Iran news and discussion

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Iran news and discussion

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Iran's Largest Navy Ship Sinks In The Gulf Of Oman After Catching Fire
Source: NPR, National Public Radio

June 2, 20214:33 AM ET
JACLYN DIAZ
Iran's largest navy vessel caught fire in the Gulf of Oman on Wednesday and sank, according to the Tasnim News Agency.

A fire broke out on the IS Kharg while the ship was near Iran's port of Jask, southeast of Tehran, according to the Iranian navy. All crew members were able to flee the burning ship and were transferred to safety on the coast. The Kharg -- sometimes spelled "Khark" -- was one of navy's few ships capable of replenishing other ships at sea.

Military and civilian responders tried for 20 hours to extinguish the fire that gradually spread throughout the vessel, reported the Tasnim News Agency. Photos and videos shared online show the entire ship out at sea engulfed in thick, black smoke.
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Read more: https://www.npr.org/2021/06/02/10023678 ... ching-fire
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Iran votes in presidential poll tipped in hard-liner's favor
Source: AP

By JON GAMBRELL
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iranians voted Friday in a presidential election that a hard-line protege of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei seemed likely to win, leading to low turnout fueled by apathy and calls for a boycott.

Opinion polling by state-linked organizations and analysts indicated that judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi — who is already under U.S. sanctions — was the dominant front-runner in a field of just four candidates. Former Central Bank chief, Abdolnasser Hemmati, is running as the race’s moderate candidate but hasn’t inspired the same support as outgoing President Hassan Rouhani, who is term limited from seeking the office again.

By mid-day, turnout appeared far lower than Iran’s last presidential election in 2017. State television offered tight shots of polling places, several of which seemed to have only a handful of voters in the election’s early hours.

Those passing by several polling places in Tehran said they similarly saw few voters. In some images on state TV, poll workers wore gloves and masks due to the coronavirus pandemic, with some wiping down ballot boxes with disinfectants.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/middle-east- ... 47827b8004
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Iran election: Hardliner Raisi set to win in first round

1 hour ago

Hardliner Ebrahim Raisi is to be Iran's next president after a partial vote count gave him an unassailable lead.

He beat three other candidates in a poll in which several contenders were barred from standing.

Mr Raisi is Iran's top judge and holds ultra-conservative views. He is under US sanctions and has been linked to past executions of political prisoners.

Iran's president is the second-highest ranking official in the country, after the supreme leader.

The president has significant influence over domestic policy and foreign affairs. But it is Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who has the final say on all state matters.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-57537027
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Iran's hard-line president-elect says he won't meet Biden
Source: AP

By ISABEL DEBRE and JON GAMBRELL

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s president-elect said Monday he would not meet with President Joe Biden or negotiate over Tehran’s ballistic missile program and its support of regional militias, sticking to a hard-line position following his landslide victory in last week’s election.

Judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi also described himself as a “defender of human rights” when asked about his involvement in the 1988 mass execution of about 5,000 people. It marked the first time he’s been put on the spot on live television over that dark moment in Iranian history at the end of the Iran-Iraq war.

“The U.S. is obliged to lift all oppressive sanctions against Iran,” Raisi said at his first news conference after Friday’s election, a contest widely seen as a coronation after his strongest competition found themselves barred from running.

Raisi, 60, sat in front of a sea of microphones, most from Iran and countries home to militias supported by Tehran. He looked nervous at the beginning of his comments but slowly became more at ease over the hourlong news conference.




Read more: https://apnews.com/article/iran--presid ... 0f3f8046a2
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US Seizes Three Dozen Websites Used for ‘Iranian disinformation’
June 23, 2021

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/6/2 ... nformation

Introduction:
(Al Jazeera) US Justice Department seized 33 Iranian government-affiliated media websites, as well as three of the Iraqi group Kataeb Hezbollah, which it said were hosted on US-owned domains in violation of sanctions.

The websites were held by the Iranian Islamic Radio and Television Union (IRTVU), which is reportedly run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp’s Quds Force (IRGC).

“Components of the government of Iran … disguised as news organisations or media outlets targeted the United States with disinformation campaigns and malign influence operations,” the Justice Department said in a statement.

Iran’s foreign ministry on Wednesday called the seizure an example of a “systematic effort to distort freedom of speech on a global level and silence independent voices in media”.

Spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh in a statement said the “shameful” move by Washington shows that the Biden administration is continuing former President Donald Trump’s path, and vowed Iran will pursue the issue through legal channels.
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Iran's sole nuclear power plant up and running after closure
Source: AP
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s sole nuclear power plant is back online following an emergency shutdown two weeks ago, state TV reported Saturday.

The report quoted Mostafa Rajabi Mashhadi, spokesperson for the country’s energy ministry, as saying the Bushehr plant “returned to the production of energy” after the completion of needed maintenance.

Mashhadi did not elaborate but last week, Iran’s nuclear department said engineers were working to repair the plant’s broken generator.

Also on Saturday, Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s representative to the IAEA said that Deputy Director General and Head of the Department of Safeguards of the IAEA, Massimo Aparo, will visit Iran in coming days, the official IRNA news agency reported.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/united-natio ... 7522290a2c
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Iran Says Rocket Launch Failed to Put Payloads into Orbit
January 1, 2022

https://www.thenationalnews.com/mena/ir ... nto-orbit/

Introduction:
(Reuters via The National) Iran said its attempt to launch three research devices into orbit on Thursday failed because the rocket was unable to reach the required speed.

The attempted launch, which came as indirect US-Iran talks take place in Austria to try to salvage a 2015 nuclear deal, drew criticism from the United States, Germany and France.

"For a payload to enter orbit, it needs to reach speeds above 7,600 [metres per second]. We reached 7,350," defence ministry spokesman Ahmad Hosseini said in a documentary about the launch vehicle broadcast on state television on Friday.

Iran, which has one of the biggest missile programmes in the Middle East, has suffered several failed satellite launches in recent years because of technical issues.

Washington says it is concerned by Iran’s development of space launch vehicles, and a German diplomat said Berlin had called on Iran to stop sending satellite launch rockets into space in breach of a UN Security Council resolution.
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Iran Releases Two British Nationals Detained for Years
March 16, 2022

https://www.axios.com/iran-releases-2-b ... 4aee3.html

Introduction:
(Axios) Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anousheh Ashouri, two British-Iranian dual nationals who had been detained in Iran for years, were released on Wednesday, their lawyer told Reuters.

Why it matters: Their release comes amid reports that an agreement to restore the 2015 Iran nuclear deal could be close.
  • Tulip Siddiq, a British member of Parliament, said in a tweet that "Nazanin is at the airport in Tehran and on her way home."
  • Iranian state media said the U.K. had "settled a long-overdue debt of $530 million to Tehran," presumably for tanks ordered before the 1979 Islamic Revolution that were never delivered, per AP.
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U.S. Uncovers Iran ‘Plot’ To Kill Ex-White House Official John Bolton
August 11, 2022

Introduction:
(Arab News via Eurasia Review) The US Justice Department said Wednesday it had uncovered an Iranian plot to kill former White House National Security Adviser John Bolton, and announced charges against a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The Justice Department said 45-year-old Shahram Poursafi, also known as Mehdi Rezayi, had offered to pay an individual in the US $300,000 to kill Bolton, the former US ambassador to the UN.

The Justice Department said that plan was likely set in retaliation for the US killing of top Guard commander Qassem Soleimani in Iraq in January 2020.
Prosecutors say the scheme unfolded more than a year after Soleimani, the head of the Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force and an architect of Tehran’s proxy wars in the Middle East, was killed in a targeted airstrike at Baghdad’s international airport in January 2020. After the strike, Bolton, who by then had left his White House post, tweeted, “Hope this is the first step to regime change in Tehran.”

The allegation came as Iran weighs a proposed agreement in Vienna talks to revive the 2015 agreement that aims to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons.
Read more here: https://www.eurasiareview.com/11082022 ... n-bolton/
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Iran to Unveil New Aerospace Products
August 11, 2022

Introduction:
(Tasnim News Agency via Eurasia Review) Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi unveiled plans to celebrate the new achievements of local experts in the aerospace industry.

Addressing a meeting of the cabinet on Wednesday, Raisi pointed to the successful launch of Iranian satellite ‘Khayyam’ into orbit and praised the Iranian Space Agency and all local scientists for supervising the process of receiving signals and controlling data from it.

Highlighting the importance of aerospace science as an industry contributing to the development of other technologies, the president said his administration is resolved to make up for backwardness in this area.

Iran will unveil new achievements in the aerospace industry in the near future, Raisi said, adding that they would provide great help in environmental protection, mining exploration, management of natural hazards, and monitoring the borders.

The Iranian remote sensing satellite Khayyam was sent into orbit by a Russian Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Tuesday morning.
Read more here: https://www.eurasiareview.com/11082022 ... products/
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