Social and Political

AFP -Iran has released a “never before seen” photo of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei alongside Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s website released this “never seen before” photo Sept. 25 showing him with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Undated. The photo published on the supreme leader’s official website shows Nasrallah with Khamenei on …

Radiofarda – A court in Iran has upheld a municipality’s decision to demolish an illegally built luxurious mansion owned by the son-in-law of the secretary of the powerful Supreme National Security Council (SNSC). A luxury building belonging to the son in law of Ali Shamkhani, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran. The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps’ Rear …

Radiofarda – In an unprecedented verdict, a judge in Iran has sentenced a female gynecologist to seeing patients and delivering babies for one year, free of charge, for disregarding hijab rules. The judge sentenced the unnamed gynecologist woman for sitting on the top of a police vehicle and taking off her scarf (Islamic hijab).The odd punishment replaces a one-year jail …

Radiofarda – Iran’s all-powerful election watchdog has again warned on Saturday it would step in if candidates for upcoming parliamentary elections use “dirty money”. The eleventh Islamic Parliament elections in Iran will be on February 21, 2020, across the country. After holding different elections in the past four decades, the Guardian Council (GC), spokesman Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei admitted that “dirty …

Al-Arabia – Lebanese IT expert Nizar Zakka, who was detained in Iran for around four years and freed in June 2019, said that his release was a “US deal,” denying Lebanese Hezbollah’s role in the process and deeming it a cover for the Iranian regime to “save face.” In a statement to Asharq al-Awsat, the permanent US resident pointed out that …

RFL/RE – Shahnaz Haji Shah was 26 years old in September 1980 when she was killed by an Iraqi mortar in the southwestern Iranian port city of Khoramshahr near the border with Iraq.Days earlier, Iraq had invaded Iran, launching air strikes and a ground invasion.Khoramshahr was under constant shelling for weeks before it was seized by the Iraqi forces. Haji …

gatestoneinstitute.org – For four decades, the mullahs have successfully practiced their “do-and-deny” tactic thanks to the indulgence, not to say cowardice, of Western leaders and the pathetic anti-Americanism of some Western pseudo-intellectuals. Western anti-American intellectuals who become apologists for the mullahs are victims of their inability to conceive of a situation in which, while America may be bad, its adversary …

gatestoneinstitute. org – The reality of the delusional approach adopted by Mr Macron and other European leaders was, though, brutally exposed the moment Mr Rouhani arrived in New York. Instead of showing any sign of seeking to repair Tehran’s strained relationship with the West and its allies, he instead indulged in an orgy of self-justification in which he sought to …

Al-Monitor – As prospects died for a face-to-face meet this week in New York between Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and US President Donald Trump, European leaders continue to stress their intent to preserve the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear deal the Trump administration withdrew from in 2018.  Yet, with Washington out and Europe’s ability to deliver …

Radiofarda – Following a diplomatic deadlock between the United States and Iran this week, both sides confirmed that the State Department refused to allow foreign minister Javad Zarif to visit Iran’s ambassador to the UN, who is receiving treatment in a NY hospital. The ambassador Majid Takht Ravanchiis battling cancer in an upper-East side hospital in Manhattan. Radio Farda’s correspondent reports that …