Al-monitor – Oscar-winning Iranian director Asghar Farhadi’s latest project is a Spanish-language film set in rural Iberia and starring Spain’s most celebrated acting couple: Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem. The film, not yet titled, will be Farhadi’s second production outside his native Iran. In 2013, he wrote and directed “The Past,” a drama shot in France. It starred French-Argentine actress …

PayvandNews – The US Treasury Department has loosened exports of authorized medical devices as well as agricultural goods to Iran as well as the training of Iranian health professionals by Americans. The US Treasury Department says it has amended transactions restrictions on Iran to allow the exports of authorized medical devices and agricultural commodities to the country. A statement by …

Telegraph – A British mother being held in an Iranian prison has been told she can either keep her two-year-old daughter with her in jail or give up custody. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested by Iranian Revolutionary Guards in April on unspecified “national security charges” as she was travelling back to Britain from Tehran after a trip to visit family. The …

Al-Arabia – Earlier this week, Iran, Russia and Turkey met in Moscow in order to discuss Syria’s nearly six-year war. Iranian leaders appeared determined to exclude other regional and global powers from the gathering. This highlights Iran’s intention to direct the Syrian conflict into a direction that precisely meets their geopolitical, strategic and regional hegemonic ambitions. It also shows that …

RFL/RE  — Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambaev says his country supports Iran’s full membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Atambaev made the statement on December 23 in Bishkek after holding talks with visiting Iranian President Hassan Rohani. SCO member states are China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, while Iran has observer status. Tehran applied for full SCO membership in …

RFL/RE – The Syrian Army said it has taken complete control of Aleppo after evacuating the last rebel fighters from the battered city on December 22, handing President Bashar al-Assad his most important gain in the nearly six-year civil war. Assad and his forces proclaimed “an important turning point” and credited allies Russia and Iran for helping to make it …

Al-Arabia – Javad Karimi Kaddosi, the member of the National Security Committee in the Iranian parliament, revealed that the Iranian Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, admitted in a private and confidential hearing before the committee that he made a lapse in judgement in the nuclear talks with the West. As reported by Fares News, an ardent to the Iranian Revolutionary …

Iran Human Rights – A prisoner was executed in public in the city of Ilam (northwestern Iran) on the morning of on rape charges. According to the state-run news agency ISNA, the execution was carried out on the morning of Thursday December 22.

Iranhumanrights.org – Five months before his second term re-election bid, President Hassan Rouhani signed his government’s “Charter on Citizens’ Rights” on December 19, 2016. The announcement was touted as the fulfillment of a campaign pledge, but the document, which promises the “observance and advancement” of the rights afforded to Iranian citizens by the Constitution, is not legally binding and no …

Iranhumanrights.org – Nizar Zakka, a Lebanese-born U.S. permanent resident and internet freedom advocate who was sentenced to 10 years in prison in Iran in September 2015 for “espionage,” has been on hunger strike since December 8, 2016 to protest his unjust sentence and the denial of medical and consular services. “He is innocent and wants to be released,” said his …