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TIME – Only two female Asiatic cheetahs are known to be alive in the wild The rare Asiatic cheetah, already severely endangered, may be in greater danger of extinction than ever before, as conservationists say only two females of the species are known to survive in the only country where it exists: Iran. Only 40 Asiatic cheetahs remain in the …

VOA – Four Iranian Revolutionary Guard vessels sped close to a U.S. guided missile destroyer in international waters Tuesday in an “unsafe and unprofessional” encounter, the U.S. Navy said Wednesday. The USS Nitze Guided Missile Destroyer The USS Nitze fired 10 warning flares and blew its whistles at the Iranian vessels but got no response. The four boats came within …

IOPHRI –  

Tasnim – A senior Iranian lawmaker warned that the parliament will impeach Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh if a new model of oil contracts with foreign customers, which has recently been approved by President Hassan Rouhani’s administration, is not modified. Speaking to the Tasnim News Agency, Seyed Nasser Mousavi Largani, who is a member of the parliament’s Economy Commission, pointed …

dailycaller – As many as 80,000 Iranian-backed militia are currently fighting Islamic State in Iraq, according to a U.S. Army spokesman. Col. Christopher Garver, the spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve, confirmed to Fox News that of the 100,000 Shiite militia fighters operating in Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMUs), 80 percent are backed directly by the Islamic Republic of Iran. “The [Iranian-backed] …

Iran Human Rights – Iranian authorities hanged two prisoners in public on Wednesday August 17. Two prisoners were reportedly hanged in public at Saheli Boulevard, located in the city of Bandar Abbas (Hormozgan province, southern Iran), on rape charges.The executions were reportedly carried out on the morning of Wednesday August 17 in front of a crowd of people. The Iranian state-run …

Iranhumanrights.org  – Iranian authorities must immediately put a halt to the execution of Kurdish political prisoners and prisoners of conscience, 22 human rights organizations stated. These organizations also urged for an immediate moratorium on the death penalty and a right to due process and fair and public retrials for all prisoners sentenced to death. Since the beginning of August 2016 …

RFL/RE – The Russian military has conducted air strikes in Syria using warplanes based in Iran for the first time, Russian state media are reporting. Russia’s Defense Ministry said the August 16 air strikes were carried out by Tu-22M3 long-range bombers and Su-34 strike fighters that took off from the Hamadan air field in Iran. The ministry claimed the strikes successfully …

RFL/RE – Iranian security forces claim they have killed three purported Sunni militants in western Iran. Police reported that the men were killed in a shoot-out on August 16 in the city of Kermanshah, about 500 kilometers southwest of Tehran and about 100 kilometers from the border with Iraq. They said an automatic rifle and a suicide vest were confiscated after …

MNA – Statistical Center of Iran (SCI) has reported that the country’s GDP, excluding oil, reached 4.4 per cent in the first quarter of the current Iranian year (began March 20). CSI announced on Sunday that Iran’s constant-price Gross Domestic Product (GDP) stood at about 6.7 billion dollars including oil and 5.4 billion dollars excluding oil. The figures indicate a …