The United States and other world powers lifted oil and economic sanctions Saturday after the International Atomic Energy Agency certified that Tehran complied with the terms of an agreement reached in Vienna last July after nearly two years of intense negotiations. The terms included shipping almost all of Iran's nuclear fuel out of the country, dismantling and removing its nuclear equipment, and providing international inspectors greater access to its nuclear facilities. In addition to ending the sanctions, Iran would have access to billions of dollars of assets in foreign banks that have been frozen for years. But according to Kelsey Davenport, the director of nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association, “A number of sanctions on human rights, on terrorism will remain in place that will make it very difficult for companies to navigate,” she said.
“None of us have rose-colored glasses on,” said Mark Toner Spokesman for the US State Department “None of us believe that suddenly once we reach Implementation Day that a whole new world is going to open up and we are suddenly going to cooperate with Iran,” he said.
Those areas of concern include: Iranian regime's recent ballistic missile tests and its firing of rockets near a US military ship, in December.
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State run Fars news agency said: Tehran has freed 4 Iranian-American prisoners, Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, pastor Saeed Abedini, Marine Amir Hekmati, and Nosratollah Khosravi. State run Irna news agency said the fourth person was Iranian-American businessman Siamak Namazi. Namazi is the head of strategic planning at the Dubai-based Crescent Petroleum which lobbies for the Iranian regime.******
On Jan. 28, Hassan Rouhani the Iranian regime's president will 
travel to France. The freedom loving Iranians will participate in a huge gathering on that day to protest his presence in France. Since Rouhani took office in 2013, more than 2000 prisoners have been executed in Iran. The Iranian-Canadians gathered in front of the Parliament in Ottawa yesterday Sat. Jan. 16, and condemned the wave of execution in Iran and Rouhani's trip to France.
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Reuters reported on Jan. 15 that Iraq’s top Shi’ite cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, on Friday urged the government to prevent the Shiite militant attacks and condemned bombings claimed by Islamic State and retaliatory assaults this week on Sunni mosques in the province of Diyala. Sistani has millions of followers in Iraq and elsewhere and wields authority that few Iraqi politicians would openly challenge. 'We place full responsibility on the government security forces for (the attacks’) repetition and to not permit the presence of militants outside the framework of the state,' his spokesman, Sheikh Abdul Mehdi Karbala’i, said in a sermon broadcast on state television.
At least seven Sunni mosques and dozens of shops in the town of Muqdadiya were firebombed on Tuesday. Shiite militants have remained active in Diyala and militia elements have been accused of abuses against Sunni residents.
