Islamic Republic
Iran summons UK envoy over alleged attacks on expat voters
Iran summoned Britain’s ambassador Saturday to protest what it said were violent incidents targeting its expatriates as they voted in presidential elections at polling stations set up in the UK. A foreign ministry spokesman in the Islamic republic said such acts included the “beating” of a female voter. The violence was perpetrated by “anti-revolutionary, anti-democratic and terrorist elements insulting the voters and staff,” Saeed Khatibzadeh said in a statement. Iranian media had reported several incidents on Friday on the sidelines of the vote organised for Iranian citizens abroad at sites in Britain, the United States, Australia and in other countries. Iranian ultraconservative cleric Ebrahim Raisi was on Saturday declared the winner of the presidential race, on a voter turnout of 48.8...
Iran’s president warns of coronavirus ‘fourth wave’
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani warned Saturday of a Covid-19 “fourth wave” as cases rise in certain areas of the Middle Eastern country hardest hit by the pandemic. “This is a warning for all of us,” Rouhani said in televised remarks. He said some cities in the southwestern province of Khuzestan were now “red” — the highest on Iran’s colour-coded risk level — after weeks of low alert levels across the country. “This means the beginning of moving towards the fourth wave. We all have to be vigilant to prevent this,” Rouhani added. The country of more than 80 million people has lost close to 59,000 lives out of more than 1.5 million cases of Covid infection. Iran has officially registered less than 7,000 daily infections since late December, but the number has crossed this level since early ...
Iran won’t resume nuclear commitments until US lifts sanctions – supreme leader
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Sunday the US must “completely lift” sanctions first, followed by verification by Tehran, before the Islamic republic returns to its nuclear deal commitments. “If they want Iran to return to its commitments … America must completely lift sanctions, and not just in words or on paper,” Khamenei said in a televised speech to air force commanders. “They must be lifted in action, and then we will verify and see if they have been properly lifted, and then return,” he added. The 2015 landmark deal has been hanging by a thread since US President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from it in 2018 and reimpose sanctions on Tehran. Tehran a year later suspended its compliance with most key nuclear commitments to the deal. The new administration of ...
U.S. imposes fresh sanctions on Iran in final days of Donald Trump presidency
The United States on Friday sanctioned companies in Iran, China and the United Arab Emirates for doing business with the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines and on three Iranian entities over conventional arms proliferation. They are the latest in a series of measures aimed at stepping up pressure on Tehran in the waning days of President Donald Trump’s administration, which ends on Jan. 20. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington had sanctioned seven companies, including Chinese-based Jiangyin Mascot Special Steel Co. and UAE-based Accenture Building Materials, and two people for shipping steel to or from Iran. He said Iran’s Marine Industries Organization, Aerospace Industries Organization and the Iran Aviation Industries Organization had also been blacklisted over conven...
Iran’s smog, blackouts made worse by power-sapping crypto mining
Outages have been compounded by cryptocurrency mining, which uses banks of high-powered computers. Cities across Iran have been cloaked in thick layers of toxic smog and darkened by blackouts, as the alleged use of low-quality fuel and power-sucking cryptocurrency mining deepen the country’s hardships. Tehran’s Hamshahri newspaper, the country’s most-read daily, ran the headline, “20 Days Living in Smoke,” on Wednesday over a photo of the capital covered in smog. Power plants have been forced to switch to burning low-grade fuel oils to generate electricity because high levels of domestic consumption have led to natural-gas shortages, the semi-official Iranian Students’ News Agency reported. Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh denied earlier this week that any of Iran’s power stations are us...
Iran jails British-Iranian researcher for nine years for subversion – report
A court in Iran has handed a nine-year jail sentence to British-Iranian anthropologist Kameel Ahmady, after convicting him of conducting “subversive” research work, the semi-official news agency Tasnim said on Sunday. Ahmady was also fined 600,000 euros ($727,000) – the sum Iranian authorities said he received for his research from institutions accused of seeking to topple Iran’s Islamic government, Tasnim reported. There was no immediate official comment on the sentence, which was also reported by other Iranian news agencies and a human rights groups, as well as by Ahmady’s lawyer, who said that he would appeal. “Ahmady was accused of acquiring illicit property from his cooperation in implementing subversive institutions’ projects in the country,” Tasnim said. Ahmady, an ethnic Kurd who h...
US sanctions Chinese, Russian firms over Iran dealings
The US on Friday announced economic sanctions on Chinese and Russian companies that Washington said had supported the development of Iran’s missile program. The four firms, accused of “transferring sensitive technology and items to Iran’s missile program,” will be subject to restrictions on US government aid and on their exports for two years, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement. The sanctions, imposed Wednesday, were against two Chinese-based companies, Chengdu Best New Materials and Zibo Elim Trade, as well as Russia-based Nilco Group and Joint Stock Company Elecon. “We will continue to work to impede Iran’s missile development efforts and use our sanctions authorities to spotlight the foreign suppliers, such as these entities in the PRC (China) and Russia, that provide mi...
Tehran, Brussels reject Donald Trump’s ‘snapback’ plan for Iran sanctions
Iran and the European Union have both rejected United States President Donald Trump’s plan to trigger the “snapback” mechanism in the Iranian nuclear deal to impose sanctions on Iran. “The Americans got out of the atomic deal in May 2018 and they know very well that the implementation of the snapback is something illegal and, therefore, absolutely unacceptable,’’ Iranian Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said on Sunday, according to state media. The snapback was granted to the participants in the 2015 Vienna nuclear agreement between major world powers and Iran in the event that Tehran violates it. However, under Trump, the United States withdrew unilaterally from the agreement in 2018. “Since Washington withdrew from the agreement, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of...
Iran says medics exhausted in battle against coronavirus
Iran reported 216 new deaths from the novel coronavirus on Sunday, calling on its citizens to observe health protocols more closely to ease the burden on exhausted medical staff. The Islamic republic announced its first COVID-19 cases on February 19, and the outbreak quickly became the Middle East’s deadliest. Declared coronavirus deaths have surged since the end of June and claimed more than 200 lives nearly every day in the past week, including a record 229 on Tuesday. “Our biggest concerns are the infection and fatigue of medical staff,” health ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari said in a televised briefing on Sunday. “We can help them and prevent the spread of the disease” by observing basic guidelines such as hand-washing, mask-wearing and social distancing, she added. Iran said ear...
