Social and Political

VOA – Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard successfully managed a surveillance flight over a U.S. aircraft carrier, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported Saturday. The report included footage apparently from a Guard drone that flew over the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and another U.S. warship in the Persian Gulf. The images show fighter planes parked on the carrier deck. Tasnim did …

gatestoneinstitute – PAIC’s program contained ambitious goals, including the elimination of Israel, the collapse of the United States following the disintegration of the Soviet Empire, and the establishment of “truly Islamic” regimes in all the 57 countries where Islam was a majority religion. With a handful of exceptions, almost all the men who were supposed to build Turabi’s brave new …

gatestoneinstitute – “The golden days are gone and will never return. Iran doesn’t have enough money to give us.” — A militant with an Iranian-backed militia in Syria, New York Times, March 26, 2019. Feeling the pressure of sanctions on Iran, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Iran’s proxy, Hezbollah, has also called on his group’s fundraising arm “to provide the opportunity for jihad …

Al-Monitor – This year, the Nowruz holidays in Iran were accompanied by unpleasant events. Heavy rainfall in the final days of March caused massive flooding in different regions across Iran, especially in the northern province of Golestan, the western province of Lorestan, the southern province of Khuzestan and some regions in the east. The Iranian Red Crescent Society soon announced …

Radiofarda – Less than four days ahead of the International Labor Day, May 1, several members of the Free Workers Trade Union of Iran (FWTUI) have been detained in Tehran on Friday 26 April, reports say. Iran — Five Iranian Labor activists who’ve been arrested among 12 people on April 26, 2019. The detainees had reportedly gathered in a park …

Radiofarda – Clashes that broke out between the fans of two Iranian soccer teams on Friday April 26 in Tehran have so far claimed one life and left as many as 300 people wounded. Match between Sepahan and Persepolis in Iran ended in bloody fights– 26 Apr 2019 Iran’s Emergency Service later announced that the death was caused by drug …

Radiofarda – In an apparently coordinated public relations campaign, Friday Prayer Imams in Iran claimed that the country does not depend on oil exports very much and Gulf countries cannot replace Iranian exports sanctioned by the United States. Mashhad’s prayer leader, hardliner Ayatollah Ahmad Alamolhoda said during Friday Prayer on April 26 that “We depend on God, Islam, the Quran…and …

Radiofarda – A senior adviser to Iran’s Ministry of Health has warned that the country’s population is aging fast and in 20 years 20 percent of the population will be made up of senior citizens. Mohammad Esmaeel Akbari told local media that Iran’s population growth has slowed and until 2050 Iranian population will become one of the world’s oldest. Although …

Radiofarda – Two Trump administration officials said on Friday that neither a wind-down period nor a short-term waiver on China’s oil purchases from Iran are being contemplated after Washington surprised Iran’s customers on Monday by demanding they halt the purchases by May 1 or face sanctions. The administration has been clear to China, Iran’s top oil consumer, about no additional …

Radiofarda – The “authority” given to Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to discuss a prisoners swap with the United States may be an attempt by Tehran to show some “flexibility”; in the same way that reduction of tensions between Washington and Pyongyang started with a small athletic event. The word “flexibility” has a special connotation here. When in 2013 …