Iran Focus
London, 17 Jan – Canadian senators will be shown a new and effective way to fight for human rights in Iran when they reconvene in February, thanks to an Iran-focused motion, tabled by Conservative Senator Linda Frum, that condemns the country’s human rights violations.
The motion advises using the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act (the Sergei Magnitsky law) to “sanction [the] Iranian government … entities and individuals involved in egregious human rights abuses”.
By Mehdi
Imran Khan was elected to be the Prime Minister of Pakistan last July. Before being elected, many were surprised at his pro-Iran rhetoric given that the country has a history of good relations with the countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
He founded the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party in 1996 and it supported the 2015 Iran nuclear deal which was seen as a way of enabling and allowing Iran’s destabilisation of the Middle East. Furthermore, Khan and his party had a big role in Pakistan’s shunning of the Saudi-led coalition to act in Yemen. Khan said at the time that his country was taking heed of past experiences and ensuring that his country is not drawn into another war.
By Jubin Katiraie
The first Supreme Leader of Iran since the 1979 revolution – Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini – played a big role in the overthrow of the Shah. In fact, you could say that he engineered the move and he used the media to get the biggest audience possible.
He called on the people of Iran to strike. Not just specific workers, but workers across the whole spectrum. And this created mass opposition among society. Strikes started out small and rapidly grew, spreading across the whole country. And the same with riots. He encouraged other sectors of society – students, for example – to take to the streets in support of the working class. Khomeini succeeded in what he set out to do and the country’s oil production dropped dramatically only a few days into the action.
By Pooya Stone
It is no secret that Iran and the Taliban have been involved in covert talks for many years. Until recently, the mullahs have preferred to keep their relationship with the Taliban and other terrorist groups on the down low in order to maintain plausible deniability for attacks in the Middle East and around the world.
However, earlier this month, Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), went public about Iran’s ties to the Taliban and claimed that Iran aimed through these contacts to “[curb] the security problems in Afghanistan”.
Iran Focus
London, 15 Jan – In its efforts to intensify the pressure on Iran, the U.S. plans to grant no new waivers to buyers of Iranian oil. The aim is to eliminate the Middle Eastern producer’s exports of crude, according to a senior official.
Iran’s exports have been cut to about 1 million barrels a day — down from a level of 2.7 million prior to the US exit from the Iran nuclear deal and imposition of sanctions announced by Washington.
Iran Focus
London, 15 Jan – The Trump administration has recently expressed growing alarm about Iran’s ballistic missile programme, which they believe is the ‘largest in the Middle East’, advising that it poses a threat to US interests and allies in the region.
One of the biggest concerns is Iran’s increasingly sophisticated medium-range ballistic programme, with the Khorramshahr missile as its star player, which places a large part of Europe, including some US military bases there, within Iran’s reach.
By Jubin Katiraie
US cybersecurity firm FireEye has said that cyber criminals based in Iran are more than likely behind a highly sophisticated hacking campaign on a level that has never been seen before. The hacking campaign has targeted companies across Europe, North America and the Middle East and North Africa.
FireEye is a company that deals with cyber-crime at all levels. It describes its mission as being to “relentlessly protect our customers from the impact and consequences of cyber attacks”. To keep at the top of its game, the company has to keep up-to-date with the what is happening in the world of cybercrime and it is looking into the trends across the world.
Iran Focus
London, 14 Jan – Donald Trump’s National Security Council has asked for military options on Iran in response to the Iran[s support of insurgents in Iraq and the Pentagon has developed plans for a strike on Iran.
The council, led by national security adviser John Bolton, made the request after Iran-linked militants fired three mortar rounds into the diplomatic section of Baghdad, where the US Embassy is located, in September. Thankfully, no one was injured as the mortars landed in a vacant lot.
Iran Focus
London, 14 Jan – Iranian nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi said on Sunday that Iran has launched “preliminary activities for designing” uranium fuel that has a purity of 20 per cent, a move that would fly in the face of the 2015 nuclear deal.
In remarks carried by state television, Salehi said: “Preliminary activities for designing modern 20 per cent [enriched uranium] fuel have begun.”
Iran Focus
London, 13 Jan – Iran faces many crises at the moment, ranging from US sanctions that are crippling the economy to mass protests against the ruling mullahs to a drought that threatens the lives of every Iranian. But, according to the mullahs, none is more dangerous to their continued rule than women removing the mandatory hijab.
They even believe that the anti-hijab protests that many Iranian women have taken part in over the past year are part of a plot by the West to bring about the collapse of the ruling theocracy.
