Social and Political

Al-Monitor – A new Iraqi government has been finally formed after months of deadlock and a political crisis that hit the country’s stability and economy. The majority of ministers proposed by Prime Minister-designate Mustafa al-Kadhimi were approved by parliament, thus allowing the formation of a new government only days before his 30-day deadline to form a government. Out of a …

Radiofarda – A large majority of U.S. legislators on both sides of the aisle called on President Donald Trump’s administration on Monday, May 4, to push for an extension of a United Nations arms embargo on Iran. In a new letter to the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, 387 bipartisan members of the House of Representatives urged the State …

Radiofarda – An Iranian lawmaker has quoted a deputy defense minister as saying that more than 30 Iranians “active in military affairs” have been in jail outside Iran, but currently there are five individuals in prison abroad on charges of “military activity.” Hossein Naqavi Hosseini, the spokesman for the Iranian Parliament National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, who made the …

Radiofarda – While the Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Abbas Mousavi has said that nothing will be left of the 2015 nuclear deal if the UN security Council extends the arms embargo against Iran beyond October 2020, President Hassan Rouhani’s Spokesman, Ali Rabiei, says Iran is not planning to withdraw from the nuclear deal. Based on the multilateral accord, also known …

RFL/RE – Israeli missile strikes targeted a research center and military base in the northern province of Aleppo, Syrian state media said on May 4, in the fifth such strike in two weeks on suspected Iranian positions. The Syrian Army said Israel struck a military barracks in Al-Safirah in the eastern Aleppo countryside. Earlier, state media said a research center …

RFL/RE – Iran’s OPEC governor, Hossein Kazempur Ardebili, is in a coma after suffering a “severe” brain hemorrhage. In a tweet on May 3, the country’s Oil Ministry said Ardebili was hospitalized on May 1. It did not provide further details. Ardebili is a key figure in Iran’s energy industry and served as the deputy foreign minister and deputy oil …

PayvandNews – During a press conference on Monday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said the ministry is following up on Asgari’s case both in Iran and in the U.S. Asgari, who has been pleading for weeks to be released from a U.S. immigration jail due to health problems, is in an isolation cell inside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) …

Radiofarda – Last month the United States offered a prize for providing “any information on the activities, networks and colleagues” of a senior Lebanese Hezbollah official, thought to have replaced Qassem Soleimani as an operative in the region. A picture taken in 2010 shows Lebanese Shiite cleric Muhammad Kawtharani (L), who has long spearheaded Hezbollah’s Iraq policy, alongside Iraqi Shiite …

Radiofarda – The Spokesman of Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Monday said Iran is still prepared for prisoner exchange with the United States and European countries. Combo image of four Iranian dual nationals who were detained in Iran, (R to L) British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, Iranian-American Karen Vafadari, Iranian- American Siamak Namazi, and British-Iranian Kamal Foroughi, who was later released. “We had …

Radiofarda – The former mayor of Tehran, Mohammad Ali Najafi, who is being held in prison for the murder of his second wife said he has paid 100 billion rials (roughly $650,000) to the victim’s immediate relatives and acquired their forgiveness. In Iran’s Islamic criminal code, if a dead victim’s family forgives the killer, the death penalty can be avoided. …