VOA – U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are vowing to counter what they call Iran’s aggression in the Middle East. “We need to increase it, we need to expand it, and together the United States and Israel are working in close coordination to roll back Iranian aggression in the region and around the …

CHRI – Lengthy Prison Terms Shows Effort to Deter Rights Advocacy The prominent human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh’s draconian sentence for her peaceful activism shows the threat posed by Iran’s revolutionary courts to human rights work, the Center for Human Rights in Iran and Human Rights Watch said today. Iran should immediately and unconditionally release Sotoudeh and other human rights defenders who are …

Al-Monitor – The reimposition of secondary US sanctions and the consequent hesitation of international banks, European export credit agencies and enterprises to engage Iran have severely undermined the potential for Iran-EU trade. The establishment of the Instrument to Support Trade Exchanges (INSTEX) can be seen as a positive step forward, but it is yet to become operational. In the meantime, …

Al-Monitor – Alarmed by losing viewers to home videos or online broadcasts, Iranian state TV has found a not-so-original way to keep Iranians interested: copycatting popular Western shows. The controversial move has brought both praise and criticism. In recent years, state TV has lost many of its viewers for different reasons. The public broadcaster, controlled fully by hard-liners, is often accused of not being objective in …

Radiofarda – The trial of Esmaeil Bakhshi, Ali Nejati and other defendants arrested amid protests and strikes at the Haft Tapeh Sugar Cane industrial complex in the city of Shush, southwest Iran, has been referred to the Revolutionary Court in Tehran. The Revolutionary Courts, set up after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, are tasked with trying those suspected of crimes …

Radiofarda – A right-wing student group in Iran has called on the country’s new Judiciary Chief Ebrahim Raeesi (Raeisi) to indict his predecessor and another senior politician for being involved in a “land grab” case in the lavish Lavasan area north of Tehran. The group has asked the Judiciary to hand Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani and former Parliament Speaker and …

Radiofarda – Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has promised a 20 percent increase in public sector employee salaries beginning in the new year, which starts March 21, according to the Persian calendar. The announcement comes as a surprise, since earlier in the month Rouhani’s government had said it could not guarantee the wage increases approved by Parliament. Speaker of the parliament …

Radiofarda – The United States is extending a waiver to allow Iraq to continue to buy electricity from Iran, despite sanctions imposed by Washington targeting Tehran’s energy sector.The original waiver, issued in December 2017, expired on March 19.The State Department issued the second three-month exemption to help prevent a destabilization of Iraq, which has relied on Iranian gas and electricity …

Radiofarda – A fast-track court set up last year in Iran to fight financial crimes has sentenced three former Bank Sarmaye (Capital Bank) board members to twenty years in prison each. Parviz Kazemi, Minister of Labor and Social Welfare (2005-2006) in former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s first cabinet. He was convicted of financial fraud on March 18, 2019. File photo Ali …

Al-Arabia – Iran’s Mahan Air has been forced to cancel its Paris flights over “sanctions”, its customer services team said Tuesday weeks after Germany banned the airline. “We have been told that (flights to France) have been cancelled… as of the first of April,” an operator at the airline’s office in Tehran’s Imam Khomeini Airport told AFP. The Paris schedule …