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VOA – Prime Minister Hassan Diab declared Wednesday a day of mourning in Lebanon after a powerful blast devastated the port in the capital city of Beirut. The Lebanese Red Cross said in a morning statement that more than 100 people were dead and at least 4,000 injured. Officials said they expected the number of victims to rise as crews …

Radiofarda – Ayatollah Mohammad Emami Kashani, a former Friday Prayer Imam and a member of the Assembly of Experts says Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was the only choice for the Islamic Republic’s next leader when Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeyni died in June 1989. “We had no other choice,” says Emami Kashani, adding that “We could have chosen a group of clerics to …

Radiofarda – Workers in various industrial sectors in Iran, including oil, gas and petrochemical industries, continued their strikes on Sunday and Monday, amid worsening economic condition and high inflation. According to reports published on social networks and unofficial trade unions, the workers at several refineries and petrochemical companies in the provinces of Khuzestan, Bushehr, Hormozgan, and Fars entered their second …

RFL/RE – Despite an upsurge in coronavirus infections in Iran and a ban on weddings and large funerals, the country’s famed gatherings of mourners during the Shi’ite month of Muharram will be held. The controversial decision was announced earlier this week by Iranian President Hassan Rohani amid speculation he would bend under pressure from hard-liners who oppose any limits on …

RFL/RE – Amid crushing economic conditions, demonstrations and strikes by workers have sprung up in Iran recently over unpaid wages and poor working conditions.Factory and city employees, coal miners, as well as health-care workers are among those who have been protesting in Iran in recent weeks.Many say they have not received their wages for months while others have complained about …

Radiofarda – A weapons depot at al-Saqr base belonging to Iraq’s federal police force but also used by pro-Iran paramilitaries exploded on Sunday in Baghdad’s southern suburbs. Iraq’s military blamed the explosion on high summer temperatures and poor storage, but given continuous tensions in the region some say it could have been a possible attack. Pro-Iran militia sources claimed that …

VOA – The Iranian deputy foreign minister said recently in Kabul that Afghans fought in Syria as part of the Fatemyon Brigade to make Afghanistan “more secure.” Afghans say that Iran deployed Afghans as a proxy force to fight in Syria for its own national interest.  VOA’s Sayed Hasib Maududi reports from Kabul. 

VOA – An Iranian father who became an outspoken critic of Iran’s Islamist rulers after their security forces killed his son in nationwide antigovernment protests last November has begun a second week in the custody of authorities, who rearrested him in response to his ongoing activism.     Iranian security agents arrested Manouchehr Bakhtiari on July 13 at the airport of Iran’s …

Al-Arabia – Iran has arrested about 30 people following the anti-government protests that broke out in the southwestern city of Behbahan on Thursday, the Iranian Human Rights Activists’ News Agency (HRANA) said on Friday. Protests broke out in Behbahan in the oil-rich Khuzestan province on Thursday with demonstrators demanding the overthrow of the regime, according to videos shared on social media. …

VOA- Iranians angered by their government’s handling of a faltering economy staged a rare protest in a southwestern city on Thursday, in defiance of security forces which dispersed attempted demonstrations in other parts of Iran. A review of images sent to VOA Persian appears to show Iranians chanting anti-government slogans in the streets of Behbahan in Iran’s Khuzestan province after …