Protests spread through Iran; celebrating the New Year around the world

Protests are growing against the government in Iran. Hi everyone, this is Jeff and welcome to Plain English for January 4, 2018. Plain English is a current events podcast for English language learners that goes at just the right speed for new English speakers. This week, we’ll talk about the escalating protests spreading through Iran and the various ways the New Year is celebrated around the world. In the second half of the program, we’ll review two English expressions—shut down and bucket list.

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Let’s get started with the first topic this week.

Protests in Iran

Protesters in Iran have drawn the world’s attention with demonstrations against the government in several cities across the Islamic country. The protests turned violent over the weekend and into Monday, with a total of 12 people killed and hundreds arrested.

The protests started about a week ago in the northeastern city of Mashad, the second-largest city in the country, and continued through New Year’s Day. The protests are against the economic situation in the country and, more generally, the government of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

Rising costs and high unemployment are among the economic causes of the protests. Though the Iranian economy has improved recently, many of the protesters feel that the benefits have not reached the majority of the population. Media reports suggest that the protesters are generally working class people who feel they have nothing to lose by protesting against difficult economic conditions. Rouhani acknowledged that the Iranian economy needs “major corrective surgery” and said that national unity is the “first and most important step.”

He also said the government would allow peaceful protest and demonstrations but would “show no mercy” for people who damage buildings or property or who “create unrest” in society.

It’s tough to get comprehensive information from Iran because the local media is controlled by the government and the foreign media has only limited access to report independently from inside the country. Still, some reports about the protests are getting out, saying that protesters are chanting anti-government slogans, some against the President, some against the Ayatollah, who is the head of state. Other protesters are tearing down political posters, violating the country’s strict Islamic dress code, or setting trash cans on fire. For the most part, though, it appears the protests involve crowds of people marching down streets, playing a game of cat and mouse with police, who often outnumber the protesters.

These protests are the largest in the country since massive protests in 2009 disputed the results of a presidential election and briefly threatened stability of the government. In that year, the government cracked down hard on protesters around the country; this time, they are trying to contain protests locally and through electronic means.

Social media, including messaging apps, has played a large role in these protests, as it has in other protest movements around the world in recent years. This time, though, Iran has acted swiftly to shut down social media activity. Telegram is the most popular messaging app in Iran, with over 50% of adults using the service; it’s kind of like the Whatsapp of Iran. The government shut down both Telegram and photo-sharing site Instagram entirely over the weekend, saying that its actions were necessary to preserve the peace. The CEO of Telegram said that the Iranian government had requested that it shut down various parts of the service, but that the company refused; as a result, Telegram is now banned in Iran and it’s not known if the ban is temporary or permanent.

Situations like this will also put pressure on US-based companies, such as Facebook, which owns Instagram, and Twitter. Those companies may come under pressure from the Iranian government to censor certain topics or otherwise restrict communications. The US government has discouraged technology companies from complying with censorship requests and said that it will be watching closely to see how American companies respond—even though there isn’t much the US government can do about it one way or another.

The protests, and the way the Iran government handles them, will have geopolitical effects. Iran signed an agreement in 2015 with the US and five other world powers in which it agreed to limit its development of nuclear weapons in exchange for lighter international sanctions and access to more foreign markets. A harsh crackdown on protests could risk further sanctions on the Iranian government.

New Year’s celebrations around the world

It’s pretty common for people in the United States to take the week off between Christmas and New Year’s Day, and I did that too—and as a result I’ve been completely unplugged from what’s going on in the world. So instead of doing another current events story, since I really don’t know what else is happening, I thought I’d research the ways different cities celebrate the New Year around the world. Here are a few interesting celebrations I learned about.

It seems like the most common way to celebrate the New Year is with fireworks. Cities like Paris, Berlin, Toronto, Hong Kong, and Sydney celebrate with fireworks displays. In Sydney, they’re lucky because it’s summer—so thousands of people head to the harbor to see the fireworks display behind the city’s famous opera house. London also has a fireworks display and this year’s show featured a soundtrack dominated by women, to mark the hundredth anniversary of women’s right to vote in the UK. Kiwis, as people from New Zealand are known, are the first people in the world to ring in the New Year; they either go to the beaches, since it’s summer there too, or to Aukland, where fireworks are set off from the top of a downtown tower. In Rio de Janeiro, where I think it’s technically summer every day of the year, they ring in the new year with fireworks on Copacabana Beach and samba music afterward.

New York has one of the world’s most unique celebrations in its famous Times Square—what they call the ball drop. A large crystal ball at the top of one of the office buildings in Times Square lights up and descends down a pole, reaching the roof of the building at exactly midnight in a burst of fireworks and confetti. The whole night features concerts and entertainment outside; this year, Mariah Carey headlined the evening.

This year was the second-coldest New Year’s Eve in New York since the tradition began; it was 10 degrees Fahrenheit, or -12 degrees Celsius. This was the coldest since 1917, when it was just one degree Fahrenheit.

Here’s one way to celebrate that I like. Indonesia offers a free “mass wedding” in Jakarta, the capital, for couples that have been married, but never had their marriages recognized by the national government. This year, 437 couples took advantage of the mass wedding.

A couple others. Japan is starting the Year of the Dog; people there celebrate by eating noodles, shrimp and sweet black beans and by visiting temples. In South Korea, they ring bells at City Hall in Seoul.

Dubai is home to the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa. Instead of fireworks in the desert city, they opted for a massive light show, showing various designs including Arabic calligraphy, flags of neighboring countries, and a portrait of the first president of the United Arab Emirates.

Pope Francis gave a New Year’s Eve prayer service at St. Peter’s Basilica and celebrated Mass on New Year’s Day under the theme of world peace.

In Uganda, people go to churches to commemorate the end of one year and to make predictions for the next—some more accurate than others.

There was one notable mishap this year: in Sakhalinsk, Russia, (I hope I said that right) the 80 foot Christmas tree in the center of the New Year celebrations caught on fire; the whole thing burned up in just a few minutes. Oops.

So which one of those would you most like to be at? I think I’m torn between Rio and New Zealand. The beaches in Rio are just beautiful and I’d love to be there for the fireworks and party afterward, but I think it would also be fun to be one of the first people to celebrate a new year, since New Zealand is so far east. I can tell you the one celebration I would least like to go to—that’s New York. Times Square on New Year’s Eve is on many people’s bucket list. Personally, I wouldn’t want to be standing around outside in the cold for that long. Maybe I’d watch it from a building nearby; last year, I heard that hotel suites overlooking Times Square were going for $10,000 a night. Maybe someday.

Before we start the second half of the program, I wanted to ask you a quick favor. If you’re enjoying Plain English, I’d really appreciate it if you left a review wherever you listen to the show. I know a lot of you listen on either Apple Podcasts or on Spotify. By leaving a rating, or even better, a review, you can help other English learners discover the show.

Now we’re ready to start the second half of the program, where we’ll review two words or expressions you heard earlier. This week, they are “shut down” and “bucket list.”