By Pooya Stone
The Saudi oil minister called on the international community on Tuesday to take action against Iran’s threats to global energy security.
Khalid Al Falih told CNN that Saudi Arabia has enough spare capacity when it comes to oil to offset US sanctions, but that the big risk will come from any conflict in the Middle East, citing recent attacks on oil tankers and pipelines that Saudi Arabia has blamed on Iran and drone attacks on the Kingdom by Iran-backed militias.
By Jubin Katiraie
An elite Royal Navy bomb disposal diver team were sent to the Middle East to investigate the mine strikes which damaged two oil tankers just over two weeks ago in a suspected Iranian attack.
The bomb disposal experts from the Fleet Diving Squadron, who are supposed to be the world leaders in sea mine warfare, were sent to the United Arab Emirates to examine mine debris and inspect blast damage on the tankers last month and have just returned.
By Jubin Katiraie
Iran’s court of appeal condemned 18 civil right activists to prison. According to these sentences, 16 of these activist are each condemned to 91 days of suspended imprisonment for three years. Two other activists were sentenced to 91 days of imprisonment after they didn’t object to the verdict. All of them were arrested in November 2015 for peacefully gathering in front of Tehran’s Evin prison, and were charged with civil disobedience. They were released on parole.
By Pooya Stone
Iranian hackers have increased their cyberspace operations amid rising US-Iran tensions, which leads American security firms and government officials to believe that there will soon be attacks on US businesses and banks.
The increased Iranian cyberspace activity comes as Iran announced that it has violated the 2015 nuclear deal by increasing its stockpiles of low-enriched uranium in retaliation to US sanctions imposed on Iranian oil and a US cyber attack on Iranian intelligence units.
By Jubin Katiraie
A spokesman for Iran’s Judiciary has outright rejected that there are political prisoners in Iran, despite a wealth of information proving that the contrary is true.
Political prisoners in Iran have been mistreated for decades. They are often locked up for long periods of time, sometimes in solitary confinement and sometimes in the same wards as violent criminals. They are routinely denied the most basic of rights – rights that should be guaranteed under international law.
By Pooya Stone
United States President Donald Trump said on Monday Iran was playing with fire after Tehran said it had exceeded its limit for low-enriched uranium allowed under a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
Asked at a White House event if he had a message for Iran, Trump said: “They know what they’re doing. They know what they’re playing with and I think they’re playing with fire”.
By Jubin Katiraie
The European Union’s special trade mechanism with Iran, aimed at bypassing U.S. sanctions is useless, according to the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations.
“INSTEX (Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges) is a beautiful car without fuel,” Majid Takhtravanchi said.
By Pooya Stone
On Saturday, June 29, the compound of the Iranian opposition People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or Mujahedin-e Khalq, MEK) in Albania, called Ashraf 3, welcomed an international delegation that supported the democratic alternative to Iran’s clerical rule, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).
Participants, including parliamentarians, jurists, and civil society figures from all over Europe and Australia, participated in a conference called “The mullahs’ regime, a source of war and instability in the region; the Iranian Resistance, messenger of peace and freedom”, where they discussed the belligerence and terrorism of the mullahs.
By Jubin Katiraie
The German Intelligence Agency has revealed in its latest report that Iran’s Intelligence Ministry plotted assassinations of the Iranian opposition Mujahedin-e Khalq (People’s Mojahedin or MEK, PMOI) from the Iranian Embassy in Berlin.
The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution of Germany (BfV) released its 2018 report on June 27, which revealed that Iran’s secret service was involved in the “bombing plot against the annual gathering of the PMOI in June 2018 in Villepinte near Paris”.
By Pooya Stone
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has praised the Revolutionary Guards for its downing of a US drone just over a week ago, claiming that this shows some sort of Iranian superiority.
He said: “We hit the drone with a system that is constructed in Iran, its missile is made by Iran, its radar is made by Iran, that is, we searched with our Iranian radar, we locked with Iranian radar, we targeted it with our Iranian missile … We kiss the hands of all those who created this domestic industry in the Ministry of Defence, the hands of all who used this tool well in the Revolutionary Guards.”
