IRAN IN ECONOMIC MELTDOWN

Excerpt:

Every conversation here last week seemed to revolve around the imposition of petrol rationing on May 21. Subsidised petrol will rise from 800 riyals (about 4p) to 1,000 riyals (5p) per litre. Far worse in this sprawling traffic-choked city, only three litres a day will be available at that price. Ration cards will be issued and any purchase over the limit will be at a nonsubsidised rate that has yet to be decided.

Iranians have already been hit by a 50% rise in fares last month. Shared taxis, the favourite way to get around town, rose from 1,000 riyals to 1,500 (8p) for the shortest journey. Every such increase counts in a country where a teacher is paid about 30 pounds a week.

"The only good thing about the nuclear issue is that it seems it has brought so much pressure on this government that this might be the end of them," said Shahla, 38, standing with bags of spring onions, radishes and tomatoes outside a greengrocer's near Ahmadinejad's old house in the eastern Tehran district of Narmak. She did not buy the cucumbers she wanted because they cost too much.

"People are struggling to survive," she said. "My children should be eating fruit, but it's too expensive." A woman in a black chador, the dress of the ultra-conservative, stopped to listen. In the old days she would have been one of the unofficial guardians of the revolution and would have stopped the conversation. Instead, she chimed in. "The people's blood is boiling," she said, introducing herself as Miriam, an employee of the education department. "But we are strangled, we cannot speak."

These are the people who voted Ahmadinejad into power and they are furious that their salaries remain pitifully low while the price of food rises at a rate unofficially estimated at between 20% and 40%.

Source

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