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All in News
◢ President Donald Trump thanked Tehran for a "very fair" negotiation Saturday after an American scholar detained in the country was released in exchange for an Iranian scientist held in the United States. Coming at a time of soaring tensions, the prisoner swap took place in neutral Switzerland.
◢ The remaining signatories to the faltering 2015 Iran nuclear deal will meet in Vienna on Friday with the survival of the landmark agreement at stake after Tehran vowed to continue to breach the deal's limits on its nuclear program. On the eve of what was already likely to be a strained meeting, Britain, France and Germany accused Iran of developing nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, in a letter to the UN on Thursday.
◢ Iran, hit by year-long US oil sanctions and recent protests over domestic fuel price hikes, retains a "strong voice" in the OPEC producing cartel which meets this week, analysts say. OPEC descends on its plush Vienna headquarters Thursday and Friday and is expected to maintain output cuts alongside its partners—or perhaps even go deeper.
◢ Iran is willing to return to the negotiating table if the United States first drops sanctions, President Hassan Rouhani said Wednesday, after a fuel price hike sparked deadly violence ahead of elections. "If they are prepared to put aside the sanctions, we are ready to talk and negotiate, even at the level of heads of the 5+1 countries," Rouhani said in remarks aired live on state television.
◢ Iran for the first time acknowledged that its security forces shot and killed protesters last month during violent crackdowns. State television on Tuesday reported that “rioters” had been shot dead in several areas as they joined anti-government protests, including in Tehran, the capital, and Mahshahr in the country’s southwest.
◢ Spooked by the prospect of a catastrophic war with Iran and its proxy militias across the region, Arab monarchies are in the midst of a strategic rethink regarding the Persian Gulf. The U.A.E., whose economic model relies in large part on its international links, quickly realized it had most to lose from a military escalation.
◢ Iran warned Sunday it may "seriously reconsider" its commitments to the UN atomic watchdog if European parties to a nuclear deal trigger a dispute mechanism that could lead to sanctions. "If they use the trigger (mechanism), Iran would be forced to seriously reconsider some of its commitments to" the International Atomic Energy Agency, said parliament speaker Ali Larijani.
◢ Air pollution forced the closure of schools and universities in parts of Iran on Saturday, including Tehran, which was cloaked by a cloud of toxic smog, state media reported. The young and elderly and people with respiratory illnesses were warned to stay indoors and sporting activities were suspended.
◢ Paris, London and Berlin on Saturday welcomed six new European countries to the INSTEX mechanism, which is designed to mitigate the effects of US sanctions on European trade with Iran. They also insisted Iran must return to full compliance with its commitments under the deal "without delay.”
◢ The US Treasury slapped punitive sanctions on Iran's communications minister, Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, Friday after Tehran blocked internet communications amid violent protests triggered by a petrol price hike. On Thursday, President Donald Trump accused Iran of blocking the internet to cover up "death and tragedy" resulting from the protests.
◢ The UN nuclear watchdog on Thursday urged Iran to explain the presence of uranium particles at an undeclared site, as a landmark deal aimed at curbing Tehran's atomic activities threatens to collapse. The agency's acting head Cornel Feruta said IAEA and Iranian officials would meet in Tehran next week to discuss the matter, adding that the UN body had not received any additional information.
◢ Iran will seek to modernize its forces by purchasing advanced weapons systems once a United Nations arms embargo expires next year, the Pentagon is warning in a new report. Iran wants to purchase weapons “it has largely been unable to acquire for decades” when the embargo expires in October 2020.
◢ Three security personnel have been killed by "rioters" in Iran, the latest deaths in protests that showed no sign of subsiding Tuesday despite a wave of arrests and an internet shutdown. The United Nations expressed alarm on Tuesday "that the use of live ammunition has allegedly caused a significant number of deaths across the country.”
◢ The United States announced Monday it would halt sanctions waivers for Iran's Fordow plant, likely ending a key component of a landmark nuclear deal after Tehran said it had resumed enrichment activities. US waivers remain in place for other nuclear sites including Bushehr, a nuclear power plant off the Gulf coast being developed with Russia under safeguards.
◢ Iran said it still faces "riots" even though the situation was calmer Monday after days of violent protests sparked by a shock decision to hike petrol prices in the sanctions-hit country. Major roads have been blocked, banks torched and shops looted in the nationwide unrest that has left at least two dead—a civilian and a police.
◢ Iran's supreme leader on Sunday threw his support behind a decision to hike petrol prices, a move that sparked nationwide unrest in which he said "some lost their lives.” The protests flared hours after it was announced that the price of petrol would be raised by 50 percent for the first 60 liters and by 300 percent for anything above that each month.
◢ Iran imposed petrol rationing and raised pump prices by 50 percent or more on Friday, in a new move to cut costly subsidies that have fueled high consumption and rampant smuggling. Each driver with a fuel card will now have to pay 15,000 rials (13 US cents) per liter for the first 60 liters of petrol bought each month.
◢ Schools in Tehran were ordered to be closed on Wednesday after the Iranian capital was cloaked in dangerously high levels of air pollution, authorities said. Average concentrations of hazardous airborne particles hit 133 micrograms per cubic meter in the city and were as high as 150 for 10 districts.
