The Week in Review: March.29th – April.5th

By Natasha Phillips

APR.5 – Intelligence reports suggesting that Golestan province’s forests are being made available for corporations to do as they please with surfaced on Twitter this week, sparking outrage among ecology experts and Iran’s social media users, many of whom blame the government for Iran’s environmental crisis. Mohammad Mousavi, the head of the Agriculture Ministry’s crisis management told Iran’s State news agency IRNA on Thursday that damage from the flooding had already cost the agricultural sector around £268 million.  

A spate of cyber attacks on UK institutions which took place at the end of last year have been revealed by the National Cyber Security Centre. The IRGC is believed to be responsible for the attacks according to analysis by cyber security experts in California and four other cyber security companies. The hackers targeted the Post Office and local government networks as well as mobile phone numbers belonging to peers and politicians. Sky News broke the story on Wednesday and alerted British security services to the findings. 

  • As the floods continue to devastate Iran’s landscape and infrastructure, tensions between Iran’s parallel intelligence agencies have risen to unhealthy levels according to analysts who say that a shift in the balance of power has given the IRGC’s Intelligence Organization the upper hand in government, for now. President Hassan Rouhani and IRGC Commander in Chief Mohammad Ali Jafari confronted one another over Iran’s poor handling of the flash floods. Analyst Dr. Shahriar Ahy told Kayhan Life why the balance of power had shifted and what it meant for transparency and efficiency inside Iran’s parliament.
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  • Iranian-backed Houthi rebels (Ansar Allah) and senior commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) have been killed by Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen, Al Arabiya, a Saudi-owned Arab-language news site reported. Those believed to be dead include Second Lieutenant Colonel Mohammad Niyazi, a military adviser and missile expert, and two other senior Iranian officers. Charity Save The Children said the airstrikes also hit a hospital, killing a health worker and the person’s two children, as well as two other children and a security guard, and wounding eight others.
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  • Government plans to issue bonds in order to address Iran’s deficit have been met with criticism by economists who say the strategy will only increase the government’s debts. The decision to issue bonds comes as Iran sees sharp drops in its oil and non-oil exports caused by the reimplementation of U.S. sanctions. Economists have warned that issuing bonds would create extensive problems for Iran’s Central Bank and the country’s monetary policy, as well as increasing national debt.
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  • Drought, air pollution and an economic recession affecting large cities like Tehran have led to increased demand for property in the north of Iran. The demand is also pushing up house prices in northern provinces like Mazandaran and Gilan, according to Iranian media outlets. Reports suggest that the rise in house purchases in the two provinces is because people in Tehran and other major cities in the country are looking to buy second homes. The sharp rise in house prices in the North is also being attributed to the rising cost of building materials in Iran.
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