TEHRAN – Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif met on Wednesday morning with Swiss State Secretary Pascale Baeriswyl in Geneva to discuss a range of issues, including the latest developments in the Middle East.

US war on Iran by other means is all about wanting the nation colonized as a vassal state, its sovereignty eliminated, its oil, gas, and other resources looted, its people exploited as serfs.

TEHRAN_ The Director of the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) Intelligence Service, Hojjatoleslam Hossein Taeb said that the terror plot against Chief Commander of IRGC Quds brigade, General Soleimani was thwarted.

Iran basketball win Portugal four-team tournamentTEHRAN – Iran national basketball team claimed the title of the Oliveira de Azeméis International Tournament.
Team Melli defeated hosts Portugal 74-70 in their third match.
Iran had already defeated Denmark and Slovakia in the tournament.
Iran will leave Portugal for Russia to take part in a four-team tournament with participation of Russia, Greece and Hungary, scheduled for Aug. 8 to 11.
Mehran Shahintab’s team will also partake at a tournament in China, where they will face Nigeria, Montenegro and Poland from Aug. 19 to Aug. 25.
Iran have been drawn with world’s second-ranked Spain, Puerto Rico and Tunisia in Group C of the 2019 FIBA World Cup.
The competition will be held in China from 31 Aug. to 15 Sept.
The 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup will be the 18th tournament of the FIBA Basketball World Cup for men's national basketball teams.
Rescheduled from 2018 to 2019, this edition will be the first FIBA Basketball World Cup ..

Over $6b of loans paid to SMEs, semi-finished projects in 3 monthsTEHRAN – Iran’s Ministry of Industry, Mining and Trade announced that in the first three months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21-June 21), some 256.17 trillion rials (nearly $6.1 billion) worth of bank loans have been offered to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and semi-finished industrial projects with an over 60 percent physical progress.
Over 37500 projects and production units received bank loans in the mentioned time span, IRNA reported on Monday.
Last week, the industry ministry released a report which indicated that banks and credit institutions provided both industrial and mining sectors with 300 trillion rials (about $7.14 billion) worth of loans in the first two months of the current Iranian year (March 21-May 21), registering a 41.5 percent rise year on year.
According to the data released by the Ministry of Industry, Mining and Trade, the total amount of loans offered to the country’s..

Zarif: Europeans should be concerned over failure to ‘assert’ themselvesTEHRAN – Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has said that European countries’ failure to establish an effective financial channel to trade with Iran is a “source of concern” since “they have not been able to assert themselves” despite having a larger collective economy than the United States.
Zarif made the remarks in an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria broadcast on Sunday, as he was asked by Zakaria “Are you surprised by how week the Europeans have been? They talk about providing an alternative payment system. They sort of set one up. But, let’s face it. It’s not working.”
Zarif answered, “Well, it hasn’t started to work. It should. It is a source of concern, I think, more for the Europeans than for us, that they have not been able to basically assert themselves.”
“Europe is, together, a larger economy than the United States. Certainly if all European oil companies, plus the Chinese and Indians an..

بجنورد- سرپرست دفتر نظارت و بازرسی انتخابات خراسان شمالی گفت: فعالیت های انتخاباتی کاندیداها در استان رصد می شود.
به گزارش خبرنگار مهر، ملک محمد حسن زاده پیش از ظهر سه شنبه در نشست با اصحاب رسانه خراسان شمالی اظهار کرد: با توجه به اینکه هنوز ثبت نام کاندیداهای انتخاباتی آغاز نشده نمی توانیم برخی از اقدامات تبلیغاتی زود هنگام کاندیداها را تخلف محسوب کنیم اما تمام کارهای آنها مورد رصد قرار می گیرد.
حسن زاده با بیان اینکه دو انتخابات مهم مجلس شورای اسلامی و میان دوره ای مجلس خبرگان رهبری را پیش رو داریم، افزود: هیات های نظارت بر انتخابات در استان به زودی تشکیل می شود.
وی در ادامه بیان کرد: ۸۸۶ شعبه اخذ رای برای انتخابات مجلس شورای اسلامی و میاندوره ای خبرگان خراسان شمالی در دوم اسفندماه امسال برای این استان در نظر گرفته شده است.
سرپرست دفتر نظارت و بازرسی انتخابات خراسان شمالی ضمن اشاره به دوره های آموزشی برای بازرسان انتخابات مجلس شورای اسلامی، گفت: دفتر نظارت و بازرسی انتخابات خراسان شمالی چهار هزار و ۴۶۹ نفر ناظر دارد که هم اکنون دوره های آموزش را سپری می کنند.
حسن زاده با اشاره به..

Russian diplomat urges Europe to save nuclear deal Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov on Tuesday urged Europe to save the 2015 nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
“The Russian side confirmed that it is necessary to bolster joint efforts of all participants in the JCPOA, including Iran and the EU trio countries in favor of saving the agreements and ensuring their full implementation on the basis of abidance by their commitments by all the involved parties and with due regard for the principle of reciprocity on which the Plan of Action was based initially,” Ryabkov said in a meeting with British Ambassador to Russia Laurie Bristow, French Ambassador Sylvie Bermann and Charge d’Affaires ad Interim of the German Embassy in Russia Beate Crzeski.
According to TASS, Ryabkov said, “It was noted that the main challenges preventing an efficient implementation of the JCPOA are systemic violations and subversive actions from the U.S.”
Russ..

Iranian parliament studies motion to charge foreign ships in Strait of Hormuz TEHRAN – The Iranian parliament plans to approve a motion that would allow the country to begin charging foreign ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz for providing their security.
Amirhossein Qazizadeh Hashemi, a member of the parliament’s presiding board, said on Sunday that 10 motions have been proposed by a parliamentary faction, including the motion to charge foreign ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
Since Iran is the true provider of security in the region and international waters, the parliament believes that based on international norms and given the U.S. government’s actions, the costs of providing security should be paid by commercial centers and all vessels in the region “in the form of tolls”, Tasnim quoted Qazizadeh Hashemi as saying.
As foreign ships pass through the Strait of Hormuz they enter the Iranian-controlled waters and therefore Iran should collect tolls from them, the ..

‘RAI determined to develop transport of goods from ports via railway’TEHRAN- The head of Islamic Republic of Iran Railways (known as RAI) said development of railways for transport of cargos from ports is a top agenda of RAI’s activities.
Making the remarks in an interview conducted by the news portal of Ports and Maritime Organization (PMO), Saeed Rasouli also announced about the serious will of RAI for expansion of rail transportation.
Last week, the official said that 59 kilometers of railroads are planned to be built for connecting the major cargo hubs in the country to the national railway network by the end of current Iranian calendar year (March 19, 2020).
Rasouli mentioned linking the cargo hubs to the railway network as one of the main priorities of RAI in the current year, Mehr news agency reported.
The official has previously named boosting efficiency of railway fleet and network through benefitting from the most available capacities and supporting domestic production in ..