Social and Political

Al-Arabia – The US Treasury Department on Friday sanctioned three Lebanese men linked to Hezbollah and ten companies based in Lebanon, Zambia and Germany. A statement from the Treasury Department said that Friday’s announcement showed how Hezbollah gained access to the international financial system to raise funds “in support of its acts of terrorism and other illicit activities.” For the latest headlines, …

Iranwire – Five people were killed and 41 more injured in a horrendous multi-car crash on the road from Behbahan to Ramhormoz, Khuzestan, on Monday. Two days later General Kamal Hadianfar, commander of Iran’s Traffic Police, revealed that not one of the airbags in the affected cars had inflated as they should have. He sharply criticized the country’s domestic car manufacturers, calling …

Iranwire – Since the Taliban took control in Afghanistan in 2021, several former Afghan soldiers have been arrested or have disappeared. Their relatives told IranWire that some of them are in prison on charges of “membership to the Fatemiyoun Brigade,” a militia linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. These allegations are widely believed to be false and appear to have become a tool for the Taliban to step …

Iran-HRM – In a letter from Kamyaran Prison, political prisoner Salar Sediq Hamedani referred to the torture he and his father had endured. In the letter, political prisoner Salar Sediq Hamedani, who was recently banished to Kamyaran Prison, wrote about his fathers’ illness and inability to endure imprisonment. He also explained that the confinement of political prisoners in Iran together …

Al-Monitor – Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi defended his country’s nuclear activities as legal and renewed strong criticism against the American sanctions regime that has battered the Iranian economy. “We are not seeking a nuclear bomb, and it has no place in our defense strategy,” Raisi declared in a speech at Russia’s lower parliament Jan. 20, as he refenced a 2003 fatwa, or religious …

Al-Monitor – US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday that Iran’s nuclear weapons program is one area where the United States and Russia can work together and that the two countries are on a “clearer path” to understanding each other’s concerns.  The top US diplomat met with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, in Geneva on Friday for talks focused …

RFL/RE – U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on January 20 that talks to revive the Iran nuclear deal have reached an “urgent” point following “modest progress” in negotiations in Vienna. However, Blinken told reporters after meeting with European allies in Berlin that reviving the landmark agreement was still possible. “My own assessment, talking to all of our colleagues, …

RFL/RE – Mohammad Taghi Fallahi, the secretary-general of the Iranian Teachers Trade Association in Tehran, has been taken to Evin Prison to serve a six-month prison sentence. Taghi Fallahi was arrested in February 2020 and held in Tehran’s Evin Prison for his participation in a peaceful teachers’ protest. He was later released on bail. Last year, a court in Tehran sentenced him …

Iranwire – Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi arrived in Moscow on Wednesday, January 19, 2022. He has prayed in the Russian capital, spoken to Vladimir Putin, and is expected to put in an appearance at the State Duma. Though Iranian state media made much of the visit in the run-up, no outlet reported on how Putin officially received his Iranian counterpart …

Iranwire – Ali Akbar Velayati served as Iran’s foreign minister for 15 years, from December 1981 to August 1997, and today remains a special advisor to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on international affairs. On the eve of President Ebrahim Raisi’s first state visit to Russia, Velayati gave an interview with the ultraconservative daily newspaper Kayhan, whose editor is also appointed by Khamenei. In …