Iran

(Reuters) - Iran’s judiciary said on Saturday that passengers of an airliner that Tehran has said was “harassed” this week by an American fighter jet over Syria can sue the U.S. military for damages in Iranian courts.

Iranian media said on Friday that several passengers on the Mahan Air flight heading from Tehran to Beirut were injured on Thursday after the pilot rapidly changed altitude to avoid collision with the U.S. jet.

TEHRAN, July 24 (Xinhua) -- The Civil Aviation Organization of Iran announced on Friday that it will lodge a complaint with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) over "harassment" of its passenger plane by two U.S. fighter jets over the Syrian airspace on Thursday.

In a statement, the Civil Aviation Organization of Iran urged the ICAO to immediately address the issue, which, it said, is "a clear violation of the international law and the aviation standards and regulations," Press TV reported.

24 July 2020; MEMO: The United States’ Central Command has confirmed that one of its F-15 fighter jets intercepted an Iranian passenger plane in the skies over Syria yesterday, maintaining that it had been conducted according to international standards.

23 July 2020; MEMO: Iran is likely to extend its “20-year cooperation agreement” with Russia, which is due to expire in March 2021, the Iranian foreign minister announced yesterday.

Mohammad Javad Zarif’s remarks came after a cabinet meeting in the Iraninan capital city of Tehran, during which he discussed the results of his meeting with Russian officials during his one-day visit to Moscow on Tuesday.

20 July 2020; MEMO: An Iranian accused of spying for US and Israeli intelligence was executed on Monday, according to Iran’s official IRIB news agency, Reuters reports.

Last month, the judiciary said Mahmoud Mousavi-Majd, who was arrested in 2018, had spied on former Revolutionary Guards commander Qassem Soleimani, adding however that the case was not connected to Soleimani’s killing earlier this year.

(Reuters) - An explosion occurred at a power plant in Iran’s central Isfahan province on Sunday but there were no casualties, the official IRNA news agency reported.

The blast was caused by the wear and tear of a transformer at the power plant in Islamabad, the managing director of the Isfahan power company told IRNA.

Power was interrupted for two hours, he said.

There have been several explosions and fires around Iranian military, nuclear and industrial facilities since late June.

(Reuters) --- The Iranian judiciary has suspended the executions of three men linked to anti-government protests in November, one of their attorneys, Babak Paknia, said on Sunday.

Rights activists had criticized the death sentences saying they were aimed at intimidating future protesters.

TEHRAN, July 18 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif will visit neighboring Iraq on Sunday for talks on diverse issues of mutual interest, official IRNA news agency reported on Saturday.

During his one-day visit, Zarif will meet senior Iraqi officials, including his counterpart Fuad Hussein and Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi, according to the report.

He will discuss bilateral relations as well as regional and international developments with Iraqi officials.

Iran has sent the black boxes from a Ukrainian airliner that it had accidentally downed in January to France for analysis, a Foreign Ministry official said on Saturday.

Some 176 people were killed when the Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s most powerful military force, fired missiles at the Ukraine International Airlines mistaking it for a hostile target while on high alert during a confrontation with the United States.

19 July 2020; MEMO: Iranian health officials sought on Sunday to play down the president’s estimate that some 25 million people have been infected with the coronavirus, saying it was based on serological blood tests that measure exposure to the illness and that cannot be relied on to show the current state of disease, reports Reuters.