remedies
that need to be scrutinized - especially through the lens of whether
they would actually be feasible and also whether they present real
solutions to the country's complex economic issues. This article will
initially critique some of the campaign pledges of Rouhani's main
challengers - conservative cleric Ebrahim Raisi and Tehran Mayor
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf - and then offer some expert remedies that
need to be the focus of the next government if the real goal is to
address the core socio-economic issue, namely unemployment.
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