Social and Political

RFL/RE – Iran has won approval from the United States to use foreign currency reserves it holds abroad to buy coronavirus vaccines despite U.S. sanctions on Iranian banks, the central bank chief said on December 24.Abdolnaser Hemmati said the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control approved the transfer to a Swiss bank.Hemmati said Iran would pay around $244 …

VOA – U.S. President Donald Trump has warned Iran against any attack on U.S. military or diplomatic personnel in Iraq, days after suspected Iran-backed Iraqi militia launched a barrage of rockets at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone.  The warning, issued on Twitter on December 23, came after top U.S. national-security officials met to prepare a range of …

Iranwire.com – A key tactic when playing poker is that when your opponent is on the offensive, and plays one strong hand after another, you bide your time and don’t make any risky moves. You remain patient and wait until you have a strong hand – then you attack. The same is true in chess; when your opponent is strong you wait until …

RFL/RE – “One of the nightmares of my life that always recurs is that [my father’s murder] seems to happen again and again in my sleep, while I struggle to find a way to stop it.” This has been Sohrab Mokhtari’s nightmare for the past 22 years. Sohrab is the son of Mohammad Mokhtari, a writer and member of the …

RFL/RE – Amid the launch of mass COVID-19 vaccination drives in the West, there’s growing concern among Iranians that they could be left behind. They fear U.S. sanctions and what some regard as the Iranian clerical establishment’s failure to prioritize the well-being of its citizens. Iranians, including health workers, have taken to social media to call on their leaders to …

Radiozamaneh – A legal dispute between an Ivy League university and a foundation in New York has endangered the future of one of the most important academic projects on Iranian Civilization: Encyclopedia Iranica. The project is an encyclopedia that has been assembled and published at  Columbia University for decades. Encyclopaedia Iranica Columbia University in the City of New York,, the …

Al-Monitor – Families who lost loved ones aboard Ukraine Airlines flight 752 after it was downed by Iranian forces in January said they would reject any compensation from the Iranian government and plan only to seek justice for the victims. An association of the families issued a strongly worded statement addressing the Iranian government ahead of the anniversary of the tragedy. “The murderer …

Iran’s headline-grabbing stories in the past several weeks about the assassination of a top nuclear scientist, the raging coronavirus pandemic and soaring prices have overshadowed the shocking scene of an isolated shanty house being razed to the ground before the eyes of its poverty-stricken dwellers. On Nov. 19, municipal workers of the city of Bandar Abbas demolished the tiny shelter of 35-year-old Tayyebeh amid desperate pleas among …

(AP) — Deep in the lush valleys of northern Iran, where the Alborz Mountains crumble toward the sea, Ali Rahimi takes up his grisly work. Day in and day out, Rahimi, a 53-year-old volunteer cleric in the city of Ghaemshahr, puts on his hazmat suit and receives the deceased; disinfecting, washing and shrouding the dead bodies in white cloth. The …

shabtabnews – On the one year anniversary of death of Dr Noor Ali Tabendeh IOPHR put out a statement commemorating the human right’s record of Dr Tabandeh. Dr. Tabandeh was a prominent Jurist, an expert in Islam, a freedom fighter, a mystic and the spiritual leader of eight million Gonabadi Sufis in Iran and around the world. He is widely …