Al-Monitor — Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi dismissed the possibility of a meeting with US President Joe Biden during this week’s UN General Assembly summit, where the Iranian leader will address the gathering of world leaders under a cloud of US sanctions and violent protests in Iran.  Raisi takes the podium in New York this week as indirect negotiations between Washington …

Al-Arabia – Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman who died after being detained by Tehran’s morality police last week, was “dressed inappropriately,” the Iranian capital’s police chief said on Monday, denying “cowardly accusations” that she was beaten. Speaking at a press conference, Greater Tehran Police Commander Hossein Rahimi said Amini was stopped by the morality police, known as “Gasht-e Ershad,” …

RFL/RE – People in the western Iranian city of Sanandaj, the capital of Kurdistan Province, took to the streets for the second night in a row on September 18 to protest the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who died on September 16 just days after being taken into police custody for allegedly breaking the country’s hijab rules. Amateur …

RFL/RE – More than half of Iran’s fleet of passenger aircraft has been grounded due to aging and a lack of spare parts and engines, an aviation expert has told Iranian media. The semiofficial ISNA news agency quoted Omid Khansari as saying that only “about 120 to 130 planes are active” out of a total of some 340 aircraft owned …

RFL/RE – Iran on September 19 ruled out any bilateral meeting between Iranian and U.S. officials on efforts to revive a seven-year-old nuclear deal and floated a demand for “guarantees” as the UN General Assembly prepares to gather in New York this week. But Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said Tehran isn’t ruling out a meeting on the topic …

gatestoneinstitute.org – [I]t is vital that the US and its allies confront the reality of Iran’s expanding military operations around the world. While Tehran had denied the reports [that Iran had provided Russia with military-grade drones], Ukraine’s defence ministry posted images of what appeared to be parts of a destroyed drone with “Geran-2” written on the side in Russian. The …

Iranwire – A general strike has been declared in several cities in Iran’s West Azerbaijan and Kurdistan provinces in reaction to the death of Mahsa Amini. 🎥 اعتصاب سراسری در اعتراض به قتل مهسا 🔸امروز دوشنبه،پس از اعلام فعالان جامعه مدنی بسیاری از شهرهای کردستان در اعتراض به قتل #مهسا_امینی دست به اعتصاب عمومی زده‌اند.در ویدیویی که از شهر #مهاباد …

VOA – Protests persisted Sunday and #MahsaAmini became one of the top hashtags ever on Persian-language Twitter as Iranians fumed over the death of a young woman in the custody of morality police enforcing strict hijab rules. Amini, 22, died Friday after falling into a coma following her arrest in Tehran earlier in the week. The case has put a …

Al-Monitor – In the province of Khuzestan, where 74% of Iran’s oil is produced, water scarcity and poor air quality have made life increasingly untenable for the inhabitants. The region suffers from protracted water stress, compounded by dust storms and extreme heatwaves. Many of its nearly 5 million people are considering migrating to other provinces with higher standards of living. The government has not made …

Al-Monitor – Protests in Iran reached the capital city of Iran’s Kurdistan province on Saturday, as the uproar sparked by the death of a young woman blamed on Tehran’s morality police continued to spread. Protesters in Sanandaj, the provincial capital of Iran’s Kurdistan province, shouted slogans – such as “death to the dictator” and “death to Khamenei” – against Supreme …