By Mehdi
The Iranian economy is on the brink of collapse because of the Donald Trump administration’s tough sanctions, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Iran is currently in a deep recession, the IMF said, with Iran recording inflation at roughly 40 per cent, the highest it’s been since 1980. However, outside experts put the Iranian inflation rate at a much higher percentage.
Iran Focus
London, 03 May – May 2nd is Teachers’ Day in Iran and to mark the occasion people across the country held protests. Teachers and academics were calling for solidarity and standing up for their rights that they have been so cruelly denied.
Protests took place in front of the offices of the Education Department in more than a dozen provinces. The Teachers’ Coordinating Council of Iran (TCCI) called for the protests and gatherings and encouraged unity among the people. Reports indicate that there were a large number of women that participated in the rallies.
By Jubin Katiraie
The leading Iranian opposition group said Wednesday that the Trump administration should add Iran’s intelligence ministry (MOIS) to its list of foreign terrorist groups in order to hold Iran responsible for its terrorist acts that span the past four decades.
MOIS agents operate closely with the Quds Force, an arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, both of which are already on the US’s terror watch list. The MOIS is “heavily involved with terrorism”, according to Alireza Jafarzadeh, deputy director for the National Council of Resistance of Iran, most notably working with the Iran-backed Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Hamas in direct operations against Iran’s enemies.
By Pooya Stone
Iranian police have arrested at least 35 people for taking part in a Labor Day demonstration in front of the Iranian Parliament on Wednesday, while violently dispersing the rest of the protesters.
The demonstrators, mainly members of Tehran Bus Drivers’ Union, were beaten, wounded, and dragged on the ground before being arrested.
Eyewitnesses said that the male detainees were taken to the security police headquarters in Gisha, in western Tehran.
By Mehdi
The US announced last week that sanctions waivers for countries that import Iranian oil would be allowed to expire on May 2, meaning that any country buying Iranian oil after Thursday would be subject to US penalties and could lose access to US financial markets.
This is all part of the US’s plan to bring Iran’s oil exports to zero.
By Pooya Stone
As we witness the defiant tone that the Iranian regime has taken in the face of the “maximum pressure” campaign utilized by Trump’s White House, many of us were surprised last week, when it was announced that once the waivers that expire at the end of May for the eight leading purchasers of Iranian oil, the US would not be granting new ones.
Iran Focus
London, 01 May – In Iran, people are turning against the mullahs as they use foreign mercenaries from Iraq’s militias and Hezbollah to keep control, former European lawmaker Struan Stevenson wrote for The Scotsman on 30 April 2019.
US President Donald Trump’s decision to cancel the temporary waivers that had enabled countries like Iraq, Turkey, India, Japan and China to continue purchasing Iranian oil without breaching US sanctions has hammered the final nail into the mullahs’ coffin, Stevenson wrote.
By Jubin Katiraie
The U.S. Representative Office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI-US) will hold a press briefing on Wednesday in Washington about the ‘inner workings’ of Iran’s terrorist and espionage machinery.
According to a press advisory, the NCRI will detail:
• The intimate partnership between Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in plotting and conducting terror operations abroad;
By Pooya Stone
The US decided against renewing the six-month sanctions waivers granted to eight importers of Iranian oil last November, which means that the pressure on Iran’s economy will only increase from tomorrow.
This shows that the US is serious about its “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran, which is designed to bring the mullahs back to the negotiating table for a new deal to address all of their malign behaviour, as well as force Iran to comply with the US’s 12 demands about acting like a normal country. Now, many watching the situation are saying that Iran is at a crossroads, the like of which have not been seen since the 1979 revolution.
By Mehdi
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Iran on Monday of ordering the Houthi rebels in Yemen to continue fighting despite commitments they made in Stockholm last December.
Pompeo, speaking at an event in Washington hosted by The Hill newspaper, said: “[The Houthis] continue to refuse to comply with the agreements that they signed up for in Stockholm, Sweden, they refuse to withdraw from the port of Hodeidah … this is because Iran has chosen to direct them to do that.”
