Who Is The Man Appointed To Lead Iran's Labor Ministry?

According to reports by Iran’s state media, a leak in an ammonium tank caused a blast Monday evening in the city of Firouzabad in southwestern Fars province but the blaze was quickly extinguished. 

The chief of the provincial health department, Vahid Hosseini, claims out of 133 injured who were taken to local hospitals, mostly factory workers, 114 were later released after treatment, but witnesses said in social media that 30 to 70 people have been killed in the accident, some of them instantly. 

There are conflicting reports in social media about the cause of the blast, with some saying the tanker was full of nitrogen, not ammonium, hence the high number of casualties. 

Director of Fars Governorate Crisis Management Khalil Abdollahi said on Monday night that the accident is being investigated, noting that nobody died.

Authorities reopened a nearby major road that they had closed after the explosion due to the spread of toxic gas. 

The factory, which went online in August 2020 with over one thousand workers, is a manufacturer of sodium carbonate, a chemical used to build glass, crystal, detergent, cleaning, water purification and in other petrochemical industries. 

Iran occasionally reports fires or explosions at industrial sites that are mainly blamed on technical failures, the result of years of sanctions that have blocked access to new equipment. There have also been many incidents in military sites since mid-2020, with authorities usually blaming Israel.

Since his appointment last year, dozens of politicians, loyal lawmakers and media pundits had said that Hojatollah Abdolmaleki did not have the credentials or the experience to be minister of labor.

For critics of President Ebrahim Raisi, Abdolmaleki became a symbol of forming an inefficient government, with third-rate candidates who had factional ties and hardliner credentials.

In April, even his own ministry staff walked out in an unprecedented protest to demand his removal.

Many had expected his resignation or impeachment by parliament months ago, but finally the worsening crisis brought the agony to an end.

Since early May, there has hardly been a day without some kind of protest in Iran. The government’s move to cut import subsidies for food triggered the unrest, but what people have been shouting in the streets is that they do not want the clerical regime, that they see as corrupt and inefficient.

After food subsidies were stopped and prices for basic items such as bread soared, the situation became worse with the national currency losing value and adding fuel to the inflationary cycle. By June 12, the rial sank to a historic low of 333,000 to one US dollar, an almost 5,000-fold decline since the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979, when 70 rials could buy a greenback.

On the same day, retail merchants in Tehran and several other cities began shutting their doors and gathering in bazaars to protest soaring prices. A sense of economic disintegration began to solidify after one year of unrelenting bad news.

The Iranian economy began deteriorating in 2018 when former US president Donald Trump withdrew from the Obama-era nuclear agreement known as JCPOA and imposed tough sanctions, but there was always some hope that Tehran and Washington could patch things up.

The election of President Joe Biden strengthened that hope and since indirect talks began with the United States in April 2021, hope became an expectation. But after a year of intense talks in Vienna the process stopped in March, signaling no quick end to economic misery.

That is when the rial began sinking to its historic low and the government appeared incapable of turning things around without a deal with Washington to end sanctions.

Regime insiders in Iran might hope that Abdolmaleki’s replacement, Mohammad Hadi Zahedi Vafa, an Ontario University economics graduate, or the resignation of more ministers can help the economy. However, the mood of many people posting on social media from Iran is desperate.

The overall situation appears to be worse than a simple government reshuffle could address. There are simply too many challenges for officials to be able to make meaningful progress.

A female Twitter user from Iran said after the resignation, “The same way Abdolmaleki resigned, God willing [president] Raisi will realize before it is too late, that without the revival of JCPOA he cannot control inflation, defend the value of the currency…reality is different from slogans.”

Abdollah Otadi told ILNA news website on Monday that rents have risen "terribly" in the last few months, forcing many tenants to sell their car or other properties to afford accommodation even in the cheaper parts of the city. 

The rent increases are much higher than the 25 percent rate set by the government, he noted, adding that “we are witnessing the relocation of many tenants to the outskirts of Tehran.”

Surveys by the Central Bank of Iran published in January indicated that rents in the capital Tehran have increased by more than 50 percent in one year as annual inflation is hovering over 40 percent. 

Home prices rose in local currency because real estate is a major asset protecting savings in a country like Iran where the national currency has lost value almost tenfold since 2017. In countries without an internationally accepted currency, wealth can disappear with devaluation and people rush to protect their capital.

Iran’s rial is hitting new lows against the US dollar daily amid runaway inflation and economic chaos, with one US dollar surpassing 333,000 rials on Sunday.

The drop comes as the last rays of hope for reviving the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers are fading away, with multilateral talks in Vienna paused since March.

Meanwhile, pensioners have kept on their rallies and teachers are set to join a new round of nationwide protests.

On Monday, merchants in the city of Kazeroun in the southern province of Fars refused to open their shops joining a growing strike movement by merchants in the provincial capital Shiraz as well as Tehran and Arak who kept their shops and the bazaar closed for the second day in a row.

The protest by shop owners in Tehran also expanded when merchants in the old Lalehzar shopping district, a hub for businesses related to lights and electric devices, also kept their businesses closed on Monday, and held protest rallies against rising taxes and a falling national currency, as the rial hit an all-time low against the US dollar over the weekend.

Amid runaway inflation and economic chaos, one US dollar surpassed 333,000 rials on Sunday. This represents a more than 25-percent decline since late March and a 10-fold drop since 2017.

According to videos published on social media, security forces clashed with the protesters on the Lalehzar street, beating them and seizing their cellphones.

Earlier in the day, the spokesman of parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, Mahmoud Abbaszadeh-Meshkini, said the legislature is considering an amendment aimed at easing regulations for security forces and plainclothes agents to use firearms against illegal gatherings.

Although the Iranian constitution allows unarmed peaceful protests without insulting Islam, in practice no group or individual can get a permit for a gathering critical of government policies or officials. Pro-government rallies, on the other hand, are allowed to take place without interference.

Describing the new amendments as a well-calculated move, he said, "Over time, some acts of violence may emerge in our society, which is why it was so necessary to amend this law.”

Meshkini’s remarks were echoed Monday by Iran’s Chief Justice Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje'i, who said, "Recently, there have been attacks on our police forces, which are not acceptable at all.”

Last week, the government handed a draft bill to parliament to ease the use of firearms by different security forces against civilians amid recurring protests.

On Sunday, protesting shop owners in various cities such as Esfahan and Shiraz chanted slogans against government corruption and mismanagement, threatening to intensify their protests, while criticism of the government's economic and foreign policies intensified in the media.

Bazaar or traditional retail market strikes have a deep historical root in Iran and signal a serious political and economic crisis. The bazaar strikes played a major role both in the Constitutional Revolution of the early 20th century and the 1979 revolution against the monarchy.

The Sunday strikes and protests took place on the backdrop of a series of demonstrations and marches since early May when the government scrapped a food import subsidy.

The Coordination Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations issued a statement recently announcing the next round of nationwide protests slated for Thursday, calling on teachers all over the country to take to streets and demand their legal rights.

Iran has experienced intermittent large and small protests since 2017, but the political situation has worsened in recent months, with a growing sense that social chaos and political insurrection might ensue.

QatarEnergy, which announced Total as its first partner at the nearly $30 billion expansion project in the Persian Gulf on Sunday, added that more partners would be announced in the coming days. The expansion plan includes six LNG trains that will ramp up Qatar’s liquefaction capacity from 77 million tons per annum (mtpa) to 126 mtpa by 2027.

The news comes as Europe tries to replace Russian gas with supplies from other sources, and has directly courted Qatar as a major producer.

The French oil giant officially left Iran – along with Royal Dutch Shell, Russia’s Lukoil and Zarubezhneft, Italy’s Eni, Austrian group OMV and others – and abandoned a similar deal to develop the world's largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in August 2018, after former US president Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. 

China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) replaced Total taking over Total’s 50.1 percent stake, but it also suspended its investment in South Pars in 2018 in response to US pressure.

With lack of investment and technology, Iran’s gas production in the Persian Gulf is falling and currently inadequate even to cover rising domestic demand.

In February, the current oil minister Javad Owji said that “many major companies” have sent emails to the ministry and initiated discussions to participate in expanding Iran’s part of the gas field.