Head of the AREPO, a subsidiary of the Iranian Agriculture Ministry Mojtaba Khayyam Nekouyi , said on Monday that food demand in Iran will reach 180 million metric tons (mt) in 2031 when the country’s population is expected to reach 103 million.

Khayyam Nekouyi said that Iran’s agriculture output is currently responsible for 80% of a total food demand of 156 million (mt) in a country of nearly 85 million people, Press TV reported.

The deputy minister of agriculture said Iran will be capable of responding to its rising food demand in the next seven years if it uses a proper management system for its water and land resources, otherwise, with the continued trend in reduction of water resources and the increasing (global) food supply problems, the country’s food security will be at risk, he emphasized.

He said that average annual precipitation in Iran had fallen from 250 millimeters to 220 millimeters, adding that dwindling water supplies and lack of management on resources could pose a major risk to Iran’s food security in the future.

However, he said Iran could increase its agricultural output to respond to its food demand and cut back on imports with more efficient farming and water management techniques.

“We have the potentials and facilities for production of basic commodities needed in the country,” said the official.

Iran has introduced measures in recent years to increase activity in its agriculture sector.

The policy has been aimed at guaranteeing food security in the country at a time it faces trade restrictions because of US sanctions.

The prosecutor general of Iran’s southern province of Kerman announced on Wednesday that the Intelligence Ministry forces have arrested the gun-runners after receiving information about the trafficking of a haul of contraband arms and ammunition into the province.

Mahdi Bakhshi said two “anti-security elements” of the gang with criminal records of involvement in smuggling and selling arms in the eastern parts of Iran have been arrested in the operation.

The intelligence agents of Jiroft in Kerman have confiscated 24 handguns, over 400 bullets and a vehicle from the gun-runners, he added.

The prosecutor general noted that the convicts had plans to transit the weapons to other provinces across the country.

In an address to a meeting of the Economic and Financial Committee (Second Committee) of the UN General Assembly on “Sustainable Development and its Sub-Items”, held in New York on October 11, Second Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iran Nooshin Teymourpour denounced the US sanctions for limiting Iran’s access to modern technologies and predictable financial resources.

She said the unlawfully imposed sanctions have adversely affected Iran’s national plans to conserve biodiversity, impaired its capabilities to halt the degradation of ecosystems and have left no access to the means of implementation for climate action.

What follows is the full text of her statement:

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful.

Madam Chair,

My delegation would like to associate itself with the statement delivered by Pakistan and Venezuela on behalf of the Group of 77 and China and the Group of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United Nations.

Madam Chair,

According to the 2022 Sustainable Development Goals Report, cascading and interlinked crises are dangerously jeopardizing the Agenda for Sustainable Development. The Report, which is prepared by the UN DESA in collaboration with more than 50 international and regional agencies based on data from over 200 countries and territories, claims that it highlights the severity and magnitude of the challenges before us. While this report correctly identifies the numerous challenges and obstacles to achieving sustainable development goals, it also refrains from making a single reference or even the slightest mention of unilateralism and unilateral coercive economic measures as one of the most important challenges facing many countries in the achievement of sustainable development. This is while paragraph 30 of the Agenda explicitly and strongly urges all countries from promulgating such measures.

When the only official UN report that monitors global progress on the Agenda for Sustainable Development closes its eyes deliberately and due to political considerations regarding one of the most important challenges on the path of sustainable development and simultaneously ignores one of the main paragraphs of the Agenda, how can we accept the claim that “no one will be left behind” as an honest statement?

Unfortunately, and surprisingly, there is no mention of the need to promote multilateralism in this report, nor is there any criticism of unilateralism and its negative impacts on sustainable development as if no such problem exists in the world despite the fact that the politicization of development is a painful reality. We hope that in the next report, the authors will take a more realistic and less political approach.

Madam Chair;

Given Iran’s geographical location and its susceptibility to natural disasters, our Country has encountered numerous challenges such as flooding, land degradation, desertification, sand and dust storms, water scarcity and more unstable climate conditions on the one hand. On the other hand, Iran has grappled with the threat of illegal unilateral coercive measures as well as foreign-sponsored terrorism and extremist violence. The result is that often, instead of focusing on ways to reverse poverty, environmental destruction and development impediments, governments are obliged to commit their limited national resources to fighting insecurity.

During recent years, Iran has accelerated its efforts in areas that support policies and programs which ensure more inclusive and sustainable development. However, it is unfortunate that such efforts towards national development are not backed by adequate international support, especially in mobilizing the available means of implementation.

Dear Colleagues,

Developing countries are, as always, disproportionately affected by the adverse implications of climate change. The effective implementation of United Nations environmental conventions would depend on the provision of financial resources and the transfer of technology. However, it is a matter of grave concern that after three decades, the developed countries have not fulfilled their commitments under these conventions, especially with respect to the transfer of technology and provision of financial resources.

Access to modern technologies and predictable financial resources continue to be limited for the Islamic Republic of Iran, not only because of the unwillingness of developed countries to implement their commitments to support developing countries, but also due to its position as a target of the continued imposition of unilateral coercive measures by the United States.

Such illegal actions which contravene the principles of unity and solidarity have impinged on every right of Iranians, including the right to development, the right to a healthy environment and the right to enjoy social welfare. Unlawfully imposed sanctions have adversely affected our national plans to conserve biodiversity, impaired our capabilities to halt the degradation of ecosystems and have left no access to the means of implementation for climate action.

Distinguished Delegates,

Sand and dust storms are just one of the numerous multilayered challenges that we face across the world. Despite the fact that more than 150 countries around the world suffer from this phenomenon according to numerous reports of the United Nations and Specialized Agencies, our take in our region is more severe, more frequent and more complex due to the interconnectedness between drought, desertification, unsustainable development plans and countless additional factors. As far as the harmful impact of sand and dust storms is concerned, we need to synergize our efforts to mitigate its impact and to adapt our economies to this long-term environmental challenge.

Due to the transboundary nature of sand and dust storms and in order to enhance regional collaboration, the Regional Ministerial Meeting on “Environmental cooperation for a better future” took place in Tehran in July 2022 which aimed to find solutions for transboundary environmental challenges, especially the sand and dust storms issue. Its Ministerial Declaration has welcomed the idea of developing a regional agreement to enhance cooperation among the countries in the region and created a regional fund to financially support the implementation of joint projects for combating sand and dust storms in their respective countries.

Madam Chair,

Despite all restraints, national economic empowerment plans aiming to reduce the economic consequences during the pandemic are focused on people in vulnerable situations, including women heads of households and rural women and girls. Several infrastructure investments have been made in the field of health, education, empowerment and creating access to digital and internet facilities for Iranian women, the result of which is as follows:

Women’s life expectancy has increased from 56 years in 1976 to 79 in 2020, and the Maternal Mortality Rate has decreased from 91 in 1988 to 16 in 2021.

Close to 50 percent of internet users in Iran are women, and women’s participation rate in R&D activities has increased to 31.2 percent. Close to 50 percent of higher education graduates are women, and 31 percent of the employees are women with higher education.

As a result of intensified efforts to enhance the managerial skills and executive expertise of women employees and, consequently, increase the participation of women in decision-making, the Government has appointed more women to managerial positions. This rate has risen from 13 percent in 2017 to more than 25 percent in 2021.

In Iran, women constitute 73 percent of health professionals and 49 percent of physicians.

Madam Chair,

To conclude, Madam Chair, we have to ensure that the slogan in the agenda that no one will be left behind will not remain a decorative matter. We believe that this slogan is the DNA and backbone of the Agenda, without which no sustainable development will be realized and towards which we have to take constructive, efficient, and serious steps. This would not happen without working together and taking effective and immediate measures to put an end to UCMs.

In a meeting with his Finnish counterpart Sauli Niinisto on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, President Raisi criticized the double standard of the West in dealing with human rights.

“Double standards are the biggest and most serious example of human rights violations. According to the official statistics of Western countries and especially the United States, every year a large number of citizens of these countries are killed by unjustified use of force by the police, but this issue has not in any way caused the countries that claim to defend human rights to express concern,” he added.

Hailing the friendly and developing ties between Tehran and Helsinki, Raisi said, “Considering the various capacities available in Iran and Finland, the interactions between the two countries can be upgraded to a higher level.”

“The Islamic Republic is determined to develop cooperation and improve the level of relations with all friendly countries, including Finland,” he stated.

Explaining the logic of Iran in the nuclear issue, President Raisi said, “Considering the history of the violation of the agreement by the United States and the European countries that are parties to the nuclear agreement, today no one in the world can claim that Iran’s position in obtaining reliable guarantees for not violating the agreement again by Western countries is irrational.”

Describing the US sanctions against Iran as cruel and illegal, Raisi noted, “The sanctions are the continuation of the same policy of military attack with the intention of imposing the wishes and opinions of hegemonic and tyrannical countries on independent countries, which is being followed in a new form, but sanctions have not been able to stop the Islamic Republic and I invite you to visit Iran to witness the continuation of our country’s growth and progress in various scientific, technical, production and economic fields.”

He also emphasized that the defense of human rights is in the essence of the Islamic Republic of Iran, adding, “Defending human rights and human kind has always been one of the serious priorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

President Raisi also referred to the concern expressed by the president of Finland regarding the situation of the Afghan people and refugees and said, “Is it possible to solve a problem for them by simply expressing concern for the people of Afghanistan and not paying attention to why this situation has arisen?”

The president stated that the current situation of the Afghan people is the result of the 20 years of US and NATO presence in this country, which has only resulted in destruction, killing and bloodshed, and that the disability of 35,000 Afghan children during this period was only one of the results of this presence, saying, “Violation of human rights cannot be cured by issuing resolutions and requires diligent follow-up and elimination of its roots and factors.”

For his part, the Finnish president thanked for holding this meeting and said, “Finland and Iran have good relations with each other and their bilateral relations are friendly and developing.”

Thanking the Islamic Republic of Iran for hosting a huge population of Afghan refugees, he asked Raisi to mediate to end the conflicts in Ukraine.

The Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) said various forms of physical and mental torture as well as mistreatment are among the torments that prisoners endure in the detention center.

It added that officials at the prison, located south of the capital Manama, have lately ramped up their repressive measures and harassment of imprisoned political dissidents, including human rights advocate Abdulhadi al-Khawaja.

Khawaja, the former president and co-founder of the BCHR, was arrested and put on trial on April 9, 2011, as part of a campaign of repression by Bahraini authorities following pro-democracy protests in the Persian Gulf kingdom.

He was sentenced on June 22 that year, along with eight other activists, to life imprisonment.

Khawaja has gone on a series of hunger strikes while serving his life sentence, in protest at political conditions in Bahrain.

The Bahrain Center for Human Rights further noted that prisoners of conscience at Jau Prison have been put on unfair trials, and handed down lengthy jail terms simply on charges of defending their rights and criticizing the policies of the ruling Al Khalifa regime.

It went on to say that prison authorities have recently summoned a number of guards, who used to torture detained activists in the past, to perform their duties in prison cells.

This has enraged the prisoners, including Khawaja, prompting them to stage protests in a show of strong resentment over the stepped-up repression.

Earlier this month, BCHR censured Bahrain over its repressive measures and heavy-handed crackdown against political opponents and democracy advocates, saying the Persian Gulf country has the biggest number of political prisoners among Arab states.

The independent human rights organization said in a report that Bahrain, under the ruling Al Khalifa dynasty, has the largest number of imprisoned rights activists, and it is estimated that there are some 4,500 campaigners being held behind bars across the country.

BCHR went on to note that a lot of reports published over the past decade have shed light on the deplorable conditions of prisoners at Bahraini jails, prompting the international community and human rights organizations to compel the Al Khalifa regime to relatively improve prison conditions.

Demonstrations have been held in Bahrain on a regular basis since the popular uprising began in the Arab country in mid-February 2011.

People demand that the Al Khalifa regime relinquish power and allow a just system representing all Bahrainis to be established.

Manama, however, has gone to great lengths to clamp down on any form of dissent.