Iranian truck owners and drivers have launched a strike in seven of Iran's 31 provinces to protest poor working conditions.

Iranian social media users shared details and images of Tuesday's strike with VOA Persian. They said it involved truckers in the provinces of Fars, Hormozgan, Isfahan, Kerman, Khorasan Razavi, Lorestan and Qazvin.

In one video clip sent to VOA Persian and posted on the VOA Farsi Twitter account, a female truck driver says she is joining the strike in solidarity with her colleagues. She also identifies her location as a highway to the city of Mashhad in northeastern Iran.

Images of the truckers shared on social media showed them holding signs complaining about their costs rising while their salaries stagnate. The truckers said the rising costs included insurance, road tolls, commissions, repairs and spare parts.

It was not clear how long the strike would continue. There was no immediate response to the truckers' demands from Iranian authorities on state media.

Various Iranian industries have seen an increase in strikes and protests this year by workers fed up with local and national officials and business owners, whom they accuse of mismanagement and corruption. </s> A semi-official Iranian news agency is reporting that truck drivers in four provinces in the country are on strike over low wages.

The semi-official ILNA news agency reported on Wednesday that the strike is taking place in Qazvin, Lorestan, East Azerbaijan and Mazandaran province.

ILNA says the strike began on Tuesday over drivers complaining that their wages are not enough to cover their expenses. It wasn't clear from the report how many drivers are taking part in the strike or how long it's supposed to last.

According to ILNA, the drivers also say their expenses have increased since last year, including for tires and air filters.

The protest comes as Iran has seen President Donald Trump pull out of the nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers, putting new strains on the Mideast country's economy. </s> A newly launched strike by Iranian truckers in seven of Iran’s provinces appears to have alarmed the government, jolting officials into trying to persuade the drivers to return to work.

The Iranian state-run news agency Tasnim quoted a transport official on Wednesday as saying it is “reasonable” for truck drivers to demand greater fees for transporting cargo to compensate for their rising costs. The official, Dariush Amani of Iran’s Road Maintenance and Transportation Organization, said the cargo fees paid to the drivers should be increased by 15 to 20 percent.

It was not immediately clear how or when such a cargo fee increase would be implemented. The official who proposed it works under Iran’s Ministry of Roads and Urban Development.

Iranian truckers began the strike Tuesday in the provinces of Fars, Hormozgan, Isfahan, Kerman, Khorasan Razavi, Lorestan and Qazvin, according to Iranians who notified and sent images to VOA Persian. In the images, the striking truckers displayed signs complaining of the rising costs of insurance, road tolls, commissions, repairs and spare parts as wages stagnate.

Iranian state media said the strike continued into Wednesday, with gasoline truck drivers refusing to supply gas stations in the provinces of Fars and Isfahan in the morning hours. The reports said public concerns about gasoline shortages resulting from the strike led to long lines at gas stations in the cities of Shiraz and Isfahan, the capitals of Fars and Isfahan provinces.

But, the Iranian news agencies quoted officials of the National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company as saying they quickly agreed to address the truckers’ concerns in both provinces. The reports said the fueling of gas stations in the regions returned to normal later Wednesday.

Iran’s Islamist rulers long have worried that gasoline shortages could trigger social unrest. The 2-day-old strike is the first mass protest by Iranian truck drivers since anti-government demonstrations began sweeping Iran last December.

This report was produced in collaboration with VOA’s Persian Service. </s> TEHRAN, Iran (AFP) —Workers at Iran's oldest sugar cane company went on strike on Saturday over unpaid wages, calling for the troubled factory to be nationalised, the semi-official news agency ILNA reported.

ILNA published a photo of a rally by workers from the Haft Tapeh company in Shush, southwestern Iran, showing women marching with their children — one holding a sign saying: “We are hungry.”

Haft Tapeh employs about 4,000 workers and was first established in 1962.

Workers have staged numerous rallies over delayed wages and unpaid pensions since the company's privatisation in February 2016, with protests increasing in recent weeks.

“We call on this hard-working class to get back to work before the products go to waste,” said Yadollah Mehrali-Zadeh, deputy governor for Khuzestan province where the company is based.

“The government is trying to pay two to three months of their delayed payments in the upcoming week,” he added, according to the official IRNA news agency.

Iran has seen multiple strikes and protests over working conditions and unpaid wages in a number of sectors in recent months, including steel, education, mining and transport. </s> Tehran (AFP) - The head of Iranian Railways has resigned after four of his employees were arrested following a collision between two trains that left at least 44 people dead.

Mohsen Poor-Seyed Aghaie, a deputy minister in the transport ministry and head of the state-owned railway company, appeared on state television late Saturday and announced his resignation "as a social responsibility and out of sympathy for the survivors of this accident".

Two trains collided and one caught fire in the northern province of Semnan on Friday, killing 44 people and injuring dozens more, in one of the country's worst ever rail disasters.

The crash took place on the main line between Tehran and Iran's second city Mashhad.

One of the trains had stopped between the towns of Semnan and Damghan after an apparent mechanical failure, forcing officials to halt others on the line.

But when a new shift started at the control centre in Shahroud, the second train was allowed to resume its journey.

The accident happened due to "human error", Aghaie said, explaining that the official at the control centre had told the train driver to manually disable an automated system that was preventing it from moving toward the broken train.

Three in the control centre and the train driver were detained over the resulting crash.

The train driver "who had fled to a hideout" was arrested on Sunday, a local judge in Seman province told the judiciary-linked Mizan Online website.

"During the investigation, three people in charge of the northeast train control centre based in the city of Shahroud... were arrested," provincial prosecutor general Heydar Asiabi told reporters.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei offered his condolences on Saturday for the "painful incident", which came just a day after more than 60 Iranian pilgrims were killed in a suicide attack in Iraq. </s> Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-18 15:47:11|Editor: xuxin

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TEHRAN, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- At least 21 people were killed in a collision between a passenger bus and a trailer carrying flammable materials in the central Iranian province of Isfahan, semi-official ISNA news agency reported on Tuesday.

The passenger bus was heading from Tehran to Kerman city in the southern part of the country, when the accident took place in the early hours of Tuesday morning, Javad Dorostkar from Isfahan police office told ISNA.

Nineteen passengers of the bus were killed on the spot, and two others died later in the hospital, said Dorostkar.

Also, 25 people were injured as the huge fire engulfed the two vehicles.

The rescue operators of the Red Crescent of Isfahn province have moved the injured to the hospitals in Dorud city, the report said.

The bus hit the rear end of the tanker and further details about the cause of accident will be announced after the due investigations.

In July, 13 people were killed in a similar accident in Iran' western Kurdistan province. </s> TEHRAN, Iran — At least 21 people died when a bus overturned following a collision with a tanker on a road in central Iran, Iranian media reported Tuesday.

Iranian state television said the accident happened late on Monday on the road linking the cities of Kashan and Natanz, about some 250 kilometres (156 miles) southeast of the capital, Tehran.

The intercity bus was taking passengers from Tehran to the city of Kerman, some 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) to the southeast, when the accident took place.

Many Iranians are travelling this week as the four-day major Shiite Muslim holiday of Ashura gets underway.

The TV said 20 people were injured in the crash and were taken to local hospitals. The survivors included two women and two boys under the age of six.

It broadcast footage showing the burning bus and tanker, flames rising into the nighttime sky as rescue teams rushed about at the site.

An unnamed survivor told the TV from his hospital bed that the crash happened close to midnight.

“The flames started at the front of the bus as diesel from the tanker poured in,” he said, adding that he managed to escape through a bus window.

With some 17,000 motorists killed annually, Iran has one of the world’s worst traffic safety records, attributed mainly to widespread disregard for traffic laws, unsafe vehicles and inadequate emergency services. </s> TEHRAN - At least 19 people were killed when a bus and a fuel tanker collided in central Iran, state television reported on Tuesday.

The collision, which occurred around 11:15pm on Monday, triggered a fireball that engulfed both the truck and the bus on the motorway between Kashan and Natanz, more than 200 kilometres south of the capital Tehran.

"Based on preliminary investigations, the tanker swerved to the side, hitting the bus and causing an explosion and fire which killed 19 of the passengers at the scene," traffic police commander General Mohammad-Hossein Hamidi said.

State television aired footage of firefighters battling the blaze as emergency crews rushed to take the wounded to nearby hospitals.

Iran has one of the highest road death rates in the world, with health ministry officials reporting around 16,300 killed in the Iranian year that ended in March and a further 336,000 injured.

Among the main causes are reckless driving the poor quality of the road network, particularly in rural areas, and the large number of domestically manufactured vehicles equipped with outdated technology due to US-led sanctions. </s> People demonstrate in solidarity with anti-government protests in Iran near the Iranian embassy in Paris January 6, 2018. — Reuters picDUBAI, Jan 7 — Thousands of government supporters staged rallies in Iran for a fourth day yesterday in a backlash against widespread anti-government protests that the clerical establishment has blamed on the country's enemies.

Yesterday's show of support took place a day after Iran's foreign minister said a United Nations Security Council meeting called by the United States to discuss the protests had proved a "blunder" by the administration of US President Donald Trump.

State television showed rallies and marches in more than a dozen cities with demonstrators waving Iranian flags and chanting slogans including “Death to America,” “Death to Israel” and “Death to Britain.”

More than a week of unrest has seen 22 people die and more than 1,000 arrested, according to Iranian officials, in the biggest anti-government protests for nearly a decade.

Unrest spread to more than 80 cities and rural towns as thousands of young and working-class Iranians voiced anger at graft, unemployment and a deepening gap between rich and poor.

Residents contacted by Reuters in various cities have said the protests had subsided in recent days, after the government intensified a crackdown by dispatching Revolutionary Guards forces to several provinces.

Yesterday, videos on social media showed a heavy police presence in cities, including Khorramabad in southwestern Iran where on Wednesday evening social media posts showed protesters throwing stones at riot police. The protests have drawn largely young people and workers as well as members of the educated middle-class that formed the backbone of a pro-reform revolt almost a decade ago.

The provincial governor in northeastern Mashhad, where the protests started, was quoted as saying yesterday that 85 per cent of detainees there had been released after signing a pledge not to re-offend.

“Those with a criminal record, or those charged with sabotage such as setting fire to motorcycles or damaging public buildings have been referred to judicial authorities,” governor Alireza Rashidian told the Isna news agency.

A police spokesman said most of those arrested were “duped” into joining the unrest and had been freed on bail, the state news agency Irna reported. “But, the leaders of the unrest are held by the judiciary in prison.”

Tehran University vice president Majid Sarsangi said the university had set up a committee to track the fate of students arrested during the unrest.

“Our efforts at the university are aimed at cooperating with the relevant authorities to create the conditions for the return of the detained students to the university and their families in the shortest possible time,” Sarsangi told Isna.

Separately, a member of parliament said about 90 students were detained, 10 of whom were still not accounted for.

“It seems that the total number of detainees is around 90. Ten students from universities in Tehran and some other cities are in an uncertain position, and ... it is still unknown which body has detained them,” the labour news agency Ilna quoted reformist politician Mahmoud Sadeghi as saying.

Iran has several parallel security bodies and residents say arrests are often not immediately announced.

Videos that appeared on social media in recent days showed relatives of detainees gathering outside prisons seeking information about the fate of their loved ones.

In Europe, hundreds of Iranians held rallies on Saturday in support of the anti-government protests in Iran, in cities including Stockholm, London, Paris and Berlin.

About 400 people gathered in central Paris, and several hundred held a rally in front of Berlin's Brandenburg Gate with Iranian flags, drums and banners calling for a change of government.

One of the protesters in Berlin, 18-year-old Pariya Kohandel Saleh, said her father was in jail in Iran for supporting the families of prisoners.

“Things should be good in Iran now the sanctions have been lifted, but the mullahs' pockets are bottomless and everybody knows it,” she told Reuters.

A United Nations Security Council meeting on Friday to discuss the protests turned into criticism of the United States for requesting to meet on what some member states said was an internal issue for Iran.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted: “The UNSC rebuffed the US's naked attempt to hijack its mandate ... Another FP (foreign policy) blunder for the Trump administration.”

Iran's elite Guards and its affiliated Basij militia suppressed unrest in 2009 over alleged election fraud, in which dozens of pro-reform Iranians were killed. — Reuters
Iranian truck owners and drivers start striking in seven provinces to protest poor working conditions.