But on January 3, 2020 the death of Soleimani was the only thing in the press.
There are still echoes of the casus belli, here's one of them.
From Bloomberg:
The U.S.-Iran Pistachio War Is Heating Up
Forty years of vicious geopolitical competition between the U.S. and Iran came close to open war in January, and it’s still too soon to call a winner—except in one field. American farmers have deposed Iran as king of the global pistachio industry, benefiting from U.S. policies hostile to Tehran, climate change, and egregious failures of economic and water management that have sucked the Islamic Republic’s lakes and aquifers dry. The country is unlikely ever to recover its pistachio crown, spawning a race among other producers to grow the nut and fill the gap created by its defeat. In the reductionist language of President Trump, Iran lost big.
That’s more shocking than it sounds. Persia enjoyed a virtual monopoly on cultivating the hardy yet demanding pistachio tree for at least 1,000 years. Exports followed in the footsteps of Islam’s conquering armies from the seventh century on. Giving pistachio farmers more access to land and water was a core offer of the 1979 revolution, and the country’s new ruling class—in particular the family of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani—saw the hard currency potential. The country devoted ever more land to growing the fatty green nut and replaced the ancient Qanat system of subsoil canals that fed the crop with higher-volume water pumps. Harvests boomed, even through the chaos of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
Yet the U.S., which started to produce pistachios only in 1976, has now overtaken Iran as the world’s leading producer. Catching up took a while, and picking the one moment of victory is hard, as pistachio harvests can be volatile, alternating between fat and lean years. But from 2004 to 2009, the Islamic Republic still accounted for 40% of global production on average, followed by the U.S. at 33%. By 2014-19, those positions were reversed: 47% of the global total came from the U.S., and 27% from Iran. A catastrophic 2018-19 season briefly pulled Iran’s share as low as 7%.
That collapse had a big impact within Iran, where pistachio nuts aren’t just a $1 billion-plus export earner but a key ingredient in the national cuisine, an accessible luxury, and a point of national pride. The dearth of harvests has led to a kind of despair. “Be mindful when having pistachios at a party,” goes a popular joke that’s been making the rounds in Tehran. “The host will be keeping track of every single one guests eat.” Entire pistachio groves have bleached and died for lack of water as overtaxed wells dry out. Sinkholes have opened as soil collapses into the fallen water table.....MUCH MORE
Outside Iran, pistachio farmers are hunting for virgin territories to fill a global shortage the International Nut & Dried Fruit Council, a Spain-based trade association, estimates at 10% to 15% of demand. “There is quite an interest in new countries, like Georgia, Uzbekistan, and Azerbaijan, where we are also doing a project,” says Pino Calcagni, the council’s vice chairman and chief executive officer of Besana Group, a nut-trading company based in Italy. Spain, China, and Australia—at least until the recent fires—have all been expanding production, too. Besana Group is developing new suppliers in Kazakhstan, Romania, and Ukraine.
Afzal Ravari, a Dubai-based businessman who made his money selling forensics gear to Gulf police forces, is among the pioneers. For the last six years he’s been living a hermitlike existence in Georgia amid ethnic Azerbaijani sheep herders as he plants pistachio trees. He looked at Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan first, before settling on Georgia for its looser business climate, 100,000 hectares (247,000 acres) of suitable land, and rivers that flow from the Caucasus Mountains, snow-capped peaks higher than the Alps or Rockies. Do the math, Ravari says. With yields as high as 5 metric tons per hectare in the U.S. last year, and a wholesale price of about $9 per kilo, that’s a potential $4.5 billion pistachio nut export business for Georgia in good times, if it were to devote all that land to what Iranians call “green gold.”....
One other echo, from the Financial Times six hours ago:
IAEA: Iran tripled enriched uranium stockpile in 3 months
Iran has tripled its stockpile of enriched uranium over the past three months and failed to provide inspectors access to two undeclared sites, the UN nuclear watchdog said on Tuesday, in two reports that will raise concerns about the pace at which Tehran is ramping up its atomic activity.....
