During the conversation, bin Salman congratulated Pezeshkian on his election as Iran’s new president and wished him success.
The Saudi crown prince further wished prosperity for the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The two sides also hailed the progress of bilateral relations with the Saudi crown prince calling for the expansion of relations in favor of the interests of the two nations.
Speaking to reports after a weekly cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Rouhollah Dehghani Firouzabadi said, “The artificial intelligence organization started its work last week after 12 months of following up on the order by the martyred president (Ebrahim Raisi).”
He said the organization’s statutes and over 18,000 supporting documents have been approved by the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, set up by the Founder of the Islamic Republic Ayatollah Khomeini to ensure that cultural issues in the country will remain Islamic without being tainted by the Western influence.
Dehghani said a budget of 3.5 trillion Tomans (over 83 million dollars) has been allocated to the organization, one trillion Tomans (23 million dollars) of which comes from vice presidential office’s projects and the remaining amount is funded by the National Development Fund.
He explained that the organization is not supposed to be a large state-run affiliate, but rather “an agile organization tasked with creating data line farms in the country, designing and implementing large-scale software patterns, and gathering ready-to-use data in the field of artificial intelligence for government agencies.”
The Iranian vice president further noted that the organization is assigned to create an operator as a basis for fulfillment of the three tasks, adding development of artificial intelligence economy and its applications are carried out by people.
In an almost weekly press briefing after a cabinet meeting, Mohammad Eslami said on Wednesday, “We invite the private sector and the sectors that work in the field of food to participate in this project so we can increase our productivity.”
Irradiation sites, among other things, are established to remove traces of toxins from agricultural products in order to prevent rotting and increase their lifespan.
Eslami also said that a video footage that has surfaced on the internet on an activated air defense site, firing a salvo of missiles, is not in the vicinity of Iran’s nuclear sites.
Earlier reports by the Israeli media claimed that a loud explosion was heard near Iran’s Natanz nuclear site on Wednesday. However, informed sources said the battery of missiles were fired in a military drill near Qom-Kashan highway.
Lavrov made the comments in a meeting with Acting Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Baqeri Kani, at the United Nations headquarters in New York on Tuesday evening.
The meeting was held on the sidelines of the UN Security Council meetings on Palestine and multilateralism.
The Russian Foreign Minister expressed satisfaction over the progress in bilateral cooperation between Tehran and Moscow.
Lavrov also voiced Russia’s concern about the possibility of expanding the scope of the regional conflict and an all-out aggression of the Zionist regime against Lebanon, saying Russia seeks to prevent the occurrence of such an event.
Bagheri Kani, in turn, described the Iran-Russia ties as going in the right direction. He expressed hope that the process of legal formalities to finalize major cooperation documents between the two states, especially the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty and others such as the use of the transit capacity of the Islamic Republic, will be completed at the earliest.
Also referring to the Gaza developments, Bagheri Kani emphasized the need to prevent the continuation of the Zionist crimes and attacks against Palestinians, and warned neglecting this issue and the regime’s intensifying attacks on Gaza are a source of the escalating tensions and crisis in the region.
However, the removal triggered yet stronger protests from Iranian fans who demanded restoration of the video.
Inter decided to post the video again but this time after removing the logo of the Qatar Airways.
Taremi, 31, joined the Serie A champions Inter on a three-year contract from Portuguese side FC Porto as the first Iranian in the Italian club’s history.
There are many historical accounts that the body of water has been referred to as the Persian Gulf throughout history despite recent efforts by Arab states to use a misnomer for the strategic water body.
According to the historical accounts, the Persian Gulf got its name from the Achaemenid Persian Empire, also known as Persian Hakhamanishiya, around 330 BC.
Nasser Kanaani said the Islamic Republic of Iran strongly rejects any involvement in the recent armed attack on Trump or claims about Iran’s intention for such an action, considering the allegations to have malicious political motives and objectives.
Referring to Trump’s direct role in the 2020 assassination of Brigadier General Qassem Soleimani, the former commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC), Kanaani emphasized the Islamic Republic of Iran is determined to pursue legal action against Trump.
Meanwhile the Iranian Representative Office in New York denied the CNN claim describing it as being biased and baseless.
In a statement released on Tuesday evening, the Iranian representative office pointed out from the viewpoint of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Trump is a criminal offender for ordering the assassination of General Soleimani and must be put on trial for that.
However, it said, Iran is pursuing the legal path for holding Trump accountable.
Trump was injured in a shooting incident during a rally speech in Pennsylvania. The attacker, a 20-year-old man, was shot dead by security forces.
The three organizations described as ‘far-right’ have reportedly slowed down aid supplies by either blocking trucks on their way to Gaza, or by causing traffic jams and even standing in front of Kerem Shalom, the main crossing into the Palestinian enclave.
According to inquiries into crowdfunding websites and other public records conducted by the news agency and the Israeli investigative site Shomrim, three groups, including one accused of looting or destroying supplies, have raised over $200,000 via contributions from the US and Israel.
Mother’s March has reportedly raised the equivalent of over $125,000 through the Israeli crowdfunding site Givechack, the AP and Shomrim found. The group also raised some $13,000 via JGive, a US and Israeli crowdfunding site.
The report claims that the organization doesn’t not raise money directly, but works via an allied group called Torat Lechima, which says its goal is to “strengthen the Jewish identity and fighting spirit” among Israeli soldiers. A third group, Tzav 9, raised over $85,000 from just under 1,500 donors in the US and Israel via JGive.
The report alleges that the donations have been incentivized by making them tax-deductible. It noted that practices of this kind contradict a pledge by the US and Israel to allow unlimited flows of food and medicine into war-ravaged Gaza. Donations continued even after Washington introduced sanctions against Tzav 9.
“If you’re on the one hand saying you’re allowing aid in but then also facilitating the actions of groups that are blocking it, can you really say you’re facilitating aid?” Tania Hary, executive director of Israeli nonprofit Gisha, told AP. She added Israel has shown a “lack of coherence” in its Gaza aid policy.
Сommenting on the report, the US State Department told the news agency that Washington was committed to ensuring the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza. Neither US nor Israeli officials commented on the fundraising efforts by the far-right groups.
Nine months into the war in Gaza, the issue of humanitarian aid deliveries to the territory is of increasing importance. Earlier this month, a group of independent UN human rights experts accused Israel of conducting a “targeted starvation campaign”, saying that 34 people, most of them children, had died of malnutrition in the enclave since October 7.
“We reject any attempts to label UNRWA as a ‘terrorist organization’. How can a United Nations agency be considered a terrorist organization?” Borrell said at a joint press conference with Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi in Brussels on the sidelines of the 15th meeting of the EU-Jordan Association Council.
He stated the EU along with other international donors will continue to support and fund UNRWA.
“We agreed that it is critical to preserve UNRWA’s irreplaceable role throughout the region, certainly including in Jordan,” Borrell added.
Late in May, the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) passed a preliminary motion to approve a bill designating UNRWA as a “terrorist organization”.
The bill also mandates that the Israeli “Anti-Terrorism Law” be applied to the UN agency and ceases all communications and relations between Israel and the agency.
Israel has lobbying hard to have UNRWA closed as it is the only UN agency to have a specific mandate to look after the basic needs of Palestinian refugees.
UNRWA was established by a UN resolution in 1949 and is mandated to provide assistance and protection to refugees in its five areas of operation: Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip.
According to the rights group, which monitors executions in the kingdom, the rate amounts to an execution nearly every two days, representing a 42 percent increase compared to the same period in 2023, which recorded 172 executions.
ESOHR said that the surge indicates an “insistence on using the death penalty extensively, in violation of international laws and its official commitments”.
Despite the rise in execution numbers, the group noted that they had identified only three individuals facing imminent execution, indicating that many executions are taking place in secret.
According to Reprieve, which documents death penalty cases in the kingdom, in many cases the families of the victims are not aware they were on death row.
ESOHR noted that in 19 of the cases they monitored, the type of sentence and the court that issued it are often concealed in official reporting.
They added that this lack of transparency is “a new form of manipulation by Saudi Arabia to evade its commitments and continue using the death penalty as a tool”.
In 2023, a joint report by ESOHR and Reprieve revealed that Riyadh’s execution rate has almost doubled since King Salman and his son Mohammed bin Salman came to power in 2015. Between 2015 and 2022, executions surged by 82 percent.
In February this year, seven Saudi men were killed in a mass execution, the highest number put to death in one day since 81 were killed in March 2022.
According to the report, Saudi authorities routinely used the death penalty to quash political dissidents, in contravention of international law which stipulates it should only be used for the most serious crimes.
According to Reprieve, foreign nationals, including female domestic workers and drug offenders, are “disproportionately” targeted.
Despite the crown prince’s pledge in a 2018 interview that he would minimise executions, the country remains one of the world’s most prolific executioners.
Mosques, religious centers, martyr cemeteries, and shrines were filled with worshippers who, with fervor and reverence for Imam Hussein, both mourned and prayed to demonstrate their love and devotion to the martyr of Karbala and his companions.
Following the call to prayer at noon, large groups of mourners and Imam Hussein devotees immediately paused their mourning activities to perform the obligatory prayer in streets, sidewalks, and wherever they were, emphasizing the significance of prayer as a core aspect of Imam Hussein’s movement.
From the early hours of the morning on Tuesday, people across Iran’s cities and villages mourned and wept for the heroes of Karbala.
They later joined congregational prayers, showcasing their deep affection and respect for the holy family.
Iran’s President-elect, Masoud Pezeshkian, also participated in the noon prayer in Tehran, held on Jomhouri Street in downtown the capital.
Shia Muslims across Iran and worldwide marked on Tuesday the martyrdom anniversary of the third Shia Imam and the Prophet’s grandson, Imam Hussein.
Imam Hussein and 72 of his companions were martyred on Ashura the in 680 AD in Karbala, southern Iraq, in a battle against the much larger army of the then ruler Yazid I.
Shias in Iran and other parts of the world have kept the rituals alive for centuries to relay Imam Hussein’s message of courage and fight against oppression, injustice, and tyranny to the next generations.
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