Iranian Households Face a 1.5 Million Toman Budget Deficit

The Iran newspaper has reported on its front page that "with Laurent Fabius's visit on Wednesday, a new chapter in Tehran-Paris relations begins." The newspaper writes: "On the eve of the French Foreign Minister's trip to Tehran, the Minister of Health and the Iranian Ambassador to France have separately responded to some objections and criticisms regarding this trip. Seyyed Hossein Hashemi, the Minister of Health, did not consider the proposal for the hemophilia patients' case under these circumstances to be beneficial, and Ali Ahani, the Iranian Ambassador to France, emphasized that from now on, the focus should be on the future of Tehran-Paris relations and a new roadmap should be drawn up." The Shargh newspaper dedicated its front page to Federica Mogherini, writing: "The EU's foreign policy chief and her deputy are traveling to Tehran today." The newspaper noted that on Tuesday, "Tehran will host Federica Mogherini, the EU's foreign policy chief who joined the Iran nuclear negotiations with the 1+5 group on December 6, 2014. The 42-year-old diplomat, who was previously Italy's foreign minister, entered the Iran nuclear negotiations after being appointed as the EU's foreign policy chief." The Shargh newspaper, while reviewing the roles of "Sherman, Schmidt, and Mogherini in the nuclear negotiations," wrote: Federica Mogherini has succeeded Catherine Ashton, and now, one month before the first anniversary of her appointment to this position, "she has played her biggest card. She has been involved in achieving an agreement that her predecessors Catherine Ashton and Javier Solana could not accomplish." The Jahan Sanat newspaper reported on its front page on Tuesday about the "1.5 million toman budget deficit" of the people. The Etemad newspaper reported on the changing alignments in the parliament influenced by the Vienna agreement, while Kayhan criticized the diminishing role of the Islamic Consultative Assembly and the increasing role of the Supreme National Security Council in reviewing this agreement. The Arman newspaper reported in its August 6 issue about the beginning of efforts to "form a Reformist Parliament," quoting the interim head of the Coordination Council of Reformist Front as saying: "Reformists are seeking to form a Reformist Parliament." The Qanoon newspaper published a report titled "Uncovering a 19,000 Square Meter Violation by Tehran Municipality," stating: "After a member of the Tehran City Council recently exposed a violation in the construction of a commercial complex in northern Tehran, new details about this violation have emerged, indicating a lack of serious oversight over some construction activities in Tehran." The Aftab Yazd newspaper dedicated its front page to Fatemeh Hashemi, the eldest daughter of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, quoting her as saying: "My father was happy when he did not receive votes in the Assembly of Experts elections." The Shahrevand newspaper emphasized in its headline that "People are not buying; goods are becoming cheaper," writing: "These days, the Iranian market economy has taken on a different atmosphere. In the shadow of the economic stability achieved over the past two years, people are no longer worried about the continuous rise in prices. This culture of not buying is being instilled among the people, forcing producers to back down from their positions. This is an action that people are very insistently and seriously undertaking, and its results have been seen in the recent decrease in car and dairy prices, as well as the reduction in prices of chicken, nuts, steel, etc., over the past year." The newspaper also noted that "this reality should not be overlooked that in many cases, the lack of purchasing power among people has determined the conditions of recession, something that seems to have always existed in recent years." The newspapers Javan, close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Hemayat, affiliated with the Prison Organization of the Judiciary, in their Tuesday issues accused Ahmad Shaheed, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran, of receiving financial assistance from Saudi Arabia. These newspapers referred to a document from "WikiLeaks," while the official Twitter account of WikiLeaks denied the publication of such a document on Tuesday. The Etemad newspaper reported that "Forough Razmjooei, a general surgeon at Vali Asr Hospital in Nourabad Mamassani, was arrested on charges of insulting a government official in the hospital's emergency room and was transferred to detention with handcuffs," and was released shortly after the intervention of some officials from the Ministry of Health. According to this newspaper, "Hassan Qazizadeh Hashemi, in a letter thanking the Chief Justice for his attention to the health sector, expressed regret over the unprofessional conduct of the judicial authority that illegally arrested the surgeon under the pretext of enforcing the law, calling this action unlawful and demanding serious judicial action against the errant official." This newspaper simultaneously published a report about the reaction of the educational deputy of the Ministry of Health to the publication of selfies of medical students with corpses, writing: "These days, news about the publication of photos of some medical students with corpses and organs in the dissection hall has caused a stir on social media, and officials have also shown clear reactions to this story." While previously Tahmasb Mazaheri, the former head of the Central Bank, had said about the "Iran-China trade agreement," "I did not agree to sign such a sinister contract with China, but later this contract was signed," Asadollah Asgaroladi, the head of the Iran-China Chamber of Commerce, told the Shargh newspaper: "There is no Turkmenchay contract in place. I deny this statement. Do not give me this nonsense." "The 1.5 million toman budget deficit of Iranian households" The Jahan Sanat newspaper reported on its front page on Tuesday about the "1.5 million toman budget deficit" of the people. This newspaper emphasized that "the income and expenses of households do not match," citing a recent report from the Central Bank that stated: "Last year, households not only had no money to save, but their expenses exceeded the total money they earned in a year. So much so that the average annual expenses of an urban household last year increased by more than 4 million and 429 thousand tomans compared to 1993, which is a significant increase over the span of a year." According to Jahan Sanat, the Central Bank's latest report on the budgets of urban households in 1993 stated that "the average gross annual expenses of a household in this year amounted to 32 million and 876 thousand tomans," while "the average gross annual expenses of a household in 1992 amounted to 28 million and 446 thousand tomans, indicating that the average household expenses last year increased by 15.6 percent." According to the Central Bank's report, the average gross income of urban households in 1993 was also 31 million and 393 thousand tomans, which represented a 13.4 percent increase compared to 1992, thus "the balance of income and expenses of households in this year faced a deficit of 1 million and 483 thousand tomans." The Central Bank's report also stated that "the average monthly expenses of each urban household were equal to 2 million and 739 thousand tomans," and "the average monthly income of households in this year was equal to 2 million and 616 thousand tomans," comparing these two figures shows that "each urban household had a monthly deficit of 123 thousand tomans in their income and expenses." The Jahan Sanat newspaper, citing the Central Bank's latest report, wrote: "While the income and expenses of Iranian households increased by more than 4 million tomans in 1993, the family size of urban households in this year slightly decreased compared to 1992," as "in 1992, the family size of urban households (average number of individuals) was 3.47 persons, which in the last year decreased to 3.44 persons." Additionally, the report published by the Central Bank about household budgets in 1993 shows that "the highest gross expenses of households last year were still related to housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels, with this section accounting for 33.4 percent of total household expenses," followed by "the highest expenses, which accounted for 24.6 percent, related to food and beverage costs." Furthermore, "10 percent of urban household expenses in 1993 were related to transportation, 8.4 percent to miscellaneous goods and services, 5.8 percent to health and medical expenses, 4.6 percent to clothing expenses, 4.1 percent to household goods and furniture, 2.3 percent to entertainment and cultural affairs, 2.1 percent to communications, 2 percent to restaurants and hotels, 1.9 percent to education, and 0.4 percent to tobacco expenses." The authority examining the Vienna agreement; "Parliament" or "Supreme National Security Council" The Etemad newspaper reported on the changing alignments in the parliament influenced by the Vienna agreement, while Kayhan criticized the diminishing role of the Islamic Consultative Assembly and the increasing role of the Supreme National Security Council in reviewing this agreement. According to the Etemad newspaper, "the formation of a special commission to review the JCPOA has put the parliamentarians into a new political challenge; the challenge is over the composition of this commission. Although it is unclear what its legal status will be in the process of approving the JCPOA, it can serve as a broad platform for supporters and opponents of the nuclear agreement." Ehsan Badaghi, a journalist for the Etemad newspaper, noted that "the two main factions in the parliament have not reached a conclusion about the arrangement of parliamentary members behind the nuclear podium a week after the proposal to form this commission." The majority faction [close to Ali Larijani] has rejected the minority faction's [principlist faction, close to Gholamali Haddad Adel] proposal to select 15 members of the special commission by consensus. Behrouz Namati, a member of the central council of the majority faction, stated about the proposals made and the reasons for the deadlock in discussions between the two factions: "The principlist faction has so far proposed a list of candidates for the special commission that we find completely unacceptable. They suggested that a team of leaders and main members from both factions should determine 15 candidates in a meeting and introduce them to the plenary session." The response from the majority faction, according to Behrouz Namati, has been "a completely negative response" to this proposal. He stated: "In the majority faction, we cannot ignore the opinions of members and the general assembly and allow a few individuals to make decisions for the entire parliament in a non-democratic and paternalistic manner. Therefore, any decision we make must involve direct participation from the general assembly of the faction, and this is our condition for cooperating with the principlists in forming this special commission." The Etemad newspaper also reported that "the minority faction in the parliament, which is considered the main group of critics of the nuclear agreement, has initiated parallel efforts to create new platforms. Among them is the entry of the Education and Research Commission into the topic of reviewing research and development after the Vienna agreement. The Education Commission is considered the most politically angled specialized body in the parliament against the government, with 17 out of its 25 members having entered the parliament on the list of the Steadfast Front, which places this commission politically alongside the Cultural Commission, which has a completely different situation from other commissions." However, this newspaper pointed out that "while the parliament is gearing up to form a special commission to review the JCPOA, it is still unclear whether the path to approving the JCPOA in Tehran will pass through Baharestan Square," as "the approval of the Supreme National Security Council under the agreement reached in Vienna on July 14 could remove the approval of the agreement from the parliament's hands and limit its role in the JCPOA implementation process to oversight. This oversight, which according to the law obliges the government to maintain nuclear achievements, will also involve the Supreme National Security Council, and the parliamentarians will not have sole responsibility and authority in this regard. However, there are serious disagreements in the parliament even over this issue." The Kayhan newspaper, which is among the media opposing the Vienna agreement, posed the question in its Tuesday front page: "Where does the parliament stand in reviewing the Vienna agreement?!" It wrote: "Despite the special status of the Islamic Consultative Assembly in the affairs of the country, some factions are trying to diminish this status and even neutralize it at critical moments." This newspaper emphasized that "currently, the representatives of the nation have a significant responsibility in reviewing the Vienna agreement with the powers granted to them by the constitution," writing: "The obstacles to keeping the Islamic Consultative Assembly from reviewing and influencing the nuclear agreement are occurring while, as Imam Khomeini stated, the parliament is at the top of affairs, and bypassing it in a matter of such sensitivity and importance is absolutely unacceptable." Kayhan simultaneously wrote that "despite some obstacles aimed at keeping the Islamic Consultative Assembly from influencing the nuclear agreement, on July 2 of this year, the details of the bill obliging the government to maintain nuclear rights and achievements were approved with the positive vote of 213 representatives," according to which "the nuclear agreement will only be valid if it meets the conditions set forth in this law, and if an agreement is signed that lacks these conditions, it will be considered invalid and unenforceable by the Islamic Republic of Iran." This newspaper emphasized that "the most important part of this law should be considered in its first clause, which states that the complete and simultaneous lifting of all sanctions, including those related to nuclear issues, human rights, terrorism, and missile issues imposed by the UN Security Council, the US government and Congress, the EU, and European countries, must be lifted on the day of the agreement's implementation, and this point must also be explicitly stated in the potential agreement." Kayhan also quoted Mansour Haghighatpour, a representative from Ardabil in the ninth parliament and a former secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, criticizing the previous secretaries of the National Security Council for not valuing the representatives in the negotiations.