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It has been 18 months since Kanniyakumari-native Maria Gildas left home for work in Iran. He has been stuck there since, waiting for a seat on a return flight.

A total of 65 fishermen, including 40 from Tamil Nadu, 19 from Kerala and one from Puducherry, are holed up in a room in Iran, waiting for help from the Central and State governments.

A ship brought many home... He did not get a seat on it. We dont have money for a ticket. The last time too, when he tried coming home before the COVID-19 outbreak, he did not have money for a ticket and had to work for two months to earn the money. They now have found a sponsor for the tickets, said Jeeva, wife of Mr. Gildas.

Ms. Jeeva has now pinned her hopes on the kindness and compassion of Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami.

He has been kind enough to bring back many fishermen. He has written to the Union government asking them to expedite the return of those stranded in Iran, she said.

Mr. Gildas said that they were waiting for details about a flight to Delhi on July 16.

We struggled for a seat on that ship. It had a capacity of only 700 persons, so we were left behind. People here are from several districts, including Nagapattinam and Cuddalore, said Mr. Gildas, the captain of a boat, speaking over the phone to The Hindu.

We are not bothered about eating or sleeping. We just want to return home, he said.

Fisheries Minister D. Jayakumar said that steps were being taken to bring back the men.

They will be brought back at the earliest, he said.

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Fishermen stranded in Iran look to head back home - The Hindu

LONDON (Reuters) - Iran has slashed crude oil production to its lowest level in four decades as storage tanks and vessels are almost completely full due to a fall in exports and refinery run cuts caused by the coronavirus pandemic, industry data showed.

FILE PHOTO: A general view of Abadan oil refinery in southwest Iran, is pictured from Iraqi side of Shatt al-Arab in Al-Faw south of Basra, Iraq September 21, 2019. REUTERS/Essam Al-Sudani/File Photo

Total onshore crude stocks surged to 54 million barrels in April from 15 million barrels in January, and swelled further to 63 million barrels in June, according to FGE Energy.

Market intelligence firm Kpler estimated Iranian average onshore crude storage for June to be around 66 million barrels.

That is around 85% of available onshore storage capacity.

(Graphic: Iranian onshore crude oil storage, here)

However, it will technically not be possible to fill tanks to 100% given technical constraints at storage tanks and potential infrastructure bottlenecks, said Homayoun Falakshahi, a senior analyst at Kpler.

Tensions between Tehran and Washington have ratcheted up since 2018, when the United States withdrew from a 2015 nuclear pact between Iran and six major powers and President Donald Trump reimposed sanctions on Iran, hammering vital oil exports.

Irans floating storage is also filling up. Shipping sources said Iran was estimated to be using in the region of 30 tankers to store oil most of them supertankers, each of which can carry a maximum of 2 million barrels of oil.

This would equate to over 50 million barrels of oil being stored, which has been static for some months. This is likely to be a combination of crude and condensate, a very light grade of crude, the sources said.

Refinitiv data showed a maximum of 56.4 million barrels were being held in floating storage by July 3.

Irans fleet of crude oil tankers numbers 54 vessels, data from valuations specialist VesselsValue showed.

Iran storage is expected to continue as we do not see these vessels being able to trade anytime soon, a spokesman for shipping group NORDEN said.

The exact number of Iranian vessels on floating storage is a bit of a black box as they have all turned off their AIS signals, he said, referring to a vessels tracking transponder.

The oil ministry is trying to manage crude stocks by shutting more production.

Irans total liquid production - including crude oil, condensate and natural gas liquids - fell from 3.1 million barrels per day (bpd) in March to 3 million bpd in June, according to FGE. The firm predicts the production will fall by another 100,000 bpd in July.

Crude production was as low as 1.9 million bpd in June, according to Reuters OPEC survey. That was almost half of Iran's production in 2018, and the lowest level since 1981, the beginning of Iran's war with Iraq and attacks on its oil facilities, according to OPEC data. (Graphic: Iran oil production, here)

Iranian exports also fell to new lows as an oversupplied market and the coronavirus pandemic made it harder for Tehran to find customers willing to take its sanctions-hit oil.

Iranian crude exports were around 100,000 bpd in May, according to Kpler, and around 210,000 bpd according to FGE, reaching a new low, and a fraction of the more than 2.5 million bpd that Iran shipped in April 2018.

Kpler estimated June crude exports at 237,000 bpd and FGE at

210,000 bpd.

In the absence of official data, estimates are usually based on cargo tracking and could be subsequently revised.

Condensate stocks have also skyrocketed and are still rising. Managing the condensate inventories would be more difficult for Iran, analysts said, as they were byproduct of gas production that the country is heavily reliant on.

We still see Irans condensate stocks to continue building and approaching critical levels within the next 12 months, FGE said.

Irans domestic products demand, especially gasoline, also dropped in first half of 2020 due to COVID-19 lockdowns, putting more pressure on the inventories.

Iran is a coronavirus hot spot in the Middle East with more than 11,000 reported deaths, according to a Reuters tally.

As the result, Irans refinery runs significantly dropped in the second quarter of 2020.

Refinery intake for crude fell to 1.4 million bpd in May from 1.5 million bpd in April, FGE estimated. The intake was almost 1.8 million bpd in February before the lockdown.

(Graphic: Iran Crude & Condensate Stocks Outlook, here)

Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin and Jonathan Saul, additional reporting by Alex Lawler; editing by David Evans

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Iran's oil storage almost full as sanctions and pandemic weigh - Reuters

Irans controversial former president is reportedly set to offer to negotiate a peace settlement between warring groups in Yemen, but he may find no takers in either the Arabian Peninsula or his own government.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a one-time firebrand who served as Irans president from 2005 to 2013, plans to send letters to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the leader of Yemens rebel Houthi movement and Saudi Arabias Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, offering to mediate an end of the conflict, several Iranian news websites cited an informed source close to the former official as saying.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates launched a war in Yemen in 2015 after the Iranian-backed Houthi militia took control of the countrys capital, Sanaa, from the internationally recognised government. The conflict has since turned the country into the worlds most dire humanitarian crises, according to the UN.

Sharing the full story, not just the headlines

According to the source close to Mr Ahamadinejad, the letters would be followed by the formation of a mediation commission that would oversee peace talks. Citing an unnamed source, Independent Persian journalist and scholar Arash Azizi said Mr Ahmadinejad had asked former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohammad to join the mediation panel.

Mr Ahmadinejads letters have yet to be publicly released. But a senior official of the internationally recognised Yemeni government, now based in the city of Aden, quickly dismissed any talks.

The best thing Iran could do to Yemen is to stay away from Yemen and to stop their support for the Houthis, Yemeni foreign minister Mohammed al-Hadhrami told the Independent.

It also remains unclear if Mr Ahmadinejad understands the extraordinary complexity of Yemens conflicts, which include battles between UAE-backed southern separatists and the pro-Saudi government in Aden and a military effort to defeat Al Qaedas local branch.

Mr Ahmadinejad, the first non-cleric to become president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, also lacks credibility in his own country. He was a noisy populist hardliner in office but managed to alienate both reformists and conservatives with his disruptive foreign and domestic policies. Under his presidency Iran drastically expanded its nuclear programme and increased hostility with the west while damaging Irans economy with pricey handouts that fuelled inflation.

During his presidency, he frequently wrote letters to world leaders requesting dialogue, but was frequently ignored.

At 63, Mr Ahmadinejad, who is also a former mayor of Tehran, has been struggling to redefine himself and remain in the public limelight.

His attempt to run for the presidency in 2017 was thwarted by the Council of Guardians, which vets Iranian candidates for national office. He has sought to generate buzz through social media, praising professional athletes, quoting American rap stars and commenting on world affairs.

What sin have the people of Kashmir, Libya, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, and the people of the Ninth Ward [of New Orleans] and those of the South Side of Chicago committed to live under such an inhuman world system of governance? he wrote last year on Twitter.

Some analysts have suggested Mr Ahmadinejad may be preparing a 2021 presidential bid. Earlier this week he decried a potential long-term deal between Iran and China, saying it would allow Beijing to economically exploit the country.

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Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: Irans controversial former president to offer to mediate in Yemen war, reports say - The Independent

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News Update: Iran blames bad communication, alignment for jet shootdown, bicyclist hit by car, Tyson moving toward meat cutting robots - KCTV Kansas...

People gather to protest the US air strike in Iraq that killed Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani, who headed Iran's Revolutionary Guards' elite Quds force in Sanaa, Yemen on January 6, 2020.

Mohammed Hamoud | Andalou Agency | Getty Images

Iran's government has issued an arrest warrant for U.S. President Donald Trump over the killing of its top commander,Gen. Qasem Soleimani, in January, the country's semiofficial Fars news agency reported Monday.

Tehran is also reportedly asking Interpol for help, according to Fars. Ali Alghasi-Mehr, the attorney general of Tehran,named Trump and 35 others Iran has accused of involvement in Soleimani's death asfacing "murder and terrorism charges," and was quoted as saying he had asked Interpol to issue "red notices" for them the highest level notice Interpol can issue on an individual to pursue their arrest.

Trump, however, is in no danger of arrest and it's highly unlikely Interpol would honor Iran's request, as the international agency's guidelines forbid it from "undertaking any intervention or activities of a political" nature. Red notices enable local law enforcement authorities to arrest individuals on behalf of the requesting country, though they cannot force the country to arrest or extradite suspects.

The Trump administration has so far not responded to Iran's announcement. Interpol did not immediatelyreply to a request for comment from CNBC.

Soleimani led Iran's Quds Force, the foreign operations wing of the elite paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Trump administration labeled him a terrorist, and Washington deemed him responsible for the deaths of hundreds of U.S. troops in Iraq.

The 62-year-old Soleimani was killed in a drone strike directed by Trump in early January while in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, in a move that sent regional tensions and oil prices soaring and triggered a retaliatory attack by Iran and its proxies on Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops.

In emphasizing Soleimani's significance, one defense analyst called the strike "the equivalent of Iran killing the U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and then taking credit for it."

Less than a week after the drone strike, on Jan. 8, more than a dozen Iranian ballistic missiles hit Ain al-Asad airbase in Iraq's western Anbar province and a base in Erbil in the country's north. There were no deaths.

The death of Soleimani, revered as a hero in much of Iran, prompted three days of nationwide mourning across the country. And while Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei praised the retaliatory attack as a "slap on the face" to the U.S., he said it was "not enough," suggesting further action.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards vowed"severe revenge"on the U.S. andexperts warned of Iranian-led attackson U.S. military bases and energy facilities in the region, cyberattacks and potential assaults via Iran's numerous proxies in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan and beyond. But confrontation between the two adversaries has been relatively quiet since, at least compared with the previous year something some experts attribute to the coronavirus crisis, which has engulfed both countries. By late February, Iran had become the Middle East's epicenter of the disease.

Last year saw the U.S. accuse Iran of blowing up multiple foreign tankers in the Persian Gulf, the Iranian downing of a U.S. drone, and more sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic by the Trump administration as the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal moves ever closer to collapse.Tehran has denied involvement in the tanker attacks.

Iran has announced numerous steps to roll back its adherence to the Obama-era deal, meant to curb its nuclear program in exchange for economic relief, ever since Trump withdrew the U.S. from it in 2018.

Washington and Tehran have not had formal diplomatic relations since 1980.

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Iran issues arrest warrant for Trump over killing of Qasem ...