VOA – Iranian lawmakers have urged President Ebrahim Raisi to obtain guarantees from the United States and three European countries that they won’t exit the nuclear deal being renegotiated in Vienna, Iranian state media reported on Sunday. In a letter to Raisi, they stated that the United States and European parties to the nuclear deal — Britain, France, and Germany …

Iran-HRM – Prison authorities in Rajai Shahr Prison have prevented the continuation of treatment and surgery of the gums of political prisoner Hassan Sadeghi. Hassan Sadeghi went to the hospital for several sessions and his gums were operated on and sutured, but he was told that he was no longer allowed to be sent to a hospital outside prison. “Political …

Iran-HRM – In a new report, the American Heritage Foundation, a U.S. institution, reported a 4.8-step drop in Iran’s economic freedom index in 2021 compared to the year before. According to the report, published on Tuesday, February 15, 2022, Iran ranks 170th out of 177 countries on the Economic Freedom Index with a score of 42.4. The Foundation rates countries …

Al-Arabia – Iran’s parliament has laid out six conditions for Tehran to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal with global powers in a letter to President Ebrahim Raisi published on Sunday, the country’s official IRNA news agency reported. The letter, signed by 250 out of 290 parliamentarians, stated that US and European parties should guarantee that they would not exit a …

gatestoneinstitute.org – [Elite capture] is a crucial tool of [China’s] success. The idea is simple enough: by tempting another country’s elite with money, access and favors, you move them to see their interests and China’s interests as intertwined or even the same. [Each] of the individuals we discuss would deny their role in helping China gain access to American capital …

RFL/RE – Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, said on February 19 that the kingdom was looking to schedule a fifth round of direct talks with Iran despite a “lack of substantive progress” in previous rounds. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Al Saud also voiced hope that there was a serious desire by Iran to …

VOA – German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Saturday that “now is the moment of truth” to determine whether Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers can be salvaged, and the Iranian leadership needs to make a choice. Iran’s foreign minister, though, said that it’s up to Western countries to show flexibility and “the ball is now in their court.” Negotiators …

Iran-HRM -Political prisoner Forough Taghipour has been taken to a filthy cell with no access to hygiene or medical care after she contracted the omicron Covid variant in Qarchak Prison in Varamin, in Tehran Province. She suffers from lung disease and asthma and has symptoms of the virus since last week. Alarm is growing over the danger the poor condition …

RFL/RE – A leaked audio recording in which two former senior officials of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) discuss corruption that helps fund the powerful force and its secretive military operations abroad has shed light on infighting and graft that extends to the hierarchy of the country’s clerical regime. The implication in the recording, published in a wide-ranging exposé by …

gatestoneinstitute.org – The administration, however, then made an astonishing announcement: that it is unfreezing $29 billion to the Iranian regime, despite that Iran is still, according to the State Department, an officially designated state sponsor of terrorism. The move is apparently part of a US effort to appease the mullahs into redoing the 2015 nuclear deal that gives Iran a …