VOA – Iran began construction on four more nuclear power plants in the country’s south, with expected total capacity of 5,000 megawatts, the official IRNA news agency reported Thursday. Iran seeks to produce 20,000 megawatts of nuclear energy by 2041. The country has one active nuclear power plant, a 1,000 megawatt plant that went online with help from Russia in …

VOA – U.S. forces are preparing to hit Iran-backed proxies across the Middle East with increased intensity in response to a drone attack on a base in Jordan that killed three U.S. soldiers and injured more than 40 others. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, speaking to reporters for the first time since he was hospitalized January 1 for complications from …

iranintl – Iran’s IRGC has reduced the presence of its senior officers in Syria due to a spate of deadly Israeli strikes and will rely more on its militia proxies, Reuters quoted five sources as saying. The Guards have suffered one of their most bruising spells in Syria since arriving a decade ago to aid President Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian war. …

iranintl – Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi faces an unusual challenge as he needs just one vote to secure reelection on March 1 to the Assembly of Experts in a small district. When selecting his constituency last year, he could have announced his candidacy from Tehran, where he works and resides, or from Qom, the home of the Shiite seminary where …

iranintl – Iran’s exiled prince, Reza Pahlavi, says the region’s problems are a result of global appeasement with the Islamic Republic.  Pahlavi highlighted Tehran’s destabilizing activities through its regional proxies such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis and crackdown on dissent within Iran, calling on the world to support the revolutionary uprising of the Iranian people to end the regime.  “There is only …

iranintl – US lawmakers are pushing for stricter enforcement of Iran’s oil sanctions, adding to the growing pressure on the Biden administration following a deadly attack on a US base in Jordan. In a letter addressed to the President, more than 60 House members from both parties are calling for “immediate action” to prevent the Iranian regime from obtaining “additional …

Iranwire – Sabah, 5, saw his father for the last time on his third birthday. The child still does not know that he was hanged this week.  The Kurdish family celebrated Sabah’s birthday in Iraqi Kurdistan, but circumstances led to the father, mother and toddler to leave the country. Sabah and his mother, Bayan Azimi, ended up in Germany, while …

Iranwire – Shops and businesses in the Iranian city of Semirom shut down on February 1 in a general strike protesting the transfer of two brothers on death row to solitary confinement.  Footage circulating online shows deserted streets and closed shops across the city, located in the central province of Isfahan, amid fear that Fazel and Mehran Bahramian could be …

Iranwire – Several political prisoners incarcerated in Ward 6 of Tehran’s Evin prison have gone on hunger strike to protest the recent spate of executions in Iran.  While launching their indefinite protest on January 31, the detainees condemned the increased use of the death penalty by the Iranian authorities as “inhuman,” an informed source told IranWire. Ward 6 of Evin …

Iranwire – The advent of newspapers and journalism in Iran sparked a wave of repression, threats, imprisonment and even murder.  From Mirza Jahangir-Khan Sur-e-Esrafil, the founder of the Sur-e-Esrafil newspaper in 1909, to Shahrzad Hemmati, the social desk editor of Shargh newspaper this week, journalists have faced many serious challenges. Hostility toward journalism escalated since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, but …