RFL/RE – A New York jury has ruled that the U.S. government can seize a Manhattan skyscraper worth as much as $1 billion from an Iranian-American charitable foundation accused of violating sanctions against Iran. The U.S. federal court on June 29 ruled that Alavi Foundation, the majority owner of the 36-story office building at 650 Fifth Ave., knew and helped …

Al-Arabia – The United States on Thursday accused Iran of “repeatedly and deliberately” violating a UN resolution that endorsed the landmark 2015 nuclear deal and said the Security Council had failed to respond. US Ambassador Nikki Haley pointed to “repeated ballistic missile launches, proven arms smuggling”, purchases of missile technology and a violations of a travel ban on Iranian military officials …

AL-Arabia – Iran’s news agency (IRNA) has quoted a representative of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei saying on Thursday that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, ISIS leader, has been killed. Ali Shirazi, representative to the Quds Forces, told Reuters that “Baghdadi has definitely died,” without getting into the details. A spokesman for the International Coalition against ISIS said that they do not …

VOA — The United Nations said Thursday that Tehran is in compliance with its obligations under an international nuclear deal, but U.S. envoy Nikki Haley disputed that. “Today’s meeting of the Security Council on the implementation of resolution 2231 is taking place against a backdrop of steady implementation, cooperation and progress,” U.N. political chief Jeffrey Feltman said in his semi-annual briefing …

CHRI – Thirteen people, including Arab ethnic rights activists and poets, were arrested in Ahwaz, the capital of Iran’s Khuzestan Province, on June 25, 2017, local activist Karim Dahimi told the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI). The next day an annual demonstration for Arab ethnic rights in Iran on June 26 was blocked by security forces, said Dahimi, who …

CHRI – Women caught with “bad hijabs” in Mazandaran Province, northern Iran, will face criminal prosecution and their vehicles will be impounded, warned a local prosecutor on June 27, 2017. Iran’s “anti-vice” squads, also referred to as the “morality police,” are particularly busy in the hot summer months when Iranian women wear lighter clothing and are less observant of the mandatory …

CHRI – “We don’t know if he’s dead or still alive.” Four relatives of a member of a Kurdish militant organization who was recently shot in a clash with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) that killed his colleagues in northwestern Iran have been arrested, the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) has learned. Sabah Hossein Panahi, Hamed Seif Panahi …

Al-Monitor — In its latest plenary meeting June 23, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) extended a temporary suspension of countermeasures against Iran for another year. The FATF, however, stated on its website that it will keep monitoring progress in the implementation of its action plan in Iran’s banking system. While President Hassan Rouhani’s administration had sought a permanent lifting of the group’s sanctions, pro-Reform media still …

Al-monitor – In response to a new US administration that has stated its goal to work toward regime change in Tehran, Iran’s parliament has introduced new legislation to increase the country’s military budget by $540 million. AUTHOR Arash Karami Iranian parliamentarian Kazem Jalali, the president of the Majlis Research Center, said June 28 that the proposed bill is primarily in response to “America’s …

PayvandNews – A combination of circumstances has increased the risk that armed conflict will break out between the United States and Iran. Such a war is no certainty, but the chance that one will occur is greater today than it has been in years. Some of the relevant circumstances, such as the first two mentioned below, have been around in some …