TEHRAN (Iran News) Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper quoted high-ranking sources of the Israeli army as saying that the army’s maintenance and repair center cannot repair this amount of tanks, armored personnel carriers and armored vehicles.

The sources did not mention the exact number of tanks and weapons damaged by Hezbollah and the Palestinian resistance groups.

The damaged vehicles include Merkava tanks, and Tiger and Etan armored vehicles, which are carried out by the maintenance center of the Israeli army.

The post Large number of Israeli armored vehicles damaged: Report appeared first on Iran News Daily.

This number of produced tires weighed over 288,149 tons, with a four-percent drop year on year.

As reported, 24,179,708 car tires weighting 259,096 tons were produced in the past year, with four percent drop in number, and five percent fall in weight as compared to its preceding year.

In the previous year, 152,251 tons of passenger car tires were produced, showing a five-percent fall year on year.

Passenger cars accounted for 58.7 percent of the total tires produced in 1400.

Van tires output rose six percent to stand at 27,360 tons, while truck and bus tires output fell six percent to stand at 54,928 tons.

Production of the tires of light agricultural vehicles experienced a decline of 24 percent to stand at 3,256 tons, while that of the heavy ones also declined eight percent to stand at 16,620 tons.

Production of the tires of road building and industrial vehicles also fell 28 percent to 4,681 tons in the period under review.

In the past year, 18,746 tons of bicycle and motorcycle tires were produced, showing 13 percent growth.

Production of tubes rose one percent to stand at 10,307 tons.

The tire industry has a 60-year history in Iran. Currently, 11 tire manufacturing companies are active across the country that produce tires for passenger cars, trucks, buses, vans, road construction, and agriculture machinery, as well as bicycles and motorcycles in addition to other types of tubes.

Some15,000 people are directly employed in this industry and more than 250,000 people are indirectly involved in the value chain of this industry.

The Iranian tire industry, despite the continuation of sanctions and the coronavirus pandemic conditions, as well as some domestic restrictions, has been following a thriving and successful path over the past few years.

In addition to the successes achieved in terms of the output amount, Iranian tire manufacturers have entered new areas including production of the wide-base tires and the tires of SUVs.

Wide base tires, which are a new generation of heavy vehicles’ tires, have been produced for the first time in West Asia by Iranian producers.

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Who is most at fault?

A clear-cut answer is that successive administrations and parliaments are mostly responsible for the current situation.

Even now that the national budget bill is being studied at the parliament, a special parliamentary committee tasked to first analyze the budget bill has slashed the money for development of public transport and strongly opposed a proposed 50 percent rise in gasoline prices.

These moves show that most MPs are not aware of the extravagant costs of heavily subsidized fuel on the economy and the health of citizens.

Failure to educate the people how to be environment friendly has worsened the situation. This is exemplified in the excessive use of private cars, natural gas for home heating. Waste of energy resources is more acute in state buildings.

According to experts, old trucks, motorcycles, locally-produced passenger cars, and certain foreign produced cars assembled at home are the main culprit for the pollutants.

The Majlis, which in most cases has acted as a hurdle to stop what I call the “foolish subsidization of fuel”, has even failed to force car and motorcycle companies to raise their fuel efficiency.

There is a big question why responsible bodies, which have been allowing billions of dollars to be wasted through fuel subsidy, do not allocate a small portion of that subsidy for development of public transport and limit private cars in the streets at least in wintertime when inversions are common.

The health of citizens, especially in big cities, is actually being traded for production of substandard vehicles and motorcycles. Vehicles that should be at the service of citizens have turned into the enemies of people. We are now a hostage to them.

Maybe the true words were expressed by Environment Protection Organization chief Isa Kalantari who on January 28 said the domestic car companies act like a “mafia” and they are so strong that even the president may not be able to stop them from producing “polluting” cars.

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