Category Archives: Iran

Allegations of Indian interference rock Canada election campaign

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Senior officials warn nations including China, Pakistan and Iran could attempt to subvert vote with sophisticated tools

The spectre of interference by India has already rocked the early days of Canada’s federal election, with officials warning that sophisticated efforts from other hostile nations are expected in the coming weeks.

As Canadians prepare to cast ballots on 28 April, senior officials say that India, China, Pakistan and Iran are all expected to make efforts to subvert the national vote through increasingly sophisticated disinformation campaigns.

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Drones, informers and apps: Iran intensifies surveillance on women to enforce hijab law

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Iranian police are using digital tools to identify and punish women who defy the Islamic state’s harsh dress code

Like many women in Iran, Darya is used to feeling under surveillance. Yet in recent months, the 25-year-old finance analyst from northern Tehran says that she never knows who could be watching her every move.

She says she has received messages from the police before warning her of suspected violations of the country’s strict hijab laws, but last November she was sent an SMS message containing her car registration plate that stated the exact time and place that she had been recorded driving without her head properly covered. Next time it happened, the SMS warned, her car would be impounded.

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Two men convicted of murder-for-hire plot against Iranian American journalist in New York

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Masih Alinejad had incurred the wrath of Tehran by campaigning for Iranian women to reject strict dress codes

Two men have been found guilty of plotting to assassinate the Iranian American journalist Masih Alinejad at her home in New York City in a murder-for-hire scheme that prosecutors said was financed by the Iranian government.

The verdict was returned at a federal court in New York on Thursday, ending a two-week trial that featured dramatic testimony from a hired gunman and Alinejad, an author, activist and contributor to Voice of America.

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Donald Trump: Iran will be held responsible for Houthi attacks

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US president says consequences of any future attacks by Yemen’s Tehran-backed rebels will be ‘dire’

The US president, Donald Trump, has declared he will hold Iran directly responsible for any future attacks by Yemen’s Tehran-backed Houthi rebels, who have targeted US and other foreign ships in the Red Sea.

“Every shot fired by the Houthis will be looked upon, from this point forward, as being a shot fired from the weapons and leadership of IRAN, and IRAN will be held responsible, and suffer the consequences, and those consequences will be dire!” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform on Monday.

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US says airstrikes against Houthis in Yemen will continue indefinitely

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Strikes began on Saturday with the aim of punishing Iran-backed armed group for attacks on Red Sea shipping

US officials have said airstrikes launched against Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis will continue indefinitely, after a first round on Saturday killed at least 31 people and injured up to 100 more.

The strikes, which aim to punish the Houthis for their attacks against Red Sea shipping, are Donald Trump’s first such use of US military might in the region since he took power in January.

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Iran is riven with conflict. Donald Trump’s offer of talks won’t ease it

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With internal politics at their most unstable for years, the risk of escalation is rising

The letter the US president, Donald Trump, says he sent to Iran’s leadership offering to reopen talks on the country’s nuclear programme comes at a point when Iranian domestic politics is at its most unstable for years.

In the past month, the conservative-dominated parliament has asserted its power over the broadly reformist president elected last June by impeaching and sacking the experienced economy minister, Abdolnaser Hemmati, while Mohammad Javad Zarif, the vice-president and most prominent reformist, has also been forced out.

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Iran’s supreme leader rails against Trump’s ‘bullying’ military threat

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Ayatollah Khamenei says US demand to reopen talks on Iran’s nuclear programme is aimed at domination

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has criticised what he described as bullying tactics a day after Donald Trump threatened military action against Iran.

“Some bully governments – I really don’t know of any more appropriate term for some foreign figures and leaders than the word bullying – insist on negotiations,” Khamenei told officials after Trump threatened military action if Iran refused to engage in talks over its nuclear programme.

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Trump says he wrote to Iran and wants to negotiate nuclear weapons deal

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First step by president to open discussions comes as Iranian government locked in dispute over negotiating with US

Donald Trump has said he wants to negotiate a new deal with Iran to prevent its development of nuclear weapons and sent a letter to its leaders saying he hoped they would open talks.

It is the first practical step taken by the US president to see if new negotiations on Iran’s nuclear programme are possible.

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Iranian singer Mehdi Yarrahi given 74 lashes over protest song

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Lashes were part of agreement to end criminal case against Yarrahi over song against Iran’s strict dress code for women

Mehdi Yarrahi, a well-known Iranian protest singer who spoke out against the country’s strict dress code for women, has been given 74 lashes as part of an agreement to end a criminal case against him.

Yarrahi was initially convicted in January 2024 of acting unlawfully by releasing a protest song in September 2023 entitled Your Headscarf (Roo Sarito) on the first anniversary of the “Women, Life, Freedom” uprising.

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Starmer welcomes Zelenskyy’s offer to work with Trump on Ukraine peace deal – as it happened

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PM says any deal must be ‘lasting and secure’ following fiery Trump-Zelenskyy meeting last week and UK weekend summit. This live blog is closed

Lisa O’Carroll is the Guardian’s acting Ireland correspondent.

Michelle O’Neill, Northern Ireland’s first minister, has described a decision to build thousands of lightweight missiles for Ukraine in a Belfast factory as “incredulous”.

I find it really incredulous that at a time when public services are being cut left, right and centre.

At a time when we have endured 14 years of austerity ... I think at a time like that, rather than buying weapons of war, I would rather see the money invested in public services.

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Iran’s vice-president and most prominent reformist resigns

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Mohammad Javad Zarif implies move was endorsed by supreme leader, as his exit sends stock market into a tailspin

Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s most prominent reformist, has resigned from the government, saying he had been instructed to do so by an unnamed senior official.

He implied the move was endorsed by the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, although he did not name him in his resignation letter as he stepped down as vice-president for strategic affairs.

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British motorcycling couple detained in Iran charged with espionage

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Craig and Lindsay Foreman accused of entering country ‘under guise of tourists’

A British couple detained in Iran have been charged with espionage after travelling to the country as part of a round-the-world motorbike trip.

The Iranian judiciary’s Mizan news agency said Craig and Lindsay Foreman, who are in their early 50s, had been charged after allegedly gathering information in different locations in the country.

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Netanyahu seeks to draw Trump into future attack on Iranian nuclear sites

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Israeli PM urges US to help ‘finish the job’ as Washington makes early maximalist demand over Tehran’s programme

Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed that, with Donald Trump’s support, his government will “finish the job” of neutralising the threat from Iran, amid US reports that Israel is considering airstrikes against Iranian nuclear sites in the coming few months.

Trump has said he would prefer to make a deal with Tehran, but also made clear that he was considering US military action if talks failed, and his administration has laid down an early maximalist demand: Iranian abandonment of its entire nuclear programme.

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UK must act more promptly over latest Iran detentions, says Richard Ratcliffe

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Husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe expresses concern for Craig and Lindsay Foreman who were held in January

The husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has called on ministers to act “more promptly” than they did to help free his wife, after Iran detained a British couple on a motorcycle trip.

Richard Ratcliffe, whose wife was freed in 2022 after five years in a Tehran prison, expressed fears that the couple would now face the “brutal theatre” of court process to “get the government’s attention”.

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British couple held in Iran on ‘security’ grounds named

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Relatives of Craig and Lindsay Foreman say they are engaging with UK government about situation

A British couple who have been detained in Iran have been named by their family as Craig and Lindsay Foreman.

The couple, in their early 50s, had only planned on being in Iran for five days as part of a motorbike trip across the world.

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Two British nationals arrested in Iran on ‘security’ allegations, say state media

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Photo appears to show UK ambassador to Iran meeting pair, whose detention comes after tit-for-tat releases with Germany and Italy

Two British nationals have been arrested in Iran and given access to the UK ambassador, Hugo Shorter, according to reports.

State media published photographs purportedly showing Shorter meeting two British “national security” suspects at the general and revolutionary prosecutor’s office in Kerman province, about 500 miles south-east of Tehran.

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Donald Trump signals wish to hold talks with Iran over nuclear deal

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US president’s remarks will spark divisions within Iran over country’s nuclear ambitions and sanctions

Donald Trump has said he wants a “verified nuclear peace agreement” with Iran and denied he wanted to blow Iran to smithereens, describing such reports as “greatly exaggerated”.

But he said it was essential that Iran did not have a nuclear weapon, adding “we should start working on it immediately”. His remarks on his social media site, Truth Social represent the clearest sign that Trump is willing to hold talks with Iran to try to replace the nuclear deal signed in 2015, but from which Trump pulled the US out in 2018.

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Iran reformists urge concessions in attempt to reconnect to west

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Decision expected in next week that could allow country to rejoin international banking system

Iran’s reformists are pressing for the country to make concessions on financial transparency to allow it to reconnect to the global economic system and send a signal to the Trump White House that it is serious about renegotiating a new relationship with the west, including around its nuclear programme.

Tehran is expected in the next week to take decisions that would mean it would be taken off the blacklist of the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the body that tackles money laundering and terrorist financing.

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Republican concerned for Pompeo after Trump pulls security detail amid Iran threats

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Former secretary of state has faced threats from Iran since since he took hard-line stances on the Islamic Republic

The Ohio Republican Mike Turner said on Sunday’s Face the Nation he is “very concerned” for former secretary of state Mike Pompeo after Donald Trump revoked his security detail earlier in the week.

Pompeo and his top aide, Brian Hook, who have faced threats from Iran since they took hard-line stances on the Islamic Republic during Trump’s first administration, were told of the loss of protection on Wednesday evening.

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Top Iranian politician appeals to Trump to restart nuclear deal negotiations

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Mohammad Javad Zarif says he hopes new Trump administration will be more serious, focused and realistic

A senior Iranian politician has appealed to Donald Trump to begin new negotiations with Tehran over its civil nuclear programme, saying: “I hope that this time around, [Trump 2.0] will be more serious, more focused, more realistic.”

Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s vice-president for strategic affairs, pointed out that the returning US president had not reappointed figures from his first term such as the former secretary of state Mike Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton, who persuaded him in 2018 to quit the nuclear deal on the basis that withdrawal would lead to the regime’s collapse.

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