Meta Removes Iran-Based Fake Accounts Targeting Users In Scotland

Mohammad Hosseini, Raisi's aide for parliamentary affairs on Wednesday reassured reformist daily Sharq that there is a good interaction between the President and the parliament. However, according to several media outlets in Iran the shadow of impeachment is now looming over the heads of at least four of Raisi's ministers: Labor Minister Hojjat Abdolmaleki, Industry Minister Reza Fatemi Amin, Health Minister Bahram Einollahi and Economy Minister Ehsan Khanduzi.

Although Khanduzi's impeachmenthas been postponed under pressure from Majles Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf (Qalibaf), and the Majles presidium is reportedly refusing to acknowledge the receipt of impeachment motions signed by lawmakers, Etemad Online website appeared to be certain that the lawmakers are adamant to impeach at least one of the four ministers. Their motivation is predominantly concern for their credibilitybefore potential voters in the next parliamentary election in 2024.

According to the website, deputy chairman of the Majles Mining and Industry Committee Javad Hosseini Kia has said: "rising prices, lack of government control over the markets, the chaos in the stock market, rising interests on bank loans, declining value of the national currency and the lack of a roadmap to control liquidity are among the reasons why the lawmakers wish to impeach the cabinet ministers particularly those responsible for the state of the economy."

Up to 50 lawmakers had signed the motion to impeach the economy minister and the number of MPs who signed the letters demanding the impeachment of other ministers was reportedly far more than the required 10 signatures. This comes while before the Raisi administration took office, conservative pundits believed that a hardliner government working with a hardliner parliament was the right combination to consolidate power and to avoid bickering between the two bodies.

Some key hardliners still try to support Raisi. Hossein Ali Hajideligani, a member of the Majles presidium, said the ministers have been in office for around six months and this is not enough for a true assessment of their performance. Another Lawmaker, Jabbar Kouchaki of the Planning and Budget Committee has said that lawmakers are so disappointed by the labor minister that they believe he should be immediately fired.

According to Sharq, despite the ban by Ghalibaf on the economy minister's impeachment, lawmakers continue garnering support against him, and they will once again table the impeachment once around 70 MPs sign the motion against him. Some of the MPs told Sharq that Abdolmaleki is likely to be impeached sometime in late February or early March.

In the meantime, Fatemeh Mohammadbeigi, a lawmaker from Ghazvin has also called for the impeachment of Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi whose choice of several military commanders as local governors for the provinces has become controversial.

In another development, Vali Esmaili, a member of the parliament's hardline majority also mentioned illegal appointments by some of the ministers and said: "Although the lawmakers share their political affiliation with the members of the administration, yet we have not given blank checks to anyone. We will certainly use our supervisory powers as members of parliament if we see that the ministers' approach to addressing the people's demands is not satisfactory."

"The General Assembly is sending a strong and unambiguous message against the denial or the distortion of these historical facts," said Germany's UN Ambassador Antje Leendertse. "Ignoring historical facts increases the risk that they will be repeated."

While the 193-member General Assembly adopted the resolution - drafted by Israel and Germany - without a vote, Iran disassociated itself from the text over Israel's "occupation of Palestine and parts of Syria and Lebanon."

Israel's UN mission did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Iran's statement.

The General Assembly resolution spelled out that distortion and denial of the Holocaust refers to Intentional efforts to excuse or minimize the impact of the Holocaust, gross minimization of the number of the victims in contradiction to reliable sources and attempts to blame the Jews for causing their own genocide.

The resolution also said statements that cast the Holocaust as a positive historical event constitute denial, and "urges member states and social media companies to take active measures to combat antisemitism and Holocaust denial or distortion by means of information and communications technologies and to facilitate reporting of such content."

With reporting by Reuters

The nature of the technical problem is not clear, but Iran suffers from natural gas shortages in cold and hot temperatures when local consumption skyrockets.

Temperatures have dipped below freezing in many parts of Iran, which could have reduced gas available for export. Heavy snow has blanketed mountainous regions.

Turkey’s energy ministry said the cuts will be pre-planned to reduce disruptions. In a statement, the ministry added that it took precautions to ensure other consumers would not be impacted by the gas flow interruption.

Iranian officials had earlier warned of gas shortages in the cold winter months.

Iran needs tens of billions of dollars in investments for its sagging energy sector that also suffers from lack of advanced Western technology. Pressure at Iranian gas fields have been falling in recent years.

Years of international and American sanctions, as well as an inefficient government-controlled economy have prevented investments and technology to keep the energy sector robust.

The head of the environment department of Hormozgan province, Habib Masihi Taziani, said on Thursday that the bad smell that has been bothering residents in the past few days was emitted from gas condensates that reached the coastal waters of the Persian Gulf.

He said the floodwater overflowing from Kol River at a point about 40 kilometers from Bandar Abbas caused an accident on a feeding pipeline of the Persian Gulf Star Oil Company and made a large amount of oil gasses to spill into the sea.

Taziani added that operations to remove the oil spill is underway and the pipeline will be repaired as soon as the floodwater goes down.

The Persian Gulf Star Oil Company has confirmed the fracture in the pipeline and said the leaked substance can only cause minor complications such as headaches for the residents of the affected areas.

A local medical scientist, said the concentration of these gasses are not high enough to be dangerous, but asked people, particularly pregnant women, children, the elderly and respiratory patients, to stay home and close their windows.

Heavy rain and snow after months of drought have led to floods across Iran in the past week, causing deaths and damage to thousands of properties and roads.

“The strategy of domination has now failed, and the America is in its weakest position,”President Ebrahim Raisi who is on an official visit to Moscow told the representatives of the Russian state Duma while emphasizing that "the desires for domination" persists and new forms of domination are on the agenda.

"The most important goal of this agenda is to weaken independent governments from within, which is pursued through economic sanctions, destabilization, the promotion of insecurity, and false narratives of events; in such a way that they try to change the place of the oppressor and the oppressed in public opinion," Raisi said.

The Iranian President also said the single "concept of resistance" brought about "failure of the policy of military occupation" and forced the US to flee Iraq and Afghanistan.

US forces are still in Iraq with a new mission of training Iraqi forces, instead of combat against the Islamic State group.

Raisi, who held a three-hour meeting with the Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, in his address to the Duma accused Western powers of forging complex plans "to send Takfiri terrorists on new missions" from the Caucasus to Central Asia.

Iranian officials use 'takfiri' to refer to Sunni fundamentalism and as a vague umbrella term to refer to Sunni dissident groups and individuals inside Iran. "Experience has shown that it is pure Islamic thought that can prevent the formation of extremism and Takfiri terrorism," Raisi said.

In a clear show of support to Russia, he also alleged that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is also trying to infiltrate various geographical areas under new guises. "Promoting pro-Western governments and confronting independent democracies based on national identities and traditions is part of NATO's cultural projects that reflect the hypocrisy of this diminishing pattern of behavior."

Calling sanctions "a common form of new domination", he said countering them requires a collective response from “independent nations”.

The US has threatened Russia with more sanctions if it attacks Ukraine amid a serious crisis triggered by large Russian troop concentrations on the Ukrainian border.

On the nuclear issue and the ongoing Vienna talks to restore the 2015 nuclear deal, Raisi said the Islamic Republic will never relinquish its rights but reiterated that Tehran is serious about reaching an agreement, "if the other parties are serious about lifting the sanctions effectively and operationally."

Russia is a signatory to the deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and in recent weeks has played a proactive role in the Vienna talks as a mediator between Iran and the United States which is only indirectly involved in the talks.

Calling the model of cooperation between Tehran and Moscow in Syria successful, Raisi said resistance of the Syrian people and government this has ensured the consolidation of regional security. The Iranian and Russian military interventions in Syria has killed tens of thousands of civilians.

Referring to economic relations between Tehran and Moscow, Raisi said boosting ties will strengthen the economies of both nations and regional and international security. The signing of a 20-year agreement during his Moscow trip has not materialized.

The annual volume of trade between the countries currently stands at around $3 billion. Tehran says it intends to increase it to $25 billion.