Iranian officials approved a large military drill near the Turkish border after Turkey launched an invasion on a location inside Syria. The invaded area had been protected by the U.S. before Washington announced on October 6 that it would be pulling its troops out of Syria. Iran considers Syria to be an ally.
Also on Syria, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused the Iranian government of breaking the law over allegations that Iranian tanker Adrian Darya 1 had offloaded its cargo of oil in Syria. Pompeo called on the European Union to condemn Iran over the alleged breach.
An Iranian-owned oil tanker was hit by two missiles off the Saudi port of Jeddah, according to Iran’s state television which also reported that the tanker had suffered significant damage.
Meanwhile in England, a row erupted over UK Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn’s involvement with a group linked to Iran. The London-based Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) has been given £1.2 million since 2013 by a charity that received £250,000 from British taxpayers through the Gift Aid scheme. The IHRC has been accused of being a propaganda machine for the Iranian government by Iranian campaigners. The Charity Commission had investigated the group and its trust, which funds the IHRC’s work, but did not request any changes.
And as Iran’s women celebrated their new-found rights to enter football stadiums and break a long-held taboo, Amnesty called the new policy, which offered a limited number of tickets to female spectators hoping to attend matches, a ‘cynical publicity stunt’. Women who attended the World Cup qualifier in Iran’s Azadi stadium reported that Iranian officials had placed bars between male and female seating and that the stadium was not full, following a cap imposed by officials on the number of seats that could be allocated to women.
- Kayhan London takes a look at U.S. sanctions and the Iranian government’s claims over the state of the country’s economy.
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- Iran’s Vice President for Women and Family affairs Masoumeh Ebtekar said the government was preparing legislation to make it harder for men to divorce their wives.
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- Alzheimer’s disease and dementia may be affecting 750,000 people in Iran. More than 50 million people around the world live with Alzheimer’s, which is currently incurable.
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