Iran

TEHRAN, April 17 (Xinhua) -- Iran's defense minister said here on Friday that the United States is the cause of insecurity in the Gulf, official IRNA news agency reported.

The "illegal and aggressive" presence of the U.S. forces in the Gulf has been the source of problems for the regional people, Brigadier General Amir Hatami said on the occasion of Iran's Army Day on Friday.

"We are at our home, and they (Americans) have come from the other end of the world and cause problems by threats and sanctions," Hatami was quoted as saying.

(Reuters) - Iran’s new coronavirus death toll has risen by 92 to reach 4,869, Health Ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpur said in a statement on state TV on Thursday.

Iran’s total number of cases of people infected with the new coronavirus has reached 77,995, Jahanpur said.

12 April 2020; MEMO: President Hassan Rouhani urged Iranians to continue to respect measures to guard against the new coronavirus as “low-risk” business activities resumed in most of the country on Saturday, state news agency IRNA and Reuters reported.

Tehran, Apr 11 (AP) Iran began reopening government offices Saturday after a brief nationwide lockdown to help contain the worst coronavirus outbreak in the Middle East, which has killed more than 4,300 people in the country.

Authorities had ordered most government agencies and all non-essential businesses to remain closed for a week after the Nowruz holiday ended on April 4.

08 April 2020; MEMO: More than 600 Iranians have died from the consumption of high-concentrated alcohol believing it protects against the coronavirus.

Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency quoted a spokesperson for the Iranian judiciary, Ghulam Hussein Ismaili, as saying that the number of deaths due to drinking neat alcohol had reached a disturbing figure, adding that more than 3,000 people had been poisoned after drinking toxic beverages in an effort to treat the disease.

TASS, April 8: Iran has welcomed the initiative put forward by Russia to create a ‘green corridor’ to replace economic sanctions imposed on certain states, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Wednesday via Twitter in Russian.

Iran welcomes the Russian idea to "create a green corridor instead of economic war and sanctions," he stressed. The minister noted, "various countries shut down their geographical borders to curb coronavirus spread but open them to provide assistance."

CAIRO, Apr 8 (NNN-MENA) – The COVID-19 pandemic claimed nearly 4,000 lives out of the over 60,000 infected cases in Iran, while more states in the Middle East started to require wearing face masks to curb the spread of the pandemic.

The death toll of the virus in Iran rose by 133 to 3,872 on Tuesday, Iran’s Ministry of Health and Medical Education said, adding, the confirmed cases went up by 2,089 to 62,589.

Also, the number of recovered cases hit 27,039, while 3,987 others are in critical condition.

TEHRAN, April 8 (Xinhua) -- An Iranian vice president said the United States cannot block Iran's request for a 5 billion U.S. dollars' loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for fighting the novel coronavirus, state TV reported Wednesday.

Mohammad Nahavandian, Iran's vice president for economic affairs, said that "no country in the IMF has the right to veto" the loan requests.

"The IMF policy should be fair in assessing and approving loan requests" for its members, Nahavandian was quoted as saying.

07 April 2020; MEMO: Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi today called on the world’s nations not to abide by the sanctions imposed on his country by the United States.

05 April 2020; MEMO: Iran reported 151 more deaths from coronavirus on Sunday, pushing the death toll to 3,603, a health official said.

Kianoush Jahanpour, a spokesman for the Health Ministry, said that 2,483 more people tested positive for COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, bringing the total infections to 58,226, according to Iran’s state TV.

Jahanpour said 22,011 people have so far recovered and been discharged from hospitals, while 4,057 patients are in critical condition.