Search Results for: iran

After a 15-hour search, the wreckage of a helicopter carrying Iran’s president and foreign minister was located by a Turkish drone, leaving a nation to grapple with an unexpected transition of power. Ebrahim Raisi was the eighth president of Iran to have been killed in the last year of his first term. When he ascended [...]

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Monday named a caretaker president and outlined constitutionally mandated succession plans following Ebrahim Raisi’s death in a helicopter crash. The helicopter carrying Raisi and foreign minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian  crashed in foggy conditions in northeastern Iran on Sunday, according to official state media. Search and rescue teams found [...]

The US House of Representatives passed a bill on Thursday that would restrict President Joe Biden’s ability to withhold weapons transfers to Israel, aiming to force the president to deliver certain weapons after he previously placed shipments on hold. The bill, known as the Israel Security Assistance Support Act, was crafted “o provide for the [...]

The US removed Cuba the list of countries not fully cooperating against terrorism, also known as the Not Fully Cooperating Countries (NFCC) list, State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel confirmed on Wednesday. Patel said that the circumstances leading to Cuba’s designation as an NFCC have changed since 2022. The NFCC list is part of [...]

The Australian High Court passed a judgement on Friday that dismissed an Iranian asylum seeker’s plea to be released from immigration detention and enter the country.  The Iranian asylum seeker, applicant ASF-17, applied to the Federal Court of Australia for a writ of habeas corpus in 2023 on the basis that his continuing detention exceeded [...]

Rafael Mariano Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), on Monday traveled to Iran to meet with Iranian officials regarding the country’s accelerating nuclear program amid tensions in the wider Middle East over the Israel-Hamas war. Grossi traveled to Tehran on Monday, where he held high-level meetings with Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Minister of [...]

PEN America, a freedom of expression advocacy group, reported Wednesday that at least 339 writers were incarcerated as of 2023, including more than 100 from China alone, a five-year high. The group has been releasing editions of their Freedom to Write Index since 2019 (based on a detailed methodology), and the 2023 report marks the [...]

Five Israeli military units have committed gross human rights violations, according to the US State Department on Monday. Despite these findings, all of the units currently remain eligible for US military aid. According to the US and Israel, four units have effectively remediated the violations, but discussions continue regarding the remaining Israel Defense Forces (IDF) [...]

The US Department of State released its annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices on Monday, amidst the seventy-fifth anniversary of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, or UDHR. The report emphasized “several new commitments, including to renew investments around the world in democracy and human rights, to help protect human rights defenders online, [...]

The US House of Representatives voted 360–58 Saturday to pass a sanctions bill that includes a provision forcing Chinese company ByteDance to divest from popular social media app TikTok, which would be banned in the US if ByteDance does not comply. The bill, formally entitled the “21st Century Peace through Strength Act,” designates TikTok as [...]