A year after Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi took power, his government has curbed the Covid pandemic but faces a sharp downturn of the sanctions-hit economy as nuclear talks remain stalled.

Having pledged to help especially the poor, the ultraconservative cleric now faces runaway consumer prices that have sparked protests.

Raisi was elected in June last year in a ballot for which less than half of voters turned up, after his major rivals had been disqualified by electoral bodies.

A man has been arrested after he was found with an assault rifle outside the New York City home of an Iranian-American journalist who has been critical of Iran's regime.

The journalist -- 45-year-old Masih Alinejad -- was the target of a kidnap plot by Iranian intelligence agents last year, according to US prosecutors.

On Wednesday and Thursday of last week, suspect Khalid Mehdiyev was spotted acting suspiciously outside a house in Brooklyn, the FBI said in documents filed in a Manhattan criminal court.

Iranian authorities have stepped up persecution of the Bahais with a wave of arrests of prominent members of the country's biggest non-Muslim minority, leaving the battered community in shock, activists said on Monday.

The Bahais in Iran, who have been subjected to harassment ever since the inception of the Islamic republic in 1979, had already complained that dozens of community members had been arrested, summoned or subjected to house searches in June and July.

Thousands of Iraqis took to the streets of Baghdad Monday in counter-protests as rival supporters of Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada Sadr extended their occupation of parliament into a third day.

Almost 10 months after Iraqis went to the polls, a political standoff pits two key factions of the Shiite political scene, between the populist Sadr with a devoted following of millions, and the powerful pro-Iran Coordination Framework.

Iraqi security forces were on high alert in Baghdad on Monday as tensions soared after rivals of Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada Sadr, whose supporters are occupying the parliament, called for counter-demonstrations.

A political standoff 10 months after Iraqis went to the polls pits Sadr -- a populist with a devoted following of millions among the country's majority Shiite population -- against the powerful pro-Iran Coordination Framework, another Shiite alliance.

Thirty aid agencies working in war-torn Yemen on Monday called on rival forces to extend a four-month long truce helping millions of struggling civilians, one day before it expires.

Yemen's conflict, pitting the Saudi-backed government against Iran-backed Huthi rebels, has killed hundreds of thousands directly or indirectly and pushed the country to the brink of famine.

A UN-brokered truce that took effect in early April has provided a rare respite from violence for much of the country and alleviated some of the suffering.

Iran's intelligence ministry said Monday it has arrested members of the Bahai minority suspected of spying for a centre located in Israel and of working illegally to spread their religion.

Intelligence agents "arrested a number of members of the central core of the Bahai spy party," who were "directly linked to the Zionist centre known as Bait al-Adl", the ministry said on its website, without specifying how many.

Iran said Monday it remains "optimistic" about a possible revival of the 2015 nuclear deal after the European Union tabled a proposal aiming for a compromise in the talks stalled since March.

"We remain optimistic that the negotiation process will lead us to a logical and reasonable outcome," foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said at his weekly news conference.

A US envoy on Monday expressed optimism that Lebanon and Israel could move towards a maritime border deal to settle competing claims over offshore gas fields.

The dispute escalated in early June after Israel moved a production vessel near the Karish offshore field, which is partly claimed by neighbour Lebanon.

This prompted Beirut to call for the resumption of US-mediated negotiations on the demarcation dispute.

Executions on a scale not seen for years. Mass arrests of regime critics including top film-makers. Trials of foreign nationals denounced as a sham by their families.

Activists argue Iran is in the throes of an intensified crackdown affecting all sectors of society from trade union activists, to campaigners against the enforced wearing of the headscarf for women, to religious minorities.

The repression comes one year into the rule of President Ebrahim Raisi, the ultra-conservative former judiciary chief who in August 2021 took over from the more moderate Hassan Rouhani.