Iran

Via Middle East Monitor By Alastair Sloan | (Middle East Monitor) | – – As the church bells rang in the New Year of 2018, Norway announced that it would be cutting arms sales to any country fighting in Yemen. A couple of weeks later, Germany said the same thing. The Netherlands and Sweden have […]

Featured

Let’s call Bolton what he is, a War Criminal with Terrorist Ties, not just “Hawkish”

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – John Bolton helped lie our country into an illegal war of aggression that killed several hundred thousand Iraqis, wounded over a million, and displaced 4 million from their homes, helped deliver Baghdad into the hands of Iran, and helped create ISIL, which blew up Paris. In […]

Donald Trump

Pompeo’s rise at State will make Mideast war more likely

contributors

By Gregory Aftandilian | (The Conversation) | – – After U.S. president Donald Trump fired his secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, many analysts have focused on how this high-level ouster took place: unceremoniously, on Twitter, not in a face-to-face meeting. As a former Middle East analyst at the State Department, though, I think the real […]

Donald Trump

Pompeo, Big Oil and the attack on Iran Deal

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – All you need to know about Mike Pompeo, the four-term congressman from Kansas who is actually from California, is that most of his life he has been in business with the Koch brothers. His appointment as Secretary of State puts a seal on Trump’s withdrawal from […]

Iran

Iranian women risk arrest: Daughters of the revolution

contributors

Homa Hoodfar | (The Conversation) | – – In the lead-up to March 8, I am sometimes asked whether we really still need an International Women’s Day (IWD). Though my greatest hope is to see a day when gender inequity and gender injustice are social artefacts of the past, that day feels nowhere near. I […]

Iran

Muslim Women at forefront of Science: 70% of Iranian Women Graduates come out with Science Degrees

contributors

Middle Eastern Women Leading World’s Science, Tech Fields | TeleSur | – – Over half of STEM jobs in several middle eastern countries are held by female professionals. “In wealthy nations, they believe that they have the freedom to pursue those alternatives and not worry so much that they pay less,” said one professional. Iranian […]

Iran

Iran: Women Protesters against Veiling face Regime Prostitution Charges

contributors

By Golnaz Esfandiari | ( RFE/RL) The hijab became compulsory in Iran after the 1979 revolution. A small number of Iranian women, risking arrest to protest compulsory head scarves, have rekindled debate about Iran’s so-called hijab rule. The Islamic scarf, or hijab, is one of the pillars of the Islamic republic and among its most […]

Foreign Policy

Iran bans Dollar for import Trade in anti-Sanctions Campaign

contributors

TeleSur | – – Mehdi Kasraeipour, the Central Bank of Iran’s director of foreign exchange rules and policies, said the move is unlikely to meet with resistance. Iran has banned the use of the U.S. dollar in all trade transactions, prohibiting businesses from registering import orders using the currency. The Ministry of Industries, Mining and […]

Iran

Are Iran and Saudi Arabia competing for the soul of Iraq?

Juan Cole

By Saleem al-Wazzan | (Niqash.org) | – – Iraqis can now visit a special visa-free zone in neighbouring Iran, over the border from Basra. Some locals see the open border as a cynical economic and political move that helps Iran, but not Iraq. 22.02.2018 | Basra Politics Postcards from Abadan, Iran, in the new visa […]