Environment

Al-Monitor – In response to an unprecedented number of sandstorms disrupting daily life, officials from Iraq, Kuwait, Iran and Syria spoke on the need to collectively address this increasing problem.  According to Fars News, Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian spoke on the phone with his counterparts from Syria, Kuwait and Iraq on the need to address the sandstorms blanketing parts of their …

iranhr.net – The results of many dams and water transfer projects in Iran have been environmental injustice and migration to the city margins and shantytowns. For the past seven years, Abangan has sought to raise public awareness about water resource management, and in cooperation with the Iran Human Rights organization, it has addressed this issue from the perspective of human …

Iranwire – Schools, universities, government offices and banks have closed their doors in the southwestern province of Khuzestan due to intense pollution and the air being thick with dust. According to observers, the level of particle pollution in the cities of Ahvaz and Shush currently has recently stood at 25 times the safe level. At the same time, a Ministry …

RFL/RE – An Asiatic cheetah gave birth to three cubs in Iran, the head of the environment department said on May 1, calling it a first in captivity for the endangered species. The cheetah — named Iran — delivered three “healthy” cubs by cesarean section, Ali Salajegheh told the official government news agency IRNA. “This is the first birth of …

Iranwire – Saeed Heleichi, a poet and translator from Ahvaz, announced on Thursday that he had received a threatening call from an unknown number for posting pictures of the depleted Karun River in Ahvaz, Khuzestan province. The pictures posted by Heleichi were meant to raise awareness of environmental degradation in the border province, which last year was rocked by weeks-long mass …

Iranwire – Tehran was logged as the most polluted city in the world on Friday, with a “very unhealthy” average real-time air quality index (AQI) of 236 reported by the Swiss monitoring company IQAir. At one point, according to local estimates, the index even exceeded 500, the maximum level on the index. In recent years, the number of days Tehran has …

Iran-HRM – Twenty-two protesters were sentenced to a total of 160 years in prison, 1,480 lashes, and fines for opposing the Sabzkuh-Borujen water transfer project in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province. In a photo of the lawsuit issued by the criminal court of the two cities of Borujen, the plaintiffs are the “Regional Water of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province Organization” and …

RFL/RE – An Iranian-U.S.-British environmentalist who was convicted in Iran on what rights groups say were bogus national security charges has ended a weeklong hunger strike to protest his reincarceration. Morad Tahbaz was released on March 16, the same day as two high-profile British citizens, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori, who had been detained for more than five years, were …

Al-Monitor – Protests in late January along the border between Iran and Afghanistan over water resources show that one of the key issues between the two countries remains unsolved, even as cooperation between the two deepens. Photos were circulated of trucks with their windshields broken, reportedly by stones thrown by angry protesters just across the border from Afghanistan’s southwestern Nimroz …

Iranwire – Residents in five counties in the deprived Iranian border province of Sistan and Baluchistan held a rally on Friday to demand what they called their “water rights” from the Helmand River at the zero point of the Iran-Afghanistan border. Citizens of Zabol, Zahak, Helmand, Nimrouz and Hamoon counties were among those who attended the protest on the Milk …