Iran Focus
London, 20 Dec – Every year, the World Economic Forum releases a Global Gender Gap report which assesses how 144 countries are doing in terms of women’s rights, parity and equality.
They calculate it using parameters like economic participation, health, life expectancy, political empowerment and opportunity, and education.
In their latest report, Iran was listed as one of the worst five countries in the world for gender equality; ahead of only Chad, Syria, Pakistan and Yemen.
Iran Focus
London, 20 Dec – During his visit to Washington, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian stated that France and the United States are determined to “vigorously” raise pressure on Iran over its ballistic missile program, including possibly through sanctions, according to a report by Reuters International.
On Monday, Le Drian was set to meet U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, as wells as White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster, and U.S. President Trump’s special adviser, Jared Kushner. Le Drian, previously France’s defense minister, also planned to meet with Senators Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Ben Cardin, D-Md., the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Iran Focus
London, 19 Dec – Ever since the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran has been dealing with an endless stream of international and domestic crises, including fevered unrest from the Iranian people who want regime change and various countries in the Middle East standing up against Iran’s malign meddling.
These crises are likely to be exacerbated given the constant threat of international negotiations over Iran’s ballistic missile program and regional destabilisation efforts.
International condemnation and Iran’s response
Iran has attempted to save face by showing ‘power’ from the Revolutionary Guards bully-boy tactics and the Iranian military’s excursions to other Middle Eastern states, but if the international community cracked down hard on the Regime, the mullahs would soon give in and give up their dangerous military strategy.
Iran Focus
London, 19 Dec – A Conservative lawmaker from the United Kingdom has written a blistering rebuke of “baseless accusations” made against Iran’s democratic opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI/MEK) by Massoud Khodabandeh, a mouthpiece for Iran.
Sir David Amess MP, wrote a letter to the Editor-in-Chief of the Huffington Post, Polly Curtis, about Khodabandeh’s many articles attacking the PMOI/MEK which are factually inaccurate at best.
Amess said that it was “regrettable” that The Huffington Post allowed itself to be “abused” in this way, given that Khodabandeh’s has published many hit pieces against the PMOI/MEK in the past year.
Iran Focus
London, 19 Dec – Many are concerned with the idea that the USA may soon be at war with Iran and/or North Korea but confusingly, think that North Korea would be the most likely country.
At first glance, this seems legitimate because of the threat that North Korea poses to America’s Pacific allies, like Japan and South Korea, but unless there are some dramatic changes on the Korean Peninsula it is far more likely that the US will launch a military intervention against Iran.
Why? Well, war against North Korea would put South Korea in particular in severe danger, involve China unnecessarily, risk a nuclear weapons strike against the US, and has little support from the American people.
Iran Focus
London, 19 Dec – Even since Donald Trump decertified the Iran nuclear deal (aka Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA) in mid-October and asked Congress to decide whether to reimpose suspended sanctions, European leaders have lobbied American politicians in an effort to save the flawed deal.
The JCPOA came about because the world leaders who signed onto the pact (the US, the UK, France, Germany, China, and Russia) were either confused, naïve, or complacent about the dangers posed by the Iranian Regime.
Now, the world is facing grave threats from the Regime but those still in favour of the nuclear deal are refusing to recognise the dangers (and that the Regime’s malign behaviour is the result of decades of appeasement).
Iran Focus
London, 18 Dec – The Iranian Resistance have penned a damning rebuke of false and malign allegations against Iran’s largest opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) that were published in the Evening Standard earlier this month.
Since the paper published these lies in their Londoner’s Diary column on December 7, they have repeatedly refused to even to publish the National Council of Resistance of Iran’s (NCRI) letter to the editor- with actual sources to back up their statements- so the NCRI published it in full on their website instead.
Iran Focus
London, 18 Dec – The Iranian Regime poses an ever-increasing cyber threat to the US, as evidenced by their many attacks against US entities and interests over the past few months, but experts fear this could be significantly amplified if Donald Trump decides to end the nuclear deal in January.
James Lewis, Senior Vice President and Program Director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said: “The Iranians don’t want the nuclear deal to go away, and so that is the thing that shapes their behaviour to the U.S. If we did cancel the nuclear deal, I think in some ways that would take the leash off when it comes to cyber actions.”
Iran Focus
London, 18 Dec – The Iranian Regime’s state-run television has aired the so-called confession of an Iranian-Swedish academic who has been sentenced to death for spying on the Regime for a foreign government.
In the December 17 report, Ahmadreza Djalali, a researcher at Stockholm’s Karolinska Institute, said that he has supplied information about Iranian nuclear scientists- who were later assassinated- to a foreign intelligence service.
Djalali, 46, said that a man called Thomas approached him about a job offer when Djalali was doing research in an unnamed European country.
Iran Focus
London, 15 Dec – Two cyber security firms have warned the US against underestimate Iranian hackers in the wake of successful operations and advised that they need to be tracked more closely.
These hackers, who target enemies of Iran and promote the Regime’s political agenda, have become more advanced in their attacks, which led advanced-threat protection firms FireEye and ClearSky to warn that the Regime is fast turning into a cyber crimes giant.
