Radiofarda – Home-made vodka has killed at least one and poisoned 45 others in Poldasht, in West Azerbaijan Province, northwest Iran. Reports from Iran say so far 11 of those poisoned have been taken to the hospital in serious conditions. Poisoning by bootleg booze has been on the rise in recent month in various parts of Iran. Legal production of …

AP — A White House decision to dispatch an aircraft carrier and other military resources to send a message to Iran followed “clear indications” that Iranian and Iranian proxy forces were preparing to possibly attack U.S. forces in the region, a defense official told the Associated Press. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information, said …

Radiofarda – Thirty-one years after the disastrous Iran-Iraq war (1980-88), vouchers and coupons to procure essential goods might be on their way back for the people of Iran. Without elaborating on the details, the Islamic Republic Vice President Es’haq Jahangiri said on Saturday, May 4, “Some goods might be rationed and distributed through vouchers or coupons.” Under new U.S. sanctions …

RFL/RE – Iran has appointed a new chief of its national airline, state news reported, replacing its first female CEO with a former air-force commander who is on a U.S. blacklist. Turaj Dehghani Zanganeh, a former air-force commander who features on a U.S. Treasury sanctions list, was named CEO of Iran Air at a government meeting on May 5. He …

VOA – The United States is sending an aircraft carrier strike group and bomber task force to the Middle East in response to what National Security Adviser John Bolton said are “a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings” linked to Iran. In a statement late Sunday, Bolton said the moves are being made to “send a clear and …

gatestoneinstitute – Forty years after the Islamic Revolution, the clergy-led ruling elite was still behaving like a sect rather than a state, thus preventing Iran from behaving like a normal nation with all its merits and defects. The fifth and highest stage is that of “statehood,” which becomes possible when society is used to the rule of law regardless of …

gatestoneinstitute – “In Iran, any practice that contradicts Islam is regarded as a national security threat, punished severely by the court system.” — International Christian Concern, 2019. “Revolutionary courts were created to guard against all threats to Islam. These courts have evolved into a well-oiled machine of oppres­sion that operates with impunity under state protection. The courts are closely intertwined …

Iran Human Rights (IHR); May 5, 2019: In 2019, by April 30, at least 79 people have been executed in Iran. Only 22 of the cases were announced by Iranian authorities or media. There is a high possibility that more executions have been carried out far from the eyes of human rights defenders. According to the Iran Human Rights (IHR) …

radiofarda – IRGC Commander Hossein Salami says Iran is engaged in an “intelligence war” and that the “Iranian Intelligence community” is active around the clock. “We are engaged in a serious global intelligence war with the enemies around the clock,” said the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) commander during a meeting with Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi and his deputies. The …

radiofarda – The Israeli government has announced that in a targeted attack a man who had been helping transfer millions of dollars from Iran to Gaza militants was killed. Israeli tweets in Persian and Arabic identified the person as Hammed Ahmad al-Khudari (Ghudari) , who apparently was a senior Hamas military field commander. The Israeli government has also published the …