Reuters: Twenty-three U.S. senators kept the spotlight on Iran nuclear negotiations on Saturday with a letter to President Barack Obama urging that he stand firm, after a second round of talks wound up in Vienna.
Senators urge Obama to push for strict Iran nuclear curbs deal
World leaders gather for Hague nuclear summit
AP: Nuclear terrorism is officially the main topic for world leaders at a two-day summit in the Netherlands starting Monday. Notable absentees from the summit are North Korea and Iran, excluded by mutual consent.
The rush to Tehran amidst rise in executions
Iran Focus: Last week the U.N. Special Rapporteur for human rights in Iran told us what we all know too well, despite promises of moderation by President Hassan Rouhani, there has been a ‘sharp rise’ in the number of executions in Iran which is now the world’s leading state executioner per capita.
In Iran, sharp price increases deliver painful blow
Fortune: Massive cuts to Iran’s generous subsidy regime could lead to significant popular unrest in the country in the coming weeks and months. The cuts, which coincide with the first day of the Iranian calendar, are necessary in order for the government to close the huge revenue gap.
We can’t ignore lingering crisis in Iran
Tennessean: In Iran, March 21 marks that nation’s new year. While I have little hope Iran will be experiencing the new beginning it desperately needs, I do have hope at least some of its former citizens will be more fortunate.
Israel: 8 Jews killed leaving Iran in the 1990s
AP: Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency says eight Iranian Jews who disappeared while trying to leave the Islamic Republic in the 1990s were captured and killed.
In Iran, hopes fade for surge in the economy
New York Times: Suffering in an economy dragged down by years of mismanagement and the effects of international sanctions, Iran’s increasingly impoverished middle class voted in huge numbers last summer for President Hassan Rouhani, who promised to reignite growth by restoring ties with the rest of the world.
Iranian opposition leader: Tehran regime is in ‘final stage’ of collapse
Ground Report: In her New Year message, Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the Iranian Resistance said the Persian year of 1393 will be a year of uprisings and a thousand Ashrafs. Last year, the mullahs wanted to destroy the Resistance of the Iranian people, but inevitably drank the chalice of poison of their demise.
Iran bought luxury cars with medical funds
Washington Times: The Iranian parliament’s recent investigation into a scheme to import luxury cars instead of medicine threatens to erode the credibility of a leading pro-Iran lobbying group that has long claimed that economic sanctions are preventing access to medicine in Iran.
Iran building mock-up of an American nuclear-powered aircraft carrier
New York Times: ran is building a nonworking mock-up of an American nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that United States officials say may be intended to be blown up for propaganda value.
