An Argentine writer unfurls his summer diary from a sweltering visit to the Iranian capital.
Tag: iran
As the lifting of sanctions appears to move closer to reality, business and government leaders from leading economies are eager to restore trading ties with Tehran
Offering new economic opportunities is at the top of the agenda, though questions about human rights still must be addressed.
With the agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear program and end sanctions, a look at the energy economics of this new world order. With politics everywhere, as always.
TEHRAN — She could be the future of Iran. It has been a long parade of investors and foreign CEOs in the office of Nazanin Daneshvar, a young female engineer who founded the e-commerce company Takhfifan (Persian for “discount”). She welcomes such visitors, and foreign journalists, who have come to Iran to discover a country […]
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius had held one of the toughest lines against Tehran. He describes the quest for “efficient compromises for complex issues.”
PARIS — With celebrations from the streets to social media, Iranians have broadly welcomed Tuesday’s deal between their country and the six major world powers to curb Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for a lifting of international economic sanctions. Still, there are differing views about how the accord will actually affect the lives of the […]
Photo: Ahmad Halabisaz/ZUMA IMF URGES MORE GREEK DEBT RELIEF The Eurozone must “go well beyond what has been under consideration to date” to relieve Greek debt, and it could even eventually forgive a part of it, IMF officials wrote in a report obtained by Reuters.
Amid growing ties, the youths of the Arab Spring could come between Beijing and its local partners
We shine the spotlight this week on Iran: IRAN MINISTER: ISIS + USA Iranian Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli made an incendiary claim this week during a joint appearance with the Syrian interior minister, connecting ISIS objectives with those of the West. He said that ISIS doesn’t just discredit Islam but also poses a danger […]
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Extra! Is That Iran’s Evil Eye?
Courrier International, April 9, 2015 “Should we be afraid of Iran?” asks Courrier International on its cover, featuring a cartoon of an Iranian cleric with an atomic symbol as an eyeball. With or without a nuclear deal, fears of Iran’s expansionism are sending shivers down the Middle East’s spine, according to a series of articles […]
The Obama administration says, try talking to truculent states instead of squeezing or bombing them. In its own way, this is an eminently imperial approach.
The West’s accord with Iran was not just about a nuclear threat. The U.S. has bigger plans to recalibrate the region’s balance of power among Saudi Arabia, Israel, Egypt and beyond.
-Editorial- PARIS — The deal reached in Lausanne on Iran’s nuclear program is a historic breakthrough. Or at least it will be if it leads to a “final” agreement by the June 30 deadline, which is by no means certain. For the first time in 12 years, when the West’s talks with Tehran began, the […]
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The World Reacts To Iran Nuclear Deal
After prolonged talks, the P5+1 group (U.S., Russia, China, U.K., France and Germany) and Iran agreed Thursday on a “historical” framework agreement for Iran’s nuclear program. “Important implementation details are still subject to negotiation, and nothing is agreed until everything is agreed,” the White House warns. But the main points of the preliminary deal are […]
Photo: U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Lausanne — Brendan Smialowski/Prensa Internacional/ZUMA IRAN AGREEMENT “A FEW METERS AWAY”Iran nuclear talks resumed today in Lausanne, for a second day since the March 31 deadline. A deal seems within reach, as Iran officials hint at more flexibility over the UN lifting economic sanctions on the country, […]
ALLIES CONSIDER GROUND TROOPS IN YEMENAirstrikes against Shia Houthi rebels in Yemen from a Saudi Arabia-led coalition have continued for a second day. At least 39 civilians have been killed in the strikes, according to AFP. Yesterday, Egypt said it was ready to send its navy and ground troops to Yemen to fight the Houthi […]
The moderate president symbolizes the hope of rapprochement with the West in nuclear talks, but he must also deal with the regime’s hardliners. Can he manage to strike a deal with the enemy?
Supervised and armed by Iran, young Shia volunteers have launched a major battle against ISIS in Tikrit. But taking revenge on local Sunnis is not likely to pacify the region. And what about Uncle Sam?
Even as the U.S. and world media mark every step of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s U.S. visit, the Israeli press is keeping even closer eye on his reelection bid later this month. The Israeli leader is set to address the U.S. Congress Tuesday in a speech that has already increased friction with President Barack […]
Syria’s tangled web grows even more intricate. Hezbollah is key to Assad’s strategy, moderate rebels avoid ISIS and al-Nusra at all cost, and Israel helps the Free Syrian Army.
Turns in the war in Syria, as well as shifting resources and alliances across the Muslim world, mean tensions are easing between Israel and both Hamas and Hezbollah.
La Nación (Argentina) January 20 2015 Protests denouncing Argentine President Cristina Kirchner erupted all over the country Monday after prosecutor Alberto Nisman was found dead Sunday morning. Authorities are calling the death an apparent suicide, but protestors believe he may have been murdered for accusing the president of concealing Iranian culpability for the 1994 bombing […]
PARIS — Initially a welcomed spark for a global economy in need of a boost, the drastic fall in the price of crude oil — losing half its value since mid-2014 — has now begun to destabilize markets and worry investors and political leaders around the world. Still, this rapidly evolving situation is prompting some […]
Travel for Iranians is hard, which is why the young have found hosting foreigners is a way to explore the world vicariously. The latest twist to the private breaking of Iran’s myriad restrictions.
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Iranian Cleric v. Jewish Marlboro Man
TEHRAN — One of this country’s most prominent conservative clerics has chided Iranians for an array of modern “vices,” including divorce and choosing to marry later, which he said could draw God’s wrath on Iran. In his Friday sermon in the capital, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati also singled out Marlboro cigarettes that he said were imported […]
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Iran’s Last Siberian Crane Flies Alone
TEHRAN — What was described as the “last remaining” member of a flock of cranes that has flown to Iran from Siberia every winter was recently spotted on Iran’s northern Caspian shore, confirming environmental officials’ fears that the pack is virutally extinct. This was said to be the seventh year it had flown 4,000 kilometers […]
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Luxury Car Rentals Booming In Tehran
TEHRAN — Sanctions or not, there are some very rich people in Iran — often engaged in business deals that benefit somebody linked to state power. Like anywhere else, the wealthy need to find ways to spend their money, and figure out how to get there. Renting luxury cars like a Porsche has become one […]
Recent acid attacks on women in the central Iranian city of Isfahan have apparently begun to upset Iranian authorities, but as much for the media coverage they are prompting as for the real-life effects. Political leaders have accused both the culprits and those spreading “rumors” of the attacks of being foreign agents. Acid attacks have […]
ZAHEDAN — Three tons of “rotting” sardines were among thousands of dead fish from the Oman Sea that have washed onto Iran’s southern coast in recent days, in and around the port of Konarak. Local fishermen have blamed trawlers — the vast nets that sweep the sea floor in industrial fishing — and have urged […]
-Analysis- One year since taking office, Iran President Hassan Rouhani and his government are confronted with an extremely unstable geopolitical situation across the Middle East. Tehran had long been seen as the main beneficiary of the 2003 U.S. intervention in Iraq, but it must now face unexpected difficulties in its neighboring country and former sworn […]
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Iran, ISIS And Ambitions Of Empires
There has been much recent speculation about Iran working with its longtime nemesis, the United States, to confront a new, common enemy: the radical Islamist organization ISIS. Indeed, the Sunni zealots of ISIS have focused some of their rhetoric directly at Tehran, the center of Shia Islam, vowing to fight what it says are Iran’s […]
For fear of an Iran-led rise of Shia, authorities from Riyadh to Ankara fed the radicalism that now eyes them as the primary target.
Compared to radical Sunni terrorist organizations like ISIS, the regime in Tehran can seem relatively tame. But don’t be fooled.
TEHRAN — Every evening, Youseph walks by the mosque in Tehran’s Fatemi Square. Before heading towards his house, he looks up at the portraits of Ayatollah Khomeini and Iran’s current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei that are on the walls of the building. Then he crosses the street and descends the hill to where he lives. […]
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Synthetic Drugs A Growing Problem In Iran
TEHRAN — There are 100,000 drug addicts on the streets of Iran, the country’s Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani-Fazli estimated Wednesday, saying that his agency had a “legal duty” to “pick them up” and send them to obligatory rehabilitation centers. He said $3 billion was being spent every year on illegal drugs in the country, and […]
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Segregating The Sexes In Tehran
Tehran’s city government is trying to separate male and female employees within its offices, a move parallel with moral norms favored by Iran’s Islamic government but likely to irk less conservatie segments of the population. This would not be the first such move in Iran since the 1979 revolution. There have been previous attempts to […]
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Making Iran’s Traditional Sounds Universal
Siavash Mozaffari, a professional musician based in San Francisco, plans to travel to Iran to record sounds from the country’s traditional instruments and gather them into a sample digital library. With this project, he aims to make Persian music more accessible to the Western world. On Kickstarter, where his “Sonic Journey Through Iran” project has […]
TEHRAN — “Indecent dressing,” or “bad hijabi” in Persian, isn’t worse than before in Iran, according to a deputy-governor of the Tehran province. Shahabeddin Chavoshi, who is responsible in the capital province for social and political affairs, chided critics who accuse the government of Iran’s moderate President Hassan Rouhani of neglecting public morals. “Studies show […]
A prominent Iranian politician has characterized Israeli operations against Gaza as the third phase of Israel’s current plot to destabilize the Middle East region. Mohsen Rezai, a former Revolutionary Guards commander and current member of a state arbitrating body, said the first two phases of Israel’s strategy were the civil wars provoked in Syria and […]