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CURRENT EVENTS

🔌Blackouts Continue - With rising temperatures across the country (earlier than usual), Iran’s power problems have gotten worse, deepening the existing crisis.

In the past few weeks, there have been near daily scheduled blackouts in many cities, including some that lasted two hours or longer. These are happening because the Iranian power grid cannot meet demand during peak demand times. According to the Pezeshkian administration spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani, the imbalance between supply and demand goes up to 20,000 megawatts. As temperatures get hotter & AC use goes up, the demand is expected to increase.

It has been several years that there is not enough power to meet demand in the summers. Previously the solution to this was to cut off power for industrial production, rather than impacting residential use. For example last year, the steel industry had a loss of over $4 billion due to power cuts.

Last winter was the first time that there were large scale power cuts to residential use too. Now the problem has come back.

How Do Blackouts Impact People’s Lives?

These scheduled blackouts have been causing major disruptions to people’s lives. For example:

• Many people in large cities like Tehran live in tall multistory buildings. People have gotten trapped in elevators for hours when power suddenly goes out.

• Water pumps are not able to bring water to upper levels, meaning that a power cut is effectively a water cut too.

• There have been many cases where traffic lights stop working, causing massive congestion problems in already high traffic cities.

• The backup batteries of many cell phone towers have run out, meaning that cellular reception also goes away.

• Many grocery stores, restaurants, and cafes have had their perishable food items get spoiled from the blackouts.

• The constant fluctuations in power have caused numerous failures in things like AC units and refrigerators.

In an attempt to bring down peak demand, the government has mandated that all government offices change their hours from 6 am to 1 pm. Most schools have also changed their hours to these times (meanwhile some schools for younger aged students started summer break several weeks early).

Beyond the burden of having to wake up early - this creates new problems. Many workers use public transportation to get to work. Usually the Tehran metro opens at 5 am. But since last month, some lines now open at 4.30 am. Some bus routes have also shifted to earlier hours. However, these do not cover all routes & some people are still running into trouble over the new hours.

Impact on Industry

The shortage of electricity means the country needs to balance blackouts to residential areas and those to industry.

There are major negative consequences to both.

I mentioned many of the negative consequences of cutting off electricity to residential areas. Doing this for longer than 1-2 hours a day carries a lot of risks.

But, Iran’s economy is already in a very bad state. Cutting off electricity to struggling industry risks impacting exports, bankrupting major companies, and raising unemployment - which in turn would lead to social and economic catastrophes.

It also doesn’t help that factories in Iran use equipment that is decades old (some over 50 years old) and quite inefficient from an energy perspective. However sanctions make it difficult to import more modern equipment. On average, Iranian producers use significantly more energy to create the same amount of steel or aluminum as their global counterparts do.

In the past few months there have been growing tensions between the Ministry of Energy and Ministry of Industries, Mines, and Trade over power cuts. This reached the point that last week the Ministry of Energy declared that all electricity would be cut to all steel and cement factories for 15 days.

According to the Minister of Industries, Mines, and Trade, this went against an agreement made earlier this year not to fully cut off power to these industries. This lead to a very public fight between these two parts of the same administration.

To the best of my knowledge, not all steel production has been shut down, but most large companies like Foolad Khuzestan in Ahvaz and Foolad Mobarake in Isfahan are closed.

The Ministry of Energy claims that repairs on a few power plants will be complete in a few weeks and allow enough power production for these industries to continue production.

Regional Rivalries

As the weather gets warmer going into the summer, some provinces will be much more impacted than others.

Typically in provinces like Khuzestan that see extreme heat, electricity is subsidized more compared to other areas during the summer. Additionally the Ministry of Energy tries to avoid blackouts here & instead have them happen in more cool regions (for much of the summer temperatures are over 50 C and a loss of AC could lead to deaths).

This will be even more challenging this year.

Earlier in May there were long 2 hour blackouts almost every day in Khuzestan. However in the past week, it appears that the province officials complained, leading to blackouts happening less frequently and lasting shorter. While this helps the people of Khuzestan, nothing comes for free - this means that the power somewhere else needed to be cut longer.

Regional rivalries over government money and resources are nothing new, but are likely to be exacerbated this summer over the power and water crises.

💸 The Return of the Billionaire - The last few weeks have seen the public return of Babak Zanjani - one of the most mysterious & wealthiest figures in contemporary Iran. Zanjani was a key figure in helping Iran get around sanctions on its oil during the second Ahmadinejad administration.

His Sorinet group controlled dozens of Iranian companies - from Qeshm Air to the Football Club Rah Ahan. However when the Rouhani administration came to power, he was arrested for allegedly stealing $2.7 billion of oil money (he claimed he couldn’t return it due to sanctions).

Zanjani became a household name - as a symbol of the mysterious & often lucrative world of sanctions busting. This reached a level where pop music groups made entire songs alluding to him.

He was initially sentenced to death, but after the return of around $2.1 billion it was commuted to 21 years. After serving 11 years of his sentence, he became eligible for leave under judicial supervision and released a few months ago (it’s unclear if this will be permanent or not).

Now ONE Holding, a company he as investor in, has signed a memorandum of understanding worth over $700 million with the Islamic Republic of Iran Railways. Zanjani himself described this as the largest private investment in Iran’s rail sector in history. A video of him driving a truck to visit a company also recently went viral.

📝 Nuclear Negotiations - The fifth round of nuclear negotiations between Iran and the United States will start in a few hours after this newsletter is sent out (on Friday May 23 in Rome).

There are almost daily new stances and controversies in these talks. There’s no way I can cover every detail in this newsletter. The biggest issue being debated right now is enrichment.

Every since the third round of negotiations, different US officials have come out and said they will not accept any Iranian uranium enrichment as a part of a deal. This is largely a nonstarter for Iran - no American president has demanded this since the Bush administration.

It isn’t clear if this is a negotiation tactic or truly a red line for the US (I believe the former). However talks have continued and both sides have made it very clear that they prefer a deal. This makes it likely that through creative diplomacy a solution can be found (though nothing is guaranteed). The Trump administration reaching an agreement to stop bombing Yemen is also a very positive sign.

For detailed coverage on the nuclear negotiations follow my Twitter account.

MORE HEADLINES

• After 4 months of debate, the Expediency Council conditionally approved Iran joining the Palermo Convention. This is one of two major conventions that Iran needs to ratify to get off the FATF money laundering blacklist. There has been debate over this issue since the Rouhani era. In its next session, the Expediency Council will look into joining the CFT convention.

• The Iranian Space Agency was selected as one of the international partners to send a payload on China’s Chang'e 8 mission to the Moon's South Pole (scheduled to launch in 2029). The purpose of this mission is to test the technologies necessary for a future International Lunar Research Station.

• There has been a massive movement on social media asking authorities to overturn the death sentence of Amir Hossein Maghsoudloo, known as Amir Tataloo. An online petition had several hundred thousand signatures before being deleted & several celebrities made videos in support of him. The controversial rapper had been accused by his former wife of abuse & had allegedly abused multiple women while in Turkey. He was immediately arrested after being handed over to Iran from Turkey in December 2023. His sentence is not finalized and still may be overturned.

CULTURE

Tehran International Book Fair - The 36th annual Tehran International Book Fair was held from May 7 to May 17th. Over 2,300 publishers, both domestic and foreign, participated in the fair.

This is one of the biggest cultural events every year in Iran. On some days, over 500,000 people visited the festival. Over the ten day period, total sales were over $8 million. Every year well known cultural figures, actors, athletes, religious scholars, and politicians visit the festival.

There is quite a wide variety of books, both fiction and non fiction, original Iranian works and translated works, and works from a wide variety of different philosophical, political, and religious backgrounds.

The books of virtually every Western politician can be found here. When I had gone (in a previous year) I was also surprised to see works from Sunni, Sufi, and Christian groups. There are certainly limits and red lines on what is tolerated, but they are more broad than one would expect.

Here is a tour of the festival from one Iranian YouTuber:

Woman and Child - As noted in the previous issue of Iranophilia, Iranian director Saeed Roustaee’s new film "Woman and Child" will be shown on May 22nd in the 79th Cannes Film Festival.

In a truly bizarre move, an organization calling itself the “Iranian Independent FIlmmakers Association” called for Roustaee’s film to be banned, calling it “government propaganda”. This is quite odd, given that Roustaee got in legal trouble for his previous film. It reflects an unfortunate trend among some Iranian groups outside the country to try to ban Iranian athletes, artists, and academics from international events in the name of activism (which conveniently serves to promote some people’s careers).

Thankfully in this case, the letter was thoroughly condemned, including by several people who had previously signed up to be in that association.

SPORTS

Tractor Win the League - Tractor S.C. were crowned champions of the 24th Persian Gulf Pro League. While they mathematically had won the league with 2 games remaining, they held their official celebration in Tabriz last week.

Sepahan got second place, give them a shot to join the AFC Champions League Elite next year. Their rivals Persepolis finished third and will not qualify for the continental tournament. Meanwhile Havadar and Nassaji Mazandaran will be relegated to the Azadegan league & Fajr Shiraz and Peykan will be promoted to the PGPL next year.

Four teams remain in the Hazfi cup - Gol Gohar, Malavan, Esteghlal, and Sanat Naft Abadan. The winner of this competition will qualify for the AFC Champions League Two Competition.

Women’s Futsal Qualifies - Iran’s women’s futsal team finished third place in the AFC Women’s Futsal Asian Cup after beating China 3-1. This result means they will qualify for the first ever FIFA Futsal Women’s World Cup, which will be held in the Philippines this fall.

Taremi Finds Glory - Team Melli star Mehdi Taremi got decent playtime in both Inter Milan’s home and away games against Barcelona in the UEFA Champions League Semifinal. He had a noticeable impact on the game, shutting down Lamine Yamal (who many consider the best player in the world) several times & having an assist on the game winning goal in extra time.

Inter will be playing PSG in the finals on May 31st. If Taremi gets any game time, it will be the first time an Iranian player plays in a UEFA Champions League Final.

ACROSS THE WEB

• Douglas the Pelican (Persian language): A heartwarming story of a man in Northern Iran that has befriended a pelican he has named Douglas. Here are Part 1 and Part 2 of the video. There is also an Instagram Page dedicated to the Pelican.

• Ferdosipour Interview With Dragan Skocic (Persian language): Renowned football journalist Adel Ferdosipour interviewed Dragan Skocic, the coach who just won the Persian Gulf Pro League leading Tractor Tabriz & qualified Iran for the 2022 World Cup. He talks about his family, his experiences, and some of the behind the scenes events in that World Cup Qualification.

• New Movie Trailers: Several new Iranian film trailers were released in the past few weeks. Here is a trailer for “Call Me Ziba” (winner of best film at this year’s Fajr Festival). Also released were trailers for the comedy “Saddam” & war films “Esfand” and “Sayyad”

SHOWER THOUGHTS

In his speech in Saudi Arabia, Trump compared Iran to its Arab neighbors to the south by saying, “While your [the Arab’s] skill has turned dry deserts into fertile farmland, Iran’s leaders have managed to turn green farmland into dry deserts”? Do you think this is a fair comparison? Or is reality different?

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