{"id":635914,"date":"2026-04-28T09:11:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T09:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/635914\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T09:11:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T09:11:10","slug":"cole-tomas-allen-in-court-king-charles-queen-camilla-in-washington-iran-proposal-on-strait-of-hormuz-reopening-discussed-by-white-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/635914\/","title":{"rendered":"Cole Tomas Allen in court; King Charles, Queen Camilla in Washington; Iran proposal on Strait of Hormuz reopening discussed by White House"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amid destruction and devastation in the wake of war, Iranians have found a rare glimmer of hope among one of the nation\u2019s most endangered species. Iran has recorded a jump this year in its official number of Asiatic cheetahs, a subspecies now found only in Iran that has been on the brink of extinction for years.<\/p>\n

Last year, Iranian authorities were aware of just 17 wild cats. But in 2026, Bagher Nezami, the project manager for the Conservation of the Asiatic Cheetah Project, told Iranian state media that conservationists had recorded 21 new adult cheetahs and six cubs.<\/p>\n

\"AnAn Asiatic cheetah, photographed in 2015.Wikicommons\/Tasnim News Agency<\/p>\n

The Asiatic cheetah is one of the world\u2019s fastest land animals. It has a smaller head, shorter legs and a stronger neck than the African cheetah. The Asiatic cheetahs used to roam the Arabian Peninsula, the lands around the Caspian Sea, and South Asia. Now, a species once favoured by kings prowls only Iran\u2019s eastern desert and is under constant threat from hunters, speeding highway drivers and wild dogs.<\/p>\n

Still, the cheetah\u2019s survival in Iran is a source of national pride. The national soccer team\u2019s jerseys are emblazoned with the spots of the wild cat, while the country\u2019s Meraj Airlines has sought to raise awareness of the critically endangered species by painting cheetahs across its jets. \u201cThe Asiatic cheetah is really a symbol in Iran,\u201d Iman Ebrahimi, an Iranian conservationist, said in an interview. \u201cI think a big part of that is because people feel a connection to it. It has a place in our culture and history.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ancient Persia\u2019s kings used the agile cats to hunt down gazelles. But in recent decades, the cheetah has become a victim of poaching, captivity and neglect, and its population rapidly dwindled to just a few dozen registered cats. More recently, the cheetah has been embraced by some backers of Iran\u2019s political opposition as a symbol of innocence and resistance. During the country\u2019s widespread \u201cWomen, Life, Freedom\u201d demonstrations of 2022, the protest anthem Bayareh paid homage to Pirouz, a beloved cheetah cub born in captivity who later died. The New York Times<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Amid destruction and devastation in the wake of war, Iranians have found a rare glimmer of hope among…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":634870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-635914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=635914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}