Iran’s reported death toll from the novel Coronavirus exceeded 10,000, as 134 additional deaths were recorded in just 24 hours.
Government officials said that restrictions could be reimposed if the current measures in place were not observed by the country. The government said it was also considering making it mandatory to wear face masks in public spaces after a spike in confirmed infections.
The United States said China and Russia would be isolated at the UN if the countries continued to block the Trump administration’s bid to extend a weapons embargo on Iran. The arms restrictions on the Islamic Republic are set to expire in October, under the terms set out in the 2015 nuclear deal.
The U.S. placed sanctions on 5 Iranian ship captains who carried oil to Venezuela. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the ships were carrying an estimated 1.5 million barrels of Iranian crude oil. Additional sanctions were also placed on Iran’s metal industry which Washington said helped to fund the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a military wing of the Iranian government which has been designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the Trump administration.
A former Iranian judge, Gholamreza Mansouri, whose body was found in a hotel in Romania, died from the impact of his fall, an autopsy has concluded. The judge, who had escaped Iran where he faced trial for corruption, was under judicial supervision in Romania, ahead of a court hearing due to take place in July. Analysts have questioned whether his death was accidental.
And an explosion at an Iranian gas storage facility near a sensitive military site not far from Iran’s capital Tehran was reported by the country’s media. The site is one of several in which Western security forces believe the Iranian government carried out nuclear tests in the early 2000s.
