Iran may not be Venezuela, but the Islamic Republic may at its most vulnerable point in its near 50-year existence as pressure builds from the streets, foreign intelligence services and inside the clerical establishment, analysts told Iran International.
US Senator Ted Cruz told Iran International on Wednesday that the American people back ongoing protests in the country against theocratic rule and credited President Donald Trump for attacks on Iranian nuclear sites in June.
Chinese independent refiners are expected to increasingly rely on Iranian heavy crude in the coming months, as Venezuelan oil shipments to China stall after the United States moved to redirect Venezuelan exports, traders and analysts told Reuters.
An Iranian newspaper reported that security forces blocked blood donations and took wounded protesters from a hospital after opening fire on demonstrations in the western town of Malekshahi, a rare domestic account of alleged abuses that has drawn condemnation from rights groups.
State media in Iran are portraying the country as calm, even as rights groups and videos emerging from streets point to expanding protests and intensifying repression.
Exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi on Tuesday issued his first public call for protests since the latest nationwide uprising began, urging coordinated chanting on Thursday evening, hours after Kurdish opposition parties separately called for a general strike that day.
Iran’s rial fell to a fresh record low on Tuesday on unofficial markets, with the US dollar quoted at about 1.47 million rials as authorities seek to defuse public anger over soaring prices.
Iran’s protest slogans have shifted from reformist appeals in the 2009 Green Movement demonstrations to more prominent calls to reinstate the monarchy ousted in 1979, transcending Tehran's central political divide between moderates and hardliners.
European governments are using disputes over Iran’s alleged role in Ukraine and the nuclear dossier to justify tougher measures against Iran, Russia’s ambassador to Tehran told state media.
A social media post by a prominent Silicon Valley investor has ignited an unusual discussion among global entrepreneurs: what it would take to invest in a future Iran after the fall of the Islamic Republic.
International Security and Law Analyst
Iran International
There is a cruel ritual in Iranian opposition politics: some voices abroad constantly interrogate the “purity” of activists inside—why they did not speak more sharply or endorse maximalist slogans, why survival itself looks insufficiently heroic.
The Iran projected on social media these days—brunch parties, rooftop concerts, fashion shows—is real, but only as a tiny fragment of the country’s reality, where most ordinary people struggle to make ends meet.
Iran International
Iran International
Iran International
Iran International
Iran International
Iran International
