Rapper who spoke up for Woman, Life, Freedom movement is released five months after death sentence overturned
The Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi, who was sentenced to death in April for his support of anti-regime protests, has been released from prison by the Iranian authorities.
Salehi was sentenced by a revolutionary court in April for backing the Woman, Life, Freedom protests in September 2022 after the death of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman who died in police custody.
Continue reading...The speaker of the Lebanese parliament accuses Israel of more than 50 violations of deal
Israeli media reports that prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu will give testimony in his corruption trial not in Jerusalem as originally planned, but in a fortified bunker in Tel Aviv.
Netanyahu’s lawyers have sought to delay him giving testimony, arguing that conducting the war has deprived him of the opportunity to prepare his defence, and the security implications of having him appear at a known time and public location.
We all have come to the conclusion that any sort of insecurity in Syria won’t be limited to Syria alone. We are all aware of the fact that terrorism would not be concentrated in a single place and spreads to other areas.
Our Turkish friends are as much concerned as we are about the course of developments in Syria. It is clear that one of the reasons for … terrorism in Syria has been the occupation by the American military forces.
Continue reading...Assad regime seeks to repel Islamist rebels in north as Iran’s top diplomat visits Damascus in show of support
Syrian and Russian airstrikes have pummelled areas of northern Syria as Iran’s top diplomat arrived in Damascus in a show of support for Bashar al-Assad’s regime after Islamist insurgents made a sudden advance and seized control of Aleppo.
As the regime attempted to repel the strongest challenge to its authority in years, state media in Damascus shared images of airstrikes across opposition-controlled areas, claiming they were targeting enemy command centres and positions. Syria’s military said they struck close to a stadium in Aleppo in a joint operation with Russia.
Continue reading...Forces only took three days to take the city from Bashar al-Assad’s regime, but the Middle East’s newest conflict looks set to last
It was not Kyiv that fell in three days, but Aleppo. A surprise offensive launched by Syrian rebels from the north west of the country last week has reignited a dormant conflict – and revealed a change in the balance of power caused not by one but two nearby wars, in Ukraine and Lebanon and the Middle East.
Aleppo was the scene of fierce and destructive fighting between 2012 and 2016 when the Syrian civil war was at its height. Rebel groups were forced out as Syrian government forces supporting the president, Bashar al-Assad, were able to capture the country’s second city, with the help of Russia and its air force.
Continue reading...Insurgents had recaptured territory around Syria’s second city with civilians including children killed in fighting
Islamist insurgents have entered Syria’s second city of Aleppo in a shock assault, eight years after forces loyal to Damascus seized control of the city.
Fighters from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) began a major offensive earlier this week from their base in the Idlib countryside, a slim strip of land in Syria’s north-west. It took only three days for the fighting to reach Aleppo, with insurgents capturing territory around the city’s outskirts for the first time in four years as Syrian government forces pummelled rebel-held areas.
Continue reading...Talks held in Geneva as Iran looks to avoid potential snapback of UN sanctions over nuclear programme
Iran and the so-called E3 grouping of the UK, France and Germany have agreed to continue holding talks in the near future in an attempt to find a way out of an impasse over Tehran’s nuclear programme, in what may be the last chance of a breakthrough before Donald Trump takes up the US presidency again.
Trump, who pursued a policy of “maximum economic pressure” against Iran during his first term, returns to the White House on 20 January.
Continue reading...Comments made after nuclear inspectorate board passed motion censuring Iran for building uranium stockpile
The nuclear debate inside Iran is likely to shift towards the possession of its own weapons if the west goes ahead with a threat to reimpose all UN sanctions, the country’s foreign minister has said.
Seyed Abbas Araghchi said in an interview that Iran already had the capability and knowledge to create nuclear weapons, but said they did not form part of its security strategy. He also said Tehran was prepared to keep supplying arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Continue reading...UAE says it has arrested three people over the killing of Zvi Kogan, who worked for an Orthodox Jewish group
Israel has said that an Israeli-Moldovan rabbi who went missing in the United Arab Emirates was killed in what it described as a “heinous antisemitic terror incident”.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s office issued a statement about the death of Zvi Kogan, who worked in the UAE for an Orthodox Jewish group called Chabad and had not been seen since Thursday.
Continue reading...Meeting comes amid fears Middle East tensions will lead Iran to redouble its efforts to acquire a nuclear weapon
Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Majid Takht-Ravanchi, will meet his European counterparts in Geneva on Friday after the collapse of a deal last week under which Iran would have limited its uranium enrichment to 60% purity, just below the threshold to make nuclear weapons.
The offer was regarded by Iran as a first step to rebuilding confidence between it and the west over what it insists is its civilian nuclear programme. There are growing fears that wider tensions in the Middle East could result in Tehran redoubling efforts to acquire a nuclear weapon and trying to declare it necessary for its national self-defence.
Continue reading...UN inspectorate chief calls Tehran’s move a ‘concrete step in the right direction’, amid threat of restored sanctions
Iran has offered to keep its stock of uranium enriched up to 60% – below the purity levels required to make a nuclear bomb – the head of the UN nuclear inspectorate, Rafael Grossi, has confirmed amid the threat of restored European sanctions over Tehran’s nuclear activities.
“I think this is … a concrete step in the right direction. We have a fact which has been verified by us. It is the first time Iran has agreed to take a different path,” Grossi said in Vienna on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Tehran alleged to have targeted retired politician, 84, who is also human rights activist and critic of Iran
Canadian authorities foiled an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate a former justice minister and rights activist who has been a strong critic of Tehran, the Globe and Mail newspaper has reported.
The 84-year-old was justice minister and attorney general from 2003 to 2006. He retired from politics in 2015 but has remained active with many associations that campaign for human rights around the world.
Continue reading...Contact was reportedly at Trump-allied billionaire’s request and could be significant for dismal US-Iranian relations
Elon Musk reportedly met with Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations on Monday, a day before Donald Trump named the SpaceX founder as one of the heads of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency.
The meeting was a discussion of how to defuse tensions between Iran and the United States, according to two Iranian officials who spoke with the New York Times. One of the Iranian officials said that the Tesla executive requested the meeting and that the ambassador picked the site.
Continue reading...IDF hits Gaza, Syria and Beirut suburbs, as analysts say raids could be aimed at forcing hand of Hezbollah in negotiations
Israel has intensified its air offensives on three fronts, launching dozens of new strikes in Lebanon, Gaza and Syria as negotiations for a ceasefire on its northern border reach a critical point.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said about 30 targets had been struck in the southern suburbs of Beirut in 48 hours and described continuing efforts to “dismantle and degrade” the military capabilities of the militant Islamist organisation.
Continue reading...The move has been described as ‘chilling’ by activists and rights groups as arrests mount over dress code breaches
The Iranian state has said that it plans to open a treatment clinic for women who defy the mandatory hijab laws that require women to cover their heads in public.
The opening of a “hijab removal treatment clinic” was announced by Mehri Talebi Darestani, the head of the Women and Family Department of the Tehran Headquarters for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. She said the clinic will offer “scientific and psychological treatment for hijab removal”.
Continue reading...Tehran cites 1888 charts in effort to prove ownership of islands near strait of Hormuz that are also claimed by UAE
Maps drawn up more than 130 years ago on the instruction of the Marquess of Salisbury, the then British foreign secretary, have been cited by Iran in its deepening dispute with the Gulf states over the ownership of three strategic islands at the entrance to the critical strait of Hormuz waterway.
The dispute is threatening to damage Iran’s current efforts to form closer relations with its Gulf partners, and has also turned into an additional roadblock to improving Iran’s relations with the European Union.
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Israeli air strikes on the Lebanese coastal city of Tyre have now killed seven people.
Reuters reported that Lebanon’s health ministry said the death toll has risen from three to seven after the attack on Friday.
Continue reading...Trump campaign said US officials warned him in September about suspected Iranian assassination plot
The US justice department is bringing criminal charges over an Iranian plot to kill President-elect Donald Trump that was thwarted by the FBI, the government said.
The federal government has unsealed criminal charges in what the justice department said was a murder-for-hire plan to take out Trump before this week’s presidential election, which he won decisively over his Democratic rival, Kamala Harris.
Continue reading...Protesters and political prisoners are being drugged, tortured and beaten in state-run institutions, say rights groups
Human rights organisations say they are gravely concerned that a young Iranian woman arrested for stripping down to her underwear could be subjected to torture after she was transferred to a psychiatric hospital by the authorities.
Amnesty International said it had found evidence that the Iranian regime used electric shocks, torture, beatings and chemical substances on protesters and political prisoners taken to state-run psychiatric institutions after being called mentally unstable. It said the situation facing the young woman was “alarming”.
Continue reading...Leon Panetta says he also expects US president-elect to favor letting Russia retain control of areas of Ukraine
Donald Trump will as president give Benjamin Netanyahu a “blank check” in the Middle East, possibly opening the way for all-out war between Israel and Iran, the former CIA director and US defense secretary Leon Panetta predicted.
“With regards to the Middle East, I think he’s basically going to give Netanyahu a blank check,” Panetta said of Trump, who won the presidential election this week and will take office again in January.
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Continue reading...12 Palestinians killed in attack on al-Shati refugee camp; Irish foreign minister says country will join South Africa’s case in the international court of justice
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson has said the presidential election result in the US is a chance for a new administration to “review the wrong approaches of the past”.
Reuters quotes Esmaeil Baghaei saying “We had bitter experiences with various US governments’ past policies and approaches. Elections are an opportunity to review the wrong approaches of the past. What is important for Iran will be how we evaluate the actions of the US government.”
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