Reuters – U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo began a five-day European trip on Friday with a delayed visit to Berlin, where he was expected to press Germany to boost its military spending, avoid dealings with China’s Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and reconsider a pipeline project with Russia. Pompeo will meet Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and Chancellor Angela Merkel on …

Radiofarda – The United States will respond with military force if Tehran attacks its interests, the U.S. special representative for Iran has warned, adding that actions recently taken by Washington in the Middle East had a “deterrent effect.”Brian Hook made the comments on May 30, as Saudi Arabia urged Arab nations to confront with “all means of force ” recent …

Radiofarda – Figures from Iran suggest child-marriage is rampant in the country, with girls younger than 14 forced to take husbands. The practice is most prevalent in rural areas with no age-limit on the age of the men that the girls may be forced to suffer as a spouse. More than 1,500 cases of child marriage have been registered in the province …

Al-Arabia – The Arab League and the Gulf Cooperation Council called on Iran to reconsider its role in the region, the Secretary-General of the Arab League told reporters following the conclusion of two emergency summits held in Mecca. “The emergency Arab League Summit in Mecca called on Iran to reconsider its role in the region,” Secretary-General of the Arab League …

Al-Arabia – Iranian state broadcasters should replace female presenters with men, Iran’s ayatollah Ahmad Alamolhoda said, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA). Alamolhoda is the representative of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in the country’s Khorasan Razavi province. He is widely believed to be a conservative hardliner and has been in the headlines for making such statements in the …

RFL/RE – Rallies were held across Iran to mark Quds (Jerusalem) Day on May 31.Iran established Quds Day after the 1979 Islamic Revolution as an occasion to express support for the Palestinian people. The state-backed demonstrations are usually aimed against the United States and Israel.Rallies were held in about 950 Iranian cities and towns, as well as in Iraq, Lebanon, …

RFL/RE – U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says Iran attacked oil tankers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) earlier this month in an effort to push global crude prices higher.“These were efforts by the Iranians to raise the price of crude oil throughout the world,” Pompeo told reporters on May 30 before setting off on a …

VOA — Saudi Arabia’s King Salman opened an emergency summit of Gulf Arab leaders in the holy city of Mecca on Thursday with a call for the international community to use all means to confront Iran, but he also said the kingdom extends its hand for peace. King Salman was speaking at the first of three high-level summits in Mecca …

CHRI – Using Iranian government resources, a Tehran-based company has been developing an online censorship circumvention tool that specifically enables users in the country to access a widely used app that was blocked nationwide by judicial order one year ago, the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) has learned. The proxy called MTProto, enables users to access the blocked Telegram messaging app, which …

Al-Monitor – Russia dispatched one of its leading diplomats to Tehran this week to urge the Iranians to back off their threat to resume certain nuclear activities in retaliation for the US “maximum pressure” campaign. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov sat down for “a square talk” with his counterpart Abbas Araghchi, the Russian foreign minister said in a statement after the …