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Khamenei Dissatisfied with Living Situation, Raisi Defends His Economic Performance

Khamenei delivers his annual televised speech (AFP)
Khamenei delivers his annual televised speech (AFP)
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Khamenei Dissatisfied with Living Situation, Raisi Defends His Economic Performance

Khamenei delivers his annual televised speech (AFP)
Khamenei delivers his annual televised speech (AFP)

Iran’s Spiritual Leader Ali Khamenei expressed his dissatisfaction with the living and economic situation in the country, while President Ebrahim Raisi defended his government’s economic performance, pointing to an improvement and a significant decrease in inflation.
In his annual televised address, Khamenei said the past year was “full of joys and bitterness,” stressing that economic and living problems were among the regretful developments.
At the same time, he spoke of “good work” and “some progress” in curbing the inflation and promoting production.
For the upcoming year, the Iranian leader launched the slogan of “productive boom with people’s participation.” It is the ninth year in a row that carries a purely economic slogan, since the conclusion of the 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and the major powers, under which international economic sanctions were lifted in January 2016, before former US President Donald Trump reinstated them in August 2018.
Since 1999, Khamenei starts each new year by launching an annual slogan to be the focus of the policies of the state apparatus, especially the government and parliament.
“After reviewing the opinions of experts, I came to the conclusion that the main key to solving the country’s problems is production, national production. That is why we have relied in recent years on our own,” Khamenei said in his address.
On the foreign policy level, he said that the government’s moves in various economic and political fields “were good news,” but he described the developments in Gaza as “bitter events in our foreign issues.”
For his part, Raisi said that his government had attracted foreign investments amounting to $11 billion.
This investment is certain, and not just on paper,” he said in a televised speech, noting that official statistics show an average economic growth rate of 6 percent over the past year.
He continued: “The inflation rate has decreased, although prices are still high... but the indicators show that we have chosen the right path for a sustainable decline in inflation and economic growth, with the help of people and activists in the economic field.”

 

 

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Huge Power Outage Paralyzes Parts of Spain and Portugal

This photograph shows a flamenco dress factory without light and workers during a massive power cut affecting the entire Iberian peninsula and the south of France, in Seville on April 28, 2025. (AFP)
This photograph shows a flamenco dress factory without light and workers during a massive power cut affecting the entire Iberian peninsula and the south of France, in Seville on April 28, 2025. (AFP)
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Huge Power Outage Paralyzes Parts of Spain and Portugal

This photograph shows a flamenco dress factory without light and workers during a massive power cut affecting the entire Iberian peninsula and the south of France, in Seville on April 28, 2025. (AFP)
This photograph shows a flamenco dress factory without light and workers during a massive power cut affecting the entire Iberian peninsula and the south of France, in Seville on April 28, 2025. (AFP)

A huge power outage hit large parts of Spain and Portugal on Monday, paralyzing traffic, grounding flights, trapping people in elevators and leaving power operators scrambling to restore power to millions of homes and businesses.

Some hospitals halted routine work and the two countries' governments convened emergency cabinet meetings, with officials initially saying a possible cyber-attack could not be ruled out. Outages on such a scale are extremely rare in Europe, and the cause could not immediately be established.

Reuters witnesses said power had started returning to the Basque country and Barcelona areas of Spain in the early afternoon, a few hours after the outage began. It was not clear when power might be more widely restored.

Hospitals in Madrid and Cataluna in Spain suspended all routine medical work but were still attending to critical patients, using backup generators. Several Spanish oil refineries were shut down and retail businesses shut.

The Bank of Spain said electronic banking was functioning "adequately" on backup systems, though residents also reported ATM screens had gone blank.

"I'm in a data center, and everything has gone off. All the alarms popped up, and now we're with the groups, waiting to find out what happened," said Barcelona resident and engineer Jose Maria Espejo, 40.

In a video posted on X, Madrid Mayor Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida urged city residents to minimize their journeys and stay where they were, adding: "It is essential that the emergency services can circulate."

In Portugal, water supplier EPAL said water supplies could also be disrupted, and queues formed at stores by people rushing to purchase emergency supplies like gaslights, generators and batteries.

The main Portuguese electricity utility, EDP, said it had told customers it had no forecast for when the energy supply would be "normalized", Publico newspaper said. It warned it could take several hours.

Parts of France also suffered a brief outage. RTE, the French grid operator, said it had moved to supplement power to some parts of northern Spain after the outage hit.

Play at the Madrid Open tennis tournament was suspended, forcing 15th seed Grigor Dimitrov and British opponent Jacob Fearnley off the court as scoreboards went dark and overhead cameras lost power.

TRAFFIC JAMS

Spanish radio stations said part of the Madrid underground was being evacuated. There were traffic jams in Madrid city center as traffic lights stopped working, Cader Ser Radio station reported.

Hundreds of people stood outside office buildings on Madrid’s streets and there was a heavy police presence around key buildings, directing traffic as well as driving along central atriums with lights, according to a Reuters witness.

One of four tower buildings in Madrid that houses the British Embassy had been evacuated, the witness added.

Local radio reported people trapped in stalled metro cars and elevators.

Portuguese police said traffic lights were affected across the country, the metro was closed in Lisbon and Porto, and trains were not running.

Lisbon's subway transport operator Metropolitano de Lisboa said the subway was at a standstill with people still inside the trains, according to Publico newspaper.

A source at Portugal's TAP Air said Lisbon airport was running on back-up generators, while AENA, which manages 46 airports in Spain, reported flight delays around the country.

Such widespread outages are unusual in Europe. In 2003 a problem with a hydroelectric power line between Italy and Switzerland caused a major outage across the whole Italian peninsula for around 12 hours.

In 2006 an overloaded power network in Germany caused electricity cuts across parts of the country and in France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Belgium, Netherlands and as far as Morocco.