Ahmed Shaheed, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, issued an unedited report (.pdf) today that “provides a picture of the prevailing situation” of human rights  in Iran. This is his first report since October 2013. One of the areas examined by Shaheed is the “Right to Life.” At least 753 individuals were reportedly...

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Lamenting that the “the administration’s assurances are at odds with its actions,” a staff editorial in The Washington Post today expressed concern that President Barack Obama is prepared to accept increasing Iranian aggression in the Middle East in order to preserve the nuclear deal that the P5+1 nations are negotiating with Iran. The president himself...

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Saudi Arabia has signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with South Korea, fueling fears of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that the signing of the agreement increases “concerns on Capitol Hill and among U.S. allies that a deal with Iran, rather than...

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Talks are underway between the seven countries negotiating over Iran’s nuclear program—including the five permanent members of United Nations Security Council—to lift the security council’s sanctions on Iran, Reuters reported today. The talks between Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — the five permanent members of the Security Council...

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The Obama administration has undermined its own negotiating by claiming that the deal it is negotiating with Iran is “non-binding,” according an analysis published yesterday in The Daily Beast. The Obama administration was so outraged with the Republican attempt to undercut the president’s foreign policy negotiations that it sent the vice...

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Two new proposed laws in Iran designed to marginalize women who don’t bear children will further erode women’s rights and reduce Iranian women to “baby making machines,” according to a new report by Amnesty International published on Wednesday. One of the laws outlaws voluntary sterilization, which is believed to be the second most common method...

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In his observations about Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit to Saudi Arabia last week, columnist Tariq Al-Homayed of the London-based Saudi daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat charged that an agreement between the West and Iran over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program that fails to end Iran’s occupation of other countries or stop its sponsorship...

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Over the past two days, both U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and State Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki have admitted that the current nuclear deal being negotiated with Iran is “non-binding.” Speaking at a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today, Kerry said that the deal is not “legally binding.” “We’ve been...

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A analysis for the Institute for National Security Studies published Tuesday argued that Iran’s claims of victimization are a “nuclear fairy tale,” part of a “a public campaign to persuade the media and public opinion” that it is being unfairly targeted by a “bullying hegemonic West.” In the analysis, Shimon Stein and Emily Landau...

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Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, an Iranian cleric who has been identified in news reports as a hardliner, was elected Tuesday to head Iran’s Assembly of Experts, the body charged with selecting a new Supreme Leader upon the death of the current Ayatollah. Reuters reports: The surprise choice of Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi...

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