“Iran Ranked 95 Among 98 Countries in Coronavirus Response,” Jubin Katiraie, Iran Focus, February 2, 2021. “The Lowy Institute released a Covid performance index on January 27. In its index, the institute sorted countries by regions, political systems, population size, and economic development to provide a real view of states’ performance to counter the novel coronavirus. Based on the availability of data across the six indicators used to construct the index, the Lowy Institute ranked 98 countries compared to the average performance over the time in managing the Covid-19 pandemic in the 36 weeks following their hundredth confirmed case of the virus. In this context, New Zealand showed the best performance with a 94.4 score while Brazil stood at the end of the table with only 4.3 points. Iran was ranked as the 95th country in managing the pandemic before Colombia and Mexico. The Lowy Institute, of course, used official figures for ranking countries. This is while not only have the people and opposition rejected the statistics provided by the Iranian Health Ministry but also health officials have strongly challenged official figures. For instance, in late April 2020, as the government officially declared that 5,877 people had lost their lives to the coronavirus, Mohammad Reza Mahboub-Far, member of the National Covid-19 Task Force, admitted that the health ministry’s stats were fabricated. “The current stats of the coronavirus illness are 20 times higher than what is being announced by the Health Ministry. This has resulted in the people not taking this lethal illness seriously,” Vatan-e Emrouz daily quoted Mahboub-Far as saying on April 28, 2020.”

Great news!  The environmental spill from the SK ship has been cleaned up!  Of course, we never saw any oil in the Strait of Hormuz.  But we did see on Jan. 4 photos of IRGC speed boats taking the MT Hankuk Chemi (carrying 7,200 tons of chemicals) and its crew hostage, taking them to Bandar Abbas naval port.  Oh, but wait, they’re only releasing the crew.  Iran continues to hold the ship hostage.  See “Iran Agrees to Free South Korean Ship’s Crew,” New York Times, February 2, 2021.  “In return, South Korea pledged speedy action to address Iran’s complaints about $7 billion impounded there as a result of U.S. sanctions.”  It is not clear at this point what “to address” means.  But the foreign ministry of SK said the crew release was humanitarian.  See also “Iran Agrees To Release Crew Members Of Detained South Korean Ship,” Radio Farda, February 2, 2012.

“Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif sketched out a path on Monday to overcome the US-Iran impasse over who goes first in returning to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, saying the EU foreign policy chief could “choreograph” the moves. “There can be a mechanism to basically either synchronise it or coordinate what can be done,” Zarif told CNN when asked in an interview how to bridge the gap between Washington and Tehran. Each government wants the other to resume compliance first.”  See “Iran hints at way to bridge nuclear deal impasse with US,” Reuters, South China Morning Post, February 2, 2021.

“UN: Iran, breaching deal, installs 2nd batch of advanced centrifuges at Natanz,” Times of Israel, February 2, 2021.