RFL/RE – An Iranian fighter jet has gone down in the southern province of Bushehr near the Persian Gulf, with the two pilots surviving the crash, local media report.“The fighter jet crashed due to technical issues on the coast of Tangestan,” the governor of Tangestan, Abdolhossein Rafiipour, was quoted as saying on August 4.“Its pilot and copilot are safe,” he …

CHRI – Senior Advisor to Judiciary Asks Why the State Should Be Concerned with “Legal Matters” Pourmohammadi: “We still haven’t settled scores” August 5, 2019—New remarks by a senior judicial official in Iran, Mostafa Pourmohammadi, in which he openly defended the extrajudicial executions of some 4000-5000 prisoners in 1988 as necessary acts against “enemies” in a time of war, mark a …

gatestoneinstitute.org – Germany’s outright rejection of Washington’s request [to support Washington’s proposal for a maritime protection force in the Arabian Gulf to protect shipping from attacks by Iran] is likely to inflame tensions further between Washington and Berlin. U.S. President Donald J. Trump is already at odds with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on a range of issues, from Germany’s obstinate …

Radiofarda – U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham has said that if the news about Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif having been invited to the White House is true, it would undermine the U.S. position. The New Yorker reported on August 2 that Senator Rand Paul invited Zarif to meet Trump in the Oval Office during their meeting in New York in …

Radiofarda – An Iranian general said on Sunday the chances of a conflict breaking out in the Gulf region have decreased, after a spate of hostile acts in the key waterway. “At first glance, it may seem that the situation in the Persian Gulf is heading towards a military conflict but when studying the situation more deeply, we see that …

Radiofarda – UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash says the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia prefer a political approach to their problems with Iran. Emphasizing continued cooperation between the two Arab countries, Gargash tweeted on August 2 that the two states believe in a political approach rather than confrontation with Iran. Meanwhile, the UAE official accused …

Radiofarda – Nearly 1600 under-fifteen-year-old girls married in the last Iranian calendar year (ending March 20, 2019), in the province of Hamadan, western Iran. Furthermore, the local director of the registry office, Assad Hassanzadeh, disclosed that at least 44 under-fifteen-year-old girls gave birth in the same period. The Islamic Republic of Iran signed the UN Convention on the Right of …

RFL/RE – Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has seized a foreign oil tanker in the Persian Gulf that it says was smuggling fuel to Arab states, Iranian state media reported on August 4.The official government news agency IRNA quoted an IRGC statement as saying that the tanker was carrying 700,000 liters of fuel around Farsi Island.IRNA said the tanker …

RFL/RE – Saeed Malekpour, an Iranian-born web developer with permanent residency in Canada, has left Iran where he was imprisoned for 11 years and returned to Canada.Malekpour was serving a life sentence after being convicted of operating an adult-content website.He was arrested in December 2008 while in Iran to visit his ailing father. He was initially sentenced to death, but …

RFL/RE – U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on August 4 that he was “very confident” the United States would be able to build a maritime security coalition in the Persian Gulf, but he didn’t provide details on which nations may be willing to participate.U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said he has gotten a good response from allies and …