Iran brought to standstill as regime ramps-up nuclear missile bid

No lorries have moved in parts of Iran for 11 days as drivers dig their heels in over the regime, and their own pay and conditions. The 900,000 truck drivers and more than 400,000 active trucks are the life blood of the economy in Iran, which has no significant rail or air network, moving millions of tons fuel, food, flour, agricultural and industrial products.

Tens of thousands of truckers are refusing to drive, with a massive knock-on effect for the rest of the nation's economy. The regime's response has been swift and severe, with drivers tortured and locked-up by the Revolutionary Guard for daring to strike. But the strike is spreading to other sectors and truckers are being joined by farmers and taxi-drivers. Some are seeing it as the spark powder-keg Iran needs to trigger a Syria-like toppling of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's repressive regime.

In recent years Iran has seen increasing numbers of actions against the state, and it's power has been fundamentally undermined by both the collapse of Syria and Israel's dismantling of proxy forces Hezbollah and Hamas. The People's Mujahideen Organization of Iran (MEK) has an unknown, but extensive, network of "resistance units" across the country who carry out acts of disobedience on an almost daily basis.

One member, currently being hunted by Iranian secret police, recently told the rank and file Iranians were just waiting for a spark which could trigger a revolution from the streets. Maryam Rajavi is President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a movement dedicated to the removal of the Khamenei's religious dictatorship and replacing it with a modern democracy, in which religion and state are separate.

She said: "Uprising and resistance are the only paths to freedom from poverty, discrimination, unemployment, and systemic government corruption." Addressing the second Free Iran 2025 conference this weekend Rajavi said the striking truck drivers "cry out against a system built on injustice. Today, they are the voice of millions upon millions of hardworking people who have been plundered by this regime. One must ask: why is it that these drivers, who demand nothing more than their most basic rights, receive no response, and instead are met with arrest and repression?...The arrested drivers must be released."

Saturday saw Iran entering a seventh weekend of tortuous negotiations with the US. Donald Trump is demanding Tehran abandon plans for a nuclear weapon. However Iran possesses significant quantities of uranium enriched to near weapons grade and many critics say the talks are being deliberately stalled while Tehran ramps-up its attempts to achieve a nuclear missile.

This weekend too, a confidential document produced by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Iran now possesses over 400kg of uranium enriched to 60% purity, a near 50% increase in three months. It only takes a minor technical procedure to boost the level to 90% - enough for atomic bombs.

The amount is enough for about 10 nuclear weapons. The IAEA pointed out Iran the only non nuclear-armed state producing uranium at this level - and the only reason to do so is weapons production. Chillingly Tehran has produced highly enriched uranium at a rate equivalent to roughly one nuclear weapon per month over the past three months - while the nuclear negotiations between Iran and Washington were supposedly ongoing.

The IAEA attacked Iran for stonewalling inspectors attempting to access military sites where the agency believed the nuclear weapons research was being carried out. IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said: "The significantly increased production and accumulation of highly enriched uranium by Iran... is of serious concern."