Social and Political

Radiofarda – Three weeks ahead of Iran’s new parliament starting work, an outspoken conservative pundit and a prominent journalist, Mohammad Mohajeri, has shed light on the political makeup of the new Majles where conservatives of various shades have nearly taken all 290 seats. However, the victory was the outcome of an engineered election that left out most reform-minded candidates in …

RFL/RE – Iran is ready for a full prisoner exchange with the United States, Iranian government spokesman Ali Rabiei says, adding that Washington has yet to respond to Iran’s call for a prisoner swap. Michael White poses with his mother, Joanne, in Washington in this undated photo. “We have announced that we are ready without any preconditions to exchange all …

VOA – Iraq’s new prime minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, chaired his first cabinet meeting Saturday after being sworn in earlier in the week. Kadhimi had meetings with U.S. Ambassador Matthew H. Tueller and Iranian Ambassador Iraj Masjedi. His meeting with the Iranian envoy comes as tensions between the United States and Iran have escalated following the assassination of Iranian Revolutionary Guard …

gatestoneinstitute.org – It may be a cliché to suggest that Lebanon is meant to be a Middle Eastern Switzerland, just as Uruguay is a haven of peace in South America, Singapore in Asia and Austria in Central Europe. Whenever Lebanon played that role it thrived. Whenever it diverged from that role, or was pushed out of it by foreign powers, …

Al-Monitor – While many residents in Iran’s capital are taking advantage of loosened COVID-19 controls, some worry about a new spike in infections in what remains the Middle East’s deadliest virus epicentre. “The line of fools,” muttered shopkeeper Manouchehr, peering disdainfully at a queue of customers outside a foreign currency dealer in the Sadeghieh district of western Tehran. Many in …

christianpost.com – The vicious oppression of the Muslim population in China is known the world over. Today, there are about 1.8 million Weegers in internment/concentration camps in China. With such an oppressive policy toward its Muslim population, it begs the question why the Chinese government, for weeks prior to making the news of its COVID-19 epidemic public, had been sending …

Al-Arabia – Iran warned Saturday that coronavirus infections were rising in the southwest despite falls in other regions, as it announced more than 1,500 new confirmed cases. “All provinces are showing a gradual drop in new infections… except for Khuzestan, where the situation is still concerning,” health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said in televised remarks. The health ministry stopped publishing …

Radiofarda – Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Friday, May 8, ordered a “thorough” probe into the drowning of several migrants after Iranian border guards allegedly forced them into a river last week. An Afghan man wearing clothes spattered in red color lays down on a road as protesters shout slogans against the Iranian regime and demand justice during a protest …

Radiofarda – Iran’s foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has sent a letter to the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres saying the Islamic Republic “is ready for talks at any level to ensure the full implementation” of the 2015 nuclear agreement. In the letter dated May 8, Zarif attacks “the unilateral” actions of the United States, both in withdrawing from the …

Radiofarda – A new Radio Farda video documentary released this week, suggests that Judiciary Chief Ebrahim Raeesi is most certainly being groomed as the Islamic Republic’s next Supreme Leader. The documentary which is in Persian is titled: From Executioner to Supreme Leader. The video does not have a narrator and tells its story through comments made by a selected handful of …