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

Al-Monitor – President Hassan Rouhani presented his administration’s proposed budget to parliament on Dec. 8, and while Rouhani’s subsequent speeches after the budget presentation were upbeat, they belie difficult economic times ahead. The administration appropriately named the budget for the following calendar year “Standing and persevering in the face of sanctions.” Rouhani said that this time last year, when the previous budget was presented, …

newyorker.com – Donald Trump celebrated a surprise prisoner exchange with Iran in a tweet on Saturday, just hours after a Princeton graduate student and an Iranian scientist were traded on the tarmac of Zurich’s international airport. “Thank you to Iran on a very fair negotiation. See, we can make a deal together!” he wrote. The swap was a rare moment of …

responsiblestatecraft.org – Sweden’s detention of an Iranian allegedly involved in the 1988 prison massacres is both the latest attempt at universal jurisdiction and a reminder of what historian Ervand Abrahamian calls “the most despicable as well as the most bizarre event in modern Iran.” The arrested man, named by campaigners and by London’s Sunday Times as 58-year-old Hamid Nouri, is due to …

Shabtabnews – IOPHR ( the International Organisation to Preserve Human Rights ) in its December statement condemned the recent Iranian regimes’ crackdown on protesters and called the blatant shooting down of protesters as ‘crimes against humanity’ that needed to be addressed by international courts. In its statement it also called the EU to stop all its diplomatic and trade relations …

Radiofarda – Warning the Islamic Republic against its continued military presence in Syria, the Israeli Defense Minister, Naftali Bennett said on Sunday December 8, that Syria would be “Iran’s Vietnam.” Bennett’s warning echoed the Israeli Foreign Minister’s earlier comment on the same subject. “An Israeli attack on Iran is an existing possibility that is under discussion,” Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz had asserted …