Category Archives: Hassan Rouhani

Iran bars Hassan Rouhani from seeking re-election to key body

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Former president’s exclusion from group likely to choose next supreme leader angers reformists

The Iranian regime has taken its crackdown on any internal opposition into a new phase by disqualifying the reformist former president Hassan Rouhani from seeking re-election to the assembly of experts, the body that chooses the country’s supreme leader.

Reformists reacted angrily on Thursday to the regime-controlled guardian council’s announcement. The 88 assembly members serve an eight-year term, and since the incumbent supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, is 84, it is highly likely that the next assembly will choose his successor.

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Iran fears fifth wave of Covid cases linked to Delta variant

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Tehran classified as ‘red zone’ as authorities struggle to import vaccines due to US sanctions

Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, has expressed fears that Iran will be hit by a new wave of Covid-19 due to an outbreak of the Delta variant in the Middle East’s hardest-hit country.

“It is feared that we are on the way to a fifth wave throughout the country,” Rouhani told a meeting of Iran’s anti-virus taskforce, warning the public to be careful as the Delta variant had entered the country from the south and south-east.

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The Observer view on Iran’s rigged presidential election | Observer editorial

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It is not only Iranians who will suffer if a hardliner wins, it could have profound consequences for world peace

Iran’s beleaguered voters do not have much of a choice in this Friday’s presidential election. The regime, dominated by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a fiercely anti-western conservative, has cynically manipulated the contest to ensure that a like-minded hardliner, most probably Ebrahim Raisi, head of the judiciary, wins.

While the result is hardly a cliff-hanger, its impact may nonetheless be far-reaching – in Iran and internationally. The possibly negative consequences for talks on curbing Iran’s nuclear programme, for peaceful relations with Israel, Saudi Arabia and the west, for the wars in Syria and Yemen, for the geopolitical balance and for Iran’s own citizens are alarming.

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Iran election candidate threatens to try rival for treason during TV debate

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Former leader of Revolutionary Guards rounds on ex-central banker in bruising first debate

Iran’s presidential election candidates have engaged in a fiery and bruising first television debate, during which one promised to put another, the former governor of the central bank, on trial for treason and ban him and other members of the government from leaving the country.

The threat to put Abdolnaser Hemmati on trial was made on Saturday by the former leader of the Revolutionary Guards Mohsen Rezaei, currently secretary of the Expediency Council. He claimed the Iranian currency had been devalued so much by Hemmati that “the train of the revolution has turned into a scooter”.

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Hassan Rouhani criticises Iranian election criteria

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Dissidents and critics claim election campaign is charade

Iran’s outgoing president has criticised a sudden narrowing of the eligibility criteria for those hoping to succeed him as registration formally opened for candidates in the 18 June vote.

Dissidents and critics claim the campaign is just a charade and helps provide legitimacy to an autocratic regime but the tensions over who can stand – and the move by a powerful unelected body to exert greater control – has revealed the tensions in Iranian society over the outcome.

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2021 – the story of a year in 12 leaders

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In 2021, the world will slowly begin to fight back against Covid. But what else will change as the vaccines are administered? Here are the figures who will shape a vital year

Joe Biden United States

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Iran vows to ‘respond’ to killing of nuclear programme scientist – video

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Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, has said the country will respond to the killing of one of the country’s most senior scientists, who was identified by Israel as having headed a secret nuclear weapons programme.

Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the architect of Tehran’s nuclear strategy, was killed on Friday on a highway near the capital in a carefully planned assassination that has led to a serious escalation of tensions in the Middle East.

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Iran’s supreme leader calls for ‘definitive punishment’ of scientist’s killers

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Ayatollah threatens retaliation after president blames Israel for assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh

Iran’s supreme leader has called for the “definitive punishment” of those behind the killing of one of the country’s most senior scientists, who was identified by Israel as having headed a secret nuclear weapons programme.

Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the architect of Tehran’s nuclear strategy, was killed on Friday on a highway near the capital in a carefully planned assassination that has led to a serious escalation of tensions in the Middle East.

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Iranian president upbeat about relations with Biden-led US

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Hassan Rouhani tells Tehran cabinet he hopes US will ‘condemn Trump policies against Iran’ and lift sanctions

Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, said on Wednesday it would be easy to solve the country’s problems with the US so long as Joe Biden stuck to the commitments he made on the campaign trail.

Rouhani’s optimistic remarks to a weekly cabinet contrasted with a speech the day before by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which sketched out a more difficult path to normalisation and the lifting of sanctions.

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Iran at breaking point as it fights third wave of coronavirus

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Trust in government of exhausted and impoverished country is diminishing as death toll continues to rise

Iran, the crucible of coronavirus in the Middle East, smashed two grim records this week, reporting its largest number of deaths in a single 24 hours since the outbreak started in March, and the largest number of new infections.

Iranian health officials openly admit Iran is deep into its third, and biggest, wave of the disease, and evidence suggests an exhausted and impoverished country is struggling to cope as trust in government diminishes, sanctions weaken the economy and hospitals report overcrowded intensive care units.

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The Guardian view on Covid-19 worldwide: on the march

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Infections are accelerating in largely untouched countries and those which hoped they had come through the worst. But there is hope

“Most of the world sort of sat by and watched with almost a sense of detachment and bemusement,” said Helen Clark, appointed to investigate the World Health Organization’s handling of the pandemic. The former New Zealand prime minister was describing the early weeks of the outbreak, and the sense that coronavirus was a problem “over there”. The failure to recognise our interconnection created complacency even as the death toll rose.

It took three months for the first million people to fall sick – but only a week to record the last million of the nearly 13 million cases now reported worldwide. As England emerges from lockdown at an unwary pace, Covid-19 is accelerating globally. The WHO has reported a record surge of a quarter of a million cases in a single day. The death toll is over half a million people and rising fast.

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First Iranian fuel tanker reaches Venezuelan waters without US interference

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Iran’s president had earlier warned the US not to try to stop the flotilla of five tankers sent to ease Venezuela’s fuel shortage

The first of five tankers loaded with gasoline sent from Iran has reached Venezuelan waters, expected to temporarily ease the South American nation’s fuel crunch while defying Trump administration sanctions targeting the two US foes.

The oil tanker Fortune encountered no signs of US interference as it eased through Caribbean waters toward the Venezuelan coast late on Saturday. Venezuelan officials celebrated the arrival.

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Former world officials call on US to ease Iran sanctions to fight Covid-19

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Group of former diplomats and ministers says shifting rules on medical trade could save hundreds of thousands of lives

A group of 24 senior diplomats and defence officials, including four former Nato secretary generals, have urged Donald Trump to save “potentially hundreds of thousands of lives” across the Middle East by easing medical and humanitarian sanctions on Iran.

Related: US ignores calls to suspend Venezuela and Iran sanctions amid coronavirus pandemic

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Iran conservatives hope to harness popular anger to win elections

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Hardliners aiming to take advantage of fury over corruption to take power and keep President Rouhani on a tight leash

“They’ve been stealing the money. Cut off their hands, make them pay and answer,” shouted an elderly woman in a black chador, suddenly standing up at a conservative election rally in south Tehran.

Mohammad Hosseini, Iran’s minister for culture and Islamic guidance from 2009 to 2013 under the then president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, replied. If elected, he said, he would always be available to his people. He even read out his phone number to the crowd to underline his sincerity.

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Iran plane crash: drone collision and terrorism being explored

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Ukraine investigators also cite engine failure and Russian missile among possible causes

A senior Ukrainian security official has said his country’s investigators will explore a range of possible reasons why one of its passenger jets crashed in Iran, including a drone collision, a terrorist bomb and a missile attack, but did not rule out a technical fault was to blame.

Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s national security council, cited unconfirmed reports circulating on social media that debris from a Russian-made missile had been found at the site, on the outskirts of Tehran, where the Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737-800 crashed on Wednesday, killing all 176 passengers and staff onboard.

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Diplomacy over Iran is still possible – if only to avoid an all-out war

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Tehran has vowed revenge for the killing of Qassem Suleimani but conflict is not yet certain

The threats emanating from Twitter feeds and podiums in Tehran and Washington might suggest the moment for diplomacy has long passed, and some form of war between the US and Iran following the assassination of Qassem Suleimani is now inevitable.

The only consideration that might hold the two sides back is the possible consequences. Tehran has tasted the unpredictability of Donald Trump and however much the desire for revenge beats in the hearts of Iranians, European leaders are pleading with Tehran’s leadership, saying it has a responsibility to use its head and recognise any direct attack on US assets in the Middle East is likely to be met with a further escalation by Trump.

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Iran unveils ‘budget to resist US sanctions’ with help from $5bn Russian loan

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President Rouhani claims Iran can manage, but IMF hints oil prices need to be triple current levels to balance budget

Iran’s president has presented a draft state budget of about $39bn (£30bn) to parliament, saying it was designed to resist US sanctions by limiting dependence on oil exports.

Officials have not given figures for the oil price and export volumes used in the calculations, although the International Monetary Fund has indicated Iran would need oil prices to be triple current levels to balance its budget as its crude exports have plunged.

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Iran’s production of enriched uranium rises tenfold in two months

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Experts warn of dangerous consequences as nuclear deal continues to unravel

Iran has announced a tenfold increase in enriched uranium production as Tehran backs away from its nuclear deal with the west.

Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s atomic energy organisation, said enriched uranium production was now at 5kg per day, up from 450g two months ago. The announcement coincided with the 40th anniversary of the Iranian takeover of the US embassy.

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Trump to blame for failure of US-Iran nuclear talks – Rouhani

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Iranian president tells cabinet the country had been ready to accept terms of French UN plan

The Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, has told his cabinet that while the country had been ready to end its nuclear stand-off with the US broadly on terms set out by France at the United Nations, Donald Trump was not prepared to make public an apparent private offer to lift sanctions.

Although his account is inherently not impartial, it is the fullest version of behind-the-scenes diplomacy at the UN general assembly provided by the Iranians.

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EU may be forced to withdraw from nuclear deal, Iran told

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EU warns it may have no choice if Iran takes further steps away from deal

The European Union has privately warned Iran that it will be forced to start withdrawing from the nuclear deal in November if Tehran goes ahead with its threat to take new steps away from the deal.

Iran has already taken three separate calibrated steps away from the deal, and has warned it will take a fourth in November unless the US lifts economic sanctions.

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