Social and Political

VOA – U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday did not rule out future sanctions against Iraq, but cited what he called “a very good relationship” when asked about potential plans for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. “We’ll see what happens, because we do have to do things on our terms,” Trump told reporters in Davos, Switzerland as he met with …

VOA – “Militias kidnapped my son,” shouts Umm Mohammad, a 43-year-old mother of two, under a tent awning in central Baghdad. “Why isn’t anyone doing anything?” Businesses around here have been closed for months as full-time protest camps occupy Tahrir Square and the surrounding area. Roads are shut down, and a tower of Iraqi flags resembling a Christmas tree blows in …

PayvandNews – Female sprinter Farzaneh Fasihi, dubbed the Wind Girl, comes close to fulfilling her dream of reaching the Olympic Games. Fasihi has recently secured her place at the 2020 World Athletics Indoor Championships, running 7.29 second time in the 60 meters event. She has become the first Iranian woman to participate at the World Athletics Indoor Championships. Iranian sprinter …

Radiofarda – Siavash Ghafouri Azar and his wife, Sara Mamani, were both graduates of Concordia University, Canada. They had traveled to their motherland, Iran, to celebrate their marriage with relatives. They wanted to sprinkle some joy on the cheerless lives in the country and return to the house that they had recently bought in Montreal. File photo: Victims of Ukranian …

Radiofarda – On January 20 Commander-in-Chief of the Revolutionary Guard appointed Mohammad Hejazi as Vice-Commander of the Qods (Quds) Force, a development that signals even more impetus to the role of Iran’s extra-territorial military-intelligence unit. Brigadier General Hejazi is not new to the Qods Force. His footsteps have been seen in Lebanon very recently where according to the Israel Defence …

Al-Arabia – Iran has asked the US and French authorities for equipment to download information from black boxes on a downed Ukrainian airliner, a request that will add to international frustration at Tehran’s failure to send the recorders abroad for analysis. Canada, 57 of whose citizens were among the 176 people killed in the crash, has said France should handle the …

Al-Arabia – At least two people were killed by Iraqi security forces when they fired at demonstrators in the cities of Karbala and Baghdad, according to Al Arabiya sources on Tuesday. Demonstrators blocked major roads in the capital Baghdad, as well as the governorates of Najaf, southwest of the capital Baghdad, and the city of Karbala, in central Iraq. They …

Al-Arabia – Two rockets have landed near the US embassy in Baghdad located in the heavily fortified Green Zone of the Iraqi capital, according to security sources. Sirens could be heard across the zone immediately after the rockets made impact. The US has blamed Iran-backed paramilitary groups for a spate of similar attacks in recent months on the Green Zone, …

RFL/RE – Eight European Union member states have given their support for a European-led maritime surveillance mission in the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic route for world oil supplies. Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, and Portugal backed the new force, they said in a “political statement” issued by France’s Foreign Ministry on January 20. The move comes …

VOA – Iran’s civil aviation authority said Tuesday the country’s military fired two missiles at a Ukrainian commercial jet that went down shortly after taking off from Tehran earlier this month, killing all 176 people on board. A Civil Aviation Organization report identified the missiles as being the TOR-M1 model, a type of Russian-made, surface-to-air missile. It also said it …