Social and Political

VOA – The United States is pressing ahead with plans to push for the extension of a U.N. arms embargo against Iran that is due to expire in two months under the 2015 nuclear deal, but it is likely to face stiff opposition from other nations, including Russia and China. “We have an objective to extend the arms embargo,” U.S. …

VOA – U.S. Iran envoy Brian Hook is leaving his post and U.S. Venezuela envoy Elliott Abrams will add Iran to his role “following a transition period” with Hook, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Thursday. Hook’s departure comes as the United Nations Security Council prepares to vote next week on a U.S. bid to extend an international …

VOA – Numbness and shock at first — now fury. The massive blast at Beirut’s port Tuesday night that wrecked large parts of Lebanon’s capital is likely to have as enduring an impact on the impoverished Mediterranean country as the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, say diplomats and analysts.  The question, though, is whether the impact will be for …

gatestoneinstitute.org Crimes against humanity that meet the UN definition of genocide are being inflicted by Chinese troops on their Turkic Uyghur minority in the so-called Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Charges include torture, forced sterilization and hair shaved from inmates and made into commercial products. Last month, US Customs seized 13 tons of human hair and other “beauty products” worth approximately …

Al-Monitor – Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif visited Moscow last month for the third time in the past six months for meetings with senior Russian officials. Although they have often been adversaries since first establishing diplomatic relations in the 16th century, Iran and Russia are purposely seeking to develop an increasingly close bilateral relationship. Currently the epicenter of the coronavirus …

Radiofarda – Outspoken former lawmaker Ali Motahari on Wednesday said a high-ranking Foreign Ministry official has admitted to him that Iran remains silent about the suppression of Chinese Muslims — mainly Uyghurs — because of economic dependence on China. Speaking to Asr-e Iran news website, Motahari said he asked the official about the reason of Iran’s silence a while back. …

Radiofarda – Tehran turns off the lights of its highest monument, the Milad Tower, Wednesday night August 5 in solidarity with Lebanon, as analysts and politicians in Tehran have reacted to the Tuesday’s massive blast in Beirut. At the same, Iran Air is to send two airplanes to Beirut to repatriate visiting Iranians. Reports from Beirut say that the international …

Al-Arabia – Hezbollah members and affiliates had previously been caught in London and Cyprus with large quantities of ammonium nitrate, the highly explosive compound thought to be the cause of the deadly explosion in Beirut this week, according to a report by British newspaper the Telegraph. The massive explosion that ripped through Beirut on Tuesday, killing at least 137 people and injuring over 5,000, …

VOA – Narges Mohammadi, an Iranian journalist who has been jailed in her country since 2015 for human rights advocacy and who told supporters last month she was showing coronavirus symptoms, appears to have recovered from them, according to her husband. In a written message sent to VOA Persian on Tuesday, Mohammadi’s husband, Taghi Rahmani, living in exile in Paris, …

Iran-HRM – There have been several attacks on political prisoners in Iran’s jails in the past few days. The attacks were carried out by common prisoners incited and hired by prison authorities. On Tuesday, August 4, in Evin Prison, several financial convicts attacked and brutalized prisoner of conscience Behnam Mahjoubifar and Behnam Mousivand without any justification. They threatened to kill the latter. …