Worldwide Covid-19 infections OVER 7 MILLION
In Iran the number of those infected daily have gone down slightly from a high of 2800 a day to approx 2000 today. The number of daily deaths remains at less than 100.
In the USA the total infection count is now past 2 MILLION. The daily infection rate in the US is still high but despite this we are now seeing a drastic drop in the number of daily deaths from 2500 a day at its peak to now only 500. Who knows if there will be a second wave because of these latest anti-racist protests.
Brazil is suffering. although numbers have gone down the last few days, Russia is steady and in Europe overall numbers are down. In Turkey numbers are down as well. Quarantine and social distancing methods seemed to have worked.
Peru, Chile, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan are all seeing daily infection rates higher than 3000. Chile and Pakistan are above 4000.
According to this article in the Washington Post, Venezuela paid Iran $500-$700 MILLION in gold bars for the oil and the technology / industrial equipment that Iran delivered.
Maximum pressure on Iran and Venezuela has brought them together to embarrass the U.S.
A Venezuelan oil worker holding a small Iranian flag at the El Palito refinery near Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, on May 25. (Ernesto Vargas/AP)
By
Editorial Board
June 7, 2020 at 10:46 a.m. PDT
THROUGHOUT THE covid-19 pandemic, the Trump administration has relentlessly pursued its “maximum pressure” campaigns against Iran and Venezuela, heaping on more sanctions in the apparent hope that one or both regimes would crack under the combined strain of the virus and economic strangulation. Yet the most visible result of the policy to date has been to bring the two nations together to orchestrate an embarrassing display of U.S. impotence.
Last Tuesday,
the last of five Iranian tankers arrived in Venezuela,
sailing past U.S. warships deployed in the Caribbean. They were
delivering an estimated 60 million gallons of gasoline to fuel-starved Venezuelans, in defiance of U.S. sanctions on both countries. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
derided the delivery as “just enough gasoline for a couple of weeks.” But that understates the deal between the two countries: Iranian aircraft have also delivered parts and technicians to repair Venezuela’s crumbling refineries, and the government of Nicolás Maduro is believed to have repaid Tehran with gold bars worth between
$500 million and
$700 million, according to several reports.
The Trump administration tried to stop the shipments with threats of sanctions: Two additional, Liberian-flagged tankers
were induced to turn around. But it elected not to intercept the Iranian ships after the regime of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed to retaliate. Iran’s capacity to attack oil shipping in the Persian Gulf months before the presidential election was evidently enough to deter President Trump.
The result was a propaganda victory for the Maduro and Khamenei regimes, which show no signs either of yielding to U.S. pressure or succumbing to domestic unrest. More cooperation between them seems to be in train: Mr. Maduro said he would soon visit Tehran, and he recently
appointed Tareck El Aissami, a key ally of Iran, as oil minister.
Adm. Craig Faller, the head of the U.S. Southern Command, said last month that recent Iranian contacts with Venezuela had included the Quds force, the elite military unit formerly commanded by Qasem Soleimani, the general
killed in a U.S. drone strike in January. Adm. Faller said Iran’s objective was to “gain positional advantage in our neighborhood in a way that would counter U.S. interests.”
U.S. officials say they will not tolerate systematic Iranian supplies of gasoline to Venezuela, and it’s not clear Tehran will have the capacity to continue them as its pandemic lockdown eases and Iranians return to their vehicles. But the strengthening alliance between the two states illustrates the downside of Trump policies that aim for regime change, but aren’t able to deliver it — or even to contain the inevitable blowback.
