Radiofarda – Iran’s oil minister says the new rounds of U.S. sanctions imposed on the country are markedly different than the previous round, but Iran is finding ways to circumvent them. Describing the new rounds over the past six years as “smart sanctions,” Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh told the Iranian Parliament’s official website on June 8 that “the U.S. …

Radiofarda – Iran is considering releasing a Lebanese resident of the United States who is serving a 10-year sentence on espionage charges following a request from Lebanese officials. The semi-official Fars news agency on Sunday quoted Iranian judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili as saying that authorities were conducting a “special review” of the request by Nizar Zakka and “Lebanese political officials,” …

Radiofarda – The reformist-conservative dichotomy in the Islamic republic has been misleading almost everyone trying to understand modern Iran. The dichotomy has also created a deadlock that has hindered political development. The failure of the biggest broad-based conservative coalition in the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran since 1979 in the 2017 Presidential election, and the statement by the most …

Al-Arabia – Iran said on Sunday that Europe was not in a position to criticize Tehran for its military capabilities, and called on European leaders to normalize economic ties with the Islamic Republic despite US sanctions or face consequences.President Donald Trump last year withdrew the United States from a nuclear deal with Iran and re-imposed sanctions. Trump has condemned a …

Iran-HRM – Iran has introduced 2,000 new morality police units in Gilan Province, northern Iran, to issue “verbal and physical” warnings to the locals to counter what the regime officials call an “increasing defiance” of the compulsory wearing of hijabs. Mohammad Abdollahpour, the commander of the Gilan Quds Force, announced on June 4 that a new “chapter of promoting virtue …

VOA — Under a starry sky, U.S. Navy fighter jets catapulted off the aircraft carrier’s deck and flew north over the darkened waters of the northern Arabian Sea, a unmistaken signal to Iran that the foremost symbol of the American military’s global reach is back in its neighborhood, perhaps to stay. The USS Abraham Lincoln, with its contingent of Navy …

gatestoneinstitute.org – An Iran that is friendly with the US and is inspired by “American values” such as freedom of expression and the rule of law would not long tolerate the despotic and lawless system created by the ayatollah. Here we have a delicious irony: Khomeinists and their Iranian apologists in the West love the American way of life, but …

Radiofarda – Greater Tehran police chief announced Saturday, June 8 that in the last ten days of Ramadan 547 “luxury” restaurants and cafes were shut down and sealed in Iran’s capital city and 11 people arrested. Tehran Police commander Hossein Rahimi in an interview with IRNA news agency in Tehran, undated. Hossein Rahimi described the reason for the mass-closure of …

Radiofarda – Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday to clarify Israel’s stance on Iran. Abe is due in Tehran on June 12, for a three-day visit focused on trade and bilateral relations. After the 30 minute phone conversation Netanyahu wrote on Twitter that “I made it clear to him that we must continue to …

Radiofarda – Iran has no plans to leave the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said in an interview published by the Iranian parliament news site ICANA on Saturday. “Iran has no plans to leave OPEC…and regrets that some members of OPEC have turned this organization into a political forum for confronting two founding members of …