Tens of thousands of Iranians were left without gas to heat their homes at the weekend as unusually cold weather swept across the country, the state broadcaster reported.
Gas deliveries were cut to about 90,000 residential users in the north-eastern Razavi Khorasan province by Saturday night, Governor Yaghoub-Ali Nazari said on national television.
Supplies were also disrupted in at least four other northern provinces and several districts at the tail end of the national gas pipeline network near the country’s eastern borders, according to reports by state TV.
President Ebrahim Raisi paid an unannounced visit on Sunday to the national gas company and was briefed on the supply situation.
Mr Raisi told employees at the National Iranian Gas Company that the closure of offices and organisations was not a suitable solution in addressing the shortage.
He said the priority was the delivery of gas to houses, Tasnim news agency reported.
Officials said most of the country was experiencing freezing temperatures unseen in the last decade, which has driven demand for the heating fuel to record highs.
Authorities ordered the closure of schools, state-run offices and privately owned businesses across Tehran province on Sunday and called on people to avoid travel to the city of Mashhad, home to Iran’s holiest pilgrimage shrine that attracts millions every year.
Oil Minister Javad Owji said shortages were made worse after Turkmenistan on Thursday halted gas exports to meet its own domestic demand. Iran relies on those deliveries to supply its northern regions.
“We are gas independent, but we are at the peak of gas consumption,” Mr Owji said last week. “Our first priorities are domestic, so sustainable consumption is required.”
The shortage has had a knock-on effect in Iraq, which depends heavily on Iranian gas to operate its power plants.
Since early this month, Iran has reduced its natural gas exports to Iraq to about 7 million cubic metres per day, Iraqi Electricity Ministry spokesman Ahmed Mousa told The National.
“We need between 30 to 50 million cubic metres a day from Iran,” he said.
“Therefore, the reduction has affected our ability to meet the demand and has increased power outages across the country.”
He said Iraq has lost up to 5,000 megawatts from its national grid, which produces about 16,000MW.
Iraq's Electricity Minister is scheduled to visit Tehran this week to discuss the issue, Mr Mousa said.
The cold spell in Iran has also affected its road transport, with one route in Isfahan province forced to close after more than two metres of snow fell early last week. Officials said the road could not be reopened until spring if the snow was not cleared, the Iran press agency said.
Snowfall did not dampen Iran's protest movement entirely. Video shared by US-based NGO the National Union for Democracy in Iran showed demonstrators holding hands and singing protest songs in the snow.
With reporting from Sinan Mahmoud in Baghdad
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Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
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Ruwais timeline
1971 Abu Dhabi National Oil Company established
1980 Ruwais Housing Complex built, located 10 kilometres away from industrial plants
1982 120,000 bpd capacity Ruwais refinery complex officially inaugurated by the founder of the UAE Sheikh Zayed
1984 Second phase of Ruwais Housing Complex built. Today the 7,000-unit complex houses some 24,000 people.
1985 The refinery is expanded with the commissioning of a 27,000 b/d hydro cracker complex
2009 Plans announced to build $1.2 billion fertilizer plant in Ruwais, producing urea
2010 Adnoc awards $10bn contracts for expansion of Ruwais refinery, to double capacity from 415,000 bpd
2014 Ruwais 261-outlet shopping mall opens
2014 Production starts at newly expanded Ruwais refinery, providing jet fuel and diesel and allowing the UAE to be self-sufficient for petrol supplies
2014 Etihad Rail begins transportation of sulphur from Shah and Habshan to Ruwais for export
2017 Aldar Academies to operate Adnoc’s schools including in Ruwais from September. Eight schools operate in total within the housing complex.
2018 Adnoc announces plans to invest $3.1 billion on upgrading its Ruwais refinery
2018 NMC Healthcare selected to manage operations of Ruwais Hospital
2018 Adnoc announces new downstream strategy at event in Abu Dhabi on May 13
Source: The National
German intelligence warnings
- 2002: "Hezbollah supporters feared becoming a target of security services because of the effects of [9/11] ... discussions on Hezbollah policy moved from mosques into smaller circles in private homes." Supporters in Germany: 800
- 2013: "Financial and logistical support from Germany for Hezbollah in Lebanon supports the armed struggle against Israel ... Hezbollah supporters in Germany hold back from actions that would gain publicity." Supporters in Germany: 950
- 2023: "It must be reckoned with that Hezbollah will continue to plan terrorist actions outside the Middle East against Israel or Israeli interests." Supporters in Germany: 1,250
Source: Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution
The five pillars of Islam
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
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