Social and Political

Al-Monitor – The United States is “confident” that Iran is responsible for an attack on an Israeli-linked oil tanker that killed two crew members off the coast of Oman last week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday.  “I want to condemn again the attack on Friday against the commercial ship. … We’ve conducted a thorough review and we’re confident that …

AL-Arabia – Britain on Monday summoned Iran’s ambassador to London in response to what it claims was a Tehran-ordered attack on a merchant vessel off the coast of Oman that killed a British and Romanian national. For all the latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the app. “The Iranian ambassador to the UK, Mohsen Baharvand, was …

Al-Arabia – Iran’s daily COVID-19 caseload crossed 37,000 mark for the first time on Monday, the health ministry said, as the Islamic republic also recorded its highest daily fatalities in three months. In the past 24 hours, Iran registered a record 37,189 positive cases, bringing the total number of infections since the start of the pandemic to 3,940,708. The record caseload is …

RFL/RE – Iranians are warning of public anger and drawing parallels with the world’s most oppressive regimes as legislation makes its way through the country’s parliament that could intensify online censorship and further restrict Internet access. Iranian authorities already block tens of thousands of websites and regularly throttle or cut Internet connectivity during crucial periods, including a near-total shutdown for …

VOA – The United States and Britain on Sunday blamed Iran for a drone attack last week on an oil tanker off the coast of Oman that killed two people. “We are confident that Iran conducted this attack,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement, while accusing Tehran of increasingly deploying the armed drones throughout the region. …

timesofisrael — Iran’s outgoing president on Sunday acknowledged his nation at times “did not tell part of the truth” to its people during his eight-year tenure, as he prepares to leave office with his signature nuclear deal with world powers in tatters and tensions high with the West. President Hassan Rouhani’s comments, aired on state television, came as officials in …

gatestoneinstitute.org – Ayatollah Khomeini said that the regime he planned to install in Iran would have one guideline: “Doing the opposite of what the cursed Shah did.” [Khomeini’s] position started by dividing Iranians into Muslims and non-Muslims. He then divided them further into Shiites and Sunnis. He went on to divide the Shiites into twelvers and others. But, here, too, …

Iranwire – US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke to his Israeli counterpart on Saturday night to discuss the recent drone attack on the Israeli-managed ship. “Secretary Blinken and FM Lapid discussed the attack on the Mercer Street, a commercial ship which was peacefully transiting through the north Arabian Sea,” State Department Spokesman Ned Price said in a statement. For the latest headlines, follow …

RFL/RE – Iran has rejected Israel’s allegation that Tehran was behind an attack last week on an Israeli-managed oil tanker off the coast of Oman that killed two people, a Briton and a Romanian. The July 27 incident that damaged the Liberian-flagged, Japanese-owned Mercer Street tanker was the first fatal attack on commercial shipping in the region explicitly linked by …

chathamhouse.org – Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian charity worker arrested on holiday in Iran in 2016 and jailed for five years after being found guilty of undisclosed national security charges. At the end of her term, she was sentenced to another year in prison and given a one-year travel ban after being found guilty of ‘spreading propaganda against the regime’. The …