RFL/RE – Iranian media have reported that a commander in the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has been killed in fighting against Islamic State (IS) militants in Syria. The IRGC has been fighting in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a key ally of Tehran, in the country’s six-year civil war in Syria. The state-run Fars news agency reported …

Al-Arabia – The US Senate Committee on Finance in Congress has ordered the US Department of the Treasury to reveal how Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei and 80 other senior Iranian officials and Revolutionary Guard commanders obtained their wealth. The department was also asked to determine the real numbers these riches stand at and how they were invested and employed. The …

VOA —Saudi Arabia asked Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo on Sunday to condemn what Riyadh and its allies see as Iran’s meddling in Arab affairs and its alleged support for militias in the region, according to Arab diplomats. The diplomats said a Saudi draft resolution is proposing a declaration of solidarity with the kingdom and stating Arab support for …

Iran Human Rights – A prisoner was hanged in public in Babol (Northern Iran) on murder charges. According to the human rights news agency, HRANA, on the morning of Monday November 13, a prisoner was hanged in public in Babol (a city in Mazandaran Province). The prisoner, identified as Abbas B., 28, was sentenced to death on the charge of …

CHRI – A political prisoner in Rajaee Shahr Prison in Iran, labor activist Reza Shahabi, has revealed that prison authorities have been providing inmates with livestock feed and mistreating them in the prison’s hospital. According to a note from the Union of Workers of the Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company (UWTSBC) posted on its Telegram channel on November 16, 2017, …

commentarymagazine – Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has now been in office for more than four years. Yet he hasn’t fulfilled any of the major domestic-reform pledges that got him elected in 2013 and re-elected earlier this year. Those pledges won him the decisive backing of urban, secular-minded, middle class Iranians–and plaudits in the West. Yet Iranians are no more free …

BBC – Saudi Arabia and Iran are at loggerheads. They have long been rivals, but it’s all recently got a lot more tense. Here’s why.

RFL/RE – Turkey’s foreign minister has accused the United States of bringing what he called a “politically motivated” and “fabricated” case against a Turkish-Iranian businessman accused of helping Iran evade U.S. sanctions.

Al-Arabia – President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday that Iran misunderstood France’s “balanced” position in the region, which centered on not taking sides between Sunni and Shi‘ites, adding that Tehran should be less aggressive in the region.

Al-Monitor — Tourism is nowadays at the core of attention of many governments across the world because of its major contribution to social and economic development. As the World Tourism Organization states, the business volume of tourism equals and sometimes surpasses that of crude oil exports.