Iran defeats COVID-19 and Western sanctions alone

What is happening in Iran now? Why did the Islamic Republic quickly defeat the coronavirus epidemic? Why does Iran succeed in various fields of life despite the deadly virus and the heavy pressure of sanctions? What is main secret of this ancient country? Pravda.Ru editor-in-chief Inna Novikova talked about it in an interview with political scientist Mais Kurbanov, an expert in Iran and the Middle East.

“What is happening in Iran, how is the country fighting against the coronavirus? From what we know so far, the situation in the country has been particularly difficult lately. However, Iran has been taking very serious actions to curb the spread of the virus. To which extent all of that is true?” 

“Iran is an amazing country. The coronavirus pandemic has taken over the whole world already. The epidemic has spread throughout Iran very quickly, but to this moment, one can say that the country has taken the situation under control. Seventy-five percent of Covid-positive patients have recovered. 

“This is a very big achievement of the Iranian healthcare syste. The quarantine has been lifted, the Iranian people are out there working, although not in full scale.

The West pressed Iran with sanctions during epidemic, but Iran offered help

“When the epidemic was in full swing in Iran, the country was living under the pressure of stringent sanctions that have never been imposed on other countries before. They are still in effect now. 

“Iran has repeatedly appealed to the International Monetary Fund for help, but no help was provided. Against such a backdrop, Iran has shown the whole world that its healthcare system is strong, efficient and organized. It can deal with any epidemic.

“In addition, even in such a difficult situation, Iran launched a satellite into orbit. The first state of the Middle East could do all that on its own.

The real unity of power and people of Iran

“Iran has proved that its people can do a lot. The Iranian people have united around their leadership, especially around Rahbar Khamenei, they took all the problems seriously and all those problems have been resolved. 

“Europe’s most developed countries have shown their helplessness in the face of the novel virus. Iran has left this problem behind.

“Many experts say that this epidemic has showed the failure of neoliberalism in Europe and other developed countries. Their health system has proved to be ineffective. It is important that there is a classical organization of medicine, which protects against all challenges, takes into account all risks. In Iran, there are very good, unique, medicines and drugs that can not be found anywhere else in the world. Unfortunately, they cannot be exported because of the sanctions. Tell us about it."

“At one point, the West imposed sanctions on Russia in the field of medicine and pharmacology to ensure that modern medicines would be unavailable inside the country or became more expensive.

Sanctions are not a hindrance to Iran

“It was Iran that started helping Russia supplying various medications to Russia. I personally attended one of those events, when a relevant agreement was concluded. 

“During the epidemic, people play a big role, and it is very important how people support their leaders and follow their instructions. The Iranian people understand this very well. There are countries, where it was necessary to force people to stay home. Iran is one of those states where no one was fined. They listened to their leaders and stayed home until the danger ended. They took the challenge with understanding. 

“After the danger passed, people started working, because now is the time for agricultural works, and one has to work a lot to have a harvest next year. 

Iran treats neighbors

The Iranian health care, of course, has demonstrated itself at the highest level, and now millions of people from neighboring states, including the former Soviet republics - Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan – millions of those people travel to Iran to receive medical treatment, because they can get best medical assistance in Iran. This is no longer a secret. People go to Iran for medications, because Iranian medications are very efficient. 

After all, Iran is the country of Ali Ibn Sina and Avicenna – their medicine is extremely sophisticated. They have a very high level of surgical science. The Iranians can be proud of their achievements. Despite 40 years of living under sanctions, they go ahead of many states in the world in many areas. 

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Russian billionaire shoots himself in the head

Russian billionaire Dmitry Bosov committed suicide in a settlement near Moscow on May 6, 2020. 

According to preliminary data, on May 6, his body with a gunshot wound to the head was found by his relatives in a house in the village of Usovo, where Bosov lived. The Glock 19 gen 4 pistol was found next to the body. No suicide note was found.

The origin of the weapon is being investigated. For the time being, it remains unknown whether Bosov had a gun license. 

“Late in the evening of May 5, the businessman stopped answering calls and text messages. The man’s wife arrived in the village and found her husband dead - he was lying in one of the wings with a gun in his hand,” law-enforcement officers said. 

In 1997, Dmitry Bosov became a co-owner of the Krasnoyarsk aluminum plant, which was the object of so-called "aluminum wars." In 2000, he sold his shares and founded the Alltech group. It includes the Sibanthracite coal company and the Pechora LNG gas project built on the basis of Korovinsky and Kumzhinsky deposits in the Nenets autonomous region of Russia. He also owned a 50 percent stake in Vostokugol coal company.

Sibanthracite is the general sponsor of the Night Hockey League, which was created for amateur hockey players on the initiative of Vladimir Putin. Bosov’s company also owns Artplay architecture and design center.

Bosov took the 86th place on the ranking of Russia’s richest businessmen according to Forbes. This year, he also entered the Forbes global dollar billionaire list for the first time. His fortune of $1.1 billion put the businessman on the 1,851 place in the list.

Recently, Bosov appeared in a number of litigations. Last year, it became known that the Federal Security Bureau had questions to the Arctic Mining Company (part of Vostokugol) due to suspicions of illegal coal mining in Taimyr. 

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Covid-19 in Russia: Plateau is nowhere in sight

Over the past 24 hours, 10,559 new cases of coronavirus infection have been detected in 82 regions of Russia. 

Most of the cases were reported in – 5,858, the Moscow region - 829, St. Petersburg - 312, Nizhny Novgorod region - 272.

• 181 cases of infection were detected in the Republic of Dagestan, 136 in the Murmansk region,
• 105 each in the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic and Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug,
• 102 - in the Republic of Tatarstan.

In other regions of the country, less than a hundred new cases were registered.

On the eve of the meeting of the work group of the State Council for the struggle against the spread of coronavirus, officials discussed an opportunity to introduce “mask regime” throughout Russia. A day earlier, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that in order to remove quarantine restrictions, one needs to know the dynamics of the spread of the virus on May 11 and take into account peculiarities of Russian regions. 

On May 6, it was reported that Olga Lyubimova, Russia’s Minister of Culture, became infected with the coronavirus. The minister is going through the mild course of the disease, so there is no need to hospitalize her yet. Olga Lyubimova has thus become a third member of the Russian government, who was infected with COVID-19.

On April 30, it was reported that the Prime Minister of Russia Mikhail Mishustin was infected with coronavirus. Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov has been appointed acting head of government. On May 1, Vladimir Yakushev, the Minister of Construction, Housing and Communal Services of Russia, was also hospitalized with coronavirus. 

Russians persistently violate self-isolation regime

Meanwhile, Russia will have to experience a new surge in the incidence of pneumonia caused by SARS-CoV-2 virus, Ivan Konovalov, assistant professor of infectious diseases in children at the Russian National Medical University named after Pirogov said.

According to the professor, Russia will see a sharp growth of infections in one or two weeks because most Russians violate self-isolation regime during May holidays. “No plateau is yet in sight as it requires no growth trend for several consecutive weeks,” the specialist said.

If citizens start taking to the streets thinking that everyone will catch COVID-19 sooner or later, the number of seriously ill patients will start snowballing. Such a trend is especially dangerous for regions where hospitals are already overwhelmed, while many doctors quit their jobs and leave being unable to cope with hard conditions of work. 

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Coronavirus pandemic will break the clay feet of the United States

The United States has failed the pandemic test that bared a bunch of chronic illnesses that the nation is suffering from. The country will not recover from the shock soon, and America will never be the same either. 

Coronavirus has become the master of the USA

According to US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the growth in the number of cases of coronavirus infection will increase to 200,000 a day by June 1 of this year. The number of daily deaths will grow to 3,000. This will be the price that the USA will have to pay as more than a half of states have refused from quarantine. 

US President Donald Trump has revised his forecast for the coronavirus death toll. In March, he said that the death toll from the novel virus could reach 50,000 people, but his current forecast is 100,000.

US fails the pandemic exam

The United States was completely unprepared for the pandemic, George Packer wrote in an article "We are living in a failed state" for The Atlantic. The author points out that the virus has exposed the chronic diseases of the United States: the corruption of the political class, the ossification of bureaucracy, the "heartlessness" of economy, the lack of unity among the population that had not seen medical treatment for many years. 

“We had learned to live, uncomfortably, with the symptoms. It took the scale and intimacy of a pandemic to expose their severity—to shock Americans with the recognition that we are in the high-risk category,” the author wrote. 

Packer cracks down on Donald Trump and his administration for incompetence, bravado, lies, inaction and lack of action plans in a pandemic.

The appeal from the governors to the federal authorities ended up with the latter having no masks and protective suits, no ventilators, etc., while their distribution on a competitive basis generated greed for profit. 

“When a government doctor tried to warn the public of the danger, the White House took the mic and politicized the message,” the article reads.

As for the people, they continue insulting each other on social media. All moth-eaten and imaginary problems continue eating the nation from inside: racial, proprietary, political disagreements, the strife between urban and rural populations, migrants and Native Americans, and so on and so forth – all that has become particularly acute in the United States today. 

US economy will have to become real

Of course, saving lives is a top priority, but it is equally important for the USA to overcome the post-pandemic economic crisis, which will be long and slow.

According to most recent reports, the total number of unemployed has increased to 30.3 million people in six weeks. The scale of layoffs has ruined the entire job growth trend in the United States after the 2008 recession. In the first quarter of this year, the national economy has declined by 4.8%, and a fall that is expected to take place from April to June is expected to be the worst since WWII. 

Credit Suisse predicts a fall in GDP of 33.5%, while Goldman Sachs - by 34% with an unemployment rate of 15%.

The Americans will be more careful in their movements as a result of the psychological shock. They will be spending less and saving more, because the economy that was built to grow on consumption will stagnate. Printing extra dollars and handing out extra loans will lead to a sharp increase in public debt and inflation.

Big business will continue to lose global supply chains. Production will return to the United States, but goods will become more expensive due to rising costs, which will lead to a drop in the real income of the Americans. This, in turn, will raise the level of labor and political conflicts.

Colossus on clay feet

The United States will return to the real sector of the economy (it provides 20% of GDP, while 80% accounts for speculative economy), where China is stronger.

The dollar will cease to be a commodity, speculation in oil futures will go down in history. A collapse in stock indices may trigger a collapse of the entire debt market and prevailing pricing models, the Bretton Woods system and the petrodollar system. US will lose the opportunity to impose sanctions on other countries and the world will eyewitness the decline of the superpower on clay feet.

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Putin decorates Kim Jong-un with Medal of Victory

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree awarding DPRK leader Kim Jong-un with the Russian medal dedicated to "75 years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945". 

According to the Facebook page of the Russian Embassy in Pyongyang, the North Korean leader was awarded for "a great personal contribution to immortalizing the memory of Soviet citizens who died and were buried in the DPRK and for his concern for the safety of burial places and memorials of Soviet soldiers."

Interestingly, foreign nationals can be awarded with the above-mentioned medal only if they fought in the ranks of the Red Army or the Navy or in partisan units during the Second World War. Kim Jong-un’s grandfather, Kim Il-sung, the founder of North Korea, used to be a partisan.

The anniversary medal "75 years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945" was established in June 2019. It is intended for those who took part in military actions, partisans, home front workers, as well as former underage prisoners of concentration camps.

The DPRK leader did not participate in the award ceremony. Russian Ambassador to the DPRK, Alexander Matsegora, gave the medal to DPRK Foreign Minister Ri Son-gwon. After the ceremony, the officials held a brief conversation, during which they confirmed the intention of Russia and the DPRK to continue active efforts to consistently implement the agreements reached by the leaders of the two countries in Vladivostok in April 2019 to further develop and strengthen the Russian-Korean cooperation.

In 1945, the USSR entered the war against Japan, when the Japanese troops occupied Korea. According to the Russian embassy, there are 11 mass and 345 separate graves ​​in the DPRK, in which 1,375 Soviet soldiers were buried. In total, more than 4,700 soldiers and officers of the Soviet army had died during the liberation of the Korean Peninsula.

In April, Kim Jong-un gave rise to rumors about his grave condition and even death after he stopped appearing in public and missed the Day of the Sun celebrations – festivities in honor of the 108th anniversary of the birth of the DPRK founder Kim Il-sung. On May 1, 20 days after his ”disappearance”, North Korean media published new photos and videos of Kim Jong-un from the opening ceremony of a fertilizer plant in Sunchon. 

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