Lobelog – Unlike early 2017, when Iran’s energy industry started a year full of hope and prospects of potential growth, 2018 has started with different potential risks targeting its energy industry and production growth. Risks abound, particularly the prospect of additional sanctions and domestic instability.

Al-Monitor – A history of support for Kurdish extremists comes back to haunt Tehran   Bahram Fatehi’s tea house in Paveh was bustling with clients smoking shisha when the religious fanatic who would later stab him to death first walked in. For months prior to that fateful late summer evening in 2013, the hardscrabble mountain town in the heart of Iranian …

CHRI – A coalition of Iranian human rights NGOs including Centre for Defenders of Human Rights, Centre for Human Rights in Iran, Impact Iran, Iran Human Rights Documentation Centre, Justice for Iran, and the Siamak Pourzand Foundation, has provided the Government of Germany with compelling evidence that Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, the former Head of the Judiciary of the Islamic …

RFL/RE – A 19-year-old participant in Iran’s recent street protests says that while the wave of public demonstrations has subsided, the antiestablishment unrest in December and early January opened many Iranians’ eyes and the underlying anger remains.

nbcnews – Iran’s most significant protests in almost a decade may have calmed, but anger that fueled the nationwide demonstrations lingers and could erupt again at any time, according to experts. Suzanne Maloney, deputy director of the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution, called the recent rallies “one of the most serious crises Iran has faced in the past …

theguardian -Lifting of capital punishment for some drug-trafficking offences set to be applied retrospectively to convicts on death row

RFL/RE – Iran’s “Big Mouth Basiji” has never met a pro-government event he didn’t like. And in the face of the biggest challenge to the regime in years, Tehran’s omnipresent cheerleader has been using whatever means possible to shout out his criticism of ongoing antigovernment protests.

RFL/RE – Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has called on Russia and Iran to fulfill their obligations under a peace plan for Syria and prevent attacks by Syrian government forces in Idlib Province, saying the violations could not happen without their support. In a January 10 interview with state-run news agency Anadolu, Cavusoglu accused Syrian government forces of attacking moderate …

RFL/RE – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the recent conviction of a Turkish bank executive for violating U.S. sanctions against Iran, calling it a “political coup attempt” against his government.

Al-Arabia – Germany said on Tuesday it had summoned Iran’s ambassador to reprimand Tehran against spying on individuals and groups with close ties to Israel, calling such acts a completely unacceptable breach of German law. The move comes after the March conviction of a Pakistani man for spying for Iran in Germany went into force. Mustufa Haidar Syed-Naqfi was convicted …