• Iranian: 'Our money is becoming more and more worthless every day'

    Raheb Homavandi / Reuters file

    A money changer holds Iranian rial banknotes as he waits for customers in Tehran's business district in this January 7, 2012 file photo.

    Ali Arouzi writes
    TEHRAN – Even though threats of war with Israel are almost a daily occurrence, what’s really on people's minds in this city is the economy.

    The United States, the European Union and the U.N. have imposed tough economic sanctions against Iran, blocking access to the international banking system and curbing sales of Iranian crude oil as a way to persuade Tehran to abandon its nuclear program.

    See our full coverage on international hot spots crucial to U.S. foreign policy ahead of elections in our At the Brink series here. And on Sunday, Sept. 30, and Monday, Oct. 1, tune into special coverage on all NBC News platforms from NBC’s team of anchors and correspondents deployed in five countries across the region.

    As a result, Iran’s currency, the rial, is in a constant state of flux, but mostly on a downward trajectory. These days, it seems to fall in value against the dollar on an hourly basis. On Tuesday the currency hit an all-time low against the U.S. dollar, trading at 26,500 to the U.S. dollar on the open market, according to Persian-language currency tracking website Mazanex. 

    “Our money is becoming more and more worthless every day,” said Sarvenas Sadi, an elderly woman doing her daily shopping in Tehran earlier this week.

    She picked up a handful of limes and exclaimed, “These were 100 percent cheaper last year!”

    Asked whether she ever thought she would see the currency devalue so much, she replied, “Never! I remember before the [1979] revolution $1 was worth 70 rial, now it’s worth 26,000! Who would have ever have thought!”

    Iranians feel the pain of sanctions: 'Everything has doubled in price'

    Did she think things would ever balance out and the price of goods would come down to what they were before. “Unfortunately I don’t think so. The thing with Iran is that once the price of something goes up, it never comes down again.”

    So what’s the solution?  “Eat less limes,” she jokingly replied. 

    AP

    Two potential Iranian customers look at fabric bolts in Tehran's old main bazaar in this picture taken July 14, 2012.

    Manufacturing hit hard
    The financial situation is affecting people from all classes. Thousands of workers have been laid off and have not been paid back wages because companies have simply run out of money. Majid, a 32-year-old mechanic who used to work for a large car company was recently laid off and is owed six months’ salary.


    “They are laying off people left, right and center. I doubt there will be a company left by the New Year,” he said, giving just his first name because of the sensitivity of the issue in Iran. Persian New Year will be on March 21, 2013.

    The car industry, one of the biggest manufacturing sectors in Iran and a massive employer, has been affected dramatically; Iranian media have reported a 30 to 50 percent drop in car and component production in the past six months. Iran was the 13th-largest auto maker in the world in 2011, producing 1.6 million vehicles.

    The Iran Khodro Company, the country’s leading vehicle manufacturer, had become the largest vehicle manufacturer in the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa.  The company won the annual national prize for export activities in 2006 and 2007 with Russia, Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Egypt, Algeria and Bulgaria among their key consumers.

    But higher prices, due to the soaring costs of components as a result of the sanctions, have caused a drop in demand.

    Israel's Netanyahu: Draw 'clear red line' to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons

    For instance, France's Peugeot Citroen halted shipments of vehicle kits for assembly in Iran earlier this year, saying international sanctions barring transactions with the country's banking system made it difficult to obtain sales financing.

    Sanctions have taken a toll on the Iranian economy. The government is reluctant to admit it. Inflation is high. The number of young unemployed is a growing concern. NBC's Ali Arouzi reports. 

    Majid, the mechanic, said he is looking for work elsewhere but it is proving very difficult. “There are not many jobs going and it is getting me more and more depressed.”

    Oil sales to travel - down
    The oil sector has been hit hard too.  The Iranian Labor News Agency reported that a letter on behalf of 20,000 oil workers from across the country was sent to Labor Minister Abdolreza Sheikholeslami complaining that they had not been paid in months. The letter demanded an increase to the worker’s salaries of $120 to $285 a month, adding that at the current rate they were "way below the poverty line.” 

    Mohammad Reza Bahonar, a prominent Iranian member of parliament, said oil exports in June-July had dropped to "around 800,000 barrels per day," according to a report by ISNA news agency. That’s a low not seen in more than two decades, and less than half the 2.3 million barrels per day exported just a year ago.

    But Minister of Petroleum Rostam Qasemi was quoted by ISNA saying that overall oil production this year "will be the same as last year."

    Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for a firm deadline for Iran to halt its nuclear program, using a simple drawing to warn the UN that Iran will soon reach the point of no return in its development of nuclear weapons. NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports.

    The strangling of the economy isn’t just affecting blue-collar workers.

    Middle-class Iranians had become accustomed to foreign travel – to Dubai, a playground for Iranians only an hour and half away, Turkey, one of only a few countries that does not require visa’s for Iranians, and Thailand. But the cost of travel to any of these destinations is prohibitive to many.

    More Iran coverage from NBC News

    Maryam, a travel agent in Tehran who also only gave her first name, estimated that the number of travelers has been halved in a year. “The price of tickets and organized tours increased almost a hundred fold. They say that this will boost domestic holidays, but I think that is even too expensive for most people.”

    This was evident to me last month flying back to Tehran from London via Dubai. Usually the flight from Dubai to Tehran is jammed, but not this time. Business and first class were full with the super-rich of Iran, but 70 percent of the plane which makes up the economy class was almost empty.

    As the American mission in Afghanistan winds down, dangers still abound for U.S. troops – the most recent incident involved a Taliban gunman who fired on a U.S. Marine outpost in Afghanistan's Helmand Province. NBC's Richard Engel reports.

    Expected to get worse
    Mehdi is a young entrepreneur who imports computers and accessories who also spoke on the condition of anonymity. He said people are just not buying in Iran right now. His biggest wish was that the value of the rial would just stay fixed against dollar – even if it was at an unfavorable rate – just so consumers would know how much things would cost in a weeks’ time, a day or even in the next few hours.

    While the sanctions have certainly taken a major bite out of the economy and are hurting people from all walks of life – it does not seem to be making the government authorities buckle. If anything it seems to have stiffened the government’s resolve and things are set to become even more difficult in the not too distant future.  

    Britain, France and Germany are urging their European Union partners "to further step up the pressure" on Iran. Further sanctions targeting the Islamic Republic's energy, finance, trade and transportation sectors are expected to be formally adopted on Oct. 15.

    Slideshow: Everyday life in Iran

    At schools, in shops, and on the streets of big cities and small towns, daily life plays out in Iran.

    Launch slideshow

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  • NBC's Ali Arouzi answers reader questions from Iran

    While Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traded verbal jabs at the United Nations General Assembly this week over the threat of Iran’s nuclear capability, one thing is for sure: international economic sanctions against Iran are having an impact. 

    See our full coverage on international hot spots crucial to U.S. foreign policy ahead of elections in our At the Brink series here. And on Sunday, Sept. 30, and Monday, Oct. 1, tune into special coverage on all NBC News platforms from NBC’s team of anchors and correspondents deployed in five countries across the region.

    The United States, European Union and the U.N. have imposed tough economic sanctions against Iran, blocking access to the international banking system and curbing sales of Iranian crude oil as a way to persuade Tehran to abandon its nuclear program.

    As Ali Arouzi, NBC News Tehran Correspondent, reports today, the sanctions have had a real impact on Iranians as the value of their currency, the rial, continues to drop daily – affecting everything from basic food items to manufacturing.

    Iranian: 'Our money is becoming more and more worthless every day'

    Ali answered reader questions about the impact of the sanctions in Iran earlier today.

    REPLAY the informative chat below. 

  • Israelis are prepared -- or not -- for an Iran attack

    Bernat Armangue / AP

    An Israeli woman talks on the phone after collecting gas masks for her family in a shopping mall in Jerusalem in this Aug. 22 photo.

    Martin Fletcher writes

    TEL AVIV – Did you know:

    See our full coverage on international hot spots crucial to U.S. foreign policy ahead of elections in our At the Brink series here. And on Sunday, Sept. 30, and Monday, Oct. 1, tune into special coverage on all NBC News platforms from NBC's team of anchors and correspondents deployed in five countries across the region.
    • If a bomb explodes near you with a little bang, that's a sign it is carrying chemical or biological weapons? A loud bang means a conventional warhead.
    • If an attack is chemical, you will know right away? But if it's biological you'll only find out after a few days.
    • If it is nuclear, you should lie down and cover your head? And don't get up when the first blast wave passes over you because it will be followed by a second wave.

    Useful, eh?

    All these facts are good to know if you are in Israel and war with Iran, and its proxies Hezbollah and Hamas, were to break out around you.

    Report: Iran mulls 'pre-emptive attack' against Israel; commander warns of 'World War III'

    Or if something happened with Syria, Iran's ally, which has large stockpiles of biological and conventional weapons.

    With the latest opinion polls showing that half of Israelis fear for the continued existence of their state if war breaks out with Iran, and with more than half rating the chance of such a war within a year as "medium" or "high,” the more you know about what the war would entail, the better.

    Here are some more facts:

    • If you suck a bead made of castor oil, it could kill you. It contains ricin, a lethal poison.
    • After Chernobyl, it took 25 years before Welsh sheep could be eaten because the nuclear radiation settled over Wales as it drifted most of the way round the world.
    • And cigarettes contain polonium 210, the poison used to murder the Soviet ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko.

    Probably no country in the world is as prepared as Israel for such an attack, with every home built in the last 21 years possessing a mandatory bomb shelter. City centers have vast public shelters with special rooms set up for non-conventional attacks. And citizens are instructed in how to protect their bomb shelters against chemical and biological warfare.

    Mistakes happen
    But mistakes can happen, as I can personally attest. 

    One evening in the winter of 1991 during the first Gulf War, with Iraqi Scud missiles rocketing over Jordan toward Israel, the bomb alarm sounded. My family quickly locked themselves in our bomb shelter, and I raced through the dark, silent streets to broadcast from our NBC News studio.

    Israel's Netanyahu: Draw 'clear red line' to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons

    This had become routine. I spent all night in the studio, responding to the many alarms, and went home around 5a.m. I didn't check on the family because I knew where the Scuds had fallen and none were near my home.

    This one time, however, with 30 minutes to go before my next live broadcast hit, I had a sense that something was wrong. For the first time after an attack, I called home to see how my wife and my three sons, all aged below six, were faring.

    In an attempt to convey what he sees as a threat to Israel's existence, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used a cartoon to illustrate how close he says Iran is to developing a nuclear weapon. In a speech at the United Nations General Assembly he asked the world to help stop them. NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports.

    No answer. I called again. No answer. Twenty-five minutes to go before my next “live hit” on TV with Tom Brokaw. I felt sick with worry. What could have happened?

    I ran downstairs, jumped into my car and raced home. I figured a 10-minute drive, five minutes at home and 10 minutes back, I'd be in the studio with seconds to spare.

    Life-saving decision
    Ends up, because of that calculation, I saved my family's lives.

    When the all-clear sounded, my wife, our three sons, my sister-in-law and the dog, a schnauzer called Tofi, couldn't get out of the shelter.

    The heavy steel lock would not budge. They hung on it and pulled and tried and tried but could not open the door. When I arrived home, about two hours after they had entered the bomb shelter, I heard faint cries of "help, help."

    Instead of pushing the handle up, they had been pulling it down, locking it instead of opening it.

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tells the UN general assembly Thursday that sanctions are not stopping Iran's nuclear program.

    I was able to open the door from the outside and all was well.

    But if I had stuck to my usual routine and not called home and just returned at 5 a.m., after leaving them at 8 p.m. the night before, they would have been dead.

    It's simple math: An adult breathes about one cubic meter of air per hour, children more. Five people in a small room of about nine cubic meters would begin to lose air after two hours. Seven hours? They'd have all been dead.

    A miracle? Sixth sense? Whatever, it's a warning of what can go wrong in times of stress. And however prepared Israelis are for what awaits them, accidents happen. When Iraq attacked Israel in 1991, far more people died of heart attacks than Scud rockets.

    Country on edge
    Since that time, every apartment built in Israel must have a blast-proof room that protects citizens from conventional blasts and also, with plastic and tape, can protect against chemical and biological weapons too. Walls and doors are approximately 8-12 inches thick and doors and windows are airtight.

    Every citizen has, in theory, a gas mask. In practice, there aren't enough to go around.

    Everybody asks, do you think there will be war with Iran? Nobody knows, and if you see Israel’s crowded cafes, the bustling streets, the crammed beaches, you may think that nobody cares.

    Yet Israel is a country on edge. Most seem to have bought Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s line that the price to pay to stop Iran from building a nuclear bomb is much lower than the price to be paid if Iran has the bomb.

    Fueling those thoughts are memories of what happened when the Nazis killed 6 million Jews. Today, there are approximately 6 million Jews in Israel. Few Israelis can argue against Netanyahu's insistence of: Never again.

    And yet, I don't know anyone here who has prepared their bomb shelter. They're all a mess, used to store boxes, suitcases, footballs and wine. They are used as computer rooms, bicycle storage, play rooms. The attitude is, for the most part, we'll worry about it when the time comes.

    Until then, live life.

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  • NBC's Lester Holt answers your questions about Afghanistan

    Joint US-Afghan operations are becoming more common, and so are the risks. NBC's Lester Holt reports.

    See our full coverage on international hot spots crucial to U.S. foreign policy ahead of elections in our At the Brink series here. And tune in today to special coverage on all NBC News platforms from NBC’s team of anchors and correspondents deployed in five countries across the region.

    Lester Holt, NBC News' anchor, is in Afghanistan reporting on the state of the U.S. mission there 11 years after the start of the war. 

    What is the state of the war? Where are the Taliban?  How much longer will U.S. troops be there? What about all the repeat deployments for U.S. soldiers?

    Lester answered reader questions about Afghanistan earlier today.

    Please click on the box below to replay the informative chat. 

     From Lester Holt: For US soldiers, repeat deployments 'definitely take a toll'

     

  • For US soldiers, repeat deployments 'definitely take a toll'

    The Third Infantry Division is used to being deployed. Now, after multiple deployments to Iraq, the 3rd ID has been sent to Afghanistan for the first time. NBC's Lester Holt reports.

    Lester Holt writes

    KABUL – “How many deployments for you? Iraq, Afghanistan or both?”

    See our full coverage on international hot spots crucial to U.S. foreign policy ahead of elections in our At the Brink series here. And tune in today to special coverage on all NBC News platforms from NBC’s team of anchors and correspondents deployed in five countries across the region.

    In an army that’s been waging war in Afghanistan for 11 years, talking about past deployments is what amounts to small talk on the many bases I’ve visited this past week from Kabul to Kandahar, as well as along the Pakistan border in eastern Afghanistan. Soldiers rattle off the dates and locations of their deployments, and point out fellow soldiers with whom they served.

    The Army’s Third Infantry Division moved its headquarters recently from its home base at Fort Stewart, Ga., to Kandahar, Afghanistan. The move marked the division’s first deployment to Afghanistan, but it’s fifth to a war zone in the last 10 years. 

    The Third Infantry Division made history in 2003 when it kicked off the war in Iraq as the so-called “tip of the spear,” driving up from Kuwait straight into Baghdad in what veterans remember as the “Thunder Run.”

    Sgt. First Class Joseph Aiello says he couldn’t imagine back then that he would be in Afghanistan nine years later, still fighting a war.  When the Iraq war began, he was dating his sweetheart Terri. Today they are parents to three small children. Aiello has been on four of the division's five deployments since 2003.

    “It definitely takes a toll on family,” Aiello told me. He added, however, that worrying about home and family when you are in a war zone has its risks.

    “The minute you lose focus that’s when incidents can start to happen,” said Aiello. “You need to maintain focus while you’re here to do a job and that’s what we will get done.”

    The  Daily Rundown's Chuck Todd touches base with NBC reporters across the Mid-East including NBC's Atia Abawi in Kabul, Martin Fletcher in Tel Aviv, Ali Arouzi in Tehran and Ann Curry from the Syrian border.

    Serving on the home front, too
    Back in Georgia, Aiello’s wife, Terri, makes her own contribution to the war, as a physical therapist assistant helping wounded vets. At home she has become accustomed to living the life of a single mom.

    Photo Blog: Exploring home abroad: Afghan-Americans in Kabul

    “A bad day would be having a stressful day [at work] and then going home and the boys are fighting, Alyssa’s cranky and the homework’s not done,” she said about her three children.

    She’s learned to push ahead alone. “Nothing really changes. It’s just that he’s not there to experience everything with us.” 

    Her sacrifices are not lost on her husband.


    “A lot of people say that the soldiers got a hard job and everything like that. But the way I look at it, sir, is I definitely think the wives have the hardest job in the Army,” Aiello told me.

    ‘No different’
    Aiello is one of only a handful of Third Infantry Division soldiers with the unit today who were part of the original march into Baghdad back in 2003. The division’s pace of deployments over the last 10 years is nothing short of remarkable, but no more remarkable than the multiple deployments that have become the norm for thousands of U.S. service members.

    Eleven years of war have left tens of thousands of service families, like the Aiellos, sharing the void of long and too frequent separations.

    Maj. Gen. Robert Abrams, commanding general of the Third Infantry Division and the International Security Assistance Force’s Regional Command-South, underscored the point.

    “There are others making equal sacrifices across the army, so we don’t see ourselves any different,” Abrams said.

    Slideshow: Afghanistan: Nation at a crossroads

    Anwarullah / Reuters

    More than ten years after the beginning of the war, Afghanistan faces external pressure to reform as well as ongoing internal conflicts.

    Launch slideshow

    Aiello recalled the long wait for letters from home in those early days following the Iraq invasion. Now he does video chats with his family regularly via Skype, which didn’t exist in 2003.

    On the TODAY Show this weekend, dozens of service members crowded around our broadcast location here at the joint task force headquarters for ISAF in Kabul. Many of them carried signs with pictures of the children whose birthdays, and sweet-16 parties they are missing back home.

    A suicide bomber in Afghanistan kills at least 14 people, including 3 NATO service members, bringing the US death toll on the ground to 2,000 with 20 percent of American combat deaths stemming from insider attacks. NBC's Richard Engel reports.

    The international coalition has set the end of 2014 to withdraw most combat forces from Afghanistan. In the meantime, the United States will continue to ask a lot from so few. The troops and the families will wait for them to return one day and stay home for good.

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