Social and Political

VOA – A small western Pennsylvania water authority was just one of many organizations breached in the United States by Iran-affiliated hackers who targeted a specific industrial control device because it is Israeli-made, U.S. and Israeli authorities say. “The victims span multiple U.S. states,” the FBI, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, known as CISA, as …

gatestoneinstitute.org – In the case of a “Palestinian State”, there is no territory on which even the Palestinians agree. Indeed, the charter of Hamas — designated as a terrorist organization by many countries in the West, and which has reigned unchallenged in the Gaza Strip since 2007 when it forcibly expelled the Palestinian Authority, in part by throwing its members …

gatestoneinstitute.org – [B]oth Russia and Ukraine have passed what military theoreticians call the “decimation point” when you see that you have lost at least 10% of your fighting manpower. In the West, public opinion saw the war as a means of keeping the Russian giant in chains, while anti-West forces admired Putin for challenging the American big bad wolf. Pictured: …

Al-Arabia – Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on Saturday accused Israel of killing two of its members in Syria where they had been on an advisory mission.“Mohammed Ali Ataei Shoorcheh and Panah Taghizadeh… were martyred by the Zionist usurper enemy while conducting an advisory mission in the Syrian Islamic resistance front,” the Guards’ Sepah News website said, without providing further …

iranintl – As opinion polls signal a potentially low turnout for the March parliamentary elections in Iran, many observers attribute it to widespread disqualification of candidates. Reformist commentator Abbas Abdi, citing a poll by the ISPA agency, predicts that fewer than 15 percent of eligible voters in Tehran may participate in the March 1 election. He suggests a similar situation …

iranintl – Policies adopted in recent years have seriously damaged the quality and fairness of Iran’s education system, a report released by a group of experts says. The report an excerpt of which was published by the reformist Etemad newspaper highlights significant qualitative deficiencies in Iran’s education system. Alongside these shortcomings, the system is criticized for a lack of justice in providing …

RFL/RE – The re-arrest of Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi has triggered a wave of outrage after reports that armed security agents beat the dissident while taking him into custody even though he is still recovering from being tortured during his previous prison time. Police detained Salehi, a prominent voice in Iran’s recent social and political movements, on November 30 on a street …

VOA – Iranian delegates walked out of U.N. climate talks in the United Arab Emirates in protest Friday over the presence of Israeli representatives, state media reported. The Iranian side considered Israel’s presence at COP28 “as contrary to the goals and guidelines of the conference and, in protest, it left the conference venue,” said Energy Minister Ali Akbar Mehrabian, who …

VOA – At least 118 cross-border porters were killed or injured in November, the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights reported this week, adding that more than 93% of them resulted from shootings by the armed forces of Iran. Hengaw said Thursday that eight porters were killed, one of them a child, and 110 were injured, 14 of them children. The …

gatestoneinstitute.org – The threat of a nuclear-armed Iran must not be underestimated. Iran’s regime has frequently threatened to wipe a whole country — Israel — off the map, and is also increasing military cooperation with Venezuela and Cuba to threaten the US. Europe, too, remains a rich target for nuclear blackmail. Iran would not even have to use its nuclear …