lobelog – While Western think tanks have drawn attention to droughts and floods in Iran, the news media has ignored another critical environmental issue there: deforestation. Between 1900 and 2012, Iran’s forest acreage decreased from 19 million acres to 14.4 million, shrinking to 10.7 million by 2015. That year, Esmail Kahrom, an advisor to the Iranian Environment Department, predicted, “With the current deforestation, Iran will …

Radiofarda – The U.S. State and Treasury departments on September 4 exerted more pressure on Iran with additional sanctions and monetary rewards for “actionable” information on what they call Tehran’s “oil-for-terror” network.More than 25 entities and 11 vessels were sanctioned that the Treasury Department says is part of a network “directed by and [which] financially supports” the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) …

Radiofarda – Iran will from Friday begin developing centrifuges to speed up the enrichment of uranium, as the next step in scaling back its nuclear commitments, President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday. Under its 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers, Iran was allowed to keep restricted quantities of first-generation centrifuges at two nuclear plants. But the successful development of more …

Iran-HRM – Iranian authorities tortured a young man identified as Javad Khosravanian to death in Fars Province, southwest Iran a few days ago. Reports indicate the state security forces picked up Javad Khosravanian from his home in Khorrambid of Fars Province on Friday, August 30, 2019. He was then taken to a criminal investigation department in the city where he …

Iran-HRM – According to reports, Gholamreza Ziaei, the new chief of the Iranian regime’s notorious Evin prison in Tehran, has been mounting repression against prisoners. Gholamreza Ziaei has adopted new rules which puts more pressure on prisoners. One of these rules is the removal of health insurance plans for prisoners. This means that prisoners and their families are responsible to …

CHRI – A 28-year-old woman who set herself on fire outside a Tehran courthouse was being prosecuted as a “healthy person” despite suffering from a serious mental health condition, her sister told an Iranian state media outlet. “My sister is bipolar and she has been under doctor’s supervision for the past two years,” an unidentified woman told the Rokna news …

AL-Monitor – Iranian officials are reporting little progress with negotiators representing the European sides to the nuclear deal, as the Sept. 6 deadline set by Tehran looms large. Iran has already warned that if the ongoing talks bear no fruit, it will suspend more commitments it has honored since 2015 under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). President Hassan Rouhani, …

Radiofarda – A half-built residential tower owned by several members of Iran’s parliament in a posh neighborhood of capital city, Tehran, will be demolished, the head of Tehran’s Justice Department announced on Tuesday, September 3. The 3,000-square-meter (approximately 32,000 square feet) land, where the residential tower is under construction, was granted to several legislators in 2006 to build a religious …

Al-Arabia – The United States Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook said on Wednesday that the United States would not provide any sanctions waivers to accommodate a French proposal to extend a $15 million credit line to Iran. “We did sanctions today. There will be more sanctions coming. We can’t make it any more clear that we are committed to …

Al-Arabia – The United States is offering cash rewards to captains of Iranian tankers in a bid to “disrupt and deter illicit oil exports” of the Iranian regime as part of their “maximum pressure” campaign, a report by the Financial Times shows. According to the report, the Indian captain of the Adrian Darya 1 – formally known as the Grace …