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West Adds to Strains on Iran's Lifeline

[New York Times] Jad Mouawad - Western political and economic pressure on Iran over its nuclear program has chilled foreign investment to the extent that it is now squeezing the country's long-fragile energy industry, adding strains to a government that is burdened by sanctions and wary of unrest at home. To curb demand, which has been driven in part by subsidies that keep the domestic pump price at a mere 35 cents a gallon, the government plans to begin rationing gasoline in March, a measure so unpopular, and potentially explosive, that rationing plans have been put off several times in the past. In recent weeks, senior American officials warned several European oil companies that if they invested in new energy projects, they risked financial sanctions in the U.S. Foreign investors have been scarce since the 1979 revolution, and the country's oil industry has now suffered decades of economic, political and technical problems.
2007-02-14 01:00:00
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