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

Iranwire – For almost four years now, Iran has witnessed large-scale protests on a regular basis, with civic activism erupting across numerous cities and provinces across the country. The phenomenon of frequent, mass demonstrations started in December 2017 and January 2018.  Overwhelmingly, these protests were catalyzed by the rising cost of living, but there were a number of other factors at play. Whether …

Iranwire – In Margaret Atwood’s fictional land of Gilead, the fertile women are marked out by red clothing. Their menstrual cycle is monitored by high-ranking “aunts”, and if a woman falls pregnant, she’s no longer allowed to breathe alone. Those who fail to give birth naturally are brutally punished. In this Canadian novelist’s grim future history, women exist as “handmaids”: …

Al-Arabia – The US is ready to “turn to other options” if diplomacy fails to convince Iran of the need to return to the original nuclear deal, a senior Biden administration official said Monday. Speaking to reporters ahead of a visit to Washington by Israel’s National Security Council chief, the US official said meetings would focus on regional issues and, “of course, …

Iranwire – A recent report by the Statistical Center of Iran has put the unemployment rate across Iran at 9.6 percent this summer: an 0.1 percent increase on the same period last year. Also this season, though, the overall labor force participation rate – generally a better indicator of the country’s economic health – stood at just 41.1 percent: a decline of …

Iranwire – In his last weeks in office, Mohammad Javad Zarif, who served as foreign minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran from 2013 to 2021, published a six-volume treatise on Iran’s nuclear negotiations with the P5 + 1:  the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany. Entitled The Sealed Secret, the book carries the subtitle “An Immense Endeavor for …