Shabtabnews In this dark night, I have lost my way – Arise from a corner, oh you the star of guidance.

Al-Monitor – “Regional presence grants us strategic influence and greater national power,” Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told members of the Assembly of Experts, a body of Iran’s most powerful clerics, constitutionally in charge of supervising his performance.  “Why do we have to give up on [such activities]?” Khamenei asked rhetorically. He was addressing criticism both at home and abroad on …

Iranwire – Russia’s Ambassador to Tehran has sought to pour cold water on fears that a newly-sanctioned Russia is trying to obstruct a return to the JCPOA. At a press conference on Wednesday, Levan Jagarian told reporters from ISNA, ILNA and Tasnim News Agencies, as well as the IRIB’s PressTV, that there had been a “misunderstanding”. “We will provide the …

Iranwire – Just when it seemed talks in Vienna on something approximating the JCPOA were close to concluding, Russia turned the tables. On Saturday, March 5, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the wide-ranging sanctions now imposed on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine posed “a problem” for the deal. Lavrov said Russia wanted “written guarantees” from the US that its trade, investment …

CHRI – Two months after two political prisoners died in Iranian state custody, the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) has sent a letter to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet urging her to call for the immediate release of prisoner of conscience Sepideh Qoliyan, who is gravely ill and in need of urgent medical care. Qoliyan, 27, is being …

Al-Monitor – The Lead: US Intel community assesses the threats from Iran and Russia US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, Director of Central Intelligence William Burns and other top national security officials are testifying this week before the House and Senate Select Committees on Intelligence on the Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community, the unclassified “collective insights” about “the most direct, serious threats to the …