PayvandNews – Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) signed an agreement on Tuesday (6 September 2016), with the Urmia Lake Restoration Commission (ULRC) in Tehran at Sharif University of Technology to lend substantive technical assistance for the execution of an integrated programme that aims ultimately to secure sustainable water resources management in the Urmia Lake basin. At …

Radiozamaneh – By: Assad Binakhahi

Radiozamaneh – Tehran police forcefully dispersed a crowd of cyclists who had gathered in Tehran’s Laleh park for a weekly gathering of the Tuesdays: No Car Day. On 6 Sept, Tehran police prevented green campaigners from holding a group ride in Tehran. Javad Heydariyan, reporting from Tehran says that the police’s action were despite the fact that some government officials …

VOA – Saudi Arabia’s top religious authority said Iran’s leaders were not Muslims, drawing a rebuke from Tehran in an unusually harsh exchange between the regional rivals over the running of the annual hajj pilgrimage. The war of words on the eve of the mass pilgrimage will deepen a long-running rift between the Sunni kingdom and the Shi’ite revolutionary power. …

Forbes – After the controversial first $400 million planeload of cash. The controversial $400 million payment that the U.S. sent to Iran in January, just as four American hostages were released—a planeload of Euros, Swiss Francs and other currencies—was only the first of three American cash deliveries to the country, the Obama administration reportedly told lawmakers on Tuesday. During the …

RFL/RE – Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has accused Saudi authorities of “bigoted extremism” in a war of words over Iran’s exclusion from this year’s hajj pilgrimage. “Indeed, no resemblance between Islam of Iranians and most Muslims, and bigoted extremism that Wahhabi top cleric and Saudi terror masters preach,” Zarif tweeted late on September 6. The comments came after …

RFL/RE – A U.S. Navy ship had to change course to avoid colliding with an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps attack boat that came within 100 yards of it in the Persian Gulf, Pentagon officials said on September 6. The incident on September 4 was the fourth such encounter in a month. U.S. officials say they are concerned such incidents could …

Al-monitor – Members of Iran’s diaspora community tell the tale of Ayatollah Sadegh Khalkhali mounting a bulldozer in 1979 and attempting to destroy Persepolis. The story represents the Islamic Revolution as having brought to an end a renaissance in the preservation and appreciation of Iran’s cultural heritage. It is undeniable, however, that today there is a political will in Iran for …

kayhan.London – Seema Ghiassi Kennedy has earned herself a spot in the history books: she is the British Parliament’s first member of Iranian descent, elected in May 2015 as the MP for South Ribble (in Lancashire, North West England). Though she left Iran at the tender age of four, her Persian roots are still a big part of who she is. …

IOPHRI –