Iran

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — As the coronavirus pandemic ravages Iran, home to the Mideast’s worst outbreak, a women’s group hopes to empower its members by helping them make and sell face masks.

The organization called “Bavar,” or “Belief” in Farsi, formed in 2016, allowing women looking for work to make handicrafts with donated sewing machines. It gave widows and others a way to earn cash in a country whose anemic economy only worsened since, two years later, President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers.

29 Dec 2020; MEMO: Iran's government and parliament are close to an agreement on the 2021 budget, ways to counter US sanctions, and COVID-19 vaccine, said the Iranian president on Monday, Anadolu reports.

Hassan Rouhani made the remarks following his meeting with Parliament Speaker Baqer Qalibaf and judicial chief Ebrahim Raeesi, a meeting coming after weeks of intense speculation.

29 Dec 2020; MEMO: A spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Saeed Khatibzadeh, yesterday warned Israel not to cross its "red lines" in the Gulf, stressing that his country would defend itself against any "adventure" taken by the US administration in its last days.

"Everyone knows what the Persian Gulf means for Iran," Khatibzadeh told reporters yesterday.

29 Dec 2020; MEMO: Head of the Iraqi Sadrist movement Muqtada Al-Sadr's remarks regarding Iranian tensions with the US are "suspicious" and "harmful", a spokesman for the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said.

Saeed Khatibzadeh described the timing of Al-Sadr's remarks, in which he called for Iraq not to be dragged into any Iran-US conflict, as "suspicious" and "harmful", stressing that Tehran does not want any tension in the region, but will defend its national security.

TEHRAN, Dec 28 (NNN-IRNA) – Iran expanded the list of Americans suspected of involvement in the assassination of its senior commander, Qassem Soleimani, to include 48 names.

“The number of main accused in the assassination, increased from 45 to 48,” said Hossein Amir Abdollahian, spokesman for the Popular Committee for the Celebration of the Anniversary of the Martyrdom of General Soleimani.

Speaking at a press briefing regarding the case, Abdollahian voiced hope to see a court ruling “in the near future.”

27 Dec 2020; MEMO: Iran has extended a night-time traffic curfew to 330 lower-risk cities in an effort to sustain a recent fall in the number of new coronavirus infections and deaths, state television reported on Saturday, as reported by Reuters.

Alireza Raisi, spokesman for the national coronavirus task force, said on state TV that a curfew running from 9 pm to 4 am, already in place in 108 so-called "orange" or medium-risk cities, will be extended to lower-risk "yellow" cities.

Tehran, Dec 27 (AP-PTI) A series of avalanches in Iran killed 10 people in a mountainous area north of the capital, state TV reported on Sunday.

The report said rescue teams were searching for a number of missing people after the avalanches struck in four different areas. State TV aired footage of emergency crews using a helicopter to search for those missing and injured.

TEHRAN, Dec. 26 (Xinhua) -- The death toll of climbers rose to ten after heavy snowfall in the northern heights of Iranian capital Tehran, Mehdi Valipour, head of the Red Crescent Rescue and Relief Organization of Iran, announced Saturday.

The search operation for other missing climbers is currently stopped due to unfavorable weather conditions, Valipour was quoted as saying by Iranian Student News Agency.

He said that some missing people have been rescued by Red Crescent rescuers, but he did not specify the exact number.

25 Dec 2020; MEMO: Iran has won US approval to transfer funds for coronavirus vaccines from overseas, the central bank chief said on Thursday, as its daily death toll fell to a three-month low, Reuters reports.

Central Bank governor Abdolnaser Hemmati said an Iranian bank had received approval from the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control to transfer the money to a Swiss bank to pay for the vaccines.

TEHRAN, Dec. 21 (Xinhua) -- The foreign ministers of Iran and the P4+1 (Britain, France, Russia and China plus Germany) on Monday stressed the importance of implementing a United Nations resolution to preserve the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, according to Iran's official news agency.