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UPDATE: 5:00 PM CET<\/span><\/p>\r\n Germany will close all three Iranian consulates on its soil\u00a0in response to Iran\u2019s execution of a German-Iranian dual national,\u00a0Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock<\/a> announced on Thursday.\u00a0\u201cWe have repeatedly and unequivocally made it clear to Tehran that the execution of a German citizen will have serious consequences,\u201d Baerbock said in a televised speech announcing the closures.<\/p>\r\n The consulates are located in Frankfurt, Hamburg, and Munich. According to German media, the consulate employees will\u00a0lose their rights to live in Germany and must leave the country, unless they have German citizenship.<\/p>\r\n On Thursday, Baerbock said Germany would seek\u00a0European Union-wide sanctions\u00a0against those\u00a0involved in Sharmahd\u2019s execution and called on the EU to add\u00a0Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)<\/a>\u00a0to its list of terrorist groups.<\/p>\r\n Read more<\/a><\/p>\r\n UPDATE: 1:00 PM CET<\/span><\/p>\r\n WASHINGTON, D.C.\u2014In the weeks leading up to Israel\u2019s retaliatory\u00a0strikes on Iran<\/a>\u00a0this Saturday, someone from inside the U.S. government leaked a cluster of highly sensitive documents outlining the Jewish state\u2019s military deployments.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n We may never know the identity of the leaker\u2014there are probably thousands of bureaucrats across the U.S. government who had access to the documents. But of those masses, a\u00a0single name<\/a>\u00a0has been circulating online: Ariane Tabatabai, who\u2019s served as a senior Defense Department official for the past two years.<\/p>\r\n There is no evidence we have found that Tabatabai is the leaker, despite the fact that various Arab and Israeli news sites reported as much. In fact, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin this week\u00a0all but ruled out<\/a>\u00a0the culprit being Tabatabai or anyone else from the Pentagon.<\/p>\r\n Read more<\/a><\/p>\r\n On March 17, 1992, a Ford F-100 panel van drove in front of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and blew up a massive vehicle bomb of 224 pounds of high explosives, leaving 23 people dead and several hundred injured. Back then, no one thought that Iran and Hezbollah had the capability to carry out a massive terrorist attack halfway around the world from Lebanon.<\/p>\r\n Two years later, on July 18, 1994, Iran and Hezbollah did it again but this time directly targeting and attacking a Jewish Community Center called the \u201cAMIA\u201d killing 85 people, mostly Argentine and other Latin American nationals. Thirty years later, there are still skeptics as to the presence and penetration of Iran and Hezbollah in the Western Hemisphere.<\/p>\r\n Today, at a press conference in Buenos Aires, the security minister of the Republic of Argentina, Patricia Bullrich, and her director of criminal intelligence, Ricardo Ferrer Picado, provided critical evidence of Iran and Hezbollah\u2019s long arm of terrorism in Latin America.<\/p>\r\n Read more<\/a><\/p>\r\n UPDATE: 10:00 AM CET<\/span><\/p>\r\n U.S. officials expect that in the coming weeks, Iran is likely to contact individual Americans directly to try to influence how they vote, stir societal divide, or incite violence, according to three sources with knowledge of U.S. intelligence reporting on the issue.<\/p>\r\n While it\u2019s unclear exactly what such an operation would entail, or even if it has already begun, the governments of the U.S., Sweden, and Israel have all accused Iran of sending threatening and intimidating emails and text messages to their citizens in recent years. The U.S. intelligence community noted this month that Iranian hackers appear to have gained access to some Americans\u2019 voting records, as they did in 2020.<\/p>\r\n Read more<\/a><\/p>\r\n UPDATE: 7:30 AM CET<\/span><\/p>\r\n For over forty years, the Iranian opposition has warned about the threat posed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). In this regard, the opposition has made extensive efforts through documented disclosures, gatherings, protests, conferences, interviews, books, book tables, and more, to reveal the IRGC\u2019s wide-ranging activities and global terrorism. However, a world inclined towards appeasement did not hear or chose not to hear, turning a blind eye.<\/p>\r\n Now, after a year of warmongering by the clerical regime in the region, the IRGC\u2019s role as the enforcer and arm of the regime Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei\u2019s rule in continuing and expanding conflicts has become more evident. Consequently, international pressure has increased to designate this criminal entity as a terrorist organization.<\/p>\r\n Read more<\/a><\/p>\r\n On Tuesday, October 29, 2024, the Iranian parliament discussed the 2025 budget bill. Experts and state-affiliated media have described it with terms such as \u201ca buildup of imbalances,\u201d \u201ca debt-dependent budget,\u201d \u201can opaque budget,\u201d \u201ca budget with a 40% deficit,\u201d and \u201cthe most challenging budget in Iran\u2019s economic history.\u201d<\/p>\r\n Regime president Massoud Pezeshkian attended parliament to defend the bill, revealing aspects of this alarming budget and depicting the regime\u2019s fear of explosive social tensions and potential uprisings. He stated: \u201cWe obtained permission from the Supreme Leader to include foreign currency in the budget in advance. Previously, we had to request it mid-year after social protests erupted, but this time, we secured it beforehand.\u201d Pezeshkian also pointed out the insolvency issue in this budget, often referred to as \u201cimbalance,\u201d stating, \u201cWe face imbalances in electricity, water, and gas\u2014all requiring scientific interventions, and we must take necessary action.\u201d<\/p>\r\n Read more<\/a><\/p>\r\n In the first budget bill under President Masoud Pezeshkian, Iran\u2019s new administration has proposed a substantial increase in military spending, requesting a 200% rise in the defense budget for 2025. Fatemeh Mohajerani, the government spokesperson, described the proposed budget hike as essential for strengthening the nation\u2019s defense infrastructure but did not disclose the total amount allocated.<\/p>\r\n Officially, the proposed military budget is divided among the Iranian Army, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC<\/a>), the Basij, and related institutions. Although the exact figures remain undisclosed, analysts believe the IRGC and its branches, including the elite Quds Force, are expected to receive the bulk of this increase. In addition to the standard military budget, substantial funds are likely reserved in undisclosed accounts for Iran\u2019s support of proxy forces across the Middle East, as has been common practice in recent years.<\/p>\r\n Read more<\/a><\/p>\r\n After extending the prison sentence of political prisoner Maryam Akbari Monfared for another two years, the criminal Iranian Judiciary committed another inhuman act on October 22, 2-24, by ordering her transfer to the notorious\u00a0Qarchak Prison<\/a>\u00a0for women in Varamin, where she has been held in solitary confinement as this report is being published.<\/p>\r\n Maryam Akbari Monfared finished her\u00a015 years of imprisonment without a single day of furlough<\/a>\u00a0on October 12, 2024. She spent the last four years of her sentence in exile in the Prison of Semnan among ordinary prisoners, in violation of the principle of separation of crimes.<\/p>\r\n The latest measure by the mullahs\u2019 Judiciary aims to increase the\u00a0harassment and abuse of this resistant and resilient political prisoner who has remained adamant despite long years of incarceration, torture, harassment, and pressures that have undermined her health.<\/p>\r\n Read more<\/a><\/p>\r\n The announcement of the execution of Jamshid Sharmahd, an Iranian-German political prisoner under the Iranian regime, on Monday, October 28, has sparked widespread domestic and international reactions.<\/p>\r\n A few hours after Germany summoned its ambassador from Tehran in protest of Jamshid Sharmahd\u2019s execution, the European Union also issued a strongly worded statement condemning the killing of this Iranian-German citizen and announced plans to pursue targeted and significant actions against the Iranian regime.<\/p>\r\n In its statement, the EU did not specify details of these actions but called on the Iranian regime to end its \u201ctroubling\u201d practice of detaining foreign and dual nationals to gain political leverage.<\/p>\r\n Read more<\/a><\/p>\r\n While officials from Iran\u2019s Budget and Planning Organization have announced that, with the issuance of new pension equalization rulings, an average increase of 15 to 20 million rials (approximately $21.6 to $29) has been added to pensioners\u2019 salaries, some pensioners report raises of less than 10 million rials (around $14.4).<\/p>\r\n A\u00a0retiree<\/a>\u00a0from the Postal Company, earning about 80 million rials (roughly $116), shared his new statement with the state-run ILNA news agency, showing a salary increase of only 430,000 rials (about $0.62).<\/p>\r\n He stated that, after months of promises and publicity, his salary increase was just 430,000 rials, equivalent to the cost of four loaves of bread.<\/p>\r\n Read more<\/a><\/p>\r\n Hamburg, Germany\u2014October 29, 2024:<\/strong>\u00a0Freedom-seeking Iranians and supporters of the People\u2019s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI\/MEK<\/a>) organized a rally protesting the escalating executions by Iran\u2019s regime. They called for the immediate release of all political prisoners held by the regime.<\/p>\r\n Participants also aligned with the \u201cNo to Executions Tuesdays<\/a>\u201d campaign, condemning the ongoing executions in Iranian prisons.\u00a0MEK<\/a>\u00a0supporters in Hamburg urged that the regime\u2019s leaders be tried in an international court for crimes against humanity.<\/p>\r\n 2-#Hamburg<\/a>\u2014October 29, 2024: #MEK<\/a> Supporters Protest Iranian Regime\u2019s Executions, Demand Political Prisoner Release#StopExecutionsInIran<\/a> #NoImpunity4Mullahs<\/a> #FreePoliticalPrisonersInIran<\/a> #FreeIran2024<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/hXvCLmi3Am<\/a><\/p>— Iran Freedom (@4FreedominIran) October 30, 2024<\/a><\/blockquote>Germany Orders Shutdown of Iranian Consulates over Execution<\/h3>\r\n
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\r\nThe Curious Case of Ariane Tabatabai<\/h3>\r\n
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\r\nArgentina Reveals the Identity of Hezbollah\u2019s Terrorist Leader in Latin America<\/h3>\r\n
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\r\nIran Will Likely Try to Contact Americans Directly in Influence Campaign, Sources Say<\/h3>\r\n
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\r\nGrowing International Pressure to Designate The IRGC as A Terrorist Organization<\/h3>\r\n
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\r\nThe \u201cMost Challenging Budget\u201d in Iran\u2019s History<\/h3>\r\n
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\r\nIran\u2019s Military Budget Surge Under New President Pezeshkian: Prioritizing Defense Over Economic Stability<\/h3>\r\n
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\r\nOctober 2024 Report: Maryam Akbari Transferred to Qarchak Prison<\/h3>\r\n
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\r\nEU Condemns Execution of Jamshid Sharmahd, Weighs Actions Against Iran\u2019s Regime<\/h3>\r\n
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\r\nSalaries of Iranian Pensioners Increased by Equivalent of Four Loaves of Bread<\/h3>\r\n
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\r\nHamburg\u2014October 29, 2024: MEK Supporters Protest Iranian Regime\u2019s Executions, Demand Political Prisoner Release<\/h3>\r\n