Social and Political

Al-Arabia – Iran said on Sunday its security forces killed two “terrorists” who were planning to carry out suicide bombings in the country’s restive southeast. A local security official told state media that the two people were killed in the city of Saravan after being pursued by security forces. The official said that the two individuals were carrying explosives intended …

iranintl – Iran will continue to support the Palestinians and “resistance groups”, President Ebrahim Raisi stated in Tehran on Sunday, emphasizing that compromise is not feasible. “We have repeatedly stated without hesitation that supporting Palestine and resistance groups is on the agenda of the Islamic Republic’s policies,” Raisi stated on Sunday. Raisi’s speech in an Islamic gathering appeared to be the …

iranintl – Media reports have highlighted Iran’s renewed interest in pursuing FATF membership, and recently, the Ministry of Economy sent a protest letter to the financial watchdog. The ministry argued that Iran’s 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal with world powers removed all sanctions, and Iran should not be economically penalized by the FATF. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is a …

iranintl – Water management researcher Aida Tavakoli calls the current condition of Lake Urmia “an ecological disaster” as the Middle East’s once second largest lake disappears. Tavakoli blamed the shrinking on several factors including mismanagement, drought, and increased water diversion for irrigated agriculture within the lake’s watershed. “Like all totalitarian regimes, food self-sufficiency has been a core priority of the …

VOA – More than a week after Iran experienced its deadliest terror attack in decades, its Islamist rulers said one of the suicide bombers trained in Afghanistan with the Islamic State group that claimed responsibility for the attack. Iranian leaders have vowed to retaliate against the IS perpetrators of the January 3 suicide bombings that killed at least 90 people …

VOA – India’s Minister of External Affairs will make a two-day trip to Iran starting Sunday, following Western airstrikes against Yemen’s Houthi rebels over the Tehran-backed group’s attacks on vessels in the Red Sea. The visit by Subrahmanyam Jaishankar comes a month after a drone attack on a ship near Indian waters that the United States blamed on Iran. A …

gatestoneinstitute.org – The BBC gives massive coverage to so-called diplomatic initiatives to bring about a ceasefire. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s “shuttle diplomacy” between Washington and the Middle East is presented as a serious enterprise rather than a banal version of shadow-boxing. [T]he Beeb wants only Israel to rein in its furies, never mentioning that Hamas, too, could help …

iranhr.net – Iran Human Rights IHRNGO and 16 other organizations have signed the following statement as part of ‘Impact Iran’. The text of the statement is as follows: We, as Impact Iran, urge the international community to join us in demanding an immediate halt to the imminent executions and overturn the death sentences of Kurdish political prisoners Mohsen Mazloum, Pejman Fatehi, …

iranintl – Iran’s significant nuclear progress and a shift in global politics have eroded the foundations of the 2015 JCPOA accord, and a made a new deal much less attainable. This article consists of two parts: The first part deals with the political implications of the nuclear activities of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the second part with the …

iranintl – President Joe Biden issued a veiled threat to Iran on Friday, hours after the US and Britain struck at dozens of Iran-backed Houthi sites in Yemen. The strike on Houthis Thursday night came after the group shrugged off all warnings and demands to stop attacking vessels in the Red Sea. There were more strikes Friday night, albeit on …