On Tuesday February 21, thousands of people rallied outside Iran’s parliament in Tehran. 1,000 retired nurses from across Iran held a gathering to protest and demand better pensions. Women consisted of the majority in this gathering.

Another 400 retired Interior Ministry workers from Khorasan Razavi Province, northeast Iran, also held a gathering at this site, protesting and holding placards written, “We demand pensions and insurance equal to other ministries.”

Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossein Moftuglu issued a stark warning to Iran on Monday, February 20th.

“This is neither acceptable nor understandable that a country sending foreign refugees into war, to accuse others of inflicting regional tensions,” he said.

Iran must take constructive steps and instead of complaining against countries criticizing its actions, it should start re-evaluating its regional policies, he added.

Despite the US sanctions placed on Iran, its Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) carried out more missile testing at the beginning of the week. This was the start of the military manoeuvres that will last three days. 

The drills named “Payambar-e Azam 11”, The Great Prophet in English, are on a large scale and will be done in two stages. The Tamsin news agency said that the drills will include the use of air force units, artillery, air defence, infantry and drones. 

On Monday, the first day of drills, the IRGC used advanced and smart rockets. The exercised involved practicing to hit enemy locations.

In the latest of a series of provocative actions, Iran has just commenced a new set of military drills and Israel and Saudi Arabia have responded by issuing warnings. Tensions are rising between Iran and the United States but one important factor has been overlooked in all this – the volatile state of society in Iran. 

For the past 38 years, the people of Iran have been living under the dictatorship of the clerical regime. The past four of these years have been under the so-called “moderate” President Hassan Rouhani. But the reality is that there has been nothing moderate about him. The number of executions has risen dramatically and the crackdown on society is out of control.

The price of U.S. Dollar increased from 3791 to 3797, last week. Price of each newly designed Bahar Azadi gold coin reached one 1,169,000 tomans, a 5,600 toman gain, compared to its price a day before.

At the stock exchange, shares of seven auto manufacturing groups traded lower in the capital market, according to gold and jewelry union website.

State-run Shahrvand newspaper reported on February 9, 2017, that 11% of Iran’s population are now below the absolute poverty line, with another 30% being below the relative poverty line.

When President Trump named the seven majority Muslim countries named in January’s travel ban, which is now pending a legal review, it caused great concerns for Iranians with connections in the United States. Iran has one of their largest diasporas based in the United States, as well as the largest number of overseas students, and the highest number of people traveling on visitor visas.

These are anxious times for Iranians. BBC Persian received hundreds of messages from worried Iranians, whose lives were thrust into uncertainty once the ban was announced.

The history of the region for roughly the past 100 years is made up of changing camps and shifting alliances, so and the rhetoric about the idea of proposing an Arab quartet NATO will be a normal reaction against Iran’s active tripartite alliance.

Discussions about the Arab military alliance allege that it resembles the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), established in the wake of Soviet expansion. NATO was the western military power that confronted the Soviet Union during the Cold War.