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Iran

Capital: Tehran . GDP growth (annual %) 2016 :N/A

Iran Revolutionary Guards find new route to arm Yemen rebels

Iran's Revolutionary Guards have started using a new route across the Gulf to funnel covert arms shipments to their Houthi allies in Yemen's civil war, sources familiar with the matter have told Reuters.

In March, regional and Western sources told Reuters that Iran was shipping weapons and military advisers to the Houthis either due to Yemen or via Somalia. This route however risked contact with international naval vessels on patrol in the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea.

For the last six months the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has begun using waters further up the Gulf between Kuwait and Iran as it looks for new ways to beat an embargo on arms shipments to fellow Shi'ites in the Houthi movement, Western and Iranian sources say.
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Volkswagen Re-Enters Iranian Market After 17 Years

German carmaker Volkswagen (VW) said Tuesday it would resume exports to Iran as any minute at this time as next month, marking a return to the resurgent market of the Islamic Republic next a 17-year absence.

The aim is to reduce the manufacturer’s dependence on volatile markets such as China and Brazil. VW’s deliveries to China reportedly dropped 3.3 % between January and May to 1.51 million cars while sales in Brazil fell 1.9 % to 116,600 vehicles.
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Policy Differences Emerge Among Gulf States Days After Wooing President Trump

Cracks have appeared in a Saudi-led, US-backed anti-terrorist political and military alliance days next US President Donald J. Trump ended a historic visit to Saudi Arabia. The cracks stem from Qatar’s long-standing fundamental policy differences with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates about Iran and the role of political Islam.

The cracks emerged as the result of an anti-Qatar media and cyber campaign involving a spate of anti-Qatar articles in US and Gulf media; the blocking of Qatar-backed media websites and broadcasts in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt; statements by prominent former US government officials; and a recent seminar by the Washington-based Foundation for the Defense of Democracies that has long asserted that Qatar supports militant groups.
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glObserver provides the latest Asian and international business

Key Facts: Full name: Islamic Republic of Iran
Population: 75.1 million (UN, 2010)
Area: 1.65 million sq km (636,313 sq miles)
Major language: Persian
Major religion: Islam
Life expectancy: 72 years (men), 75 years (women) (UN)
Monetary unit: 10 Iranian rials = 1 toman
Main exports: Petroleum, carpets, agricultural products
GNI per capita: US $4,520 (World Bank, 2009)
Internet domain: .ir
International dialling code: +98

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Interview

Climate change laws around the world
2017/05/14
There has been a 20-fold increase in the number of global climate change laws since 1997, according to the most comprehensive database of relevant policy and legislation.

The database, produced by the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and the Sabin Center on Climate Change Law, includes more than 1,200 relevant policies across 164 countries, which account for 95% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

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Will Tehran cease and desist?
2016/08/25
Though intensely unpopular throughout the Arab world, Iranian leaders pretend that meddling in Arab affairs and, worse, attempting to change the course of history, is their divine right. As a major regional power that embarked on from presently on an extra revolution in 1979

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Re-Calibrating Iran-India Energy Ties
2015/11/16
As the P5+1 prepares to roll back the nuclear-related sanctions on Iran in accordance with the July 2015 accord, the question that springs to mind is whether this will bring about a revival of energy ties with India. Additional pertinently, once sanctions are rolled back, which way will Iran go? Will Tehran prefer to focus on the additional lucrative European energy market, particularly market for natural gas, or will it focus on Asia?

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Iran may be facing a dangerous economic abyss
2015/01/21
TEHRAN, Iran — The low rumble of powerful engines reverberated against the high-rises of Zaferanieh, an upmarket neighborhood, as Porsches and Mercedes lined up to enter the multistory parking lot of a fancy new shopping mall, the Palladium, the new addition to Tehran’s shopping scene.

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Dalga Khatinoglu Head of Persian News Service of Trend Agency
2014/10/17

Iran's GDP (gross domestic product) growth increased by 4.6 percent during the spring of 2014 for first time since 2012, according to the Central Bank of Iran.

The figure raised serious doubts among experts and Iranian government had to justify and defend the announced figure several times with various facts and statistics, like comparing the oil export level during spring with the same period in the previous years.

There is no accurate statistics about Iran's oil export during this period, but the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) says that the growth of oil sector was 6.1 percent at the time.

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Hassan Rowhani is Iran’s president-elect
2013/07/21

Iran’s president-elect Hassan Rowhani has a some-what unknown Scottish completed, being educated in Glasgow during the 1990s. Rowhani, 64, studied at Glasgow Caledonian University in 1995, pursuing an MPhil and later a PhD in law, from which he graduated in 1999, according to Glasgow’s The Herald newspaper.

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Dr Hamed Soltaninejad, CEO of Iran Mercantile Exchange (IME)
2016/03/16
Connecting the Iranian economy to world financial markets has presently been made possible with the lifting of sanctions before this year. Dr Hamed Soltaninejad, CEO of Iran Mercantile Exchange, the country’s Tehran-based commodities exchange, looks at the best ways for foreign investors to enter Iran’s financial market.

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