The Iranian government announced on Saturday that the institutions, save for emergency and service-providing centers, will be shut.
Working hours were also cut short on Sunday as temperatures in many parts of the country, especially in the south, soared to up to 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit).
The capital Tehran experienced 42 degrees Celsius on Friday and is expected to get close to its record 45.6 degrees Celsius on Saturday and Sunday.
The New York Times provided the figure, citing the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, a think tank.
According to the report, the American arms shipments to the occupied Palestinian territories throughout the war had featured over 20,000 unguided bombs, some 2,600 guided bombs, and 3,000 surgical strike missiles.
The regime launched the war following al-Aqsa Storm, a retaliatory operation staged by Gaza’s resistance groups against the occupied territories.
Ever since, it has been deploying the US-supplied projectiles against numerous civilian targets.
Earlier this month, the regime’s military radio reported that the Israeli Air Force had dropped a total eight US-manufactured JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munition) bombs against the al-Mawasi refugee camp in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, killing and injuring a total of 390 Palestinians.
In all, the war has so far claimed the lives of more than 39,175 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and wounded 90,400 others.
Last month, The Washington Post reported that the US had supplied the regime with over $6.5 billion in military supplies since the beginning of the brutal military onslaught.
The sheer increase comes while Washington’s annual so-called military aid for Tel Aviv stands at around $3.3 billion.
Washington has also used its veto power on several occasions so far to prevent the UN Security Council from issuing a resolution that would call for implementation of an immediate ceasefire in the war.
The untrammeled American political and military support for the regime comes despite an order issued by the International Court of Justice, the United Nations top court, on the regime back in January to take all measures within its power to prevent genocide in Gaza.
Italy recalled all staff from its embassy in Damascus in 2012 and suspended diplomatic activity in Syria amid the war in the Arab country.
Stefano Ravagnan, currently the foreign ministry’s special envoy for Syria, was named as ambassador. He is due to take up his post shortly, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani told Reuters.
Italy and seven other EU states last week sent a letter to the bloc’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, asking the European Union to play a more active role in the country.
“Syrians continue to leave in large numbers, putting additional strain on neighbouring countries, in a period when tension in the area is running high, risking new refugee waves,” the letter seen by Reuters said.
Along with Italy, the letter was signed by Austria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Greece, Croatia, Slovenia and Slovakia. It lamented “the humanitarian situation” in the country which had “further deteriorated” as its economy was “in shambles”.
“Borrell mandated the European External Action Service to study what can be done,” Tajani said on Friday, adding that naming a new ambassador was “in line with the letter we sent to Borrel … to turn the spotlight on Syria”.
At present six EU embassies are open in Damascus — Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Cyprus, the Czech Republic and Hungary. None of Italy’s Group of Seven partners — the United States, Japan, Britain, Canada, France or Germany — have reinstalled ambassadors to Syria.
Recent “intensified hostilities” in the Khan Younis area, more than nine months into the Israeli war, have fuelled “new waves of internal displacement across Gaza”, said the UN humanitarian agency OCHA on Friday.
It added that “about 182,000 people” have been displaced from central and eastern Khan Younis between Monday and Thursday, while “hundreds of other people remain stranded in eastern Khan Younis”.
The Israeli military on Monday issued evacuation orders for parts of the southern city, announcing its forces would “forcefully operate” there, including in an area previously declared a safe humanitarian zone.
At least 39,175 people have been killed and 90,403 injured in Israel’s war on Gaza, according to Palestinian authorities.
The UN agency for Palestinians also said nine out of every 10 people in the besieged Gaza Strip have been “forcibly displaced” during the Israeli onslaught on Gaza.
“Families seek shelter where they can: overcrowded schools, destroyed buildings, makeshift tents on the sand or amid piles of trash,” the UNRWA wrote on X on Friday, adding, “None of these places are safe. People have nowhere left to go.”
The UNRWA and many other humanitarian agencies and rights organizations have repeatedly warned the world about the huge humanitarian consequences of the Israeli genocidal war on Gaza, which has reduced much of the territory to rubble.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also said the humanitarian situation in Gaza is a “total disaster,” blaming a military campaign of a “chaotic nature” and the lack of security in the strip.
“With the combination of these obstacles, with the total insecurity in the country, humanitarian aid is far from being sufficient,” Guterres told reporters during a press briefing on Thursday.
“The humanitarian situation in Gaza is a total disaster. And it is a total disaster because it’s the combination of two things. First, a military campaign that has have the highest level of killing and destruction that I remember in any other military campaign since I am secretary general anywhere in the world. And the military campaign that has a certain chaotic nature,” he added.
“First, the North was attacked, people were told to go to the south. Then the center was attacked and people was also told to go to the South. But all of a sudden they had to go back to the North because apparently the problem was not solved.”
“Then they went to the South, but all of a sudden they went to the center again, because also apparently the problem in the center was not solved. And any time people were told to move to somewhere else and people were moving from place to place in search of safety that doesn’t exist in any place,” he continued.
The UN chief lamented that Gaza is in a situation of “total lawlessness”, and that “law and order has completely disappeared” in the strip.
“Nobody is in charge of security anywhere in the area of Gaza. So we see convoys looted at any moment. And the worst, we had in three successive days, three UN convoys that were hit by fire, on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. On Sunday, they were, the bullets were lost. But on Monday and Tuesday, five bullets and four bullets penetrated our vehicles. And, they were shot by the Israeli military.”
The announcement, made by a spokesperson for the new prime minister on Friday, overturns the previous government’s objection to the ICC prosecutor’s application for a warrant for Netanyahu and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant.
“On the ICC submission… I can confirm the government will not be pursuing (the proposal) in line with our long-standing position that this is a matter for the court to decide on,” the spokesperson told reporters.
The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) announced it was a “relief” to see the objection being dropped.
“Respecting the jurisdiction and independence of the ICC is the least the Labour government can do to demonstrate a genuine commitment to justice and accountability,” said ICJP legal officer Zaki Sarraf.
“They must now avoid further undermining their credibility and uphold international law.”
Earlier this month, Israeli daily newspaper Maariv reported that Foreign Secretary David Lammy gave assurances to Israel that the UK would maintain its objection to the application that was initially raised by the Conservative government in Downing Street.
Netanyahu and Gallant are accused of crimes against humanity and war crimes by ICC prosecutor Karim Khan.
The Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar, its military wing’s commander-in-chief Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri, better known as Mohammed Deif, and its political leader Ismail Haniyeh were also subject to arrest warrant applications.
The applications must be approved by a panel of ICC judges and it was at this stage that the UK had lodged its objection.
Palestine was accepted into the ICC in 2015, and in 2021 the court said it had the power to investigate war crimes in the occupied territories.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council issued a joint statement on Friday condemning the move by the British government as “regretful and regressive” and said it appeared to be a reversal of “long-term UK foreign policy”.
“We are concerned that the cumulative effect of these announcements, in quick succession, signal a significant shift in policy, away from Israel being a key UK ally. This would not only be a strategic error but a moral one,” read the statement.
Labour has faced increasing pressure by civil society and human rights groups to suspend arms sales to Israel.
Senior politicians in the party have expressed concern that Labour lost seats at the recent general election due to discontent among voters, especially British Muslims, over the party’s early support for Israel’s war on Gaza.
Five independent MPs were elected at the recent general election on a pro-Gaza platform.
Labour Friends of Israel, an advocacy group of which Starmer and Lammy are both members, said on Friday the government’s move was “deeply disappointing” and said they wanted to see Netanyahu face accountability in the Israeli courts rather than the ICC.
“The ICC chief prosecutor’s case is morally suspect and legally dubious,” they stated, adding, “Israel’s courts have previously tried and jailed the country’s most senior leaders. They are already investigating allegations of serious misconduct relating to the war. It is right that these are investigated and there is no reason to believe that Israel could not or would not investigate in this case.”
Over 39,000 Palestinians have been killed and 90,257 wounded in Gaza as a result of Israel’s ongoing assault on the besieged enclave.
Thousands more Palestinians are missing and presumed dead under the rubble following Israeli attacks.
The United States is the all-round champion in the number of sanctions imposed on its adversaries and rivals, with one-third of all countries on Earth subject to some sort of restrictions, according to the analysis.
Starting in the 1990s, successive US administrations have made economic punitive measures and economic warfare the main instrument of their foreign policy, which all too often are ineffective and backfire, the analysis said.
Decades-long sanctions on North Korea for instance have failed to dissuade Pyongyang from advancing its weapons programs and developing intercontinental ballistic missile capabilities, the analysis added
The US sanctions on Nicaragua and Cuba have proved completely ineffective in removing the respective administrations of Daniel Ortega and Fidel Castro (now Miguel Diaz-Canel).
While the United States at present imposes three times more sanctions than any other country or international body, the overuse of such restrictive measures is increasingly recognized at the highest levels of the US government, the analysis noted.
The Joe Biden administration has never been able to say “no” to the temptation of the power of sanctions and the apparent ease of their application, as Treasury Department staffers have had to shelve their drafts on the restructuring of the sanctions system and give way to new economically suffocating measures..
The thousands of sanctions have made lobbyists and former US officials richer due to the billions of dollars paid by foreign countries and oligarchs to help them safely navigate the changing geopolitical and economic environment, the analysis added.
Between February 2022 and January 2024 alone, the United States imposed sanctions on more than 16,000 individuals, over 9,000 companies, and more than 3,200 institutions from Russia, making the country the most sanctioned one in the world.
Planting rice in northern Iran has special customs and traditions and has become an inseparable part of the people’s culture.
With over 320,000 hectares of paddy files under cultivation and with about 1,420,000 tons of production every year, Mazandaran province accounts for 45 percent of the country’s rice production.
The quality of the rice produced in northern Iran is exceptional.
Get a glimpse of the hard work by the farmers in pictures:
“It is true that the [Department of Defense] did message Philippines audiences questioning the safety and efficacy of Sinovac,” Pentagon officials wrote to their Filipino counterparts in a letter dated June 25 and reported by Reuters on Friday.
According to the document, the Pentagon admitted that it “made some missteps in our COVID related messaging” but assured Manilla that it halted the operation in late 2021 and has since “vastly improved oversight and accountability of information operations”.
The operation in question began in 2020, after China announced it would distribute Sinovac shots in the Philippines free of charge. In an effort to counter this public relations boon for Beijing, the Pentagon ordered its psychological operations center in Florida to create at least 300 fake social media profiles to disparage the Chinese vaccine, a Reuters investigation revealed last month.
“COVID came from China and the VACCINE also came from China, don’t trust China!” read a typical post created by the psyops team, while another stated: “From China – PPE, Face Mask, Vaccine: FAKE. But the Coronavirus is real.”
Military officials involved in the campaign knew that their goal was not to protect Filipinos from an unsafe vaccine, but to “drag China through the mud”, a senior officer told Reuters.
The propaganda campaign soon spread beyond the Philippines, according to the report. Muslim audiences across Central Asia and the Middle East were told that Sinovac contained pork gelatin, and was therefore “haram”, or forbidden under Islamic law. The campaign forced Sinovac to release a statement insisting that the shot was “manufactured free of porcine materials”.
The Pentagon has not publicly acknowledged the letter to the Filipino military, and the governments of the US and the Philippines refused to comment on the matter to Reuters.
Last month, however, a Pentagon spokesperson told the news agency that the US military “uses a variety of platforms, including social media, to counter those malign influence attacks aimed at the US, allies, and partners”, and claimed that Washington was only responding to a Chinese “disinformation campaign to falsely blame the US for the spread of Covid-19″.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry told Reuters that it has long maintained that the US spreads disinformation about China.
In the Philippines, Reuters’ report prompted an investigation by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In a hearing last month, Senator Imee Marcos, who leads the committee, called the Pentagon campaign “evil, wicked, dangerous, [and] unethical”, and suggested that Manilla investigate whether it can take legal action against Washington.
“Of course, such steps by the European Commission will not go unanswered,” Peskov told reporters.
On Friday, the European Union will send the first tranche of military aid to Ukraine, amounting to €1.5 billion, from the revenues of frozen Russian assets, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced on social media site X.
But Kiev will not receive the proceeds from the Russian assets directly – the funds will go into the European Peace Facility to compensate EU countries for arms already supplied, the European Commission said.
“This is not a reason for an immediate reaction, but certainly a reason for thoughtful actions in response to such illegal decisions by the European Union,” Peskov added.
“These actions will definitely take place, but they must be well-considered and fully align with our interests.”
Following the start of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, the EU and G7 countries froze nearly half of Russia’s foreign exchange reserves, amounting to approximately €300 billion.
Over €200 billion are held in the EU, mainly by Belgium’s Euroclear, one of the world’s largest settlement and clearing systems. The Russian Foreign Ministry has described the freezing of assets in Europe as theft, noting that the EU is targeting not only private funds but also Russian state assets.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated that Moscow would respond if frozen Russian assets in the West were confiscated. He mentioned that Moscow also has the option to seize funds that Western countries hold in Russia.
The Iranian Government announced a day earlier that the public institutions across the country will shut at 10:00 am local time and banks will be open until 11:00 am.
The average temperatures in Iran have increased by 2 degrees during the past few days compared to the same period last year.
Some regions in Iran, especially the southern rim, have been experiencing temperatures of up to 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) and will get even hotter on Saturday and Sunday, according to the forecast.
Electricity and water consumption in the country is also expected to peak during the scorching hot days.
Minister of Energy Ali Akbar Mehrabian said, “All power plant capacities will be used for maximum electricity production, transmission and management of electricity consumption.”
Known as the country of four seasons, the temperature difference between the coolest and hottest regions in Iran yawned to 40 degrees Celsius in the past few days, with Ardabil in northeast the coolest and Khuzestan in the south the hottest.
The capital Tehran experienced 42 degrees Celsius on Friday and is expected to grapple with hotter weather on Saturday and Sunday.
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