Social and Political

iranintl – Iran’s modern public education system, established in the 1930s as one of the first in the Middle East, is increasingly falling under clerical control while suffering from a lack of investments. Over the past decade, several concerning issues have plagued Iran’s public education system, attracting significant attention. Mass recruitment of clerics in public schools, significant dropouts even in …

Iranwire – In a recent interview, Iranian football legend Ali Daei said he had been prohibited from engaging in any business activities in the country for the past year and a half.  Daei, a former German Bundesliga striker whose 109 goals at international level were long unsurpassed until Cristiano Ronaldo overtook him, has been a vocal supporter of the 2022-23 …

Iranwire – The Islamic Republic of Iran has used two big UK banks to covertly move money around the world as part of a scheme to evade sanctions, the Financial Times reported. According to documents seen by the British newspaper, Lloyds and Santander UK provided accounts to British front companies secretly owned by a sanctioned Iranian petrochemicals company based in …

VOA – Washington vowed additional military action against Iran-backed groups in the Middle East following two days of attacks in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen in retaliation for months of assaults on U.S. assets in the region, including a drone attack that killed three American service members in Jordan last month. White House national-security spokesman John Kirby said in a series …

VOA – Iran on Sunday denounced the latest U.S. and U.K. strikes on targets in Yemen saying they “contradict” their declared intention of avoiding a wider Middle East conflict. These attacks are “in clear contradiction with the repeated claims of Washington and London that they do not want the expansion of war and conflict in the region,” Iran’s foreign ministry …

VOA – Iranian civil society organizations and professionals say suicide rates have reached crisis levels among school students and recent medical school graduates in the past month, with no sign of solutions from the government. Iranian state news agency IRNA acknowledged the worsening of the Islamic republic’s suicide problem generally in a January 6 article. It cited Hamid Parvih, the vice …

iranintl – Iran’s Revolutionary Guard had no presence in the military bases bombed by the United States, an IRGC general and a member of the Iranian parliament reiterated on Sunday. Esmail Kowsari, who is of many IRGC senior officers in the hardliner faction in the parliament, reiterated that if there were any Iranian bases among the targets hit by the US in …

Iranwire – The Islamic Republic knows that escalating the war in the Middle East risks direct confrontation with the United States, the potential loss of large numbers of IRGC soldiers and perhaps more popular unrest. Yet Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has long pursued proxy battles in the region and may think this is the right time to fulfil his …

RFL/RE – U.S. forces said they hit another Huthi target in Yemen overnight, destroying what they said was an “anti-ship cruise missile” site that had threatened Red Sea shipping traffic. The statement by U.S. Central Command, released early on February 4, came hours after the United States and Britain stuck more than three dozen targets in Yemen that officials identified as sites …

RFL/RE – A coalition of rights activists and writers have penned an open letter to Nada Al-Nashif, the UN deputy high commissioner for human rights, urging her to reconsider her planned visit to Iran saying the government will not allow her to see the “truth” about the situation in the country. Al-Nashif is scheduled to visit Iran from February 2 to February …