PayvandNews – As Iran is pushing ahead with what appears to be an aggressive campaign to purchase planes, figures show European aviation major Airbus has won the race in Tehran from its American rival Boeing. A report by Forces showed that the Paris-based company had already attracted a mix of firm orders and memorandums of understanding for 173 aircraft with a …

RFL/RE – The U.S administration has set new rules for visa applicants from six mainly Muslim countries and all refugees, requiring them to have a “close” relative in the United States or a “formal” relationship to a U.S. organization. The guidelines are due to come into effect at 8 p.m. Washington time on June 29. They were issued after the …

HRANA News Agency – Osman Mostafapour, political prisoner in Urmia prison has begun the 27th year of his imprisonment without furlough. In 1994, He was sentenced to a total of 35 years in prison in two separate cases. According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency in Iran (HRANA), Osman Mostafapour, born in 1967, was arrested on July 14, …

HRANA News Agency – One of the lawyers of Marjan Davari, researcher and translator on death row told, “we have objected the verdict but the court has not set a branch.” Marjan Davari, 50, after being transferred from women’s ward of Evin prison to the prison in Rey (Qarchak Women’s Prison) in February, was sentenced to death. One of the charges …

HRANA News Agency – Fifth Term Civil Engineering student from Shahid Beheshti University, Baha’i Afrooz Zabihi, was banned from continuing her education after completing 90 credit hours, because of her religious faith. Miss Zabihi has several achievements in the Shining Genius Test in her name. According to HRANA, a close source to Miss Zabihi said “on Dec. 19, 2016, at the same …

HRANA News Agency – By passing of more than 3 weeks since 93 Baha’i businesses were shut down in the province of Mazandaran and by passing of months since 9 Baha’i businesses were shut down in Tonekabon, relevant authorities have not given any formal and legal respond to the owners of these businesses. According to verbal statements made by relevant authorities, …

Al-monitor – Between Doha and Tehran, there’s always a thin vein that keeps relations alive despite regional tensions, bilateral differences or even bloodshed. The two Persian Gulf states were never allies, even when their ties were better in the first decade of the 21st century. But they never became enemies, even though they have been fighting one another indirectly in Syria …

RFL/RE – The United Nations envoy for Syria says violence is down in the war-torn country despite repeated clashes recently between U.S., Syrian, and Iranian-backed forces there. “Violence is clearly down…and many towns have returned to some degree of normalcy,” but in some areas fighting has continued and intensified, Staffan de Mistura told reporters in New York on June 27. Mistura …

Al-Arabia – Iran is accusing US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson of “a brazen interventionist plan” to change the current government that violates international law and the U.N. Charter. Iran’s U.N. Ambassador Gholamali Khoshroo said in a letter to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres circulated Tuesday that Tillerson’s comments are also “a flagrant violation” of the 1981 Algiers Accords in which the United …

VOA – Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has denounced the U.S. Supreme Court’s partial reinstatement of a travel ban affecting six predominately Muslim countries and said the decision could energize terrorist groups. “It is regrettable that the citizens of the countries on the list have never participated in any act of terrorism against the U.S. and yet they are being …