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

rferl.org – Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh says China’s national petroleum company has pulled out of a $5 billion deal to help develop Iran’s giant South Pars natural gas field in the Persian Gulf. The development, announced by Zanganeh on the ministry’s SHANA website, comes amid economic pressure on both Iran and China from the United States. It also follows …

rferl.org – Australian travel bloggers Jolie King and Mark Firkin arrived back at their home in Perth after months in an Iranian jail following what appears to have been a likely prisoner swap with Tehran. Australian authorities confirmed on October 6 that, on the same day Tehran freed the couple from detention, they released an Iranian academic who had been …

alarabiya – The top UN official in Iraq deplored five days of violence during protests that has killed nearly 100 across the country and wounded thousands, saying “this must stop.” “Five days of reported deaths and injuries; this must stop,” Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, the special representative of the UN secretary general in Iraq, said in a tweet. According to the Iraqi …

alarabiya – The husband of a British-Iranian mother jailed in Tehran since 2016 said on Saturday the couple’s decision to send their five-year-old daughter to him in Britain to start school was “bittersweet.” Richard Ratcliffe, whose wife Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is serving a five-year term for sedition, told AFP he is looking forward to seeing daughter Gabriella for the first time …

Radiofarda – A poetry reciter in Iran has received a six-month prison sentence for reciting a poem, which mentioned corruption, discrimination abusing power and stealing public funds. Hossein Jannati, who once even recited a poem in the presence of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was charged with “propaganda against the regime”, and a higher court confirmed the verdict on October …