Social and Political

Iranwire – Iran’s Foreign Ministry has confirmed the killing of two IRGC colonels in Syria by an Israeli missile strike. Ehsan Karbalaipour and Morteza Saeednejad were killed on Tuesday in a bombardment on  the outskirts of Damascus attributed to Israel by the Syrian official news agency SANA. In a statement posted on its website, the Iranian Foreign Ministry identified the …

Iranwire – The Khaneh Khorshid, or Sun House, one of the first drug addiction treatment centers for women in the most underprivileged part of Tehran, and one of just 28 non-governmental women’s shelters in Iran, is about to close its doors after 15 years. The center was established in 2007 by two women, Leila Arshad and Sorour Monshizadeh, and has since …

VOA — Israel’s contention that its regional foe Iran is helping Venezuela build combat drones is raising concerns that the two anti-U.S. allies could enable such drones to be used for terrorism. Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said on February 22 that his government determined that “Iranian precision-guided missiles are being delivered” to Venezuela to be fitted into “advanced Iranian …

VOA – Iran will not back down on its red lines in nuclear talks with major powers, President Ebrahim Raisi said on Tuesday, after the European Union said the time had come for Washington and Tehran to take political decisions needed to reach an accord. Eleven months of negotiations to revive the 2015 nuclear deal which lifted sanctions on Iran …

Al-Monitor – Iranian news outlets reported that the country’s top nuclear negotiator, Ali Bagheri Kani, was back in Tehran on “a short visit for routine consultations” pertaining to talks in Vienna on restoring the Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.   Iranian officials have said that while the senior diplomat is home, expert-level talks and informal meetings will continue …

Al-Monitor – President Joe Biden announced a ban on Russian oil and gas imports into the United States Tuesday as his administration tightens its squeeze on Russia’s economy over its invasion of Ukraine.  “Today, I am announcing the United States is targeting the main artery of Russia’s economy,” Biden said in televised remarks from the White House.  “Russian oil will no …

gatestoneinstitute.org – [A]t least two men from Iran’s Quds Force… are planning to assassinate former US National Security Advisor John R. Bolton…. However, Biden administration officials do not want to indict the Iranian assassins, for fear of disrupting the “progress” in Vienna, Austria, of a globally catastrophic “nuclear deal,” during which the interests of the United States are being negotiated …

RFL/RE – Iran says it has successfully launched its second military satellite as talks on reviving a 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and major powers reach a critical point.“Iran’s second military satellite — named Noor-2 — has been launched into space by the Qassed rocket of the aerospace wing of the Revolutionary Guards and successfully placed in orbit 500 kilometers …

Iranwire – On Sunday, March 6, Facebook flung the official page of the Tehran-sponsored Al-Alam TV channel off its platform. The official Arabic-language arm of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) had had a presence on the site since 2010. The permanent ban came without warning, but at a time when tech giants including Google, Facebook and Twitter have purged …

Iranwire – The sixth wave of coronavirus in Iran appears to have reached its peak a week earlier than predicted and is now subsiding. The official daily number of fatalities, which stood at 241 on February 27, fell to 172 at the end of the week. Persian new year, or Nowruz, arrives on March 21. The Nowruz holidays are traditionally a time …