Social and Political

RFL/RE – Iran has worked for decades to bring its sewage system into the modern age. But metal thieves are throwing a wrench in the works.Authorities recently announced that the one of the country’s biggest public-works projects — the nearly 50-year effort to build a massive wastewater-treatment network in the capital — was “70 percent” done.But Masud Reza Sameni, deputy …

RFL/RE – The United States and European powers have voiced disappointment at what they said was Iran’s lack of seriousness in the latest round of negotiations on reviving a landmark 2015 nuclear deal.The talks between Iran and the remaining parties to the nuclear agreement — Britain, France, and Germany (known as the E3), China, and Russia — were resumed on …

Iranwire – Reports from Isfahan indicate martial law has been imposed on the periphery of the Zayanderud river. Friday morning saw a widespread presence of security agents throughout the city, as well as intermittent disruption of the internet and phone lines. A citizen journalist sent the below video to IranWire. It indicates a heavy security atmosphere in Isfahan on Friday, with a …

Al-Monitor – The parties to the now-fractured accord on Iran’s nuclear program, as well as the United States (which withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, in May 2018), are unlikely to reach an agreement this week on piecing a deal back together. Veteran US diplomat Aaron David Miller writes at CNN this week that “having spent a couple decades …

Iranwire – Reports from Isfahan indicate martial law has been imposed on the periphery of the Zayanderud river. Friday morning saw a widespread presence of security agents throughout the city, as well as intermittent disruption of the internet and phone lines. The tightening of restrictions came after locals issued a public call for people to join a fresh demonstration over the local water …

VOA —U.S. officials are increasing pressure on Iran to make progress in reviving a 2015 deal that curbed the Iranian nuclear program, saying they will determine within days if Tehran is serious about negotiations with world powers in Vienna. “We’re going to know very, very quickly, I think in the next day or two, whether Iran is serious or not,” …

Al-Monitor – The “Israeli regime … is trumpeting lies to poison Vienna talks,” tweeted Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh on the eve of the fourth day of nuclear talks between Tehran and major powers in the Austria capital. The stinging statement came in reaction to press reports earlier this week that Israel had provided the Western sides with intelligence that the …

Al-Monitor -The commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned that the United States’ “teeth will be crushed” if it moves against Iran, according to state media. Brig. Gen. Esmail Ghaani warned that Iran’s military capabilities had advanced to the point that the US “cannot do what you used to do in the past any longer. …

RFL/RE – Tehran says a deal with global powers to salvage a landmark 2015 nuclear deal is within reach even as the UN’s atomic watchdog said the country further violated the accord by starting to produce enriched uranium with more efficient centrifuges at its underground Fordow facility.Iran’s chief negotiator, Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Khani, said on December 2 his team had …

Iranwire – The dark and arresting sketches of Touka Neyestani, IranWire’s Canada-based cartoonist, have captivated our readers since 2013. Once an artist for Iranian magazines, in his later career Touka’s acid takes on the political situation in Iran – be they bleak and menacing, inducive of a guilty laugh, or gut-wrenchingly sad – won him millions of fans the world …