Iran Human Rights (IHR – A prisoner sentenced to qisas (retribution in-kind) for murder was executed at Sanandaj Central Prison. Another prisoner was returned to his cell after managing to get a last-minute extension on his sentence and a third is due to be executed tomorrow morning. According to Iran Human Rights (IHR), a prisoner was executed in Sanandaj Central …

Al-Monitor – The head of Iran’s insurance regulation agency said European insurance companies, not Iranian ones, should pay compensation for the loss of a Ukraine International Airlines passenger aircraft shot down near Tehran in January. “The Ukrainian plane is insured by European companies in Ukraine and not by Iranian companies. Therefore, the compensation should be paid by those European companies,” …

AP – Iran shut down a newspaper on Monday after it published remarks by an expert who said the official figures on coronavirus cases and deaths in the country account for only 5% of the real toll, allegations rejected by the Health Ministry. Mohammad Reza Sadi, the editor-in-chief of Jahane Sanat, told the official IRNA news agency that authorities closed …

Radiofarda – Iran’s national currency regained 10 percent of its value on Monday after the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) injected $2.5 billion into the market in recent days. On Friday the CBI Governor Abdolnaser Hemmati said that $2.5 billion in export revenues had been re-injected into the NIMA system [Persian acronym for Consolidated System of Forex Transactions] over the …

Radiofarda – U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says Middle Eastern countries want the renewal of the United Nations arms embargo on Iran and the Security Council should heed their request. Pompeo tweeted his call on the Security Council hours after six Arab members of the Gulf Cooperation Council sent a letter to the UN on August 9 asking for …

Radiofarda – Parviz Fattah, the head of Iran’s Mostazafan Foundation, a multi-billion financial conglomerate operating under the aegis of Ali Khamenei, says that one of the Supreme Leader’s confidants and close relatives has refused to return assets that belong to the foundation. Fattah added that some military organizations including the IRGC have also refused to vacate properties belonging to Mostazafan …

Radiofarda – Although the ammonium nitrate that caused the massive explosion in Beirut on August 4 is not directly linked to Hezbollah, some people have been holding the militant group responsible for the tragedy and pointed out the historical cases of the use of the explosive by Hezbollah. Those who accuse the group of the involvement in the tragic explosion, …

Al-Arabia – Lebanon’s government is on the verge of collapsing after the resignation of more ministers from Prime Minister Hassan Diab’s government, along with several MPs and an ambassador. Diab’s government, which was formed by Hezbollah and its allies, was dubbed as one-sided from the outset. Following the Beirut explosions last Tuesday, thousands of Lebanese took to the streets demanding …

Iran-HRM – Heydar Ghorbani, a Kurdish political prisoner in Iran is facing imminent execution. On Wednesday, August 5, Branch 27 of Iran’s Supreme Court upheld a death sentence against political prisoner Heydar Ghorbani from the city of Kamyaran in Kuridstan province, western Iran. The dossier has been transferred to the Prosecutor’s Office in the city of Sanandaj, capital of Kurdistan …

VOA – The six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has asked the United Nations to extend an international arms embargo on Iran, a move pushed strongly by the United States. The secretariat of the GCC, made up of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, said in a statement on Sunday that Iran’s continued interference in neighboring …