LONDON: Protests engulfing Iran have reached a point of “no return” as demonstrators demand wide reforms beyond the end of mandatory hijab rules, said British-Iranian charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who spent six years detained in Tehran.
She said the Islamic government’s crackdown on the popular revolt and shutdown of the Internet showed it was scared of losing control.

ABU DHABI: A webinar with the goal of fostering closer ties on climate change issues between the EU and the Gulf Cooperation Council has been held ahead of COP27, the Emirates News Agency has reported.

The event was called EU-GCC Webinar on Energy Efficiency in the Building Sector: A Key Driver for Net-Decarbonization, and drew about 100 European and Gulf policymakers and private sector representatives. 

PARIS: Iranian students protested on Tuesday at multiple universities, defying a bloody crackdown as tensions mount on the eve of planned ceremonies marking 40 days since Mahsa Amini’s death.

“A student may die but will not accept humiliation,” they chanted at Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, in an online video verified by AFP.

Young women and schoolgirls have been at the forefront of protests sparked by Amini’s death last month, after her arrest for an alleged breach of the country’s strict dress code for women.

LONDON: Security forces in Iran killed a man in September after he tore down a poster of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in the city of Amol, BBC Persian reported on Monday.

Erfan Rezaei, 21, was shot in the shoulder and back by a pistol at close range during protests.

A source said his family was under pressure to say he had been killed by protesters.

Not long after the protest, Rezaei’s mother, Farzaneh Barzekar, was told by officials that he had been admitted to hospital.

LONDON: The UK witnessed a temporary respite from its ongoing political crisis on Monday as Rishi Sunak, the former chancellor of the exchequer, was declared winner of the ruling Conservative Party’s latest leadership contest. 

The new prime minister is already a history maker as the first Asian and Hindu to assume the role, but he enters office with an economy in the doldrums, crumbling infrastructure, war rumbling on in Ukraine and a fractured party.