Shiite Shrine, Christmas, Santa, All In One Place

The shipment consists of approximately 1,400 AK-47 assault rifles and 226,600 rounds of ammunition, the fleet said in a statement.

"The stateless vessel was assessed to have originated in Iran and transited international waters along a route historically used to traffic weapons unlawfully to the Houthis in Yemen," it added.

Direct or indirect supply, sale or transfer of weapons to the Houthi movement violates UN Security Council resolutions and US sanctions.

The vessel's five crew members, who identified themselves as Yemeni nationals, will be returned to Yemen, the fleet said, adding that the US naval forces sank the vessel after removing the crew and illicit cargo.

Guided-missile cruiser USS Monterey (CG 61) seized dozens of advanced Russian-made anti-tank guided missiles, thousands of Chinese Type 56 assault rifles, and hundreds of PKM machine guns, sniper rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers from a stateless vessel transiting the North Arabian Sea in May.

Iran supplies weapons to Houthi rebels in Yemen who are fighting a Saudi-led coalition that intervened in the country’s civil war in 2015 to back the internationally-recognized government.

Report by Reuters

The operation, which the coalition said destroyed seven drone and weapons stores at the camp, was in response to a drone the coalition said had been launched from Houthi territory towards Saudi's Red Sea city of Jizan.

The coalition has intensified attacks against targets in Sanaa in recent weeks, as Houthi forces continue to fire drones and missiles at Saudi Arabia.

The Yemeni capital is held by the Iran-aligned Houthi movement, which has been battling the coalition, which backs Yemen's internationally recognized government, for seven years.

Houthi-run Masirah TV said the strikes had hit the Sabaeen neighborhood of Sanaa in the early hours, damaging some civilian homes and causing some damage to a maternity and children's hospital.

During the conflict, which has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions, Houthi forces have regularly sent drones and fired missiles into Saudi Arabia, and the Saudi-led coalition has retaliated with air strikes inside Yemen.

The coalition said it carried out the operation in accordance with international humanitarian law.

Report by Reuters

Head of Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization, Alireza Peyman-Pak and Sri Lanka Minister of Plantation, Ramesh Pathirana signed the barter agreement in Colombo on Tuesday.

Pathirana said that the deal makes it possible for the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation to settle its debts with the National Iranian Oil Company without violating US sanctions.

“This scheme will not violate any UN or US sanctions since tea has been categorized as a food item on humanitarian grounds while none of the black-listed Iranian banks will be involved in the equation,” read a statement by Sri Lanka’s plantation ministry.

According to the agreement, Sri Lanka’s Treasury will release equivalent of $5 million in rupees every month to the Sri Lanka Tea Board - a state-run industry regulator– that will then pay individual exporters in rupees at the central bank’s exchange rate.

Iran is among the top 10 importers of Ceylon Tea for the past several decades although purchases have declined following US sanctions.

Iran is trying to increase barter deals amid sanctions. “We have the lower hand and we have to make concessions, which means we have to accept any goods at any price”, Hamidreza Salehi, a member of Tehran’s Chamber of Commerce, has said.

The comparison between prices in December 2015 and now is revealing in one important respect. Iran was still under international sanctions six years ago after the nuclear agreement was concluded but economic restrictions were officially still in place. Prices did not change much after sanctions were lifted in early 2016 until the United States imposed new sanctions in 2018, with a devastating impact on the country’s economy.

Fararu website in Tehran has compared prices for this period, without any commentary but the comparison is interesting in the sense that rising prices are closely linked with the fall in the value of Iran’s currency.

The rial has dropped by 732 percent in six years, or rather from December 2017, when it became apparent that Donald Trump was likely to pull out of Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran and impose sanctions.

One can argue that Iran had held up much better during international economic sanctions from 2011-2015, compared with how it has coped with Trump 'maximum pressure'. One reason could be that around the time when international sanctions were imposed global oil prices were hovering around $100-110 a barrel, which provided Iran with a cushion of dollar reserves. In contrast, Trump imposed sanctions on Iran’s oil exports when the average price was $70 a barrel in 2018.

The oil price of $100 in early 2010s was equivalent to 120 dollars in 2018. So, Iran was earning substantially more from its oil exports around 2010 than it did in 2018 after a big price collapse that had started in 2014.

While the US dollar rose 730 percent, housing costs climbed 740 percent on average. This has put a tremendous pressure on wage earners as in some cases rents eat up almost all of a worker's salary.

The main reason why housing costs have increased in par with the value of the dollar is that Iranian real estate owners regard their investment as a hedge against devaluation and ask prices and rents that keeps their income intact in dollars. Sale of properties can decrease, but no one is willing to sell homes and apartments at a loss calculated in dllars. Rents are a different story, as owners ask for more knowing that renters have no other choice.

Beef and chicken prices have also increased by over 300 percent, while Iranian-produced rice, which is a main food staple, has gone up by 500 percent.

The Fararu report calculates that in contrast with much higher prices, wages and salaries have increased by around 270 percent in six years, reaching a maximum of around $140 per month. There is little difference of income between a factory worker and an office employee or a young professional.

In fact, the income of workers in large industrial companies is safer than in smaller services firms which in many instances pay less to employees.

Iranian labor groups say that the minimum monthly salary needed for a family of 3.3 persons should be $400 to afford basic food and housing.

The economic hardship people face has created a potentially explosive political environment where a repeat of mass protests can take place at any moment, according to even government-controlled media in Iran.

The accident occured on the Line 5 of the Tehran metro on the Karaj-Golshahr railway when a high-speed train enroute to Sadeqieh station hit a slow-moving local train near the Chitgar station. Line 5 of the metro stopped operating after the incident.

Mojtaba Khaledi, the spokesman for the national emergency services, said that 22 people sustained injuries in the incident and ambulances that were dispatched to the site of the accident transferred 11 people to nearby hospitals. Two of of the injured are in critical conditions. He added that about 20 other people had been stuck in the wagons but were moved out by rescue workers.

Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani said there are some speculations about the cause of the collision, but further investigation is needed to find out exactly how it happened.

According to Mojtaba Shafi’i, the deputy for transportation in Tehran’s municipality, the wagons are being removed from the railway so that the lines become operational as soon as possible, suggesting that trains can be back on track about noon.