TEHRAN: Iranian authorities ordered many government offices to close on Wednesday in a bid to cut power consumption as a heatwave strains generating capacity, state media reported.
At least 15 of Iran's 31 provinces will see public offices either shut or operating on reduced hours, the official IRNA news agency said.
Provinces affected include West Azerbaijan and Ardabil in the northwest, Hormozgan in the south, and Alborz in the north, as well as the capital Tehran.
Tehran governor Mohammad Sadegh Motamedian said the closures came at the request of the energy ministry and were intended to "manage energy consumption in the water and electricity sectors", state television said.
Emergency and frontline services will remain open, it added.
Elevated temperatures that began in mid-July have strained Iran's power grid, prompting rolling blackouts nationwide as temperatures topped 50C in the south.
Authorities in Tehran have also reduced mains water pressure to manage falling reservoir levels, as the country endures what Iranian media have described as the worst drought in a century.
Iran orders office closures as heatwave strains power grid
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Iran orders office closures as heatwave strains power grid
- Temperatures topped 50C in the south
US lawmakers press Israel to probe strike on reporters in Lebanon
- “The IDF has made no effort, none, to seriously investigate this incident,” Welch said
- Collins called for Washington to publicly acknowledge the attack in which an American citizen was injured
WASHINGTON: Several Democratic lawmakers called Thursday for the Israeli and US governments to fully investigate a deadly 2023 attack by the Israeli military on journalists in southern Lebanon.
The October 13, 2023 airstrike killed Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah and wounded six other reporters, including two from AFP — video journalist Dylan Collins and photographer Christina Assi, who lost her leg.
“We expect the Israeli government to conduct an investigation that meets the international standards and to hold accountable those people who did this,” Senator Peter Welch told a news conference, with Collins by his side.
The lawmaker from Collins’s home state of Vermont said he had been pushing for answers for two years, first from the administration of Democratic president Joe Biden and now from the Republican White House of Donald Trump.
The Israeli government has “stonewalled at every single turn,” Welch added.
“With the Israeli government, we have been extremely patient, and we have done everything we reasonably can to obtain answers and accountability,” he said.
“The IDF has made no effort, none, to seriously investigate this incident,” Welch said, referring to the Israeli military, adding that it has told his office its investigation into the incident is closed.
Collins called for Washington to publicly acknowledge the attack in which an American citizen was injured.
“But I’d also like them to put pressure on their greatest ally in the Middle East, the Israeli government, to bring the perpetrators to account,” he said, echoing the lawmakers who called the attack a “war crime.”
“We’re not letting it go,” Vermont congresswoman Becca Balint said. “It doesn’t matter how long they stonewall us.”
AFP conducted an independent investigation which concluded that two Israeli 120mm tank shells were fired from the Jordeikh area in Israel.
The findings were corroborated by other international probes, including investigations conducted by Reuters, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders.
Unlike Welch’s assertion Thursday that the Israeli probe was over, the IDF told AFP in October that “findings regarding the event have not yet been concluded.”
