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more month to come up with some substantial economic help. If they do not, Iran’s breaches of the nuclear accord could become terminal for prospects of retaining the pact.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has already said he is giving up on the Europeans following what he saw as their feeble attempts at helping Iran resist the Trump administration's sanctions.
Russia recently signalled it too was interested in joining the Instex payment system as trade between Tehran and Moscow continues to grow. But Moscow agrees with Iran that oil should feature in Instex transactions.
If such a move with Iranian oil was made, the US would almost certainly attempt to attack Instex as the number one aim of Washington’s attempt to throttle the Iranian economy to secure concessions on Iran’s nuclear programme and Middle East policy is to drive all Iranian oil exports off world markets.
2.8 Polls & Sociology
Iran drops six places to 170 on latest World Press Freedom Index
Iran has placed 170th out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index 2019 compiled by Reporters Without Borders, six places down on where it finished in the previous year’s ranking.
The decline has coincided with the sanctions-led economic attack which the US launched last year to strangle Iran's economy to force concessions on its Middle East policies. Analysts say this has given hardliners in Iran the upper hand in many areas of Iranian society which were previously starting to liberalise as economic growth rates improved in line with the multilateral nuclear deal. Since the US walked out of that deal and imposed its heaviest sanctions ever on the Islamic Republic, the country has found itself pushed back into recession.
In a short summary put out with the latest ranking, the Reporters Without Borders said: “Iran has been one of the world’s most repressive countries for journalists for the past 40 years. State control of news and information is unrelenting and at least 860 journalists and citizen-journalists have been imprisoned or executed since 1979.
It added: “The Islamic regime exercises extensive control over the media landscape and its harassment of independent journalists, citizen-journalists and independent media has not let up. They are constantly subjected to intimidation, arbitrary arrest and long jail sentences imposed by revolutionary courts at the end of unfair trials.
“The media that are still resisting increasingly lack the resources to report freely and independently. As a result, it is the citizen-journalists on social networks who are now at the centre of the battles for freely- reported news and information and for political change in Iran. The regime has extended its fight against media freedom beyond the country’s borders and also targets the international media.”
10 IRAN Country Report September 2019 www.intellinews.com