Lawmaker Says Iran To Receive Russian Fighter Jets After March

Simon Shercliff, the British ambassador to Tehran, published pictures, which he took together with his French and German colleagues Nicolas Roche and Hans-Udo Muzel, on Twitter Sunday.

The three European powers and Iran have been at loggerheads in recent months due to several issues, including stalled nuclear talks, deadly suppression of protests in Iran, and the execution of four protesters, as well as Iran’s supply of kamikaze drones to Russia.

The latest was the execution of Alireza Akbari, a former Iranian defense ministry official and an Iranian-British citizen, who was accused of spying for MI6.

Iranian officials have been attacking Europe for criticizing Tehran’s human rights violations and accusing them of interference in their internal affairs.

In response, Britain temporarily recalled its ambassador for consultation and sanctioned Iran's Attorney General Mohammad Javad Montazeri. France and Germany, along with Britain, strongly condemned the move by the Iranian regime.

In mid-December, a group of Iranians in the capital Tehran voluntarily helped paint the walls of the British embassy vandalized with anti-UK slogans.

The slogans had been seemingly sprayed by some pro-regime elements to protest UK’s support for anti-government protesters in Iran.

Shercliff in a tweet thanked Iranians and international friends from Germany, South Korea, France, Italy, Brazil, and some other countries who sympathized with the UK.

The arrest comes after a very small amount of radioactive material was discovered by police on a package that arrived in Britain on December 29.

The package, which was reported to have originated in Pakistan, arrived at Heathrow airport on a flight from Oman. It was thought to have been sent to British-based Iranians, say the British media.

Although there is no public evidence of Iran being involved, some believe that whoever sent it might be testing weak points in British safeguards.

The 60-year-old suspect was apprehended in Cheshire in northwest England on Saturday and then released on bail, the Metropolitan Police said Sunday.

Met Counter Terrorism Commander Richard Smith stressed that there appears to be no direct threat to the public.

“The discovery of what was a very small amount of uranium within a package at Heathrow Airport is clearly of concern, but it shows the effectiveness of the procedures and checks in place with our partners to detect this type of material,” Smith said, adding “there is no linked direct threat to the public.”

Highly enriched uranium can be used to make a nuclear bomb, but the Met statement did not specify the uranium’s intended use.

Some experts told the media the uranium found is likely too inefficient to be used for bomb-making.

Siamak Namazi made the plea in a letter to Biden seven years to the day that Iran released five other US citizens in a prisoner exchange choreographed to coincide with the implementation of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

"When the Obama Administration unconscionably left me in peril and freed the other American citizens Iran held hostage on January 16, 2016, the US Government promised my family to have me safely home within weeks," Namazi, 51, said in the letter to Biden released by his lawyer, Jared Genser.

"Yet seven years and two presidents later, I remain caged in Tehran's notorious Evin prison," he added.

Namazi asked Biden to spend one minute a day for the next week thinking about the suffering of US citizens detained in Iran, who include environmentalist Morad Tahbaz, 67, who also has British nationality, and businessman Emad Shargi, 58.

Namazi and others have been detained on trumped-up charges in what seems to be Iran's long history of arresting foreigners as hostages.

Namazi, whose father was allowed to leave Iran in October for medical treatment after being detained on espionage-related charges rejected by Washington, said he would be on a hunger strike for the same seven days.

Asked for comment, a White House national security council spokesperson told Reuters the government was committed to securing Namazi's freedom.

In an exclusive report WSJ said that according to its sources, Tehran finding itself in a financial crunch and facing antigovernment protests, has asked the Bashar al-Assad government to pay around $70 per barrel of crude from now on. The move shows that Iran’s clerical regime finding itself in a political and economic crisis might be losing its leverage over regional allies such as Syria.

While the reported Iranian move might indeed be the result of its budget shortage and falling currency, Syria has been involved in a Russian-backed process to mend fences with Turkey, occupying part of the country’s north, without Iran’s participation. Tehran played a key role in saving the Syrian regime from its opponents in the 12-year-old civil war.

Iran, however, continues its public rhetoric in support of Syria and the Lebanese Hezbollah. During his trip to the two countries this week, foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian repeated offers of fuel and other assistance.

Iran by some estimates has spent more than $30 billion over the last decade to support Assad’s regime, in addition to tens of billions in assistance to Hezbollah and the Houthi rebels in Yemen. This has led to anger among Iranians who suffer from high inflation and declining living standards. Calls for ending the government’s regional interventions have echoed during protests in the past five years.

Head of Non-Governmental Schools and Centers Ahmad Mahmoudzadeh told ILNA Sunday that “We will have a call to produce content of language books for schools, which will be implemented in line with the order of the Supreme Leader.”

"Language books that have nothing to do with our culture will be discarded," he added.

Changing the content of textbooks based on the government's propaganda policies has been implemented in the last few years upon the order of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. However, this is the first time that these changes will be applied to the language teaching books of private institutes.

Ali Khamenei had earlier criticized teaching English in general, saying in 2016 that "now we have reached to a point that English language learning has been extended to kindergartens".

Following his comments, ministry of education put a ban on teaching English at primary schools.

English is not included in Iran's official curriculum during the six years of primary school, but various non-governmental and a small part of public schools teach students English as extra-curricular subject, and these classes are not mandatory.

In recent years, some government officials have also suggested that instead of English, the teaching of Russian, Chinese and German languages should be supported in Iran.