Monthly Archives: September 2021

Purdue Pharma filed for bankruptcy with a more than $10 billion plan to settle claims that it fueled the U.S. opioid epidemic by illegally pushing sales of its addictive OxyContin painkiller. The company's headquarters in Stamford, Conn., is shown here in 2019. Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg/Getty Images hide caption

Purdue Pharma filed for bankruptcy with a more than $10 billion plan to settle claims that it fueled the U.S. opioid epidemic by illegally pushing sales of its addictive OxyContin painkiller. The company's headquarters in Stamford, Conn., is shown here in 2019.

A division of the Justice Department that serves as a watchdog over the federal bankruptcy system filed an appeal late Wednesday seeking to block the controversial Purdue Pharma bankruptcy plan.

William Harrington, who serves as U.S. trustee for the Justice Department, also filed documents requesting an "expedited stay" to prevent implementation of the settlement.

The deal, which Judge Robert Drain approved Sept. 1, granted sweeping immunity from opioid lawsuits to members of the Sackler family who own the drug company.

The Sacklers, who are not bankrupt, were granted releases from liability after agreeing to contribute roughly $4.3 billion of their private wealth to the deal.

Supporters of the settlement, including most state attorneys general, said it will avoid costly litigation while funding drug treatment programs over the next decade.

But throughout a two-week bankruptcy trial, and in court documents, the Justice Department repeatedly blasted releases from liability granted to the Sacklers as "unlawful" and "unconstitutional."

In an earlier filing, Harrington accused the Sacklers and their associates of using the bankruptcy system to avoid liability for "alleged wrongdoing in concocting and perpetuating for profit one of the most severe public health crises ever experienced in the United States."

The introduction of OxyContin in the 1990s is widely seen as one of the spurs of an opioid epidemic that has killed more than 500,000 people in the United States.

The Sacklers, who by their own reckoning earned more than $10 billion from opioid sales, have said repeatedly they did nothing wrong and acted ethically.

In new court documents filed Wednesday, attorneys for the Department of Justice signaled they are concerned some provisions of the Purdue Pharma bankruptcy plan might be implemented quickly, complicating an appeal.

"In seeking a stay pending appeal, the United States Trustee's objective is to preserve the status quo during the life of the appeal," the document said.

The Justice Department requested an expedited hearing within the next two weeks. The states of Maryland and Washington as well as Washington, D.C., also have filed appeals.

In approving the Purdue Pharma bankruptcy this month, the judge described it as the best possible resolution to a case involving more than 600,000 parties who say OxyContin harmed them.

"This is a bitter result," Drain said during his ruling on Sept. 1. "I believe that at least some of the Sackler parties have liability for those [opioid OxyContin] claims. ... I would have expected a higher settlement."

Purdue Pharma has twice pleaded guilty to federal crimes related to its marketing of OxyContin. The Sacklers who led the company said they did nothing criminal or unethical.

Under this deal, if it survives appeal, the Sacklers would again acknowledge no wrongdoing.

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The DOJ Moves To Block The Purdue Pharma Bankruptcy Deal That Shields The Sacklers - NPR

Kyoto The ancient capital of Kyoto has long been a tourist mecca, attracting domestic and international travelers to its World Heritage-designated temples, shrines and rock gardens. From the citys traditional geiko (geisha) quarter of Gion to Kinkakuji, the Golden Pavilion, Kyotos has few rival few cities anywhere in the world when it comes to cultural treasures.

For centuries, Kyoto, home of the emperor, was a forbidden city, inaccessible to the outside world. Foreign travelers passing through Japan in the 17th through the 19th centuries were not allowed to step foot in it. As late as the early 1870s, Westerners in Japans treaty ports such as Yokohama and Kobe were prohibited from visiting the city unless they had special permission which was rarely granted. One report, published in a 1918 history of the opening of Kobe Port, suggested that, until an 1872 international exhibition in Kyoto, no more than a dozen Westerners had ever seen it.

In the 19th century, the idea that Kyoto would someday become one of the worlds most popular tourist destinations with a highly developed infrastructure catering to international visitors would most likely have been dismissed as a fantasy. But by 2014, international media such as Travel +Leisure magazine were calling Kyoto the worlds best city to visit (an honor the city won again a year later).

The accolades led to tourists from around the world pouring into Kyoto, putting a strain on the citys infrastructure. New hotel chains sprang up like mushrooms, and new businesses catering to the suddenly booming tourist trade appeared almost overnight. Kimono-clad Mayor Daisaku Kadokawa played the role of cultural ambassador, popping up at international conferences to extoll Kyotos heritage and traditions and encouraging people to visit.

However, the good times hid a dark secret. Despite the fact Kyotos tourism industry was recording record profits, the city itself was going bankrupt.

An estimated 3.8 million tourists visited Kyoto in 2019, according to the citys municipal tourism office. | GETTY IMAGES

In June, the municipal tourism office announced only about 450,000 foreign tourists visited in 2020 an 88% drop compared to the 3.8 million who came in 2019. Hotel reservations for 2020 were down nearly 60% in 2020 compared to the previous year.

Then, in August, a grim-faced Kadokawa warned that Kyoto faced possible bankruptcy and drastic cuts in the city budget were needed over the next four years in order to prevent that. The restructuring plan for 2021-25 calls for trimming the bureaucracy by at least 550 people, raising the minimum age of those eligible for discount transportation services from 70 to 75, and cutting subsidies to day care workers. Kyoto has total debts of 860 billion and faces a 280 billion deficit by 2025.

Were facing a crisis situation and face the prospect of bankruptcy within a decade, Kadokawa said in mid-August, when he rolled out the proposal.

The city explained its reasons for focusing on these areas in particular. First, underperforming municipal subway lines that are 5.4 billion in debt. Second, the free or heavily discounted bus and rail passes granted to those over 70 could easily be covered years ago. But as the number of eligible older residents continues to rise, the financial burden has become too great.

Finally, the effort to turn Kyoto into Japans top choice for parents seeking good childhood services by subsidizing day care centers well beyond the national standard has left it short of funds, the city says. But even these explanations avoid the reality the city faces when trying to levy municipal taxes on its residents.

The suggested cuts under the four year plan are expected to save 160 billion enough to prevent the central government from taking over Kyotos finances. But Kadokawa did not address questions of whether more cuts would eventually be required.

It would be easy to blame the coronavirus pandemic and collapse in tourism last year on Kyotos current financial woes and sudden need to cut costs. However, the crisis goes much deeper.

Hotel reservations in Kyoto for 2020 were down nearly 60% in the first six months compared to the previous year, according to the citys municipal tourism office. | KYODO

Despite being a modern city with a population of around 1.5 million, Kyoto faces some unique challenges that greatly limit its ability to make up for financial losses by simply raising local taxes.

Some of these hurdles are due to legal reasons. In order to preserve the citys traditional atmosphere, local ordinances limit the height of buildings. Compared to other major Japanese cities, Kyoto has few modern highrise apartment or office buildings that would be subject to higher property taxes than traditional wooden buildings and machiya or newer, smaller structures that have to be constructed under the ordinances.

A second reason is demographics. About 10% of Kyotos residents are college students and about 28% are over 65. They usually pay no tax, or less tax, than working residents in their 20s through 50s.

But one of the biggest reasons is because none of Kyoto citys temples and shrines, which are legally registered religious corporations, are subject to property taxes. As Shoei Murayama, a visiting professor at Taisho University and former Kyoto city councilman, says, any attempt now by the mayor or city council to get around the property tax exemption with other forms of levies on temples and shrines to help raise revenue opens a can of historical worms.

Shoei Murayama, a visiting professor at Taisho University and former councilman, says Kyotos leaders need to face fiscal reality and accept new ways of generating revenue for the city to recover. | KYODO

In 1983, with no prior discussion by any committee, the city council approved an ordinance establishing the Kyoto Old Capital Tax. The 71 temples belonging to the Kyoto Buddhist Association, claiming that the tax was a violation of religious freedom, sued the city in Kyoto District Court, which ruled in favor of the city, Murayama says.

The tourist tax of 50 for adults and 30 for children targeted 37 temples and shrines.

What followed was two years of anger, standoffs and protests by the members of the association, which refused to pay. Some 24 major temples, including Kinkakuji and Kiyomizu, announced they were closing their doors to tourists.

Attempts by outsiders, including local business leaders, lawmakers and even reputed members of the yakuza to mediate between the mayor, who was determined to keep the tax, and the temples, who remained strongly opposed to it, failed.

The result was a two-year war of attrition between the city, which couldnt collect the taxes, and the temples, which, by closing, forfeited revenue. As the conflict wore on, however, a few temples, tired of the confrontation and in need of revenue, left the association and reopened, agreeing to pay the city. But the standoff finally ended when, in a deal that involved the mediation efforts of Kyocera founder Kazuo Inamori, the city agreed to abolish the tax in 1987.

In the end, the tax brought in a total of 35 billion, only a quarter of what the city originally predicted, Murayama says.

The result, however, was at least two decades of further distrust and bad blood between the temples and the city. Its a period nobody in Kyoto wants to remember, Murayama added. In a 2019 book on Kyoto tourism, he wrote that the battle created an image among Kyotoites of Dont mess with the white socks brigade referring to the socks worn by Buddhist monks and their allies who wield political influence behind the scenes.

Few tourists have visited iconic World Heritage sites such as the Kiyomizu temple in Kyoto over the past 18 months due to the ongoing global pandemic. | KYODO

Now, as Kyoto looks in the financial abyss, an idea proposed by Murayama, one he believes some temple priests would not oppose, is being discussed by members in the small, Kyoto-based political party Kyoto-to, Murayamas party when he served in the assembly.

Because of what happened with the Kyoto Old Capital Tax back in the 1980s, there would be great resistance to placing a similar obligatory tax today on temples today, says Risa Emura, a Kyoto city council member who leads the party. Rather than a legalized tax, a voluntary donation system could be introduced in the temples to help raise money.

Additional cuts and a political gesture from the top are also necessary, says former Osaka Gov., Mayor, and Nippon Ishin co-founder Toru Hashimoto. When he took over as Osaka governor in 2008, the prefecture had many of the same financial problems Kyoto has, spending money it didnt have on large salaries for civil servants and investing in projects that bled red ink.

Hashimotos solution was a combination of widespread cuts to the bureaucracy, the privatization of some municipal services and revoking the tax-exempt status of some prefectural-funded buildings, such as the Osaka Lawyers Association building. But Hashimoto also took drastic cuts in his own pay and bonuses. The prefectural budget cuts were hard and caused great anger and strong opposition within the prefectural bureaucracy, but he said they had to be done.

Kyoto should look at Osakas example of how the prefecture cut costs. Kadokawa can help rally public support for any cuts to Kyoto municipal services by first announcing he will make drastic cuts to his own salary and benefits package, followed by severe cuts to the bureaucracy, including salary cuts. Then he can say to the people, Im sacrificing and were cutting bureaucratic salaries across the board. But, very sorry, we may have to cut city services, Hashimoto said during a late August discussion about Kyotos problems on Yomiuri TV, a local Osaka television station.

Another time-tested way of generating municipal revenue raising local corporate taxes is not, Emura says, currently under discussion by city council members either.

But while Kyoto has a few world-renowned corporations such as Kyocera, Omron and, of course, Nintendo, its not a center of large tax-paying corporations such as Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka.

Much of the current discussion in Kyoto and Kansai is how to revive Kyotos economy after the coronavirus pandemic subsides is on the promotion of sustainable tourism, rather than the mass, industrialized tourism that characterized the period from about 2013 to 2020. But given Kyotos need for massive amounts of new revenue in order to prevent financial collapse, that, too, has its risks.

A sudden return of the virus could once again keep tourists, especially abroad, from returning, while geopolitical tensions in East Asia could mean sudden drops in tourists from this region, who provided much tourism income to Kyoto a few years ago.

Prior to the pandemic, Kyoto Mayor Daisaku Kadokawa had been actively involved in extolling the citys heritage and encouraging people to visit. | KYODO

Sustainable tourism is fine, Emura and Murayama say. But its not enough and Kyoto, and the Kyoto mayor, need to consider how to attract other new businesses and create jobs.

A big problem is that many young people want to work in Kyoto, but they cant find a good job or career here. So theyre forced to move somewhere else to look for work, Emura says. There are a lot of restrictions on constructing high office buildings in many parts of Kyoto. But the area around Kyoto Station might be one place to be developed and attract new commercial investment.

But which businesses should the city spend its ever-declining resources on pursuing? Murayama says that, given the large number of universities in Kyoto, especially Kyoto University, businesses in IT, biotech research and other fields are the areas where the city should be focusing its efforts.

Kyoto is well known and has a good reputation abroad, Murayama says. If the mayor were to reach out to IT companies in places such as Boston, Seattle or northern California, there might be interest at companies such as Google in establishing a presence in Kyoto.

When asked in 2019 about the negative effects of overtourism, Kadokawa replied, somewhat testily, that Kyoto wasnt a tourist town, meaning that it was much more, a historical cultural center but also a modern city.

Now, facing financial ruin unless drastic and likely politically controversial cuts are made, the mayor and the citys residents must come to grips with financial problems and questions about Kyotos future that they avoided for many years.

Yet nobody expects Kyoto to actually end up bankrupt, forced to seek central government permission for everything it does and follow its financial restructuring orders.

Emura and Murayama are optimistic the needed cuts can be made, and the needed revenue can be found. However, it will require a city leadership willing to face fiscal reality and willing to accept new ways of thinking about and generating revenue to recover.

Thus Kyoto, the 1,200-year-old capital where old traditions and precedent are venerated and polite but seemingly indirect speech is considered a virtue, now faces the need for an urgent, frank exchange and rapid agreement on how to return to financial health.

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Kyoto is facing bankruptcy. What happens now? - The Japan Times

J.C. Gonzlez Vzquez * | On August 3rd, the Council of Ministers finally approved the long-awaited Bill for the adaptation of our insolvency legislation to EU Directive 2019/1023 regarding preventive restructuring frameworks, discharge of debt and disqualifications. In addition, measures to increase the efficiency of procedures concerning restructuring, insolvency and discharge of debt.

Great hopes had been placed on it because it was thought that it would help to save companies which, although going through a difficult patch, were viable. However, these hopes were dashed as soon as its content was known. The Bill has drawn heavy criticism from all concerned parties and the high number and length of the allegations presented go to prove the Bill has met with unanimous rejection. And, unfortunately, we have to agree with most of the criticism. Obviously, not everything is negative since the European Directive imposes certain changes which will improve our current regulatory system.

Since this is an extract from an article published in revistaconsejeros.com we cant go into too much detail so we will highlight three general aspects that permeate the entire reform. In our opinion, these denote the misguided frame of mind in which the transposition of the aforementioned Directive has been approached.

Firstly, the unhealthy and out of focus overprotection of whatever has to do with labour or what is public (in particular, but not only, labour credits and public credits). Since the pruning of privileges regarding these credits carried out in the 2003 Insolvency Law, such privileges and protection have been increased in successive reforms in spite of widespread criticism from national and international quarters.

The same mistake is made in this Bill. For example restructuring plans are prevented from affecting labour or public credits. However, what we find most shocking is the fact that, in the case of public credits, there is no exemption from financial liability. And the people who have received firm administrative sanctions in the previous 10 years or who have been subject to derivation of liability for offences classified as fraudulent cant avail themselves of such exemption.

Secondly, the erroneous belief that in order to speed up insolvency proceedings and make them cheaper you have to reduce or do away with the involvement of private insolvency professionals. As if they were responsible for these proceedings lasting too long or not being very efficient when it comes to debt recovery for creditors.

In the last reforms of the Insolvency Law, and in particular in the ones since 2014-2015, there has been a clear bias against insolvency administrators which in this Bill has been extended to other professionals taking part in insolvency proceedings. In fact their presence is not compulsory in special proceedings regarding microenterprises. This bias can also be seen in the fact that their fees will be halved when the different phases of the proceedings last over a certain number of months as if they were responsible for the excessive duration of such proceedings and in the implementation of a single public platform for all electronic auctions. Quite the opposite to what the Government did during the pandemic whenitencouragedout-of-courtsettlementswhich have proved quite successful in this last year and a half.

Thirdly, the lack of clear definition of some essential questions can be a source of conflict. For example, it is not clear what is meant by when interim financing is necessary and appropriate or by an expert in restructuring who has to be someone with experience in that field. This is in direct contradiction to what the European Directive says, since that expert can be named by debtors and creditors without having to be vetted by any administrative or judicial authority.

To make matters worse, in the case of special proceedings concerning microenterprises, there is no provision for appeal against decisions and judgements. An attack on the right to legal protection which could render the Bill unconstitutional.

In short, this Bill has been drafted from a perspective distorted by some unfounded ideological prejudices and without taking into account the reality of our courts and of Spanish insolvency practice. As a result, we feel very pessimistic about the possibility of it being amended during its passage through Parliament.

(*) Tenured lecturer in Commercial Law (UCM) | Partner at CECA MAGN Law Firm

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Spain: The Bankruptcy Reform Bill Is Not To Anyone's Liking - The Corner Economic

Stories involving bullies receiving their comeuppance offer such visceral pleasures that theyve become deeply ingrained in our culture, from Angelo in Shakespeares Measure for Measure to the lascivious Count in Mozarts Marriage of Figaro right up to the deplorable Biff in the movie Back to the Future.

Heres a story from real life.

In this case, the bully is the California Independent Petroleum Assn., which lobbies for oil drilling firms around the state.

We can see harassment a mile away, and thats what this lawsuit was.

Ashley Hernandez, Youth for Environmental Justice

CIPA spent five years suing environmentalists and the city of Los Angeles to block efforts to tighten regulations for drilling in populated areas, especially minority communities, which CIPAs members knew would cost them a lot of money. Thats the bullying part.

The legal battle ended in defeat for CIPA and a court ordering the organization to pay its targets legal bills. Those came to $2.3 million, according to an order issued by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Malcolm Mackey on July 6.

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Most of the money was awarded to the city of L.A., which is owed about $1.03 million, and the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the environmental groups CIPA targeted, which is owed more than $1.2 million.

CIPA, asserting that it doesnt have the money to pay the bills or post the bond that would be required before it could appeal the order, has now filed for bankruptcy. Thats the comeuppance part.

You can chalk up this harvest to Californias potent anti-SLAPP law. The acronym stands for Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation. It refers to litigation brought by powerful interests the oil and gas industry, for example not to settle commercial disagreements or seek redress for an injury, but to intimidate critics exercising their rights of free speech or petitioning government for regulatory action.

By the way, CIPA didnt succeed in getting the regulations loosened or removed.

Big Oil for a long time has wanted to make sure there was no public participation in the permitting process for oil drilling, says Ashley Hernandez of Youth for Environmental Justice, another of the groups sued by CIPA. We can see harassment a mile away, and thats what this lawsuit was. Its no surprise that after we succeeded in the courts, the petroleum association is trying to sneak out on their obligation.

CIPA says its hoping to work out a way to pay its creditors over five years. Its chief executive, Rock Zierman, says the $2.3-million judgment is larger than CIPAs annual budget.

A meeting of CIPAs creditors, including the city and the Center for Biological Diversity, is scheduled in Bankruptcy Court for Oct. 6.

The creditors are expected to argue that CIPA has sufficient resources to pay its bills: Were going to be asking the toughest questions we can, L.A. City Atty. Mike Feuer told me. Were going to take an aggressive stance to get the attorney fees to which the public is entitled. After all, the money at stake is owed to the taxpayers of the city.

Zierman says the group has been miscast as a bully.

How can a small trade association with four employees intimidate the city of Los Angeles which has an army of full time lawyers and billions of dollars in resources? Zierman asked me by email.

Of course, thats absurd. CIPAs membership has included Exxon Mobil and Chevron, two of the most powerful corporations in the world. Over the last four quarters, Exxon Mobils revenues have come to $178.6 billion and Chevrons to $116 billion.

Since 2019 alone, Exxon Mobil has spent $322,000 in lobbying in California, and Chevron, which is headquartered in this state, has spent $12.7 million. Chevron has contributed $1.75 million to CIPA for political activities in California since 2014, according to the California secretary of state.

As for the citys army of full-time lawyers, from 2017 through mid-2019, CIPA paid out more than $2.6 million in legal fees to at least four elite law firms, including the Los Angeles-based firms Manatt Phelps & Phillips and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. Thats according to the organizations latest public tax filings.

So lets hear no more about how penurious and teeny-tiny CIPA is. It engaged in litigation over city drilling not for itself and its four employees but on behalf of one of the best-financed and most powerful industries in California.

Before we move on to the particulars of the litigation that got CIPA into such a fix, a few words about SLAPP suits. Since the 1990s, theyve been viewed by policymakers as a menace to the public interest.

Anti-SLAPP laws are on the books of 33 states and enshrined by case law that is, judges rulings in two more. Efforts are underway to enact a federal anti-SLAPP law, but advocates have tried to achieve the goal four times before, most recently in 2015.

The difficulty has arisen even though anti-SLAPP legislation is favored on the political left and right alike. Thats because SLAPP suits have been brought not only against environmental groups and other activists but also businesses and public officials.

Employers have been sued for disciplining or firing workers, tech companies for challenging other firms patents, Better Business Bureaus for grading businesses with an F. Government officials have been sued for enforcing regulations. Theyve all received the protection of anti-SLAPP statutes.

The issue brings together strange bedfellows, says Evan Mascagni, policy director of the Public Participation Project, an advocacy group for anti-SLAPP laws. It transcends party lines. California has one of the strongest anti-SLAPP laws in the country, but so do red states such as Texas and Oklahoma.

Anyone can get SLAPPed for any reason, Mascagni says. Bullies trying to use the legal system to silence anyone who says anything negative about them can be left wing or right wing. The main obstacle to federal enactment appears to be plaintiffs lawyers. They dont want to see anything introduced that can help a defendant.

The CIPA case began in 2015, when the Center for Biological Diversity and other environmental groups challenged the citys indulgent policies on drilling permits. We sued the city for basically rubber-stamping permits for new drilling without complying with the California Environmental Quality Act, says Maya Golden-Krasner, a senior attorney for the center.

The city was especially lax about considering environmental, health and safety effects of drilling applications in majority Latino and Black communities, the plaintiffs asserted, even though CEQA required those issues to be taken into consideration. Thats important because fumes from oil and gas drilling are associated with a host of health problems, including asthma and cancer, among nearby residents.

In 2016, the city settled the lawsuit and issued an internal memo instructing zoning officials to require environmental assessments and public hearings for all new drilling applications, including changes sought for existing permits.

CIPA then sued the organizations and the city, alleging they had reached a secret deal while shutting the oil industry out of settlement negotiations. The group asked for the settlement to be invalidated.

CIPA kept the environmental groups in the case, even though they had settled with the city and dropped their own lawsuit, by asserting that they were acting as agents of the city. The groups disputed that, since they have no authority to force the city to do anything related to drilling permits.

Throughout the litigation, CIPA portrayed the process as virtually a matter of life or death for its members, and it pointed the finger at the environmentalists.

For these people who are attacking my clients in a regular basis in these lawsuits, a CIPA attorney asserted during a court hearing in 2016, this is tantamount to a holy war.

The case dragged on until a state appellate court threw out CIPAs claims in February 2019 and instructed the trial court to assess attorney fees against CIPA. CIPA appealed to the state Supreme Court, which refused to take up the case.

CIPAs Zierman groused to me that the judges $2.3-million assessment was out of line three times higher, he said, than any other anti-SLAPP assessment in California history.

Judge Mackey was explicit, however, about why the city and environmental groups deserved so much. This case involves complex land-use and constitutional law, was vigorously litigated for about 5 years, and involved appellate and supreme court proceedings, he wrote.

In effect, the judge issued a warning: Anyone who tries to run up the costs of litigation for the opponents in a SLAPP suit may find the bill landing back on their own desk, like a boomerang.

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After suing its critics, an oil group wound up in bankruptcy - Los Angeles Times

School teachers across Iran held protests on Saturday demanding an improvement in their work conditions, as workers in natural gas and petrochemical sectors protested for their wages in southern Iran.

Teachers held rallies in Esfahan, Fars, Alborz, Ilam, Khuzestan and several other provinces, chanting slogans about government inaction to address their demands. They have been holding periodic protests in the past several months.

One of their demands is for parliament to pass a law setting a ranking system for teachers, which would affect salaries. Education, expertise and other qualifications should be considered in the job ranking scheme.

Teachers earn meager salaries, and many are unable to afford a basic living amid a 50-percent inflation rate in the country. Recently, some teachers have committed suicide highlighting the hardship they feel.

Also on Saturday, contract workers in Irans natural gas industry in the southern gas fields of Asalouyeh held protests to demand the implementation of promises made by their employers. They returned to work form a long strike, based on employer promises to pay better salaries and improve work conditions.

There was also a separate protest by workers in the petrochemical industry in Mahshahr, in southern Iran.

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Iran's Oldest And One Of Largest Banks On Verge Of Bankruptcy - Iran International