Iran Focus

Tehran, 18 Apr – Iran has displayed parts of a new Russian-made missile system during its annual Army Day celebrations. State-run news agency ISNA showed S-300 missile tubes and radar equipment as part of a military parade through southern Tehran.

The S-300 missile system is being purchased by Iran from Russia at a cost of $800m (£545m). The missiles can be used against multiple targets – such as jets or other missiles. The fully mobile units are capable of tracking objects over a range of 185 miles. Sophisticated radar and relays allow the S-300 system to guide up to 12 missiles simultaneously and engage six different targets at once. Five of these systems have reportedly been sent to the Iranian government.

Iran Focus

London, 16 Apr – Former Governor of Pennsylvania and the first United States Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, published an op-ed in The Philadelphia Inquirer about the global struggle with Islamic extremism and called for an international alliance of moderates.

“Only if we recognize that moderates in both the West and the Muslim world are suffering at the hands of the same radical ideologies – and come together as one force – can we strike a crucial blow against the Islamic State and its ilk. And ordinary people contribute to this mission every time they refuse to discriminate and instead offer sympathy and openness”, Tom Ridge wrote.

Iran Focus

Tehran, 16 Apr – Iran’s state-run media have published a rare acknowledgement of the severity of the poverty crisis that is rampant throughout Iran.

Deputy Interior Minister Morteza Mir-Bagheri was on 12 April quoted by the state-run Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) as saying that the rate of unemployment has reached 70 percent in at least 1,200 Iranian towns.

Iran Focus

Tehran, 13 Apr – Shahindokht Molaverdi, Iran’s Vice President for Women and Family Affairs, has been summoned to the Prosecutor’s Office in order to explain remark she made about executions in the villages of Baluchistan and Sistan in the southeast of the country.

State-run news agency ISNA carried a statement from Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Eje’ii, a Judiciary spokesperson, which said: “Mrs. Molaverdi has been summoned and is due to report to the Prosecutor’s Office to explain about the file that has been opened”.