Iran Financial News

(Reuters) -Iranian security forces briefly detained the father of Mahsa Amini on Saturday and spread across mainly Kurdish areas of the country, a year after her death in police custody set off some of the biggest protests since the fall of the Shah in 1979.

North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Un, peeked his head into the cockpit of a fighter jet at a factory in the Russian Far East on Friday as he pressed ahead on a multiday tour of Russia that is enticing him at each stop with off-limits military technology. Although Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, hasn't promised Kim any of the weaponry and has vowed to abide by United Nations sanctions banning their transfer, the tour carried an implicit threat — an example of what analysts say is a growing danger posed by Putin's increasingly warm relationship with authoritarian leaders who can pose problems for the West. At the same time, according to U.S. officials, Putin is cultivating new sources of arms and munitions for his war against Ukraine. «I think it's really serious,» said Andrea Kendall-Taylor, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, who previously led analyses of Russia by the U.S.

Britain, France and Germany have announced that they will keep their sanctions on Iran related to the Mideast country’s atomic program and its development of ballistic missiles

President Joe Biden has announced new U.S. sanctions on “some of Iran’s most egregious human rights abusers” as he marks the anniversary of the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini

Muhammd Iqbal dedicated his first philosophical Persian poetry book, 'Asraar-e-Khudi', to his professor of Persian at Cambridge, Reynold A Nicholson. The legendary Englishman and an authority on Persian mysticism, especially on Jalaluddin Rumi, quickly glanced through his favourite student's book. It was excellent but not up to his exacting standards. 'Are you happy with it,' Nicholson asked Iqbal.

Berkeley Earth, which focuses on environmental data science and analysis, said last month was the warmest August since records began to be kept in 1850, with «particularly warm conditions» prevailing in parts of India, Japan, North Atlantic, Eastern Equatorial Pacific, Northern South America, Central America, parts of Africa and the Middle East. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a US government agency, said on Thursday that 2023 witnessed Earth's hottest August in its 174-year climate record. The sizzling month also marked the northern hemisphere's warmest meteorological summer and the southern hemisphere's warmest meteorological winter on record, the NOAA's National Centres for Environmental Information said. Berkeley Earth said August 2023 exceeded the previous record set in August 2016 by 0.31 degrees Celsius, «a surprisingly large margin, well outside the margin of uncertainty». Its researchers said: «We estimate that 13 per cent of the Earth's surface experienced its locally warmest August average, and 87 per cent of the Earth's surface was significantly warmer when compared to its local average during the period from 1951 to 1980.» In total, they estimated that 65 countries (mostly in the tropics) witnessed their warmest August on record. These countries include Bahrain, Barbados, Brazil, Cambodia, Cameroon, Chad, China, Colombia, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Morocco, Niger, Panama, Peru, the Philippines, Qatar, Russia, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Turkiye, Venezuela and Yemen. Some of these countries broke their August records by extraordinary margins.

Apple in 2017 can be considered symbolic of how the company grew after its visionary co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs' death in 2011. Feeling creatively unfulfilled, Imran Chaudhri, a top software designer who had joined Apple in 1995 and was part of the teams that developed the iPhone’s multitouch technology and later Apple Watch interface, started planning his exit. He told his bosses he would leave in a few months after collecting equity shares that he was due to earn as part of his compensation, a normal practice at Apple. A month before leaving, Chaudhri wrote a farewell email to colleagues announcing his planned exit.

By Muyu Xu

Ukraine said on Thursday it downed 17 out of 22 Russian drones attacking its territory overnight in the country's south, centre and north. «On the night of September 14, 2023, from 9 p.m.

NEW DELHI : India is concerned about Russia’s successive crude production cuts to comply with the Opec+ agreement by curtailing production even from assets where Indian state-run firms are stakeholders, two people close to the matter said. “The Russians have reduced production as part of Opec+. However, India is not a part of it, yet production is being reduced wherein foreign entities are partners.

NEW DELHI : The removal of additional duties on imports of American apples, walnuts and almonds will have no effect on growers in Jammu and Kashmir, the Centre said on Tuesday, a day after former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti expressed concern. The Centre said the basic duty of 50% will continue to protect domestic players. India recently lifted additional duties on several American products, including chickpeas, lentils and apples.

Joe Biden's administration over its decision of prisoner swap with Iran. The US cleared the way for $6 billion in proceeds to be returned to Iran and agreed to release five Iranians as a part of a secretly negotiated deal. The deal will clear the way for five American citizens detained in Iran to return home, according to a report published by Bloomberg. Secretary of State Antony Blinken notified Congress on Monday of a waiver that will let German, Irish, Qatari, South Korean, and Swiss banks transfer the $6 billion from South Korea without fear of running afoul of US sanctions.

Joe Biden’s administration has moved to free five American citizens who were detained in Iran by issuing a waiver for the international banks to transfer $6 billion in frozen Iranian money, from South Korea to Qatar without the fear of American sanctions. Moreover, as part of the Iran-US prisoner exchange deal, the Biden administration has agreed to release five Iranian citizens who were held in the US. According to The Associated Press, the US Secretary of State Antony Blnken signed off on the sanctions waivers late last week after US and Iranian officials said that the agreement was in place in principle.

G20 meeting in New Delhi. Xi has not missed a single G20 since he came to power in 2012. Whether Xi’s absence is a snub aimed at India or whether China is turning against the construct of the G20 itself, only time will tell.

By Parisa Hafezi and Andrew Mills

Europe-West Asia-India transit corridor reinforces Europe's shift away from Russian energy sources in favour of supply from the Persian Gulf, a part of which is processed in India for re-export. The corridor also establishes an alternative to the Suez Canal, which is emerging as a choke point for just-in-time global supply chains.

G20 Summit) on Saturday saw the New Delhi G20 Leaders Declaration get accepted with ‘100% consensus’. The declaration that was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the Day 1 of G20 Summit, focused on ‘war in Ukraine’ and geopolitical tensions, sustainable growth, creating an inclusive world among other points. There were four Indian Foreign Services officers who burnt the midnight oil to draft the New Delhi G20 Leaders Declaration which achieved a reported ‘100% consensus’, a historic achievement.

Russia launched an air attack on Kyiv early on Sunday, with blasts ringing out across the Ukrainian capital and its region for almost two hours and drone debris falling on several of the city's central districts, Ukrainian officials said. Ukraine's Land Forces said that the country's air defence systems destroyed 25 out of 32 Russia-launched Iran-made Shahed drones, most of which targeted Kyiv and the Kyiv region. Reuters witnesses heard at least five blasts across Kyiv, and Ukrainian media footage showed a number of cars damaged. «Drones came onto the capital in groups and from different directions,» Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv's city military administration, said on the Telegram messaging app.Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that one person was injured in the historic Podil neighbourhood and a fire broke out near one of the city's parks. Debris from downed drones fell on the Darnytskyi, Solomianskyi, Shevchenkivskyi, Sviatoshynskyi and Podil districts, Klitschko and the city's military administration said. In the Shevchenkivskyi district, drone debris sparked a fire in an apartment, which was quickly extinguished. There were no immediate reports of injuries, Popko said on the Telegram messaging app. There was no immediate comment from Russia about the attacks.

Daniel Abed Khalife, aged 21, has been apprehended by police just over three days after his daring escape from HMP Wandsworth, where he was found strapped beneath a food delivery van. This marks the conclusion of Khalife's time on the run while awaiting his impending court case. But how did he transform from a British army soldier into Britain's most sought-after fugitive?

Iranian oil earlier this year, Al Jazeera reported. Notably, this strong move by the US resulted in severe tensions in the Gulf. «This is the first-ever criminal resolution involving a company that violated sanctions by facilitating the illicit sale and transport of Iranian oil and comes in concert with a successful seizure of over 980,000 barrels of contraband crude oil,» said the Justice Department in a statement, according to Al Jazeera. The department hailed the move for «successfully disrupting a multimillion-dollar shipment of crude oil,» by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is designated as a «foreign terrorist organization» in the US. Following its seizure of the Iranian oil, Washington charged Tehran with arresting a number of foreign ships transiting the Gulf. Tehran was outraged when the Pentagon revealed in August that it was deploying tens of thousands more US soldiers to the area to «support deterrence efforts» and guard maritime lines, notably the Strait of Hormuz., according to Al Jazeera.Iran has argued that capturing Iranian property in international waters is equivalent to piracy, whereas the US regards stopping Iranian oil ships as law enforcement. «Acts of trespassing on tankers carrying Iranian oil are a clear example of piracy,» Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Nasser Kanasaid last month, as per Al Jazeera. In August, the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Washington would welcome any steps from Tehran for de-escalating the «growing nuclear threats». He, however, also clarified that the process of bringing back US citizens detained in Iran is a «completely different» matter.

By Arathy Somasekhar and Jonathan Saul