Social and Political

Al-monitor – Russia and Iran are taking every opportunity to increase their influence in Syria. They recently urged private security companies to open offices across Syria, offering young men large amounts of money to work for them amid deteriorating economic conditions and a lack of job opportunities in the Syrian regime-controlled areas. The Syrian government had stopped issuing licenses to private security companies …

(AP) — Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani urged the West on Wednesday to restore the 2015 nuclear deal as the nation marked the anniversary of the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution — on wheels this time, rather than traditional rallies and marches amid the worst COVID-19 outbreak in the Middle East. Rouhani said the “era of sanctions” was over and that the …

Al-Arabia – The Iran-backed Houthis claimed on Wednesday the attack on Saudi Arabia’s Abha airport and said it was a military target, AFP reported. For all the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app. “The UAV air force targeted the airfields of warplanes at Abha International Airport – which is used for military purposes to …

Al-Arabia – Canada is reviewing an audio recording in which an Iranian official, reportedly identified as Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, concedes that the downing of a Ukrainian airliner by the Iranian military over Tehran last year may have been an intentional act, Canada’s public broadcaster reported on Tuesday. For all the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online …

Iran-HRM – Iranian intelligence police tortured a 20-year-old inmate to death in Tehran. The Kurdish man, Mehrdad Taleshi had been arrested on February 1, 2021, in a metro station in Tehran. Mehrdad Taleshi was a 20-year-old athlete from the western city of Divandere, Kurdestan Province. He had moved to Tehran two years ago to live with his sister. Hengaw human …

Al-Monitor – US President Joe Biden delivered his first foreign policy speech Feb. 4. His address worried Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for two reasons. The first was what Biden said, and the second was what Biden did not say. Biden repeated in his speech the need for America to repair its alliances and engage again with the world. In an …

Al-Arabia – Iran is closer than it has previously been to having the ability to produce material needed for a nuclear weapon, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Monday. The top US diplomat criticized the decision by former President Donald Trump to withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), otherwise known as the Iran nuclear deal, as the reason for …

gatestoneinstitute – “[T]he Islamic Republic Theocracy is on the verge of collapse”. — Letter from 38 Iran-based dissidents to the Biden administration, February 1, 2021. “The moment Biden joins the nuclear deal and unblocks the money for the Islamic Republic, the regime will once again dish out money even to Taliban, ISIS, Al Qaeda, but Iranians will keep remaining in …

RFL/RE – A Revolutionary Court in Iran has sentenced a law professor to seven years in prison after convicting him of “cooperating with an enemy state.” The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) reported on February 8 that Reza Eslami, a professor at Tehran’s Shahid Beheshti University, had been also banned from teaching and leaving the country. The sentence, …

RFL/RE – Iran and North Korea resumed cooperation on the development of long-range missile projects last year, according to a UN report. “This resumed cooperation is said to have included the transfer of critical parts, with the most recent shipment associated with this relationship taking place in 2020,” an independent panel of experts monitoring international sanctions on North Korea said …