Iran Focus
London, 7 Mar – Iran owes over $50 billion to Americans who have been injured or lost family members as a result of terror attacks orchestrated by the Gulf county.
These judgements, made in the past twenty years since Congress first allowed US citizens to sue Iran through American courts, are largely symbolic. Although Iran does not contest the rulings, they are unlikely to pay up.
Iran Focus
London, 7 Mar – Donald Trump is under pressure to get information about a missing ex-FBI agent who disappeared in Iran in March 2007.
Robert Levinson, a private investigator, a former agent for the FBI and a part-time consultant for the CIA, was on a rogue mission to recruit an intelligence source to the CIA when he went missing.
While on the campaign trail, Trump vowed to bring Levinson home again; the Levinson family have requested to meet with him and discuss the fate of their husband and father.
Iran Focus
London, 7 Mar – The Trump administration’s aggressive policy towards Iran, seeks to establish a unified front against Iranian expansionism but how will Egypt’s ever growing closeness to the Regime affect the coalition?
Haisam Hassanein, a Glazer Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and Wesam Hassanein, a master’s candidate at the School of International Service at American University, explore this in an op-ed for The Hill.
Iran Focus
London, 6 Mar – Iran continues to defy international laws and norms, even as the Trump administration is deciding whether to put the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) on the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.
In the past few weeks, Iran has test fired several nuclear-capable ballistic weapons.
Iran Focus
London, 6 Mar – In 2017 alone, at least two women who were taken into the Regime’s prisons and sexually abused have committed suicide.
Mahdis Mir Ghavami, a Kurdish engineer from Kermanshah in Western Iran, killed herself on January 24, after two days in prison, while Hananeh Shalir Farhadi, a 23-year-old political science student, killed herself after four months of imprisonment.
Iran Focus
London, 6 Mar – Iran has taken advantage of the crisis in Yemen in order to test its new weapons.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is providing the Houthi rebels, who have already taken over Northern Yemen cities including the capital Sana’a, with weapons like missiles, rockets, drones, and explosive devices.
This was revealed by the Houthi Supreme Political Council (SPS) at the end of last month.
Iran Focus
London, 6 Mar – Amnesty International has released a statement about the human rights abuses inflicted on a critically-ill political prisoner.
Arash Sadeghi, a human rights activist imprisoned in Evin Prison, is suffering from respiratory problems and a stomach ulcer which has caused internal bleeding, abdominal pain and digestive complications.
Iran Focus
London, 5 Mar – Many crises face the Iranian regime just three months prior to elections. The dust storms in southwest Iran, are just one. The Munich Security Conference hit Tehran with some eye opening blows. Their interests seem in contrast with those of Russia, and their differences with Turkey are escalating. Perhaps most importantly, there is a new administration in Washington.
Iran Focus
London, 5 Mar – On Saturday, Al Arabiya News Channel reported that Bahrain uncovered what it called a terrorist cell, arresting 25 individuals, and charging 16 others in absentia. They say that the cell has e carried out at least six operations inside the tiny island Gulf kingdom.
Iran Focus
London, 5 Mar – The clerical regime in Iran supresses its citizens in many ways, but some of the biggest crackdowns have been in the form of censorship.
Iran has censored many websites and blocked many social media apps.
At the beginning of the year Iran used Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) to direct traffic away from numerous sites by using false routes. One of the consequences of this was that users in Hong Kong were unable to access the websites.
