By Jubin Katiraie

After a year and a half of US sanctions on the Iranian government, there is an argument that Iranian leaders, due to the economic pressure, are ready to talk and step back from their nuclear and missile program. As Brian Hook, U.S. special representative for Iran, said on 22 August: “We are trying to put pressure on Iran that will probably bring Iran back to the negotiating table." Are we reaching the point where Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader is ready to give Iranian’s president Rouhani a green light to meet Trump?

By Pooya Stone

The Iranian government is under maximum international pressure and is grappling with incessant tensions. Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, and Iran’s President, Hassan Rouhani, are trying to find a breakthrough; therefore, they sent Foreign Minister Zarif to Europe in order to beg Europeans to start the INSTEX, the European financial mechanism for bypassing the U.S. sanctions. Yet Iran's state-run press agencies compared this to UN “Food for Oil” plan for Iraq.

By Jubin Katiraie

As we approach the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances (August 30), Amnesty International said that the Iranian authorities’ continued failure to disclose the fate of thousands of political dissidents, forcibly disappeared and extrajudicially executed in the secret 1988 prison massacres, is a crisis that has been ignored by the international community for decades.

By Pooya Stone

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said it is alarmed by a wave of arrests and interrogations of female journalists in Iran since the beginning of August, which makes Iran the world’s biggest jailer of female journalists, with ten currently being held.

Reza Moini, the head of RSF’s Iran/Afghanistan desk, said: “Already one of the world’s five biggest jailers of journalists, Iran is now holding more women in connection with their journalistic activities than any other country in the world. We call on Javaid Rehman, the UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran, to intervene with the utmost urgency to obtain their release and to address the disastrous press freedom situation in this country.”

By Jubin Katiraie

The United States would only lift its sanctions on Iran after reaching a comprehensive deal on its nuclear program, according to US National Security Advisor John Bolton in an interview with Radio Free Europe on Tuesday.

These comments came just one day after US President Donald Trump said that he would be prepared to talk with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, something that has not happened since the 1979 revolution. Rouhani responded that a face-to-face meeting between him and his US counterpart could only happen after US sanctions were lifted; a notion that Bolton firmly rejected.

By Pooya Stone

An Iranian journalist covering the Nordic trip of Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif fled the delegation and applied for asylum in Sweden, according to Swedish officials on Tuesday.

The Swedish Migration Agency reported that Amir-Tohid Fazel, an editor at Iran's ultra-conservative news agency Moj, "applied for a residence permit in Sweden on 21 August 2019", but didn’t provide any more details.

By Jubin Katiraie

Associated Press and Reuters

TEHRAN — Iran's president reiterated Tuesday that talks with the U.S. would only be possible if Washington first lifts sanctions imposed on Tehran, a day after President Donald Trump said he was open to talks with Tehran "if the circumstances were correct."

Hassan Rouhani said on Tuesday that otherwise, a meeting between the two would simply be a photo op and "that is not possible."

By Pooya Stone

Governmental embezzlement has been going on in Iran for years, but now, because of domestic problems, international pressures and economic problems in Iran, large-scale specimens have come to light.

For example, a senior central bank official, Salar Agakhani, comrades of Ahmad Aragchi, nephew of Aragchi (Deputy of Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif). in 12 August 2018, according to the state-run Tasnim News Agency, Agakhani was among the market disturbers. he committed an embezzlement of 200 million dollars. He is being identified and arrested by the police on 11 March 2019.

By Jubin Katiraie

A member of the main opposition to the Iranian government has told Britain's Express newspaper that the Iranian “regime” has been able to take dual nationals hostage and use them as a “bargaining chip” with the West because of the "weak" approach that the European Union takes towards the rogue regime.

By Pooya Stone

Iran executed a woman on Sunday in Mashhad, according to the state-run ROKNA news agency.

The unnamed woman, who was supposedly found guilty of murder, was hanged at dawn on August 25 in the Central Prison of Mashhad.

By Jubin Katiraie

Iran’s Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, made yesterday an unexpected visit to the G7 summit in France.

A White House official said France’s invitation to Zarif for talks on the sidelines of the gathering was a “surprise”. Zarif met his French counterpart to assess what conditions could lead to a de-escalation of tensions between Tehran and Washington, a French official said.

By Pooya Stone

An Iranian court has sentenced writer and satirist Keyomars Marzban to 11 years in prison after convicting him of charges including cooperation with the US, state media reported.

Marzban had been facing charges of “assembly and collusion against national security, cooperation with a hostile state, spreading propaganda against the system, and insulting sanctities and officials,” IRNA quoted his lawyer as saying.

By Jubin Katiraie

There were at least six protests held across Iran on Saturday by people from various subsections of the Iranian population, including defrauded car buyers, disabled people, and Iranian workers, in the cities of Tehran, Arak, Ahwaz and Rasht.

In the northern city of Rasht, a group of defrauded investors of the Adineh Complex gathered in the city’s prayer centre to demand the return of their stolen savings. They said that, despite the pre-sale of the complex, the construction was still not completed.

By Pooya Stone

An Iranian oil tanker in the middle of a row between the United States and Iran is no longer headed towards Turkey, according to shipping data from Refinitiv Eikon on Monday, having changed its destination to Turkey over the weekend.

Initially, the ship, which is filled with US-sanctioned Iranian oil, was headed to Kalamata port in southern Greece, but Greece said it would not offer any facilities to the vessel in fear of what the US might do.

By Jubin Katiraie

An Iranian student activist and journalist has been sentenced to 10-and-a-half years in prison and 147 lashes for her role in peaceful protests on International Labour Day.

Marzieh Amiri’s sentence, of which six years is the minimum amount of time she will serve, was handed down in her trial in Tehran on August 13, which was presided over by the notorious judge, Mohammad Moghiseh.

By Pooya Stone

The leader of the Iranian opposition Maryam Rajavi urged the leaders of the G7 the seven biggest economies in the world who met in France over the weekend, to recognise the threat that Iran’s clerical regime poses to global peace and security.

On Sunday, the President-elect of the Iranian Resistance tweeted her call to the G7 leaders in the French city of Biarritz.