Iran

TEHRAN, Mar 10 (NNN-IRNA) – Mohammad Reza Rahchamani, a former Iranian lawmaker, died of COVID-19, on Monday, Tehran Times daily reported.

Rahchamani, 64 and a reformist politician, died at the Masih Daneshvari Hospital.

Fatemeh Rahbar, a conservative female politician, recently elected for the next parliament, also died of the illness on Saturday.

Since Feb 19, when Iran announced the first cases of COVID-19 infections in the country, at least 10 Iranian officials have died.

08 Mar 2020; MEMO: The death toll from the coronavirus outbreak in Iran rose to 194 on Sunday, the country’s Health Ministry has announced.

Authorities said 49 people died in the last 24 hours, while 743 new cases were found, pushing up the total number of confirmed cases to 6,566, spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour told a news conference in the capital Tehran.

At least 22,177 people are currently under medical care, while the number of discharged patients stands at 55,404, he said.

TEHRAN, Mar 8 (NNN-IRNA) – The secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, on Saturday, said, “The U.S. sanctions are more dangerous to international security than COVID-19,” Tasnim news agency reported.

Ali Shamkhani questioned the sincerity of the United States, in its offer to help the Islamic republic to contain the novel coronavirus, urging the United States to firstly lift its sanctions against Iran.

Last week, U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, said, his country had offered Iran assistance in the fight against the coronavirus.

TEHRAN, March 7 (Xinhua) -- Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Saturday slammed what he called U.S. "medical terrorism" against the Islamic Republic.

The U.S. President "Donald Trump is maliciously tightening U.S.' illegal sanctions with the aim of draining Iran's resources needed in the fight against COVID-19 while our citizens are dying from it," Zarif tweeted on Saturday.

"The world can no longer be silent as U.S. Economic Terrorism is supplanted by its Medical Terrorism," he added.

05 Mar 2020; MEMO: Iran yesterday cancelled Friday prayers across all the country’s cities this week amid the country’s growing coronavirus outbreak.

The move came after the Iranian National Committee on Combatting Coronavirus recently announced 586 new infected people and 15 deaths cases. According to official data, there are a total of 2,922 infected people and 92 death cases across Iran – the highest death toll in the world outside of China.

4 March 2020; AFP: Human rights group Amnesty International on Wednesday accused the Iranian security forces of killing 23 children, mostly with live ammunition, during a November crackdown on anti-government protests.

Protests broke out across Iran from November 15 after the announcement of a surprise petrol price rise. The authorities responded with a crackdown that Amnesty has already said left 304 people dead, a figure vehemently disputed by Tehran.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran put its armed forces on alert Tuesday to assist health officials in battling the new coronavirus that’s killed at least 77 people, an outbreak that has sickened top officials and pushed even its supreme leader into wearing disposable gloves while trying to reassure the nation.

02 Mar 2020; MEMO: US sanctions on Iran have led to the outbreak and rapid spread of the coronavirus in the Islamic Republic, President Hassan Rouhani’s adviser has said.

Hesamodin Ashena wrote on Twitter: “The economic sanctions, and Europe’s complicity, left Iran’s public health infrastructure underprepared to deal with coronavirus in a timely way.”

“Trump’s policies are partly responsible for shaping the spread of this virus, and the lives lost in the process,” he added.

TEHRAN, March 1 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Foreign Ministry on Sunday said that the so-called peace deal between the Taliban and the United States is an attempt by Washington to justify its illegal presence in Afghanistan.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran considers the U.S. measures as an attempt to legitimize the presence of its forces in Afghanistan ... The United States has no legal status to sign a peace deal or decide on the future of Afghanistan," the ministry said in a statement.

01 Mar 2020; MEMO: Deaths in Iran from coronavirus have hit 43, the highest number outside China, and the total number of infected people has risen to 593, an Iranian health official said on Saturday, Reuters reports.

The country is at the epicentre of the outbreak in the region, with several countries in the Middle East reporting cases of the coronavirus stemming from Iran.