Iran Protesters Call For Three-Day Strike from Monday

People walk in a street on a rainy day in Tehran, Iran, 04 December 2022. (EPA)
People walk in a street on a rainy day in Tehran, Iran, 04 December 2022. (EPA)
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Iran Protesters Call For Three-Day Strike from Monday

People walk in a street on a rainy day in Tehran, Iran, 04 December 2022. (EPA)
People walk in a street on a rainy day in Tehran, Iran, 04 December 2022. (EPA)

Protesters in Iran called on Sunday a three-day strike this week as they seek to maintain pressure on authorities over the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, with protests planned on the day President Ebrahim Raisi is due to address students in Tehran. 

Raisi is expected to visit Tehran University on Wednesday, celebrated in Iran as Student Day. 

To coincide with Student Day, protesters are calling for strikes by merchants and a rally towards Tehran's Azadi (Freedom) Square, according to individual posts shared on Twitter by accounts unverified by Reuters. 

They have also called for three days of boycotting any economic activity starting on Monday. 

Similar calls for strike action and mass mobilization have in past weeks resulted in an escalation in the unrest which has swept the country - some of the biggest anti-government protests since Iran's 1979 revolution 

The activist HRANA news agency said 470 protesters had been killed as of Saturday, including 64 minors. It said 18,210 demonstrators were arrested and 61 members of the security forces were killed. 

Iran's Interior Ministry state security council said on Saturday the death toll was 200, according to the judiciary's news agency Mizan. 

The nationwide protests began after Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman, died in the custody of Iran's morality police on Sept. 16, after she was detained for violating the hijab restrictions governing how women dress. 

Residents posting on social media and newspapers such Shargh daily say there have been fewer sightings of the morality police on the streets in recent weeks as authorities apparently try to avoid provoking more protests. 

On Saturday, Iran's Public Prosecutor Mohammad Jafar Montazeri was cited by the semi-official Iranian Labor News Agency as saying that the morality police had been disbanded. 

"The same authority which has established this police has shut it down," Montazeri was quoted as saying. 

Iran's Interior Ministry, which is the authority in charge of the morality police, has yet to comment on the status of the force, which is tasked with monitoring Iranians' clothing and public behavior. 

Montazeri said the morality police was not under the judiciary's authority, which "continues to monitor behavioral actions at the community level." 

Top Iranian officials have repeatedly said Tehran would not change its mandatory hijab policy, nor the way it enforces this policy. 

Executions 

State media said four men convicted of cooperating with Israel's spy agency Mossad were executed on Sunday. 

They had been arrested in June - before the current unrest sweeping the country - following cooperation between the Ministry of Intelligence and the Revolutionary Guards, Tasnim news agency reported. 

Tehran has long accused arch-enemy Israel of carrying out covert operations on its soil. Tehran has recently accused Israeli and Western intelligence services of plotting a civil war in Iran. 

Iranian state media reported on Wednesday that the country's Supreme Court had upheld the death sentence handed out to the four men "for the crime of cooperating with the intelligence services of the Zionist regime and for kidnapping". 

Three other people were handed prison sentences of between five and 10 years after being convicted of crimes that included acting against national security, aiding in kidnapping, and possessing illegal weapons, the Mehr news agency said.  



Rubio Vows to Place US Interests ‘Above All Else’ as Trump’s Top Diplomat

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., President-elect Donald Trump's choice to be Secretary of State, appears before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for his confirmation hearing, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025. (AP)
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., President-elect Donald Trump's choice to be Secretary of State, appears before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for his confirmation hearing, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025. (AP)
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Rubio Vows to Place US Interests ‘Above All Else’ as Trump’s Top Diplomat

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., President-elect Donald Trump's choice to be Secretary of State, appears before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for his confirmation hearing, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025. (AP)
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., President-elect Donald Trump's choice to be Secretary of State, appears before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for his confirmation hearing, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025. (AP)

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio promised on Wednesday to implement President-elect Donald Trump’s "America First" vision as secretary of state, vowing in his confirmation hearing that the incoming administration will forge a new path by placing American interests "above all else."

"Placing our core national interests above all else is not isolationism," Rubio told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "It is the commonsense realization that a foreign policy centered on our national interest is not some outdated relic."

"The postwar global order is not just obsolete; it is now a weapon being used against us," Rubio said.

It's a remarkable opening salvo from Rubio, who was born in Miami to Cuban immigrants and who, if confirmed, would become the first Latino to serve as the nation’s top diplomat.

The confirmation hearing begins a new chapter in the political career of the 53-year-old Florida Republican, whose relationship with Trump has evolved over the last decade. Once rivals trading schoolyard insults as they campaigned for president in 2016, the two men became close allies as Trump campaigned for another White House term last year.

Rubio first came to Washington as part of the "tea party" wave in 2010 and once advocated for allowing a path to citizenship for immigrants in the country illegally. But like other Republicans, Rubio's views on immigration have shifted toward the hard-line stance of Trump, who has pledged to aggressively pursue deportations once he takes office on Monday.

Unlike many of Trump's Cabinet selections, Rubio is expected to easily win confirmation, notching support not only from Republicans but also Democrats who endorse him as a "responsible" pick to represent the US abroad. Many expect he will be among the first of Trump's Cabinet picks approved.

Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz, who served alongside Rubio on the Foreign Relations Committee, said he has high hopes that the Florida Republican will reject the isolationist approach of other Trump allies.

"I think Marco is a hawk, but he’s also an internationalist, and I think the challenge for him will be to maintain the long bipartisan tradition of America being indispensable in world affairs," the Hawaii lawmaker told The Associated Press. "And there are people in the Trump world who want us to run away from being the leaders of the free world. And I’m hoping that Marco’s instincts towards American strength will win the day."

Rubio's approach to foreign affairs is grounded in his years of service on the Foreign Relations committee and the Senate Intelligence panel. In his speeches and writings, he's delivered increasingly stern warnings about growing military and economic threats to the United States, particularly from China, which he says has benefited from a "global world order" that he characterizes as obsolete.

China, Rubio told the committee, has "lied, cheated, hacked, and stolen their way to global superpower status, at our expense."

The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Wednesday declined to comment on Rubio's remarks.

If confirmed, Rubio will become the leader of US foreign policy — though his role will surely remain secondary to Trump, who relishes the global stage and frequently uses the bully pulpit against America's allies.

Even before taking office, Trump has stirred angst in foreign capitals by threatening to seize the Panama Canal and Greenland and suggesting he will pressure Canada to become the nation’s 51st state.

By winning another term, Trump has won an "unmistakable mandate from the voters," Rubio will say.

"They want a strong America. Engaged in the world. But guided by a clear objective, to promote peace abroad, and security and prosperity here at home."

A Biden administration decision to rescind Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism with just days left in office is likely to irk Rubio, who has long supported tough sanctions on the communist-run island.

Rubio’s office did not respond to multiple queries Tuesday about the senator’s reaction to the move, which many believe will almost certainly be reversed by the Trump administration.

Secretaries of state have played a key role in formulating the foreign policy of the country since its founding, starting with the first one, Thomas Jefferson, who served in the top Cabinet position under President George Washington.

Since then, Jefferson, as well as his 19th century successors James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren and James Buchanan, have all gone on to be elected president.

More recent secretaries of state have been less successful in their political ambitions, including John Kerry, who lost the 2004 presidential election to President George W. Bush before becoming the top diplomat, and Hillary Clinton, who lost the 2016 election to Trump.

The most successful secretaries of state have been known for their closeness to the presidents whom they serve, notably James Baker under George H.W. Bush, Condoleezza Rice under George W. Bush and, to some extent, Clinton under Barack Obama.

Like Clinton, Rubio was once a political rival to the president-elect who nominated them. However, the Clinton-Obama relationship during the 2008 Democratic primaries was not nearly as hostile as that between Trump and Rubio in the 2016 GOP primaries, which was marked by name-calling and personal insults.

Trump had an acrimonious relationship with his first secretary of state, Rex Tillerson. Trump fired him from the position via a social media post less than two years into his term.