Tehran, Iran, Dec. 10 – Iran’s annual revenue from oil and gas sales has reached 120 billion dollars, state television reported on Saturday. The report, which quoted the head of the Majlis (Parliament) Energy Committee, said that $45 billion from the income was being allocated for government subsidising of goods, in particular gas.| There's both the problem and the opportunity, which regular readers know well. $120 billion is a lot of cash for financing terror, nuclear weapons development and military purchases. It also buys off a fair part of the populace, and gasoline subsidies are a part of that. Make it difficult for the Iranians to import gas and you start creating problems for the Mad Mullahs™. |
Despite Iran’s huge oil revenues, poverty and homelessness are ubiquitous features of the Iranian metropolis, with thousands of homeless persons spending the night in the bitter cold without any shelter. Iran’s state-run media call the homeless “kartonkhabha”, literally meaning those who sleep on cardboards.