Maritime News Agency of Iran Maritime News Agency of Iran [Iran] Maritime News Agency (MANA)is a private news agency in Iran launched in 2004. Its purpose is to cover a variety of marine, shipping, tourism and navy news along with other fields related to the industry. The website states it is the sole news wire service to cover marine news in the Iran. The news agency has given large coverage to events such as shipping and Persian Gulf news, as well as the Caspian Sea. MANA's main headquarters for news is based in Iran's capital Tehran, with reporters across the country and region. The news
Iran of the Iranians, surrounding themselves with a culture that was distinctively Iranian. By the 1500s, Ismail I of Ardabil established the Safavid Empire, with his capital at Tabriz. Beginning with Azerbaijan, he subsequently extended his authority over all of the Iranian territories, and established an intermittent Iranian hegemony over the vast relative regions, reasserting the Iranian identity within large parts of Greater Iran. Iran was predominantly Sunni, but Ismail instigated a forced conversion to the Shia branch of Islam, spreading throughout the Safavid territories in the Caucasus, Iran, Anatolia, and Mesopotamia. As a result, thereof, modern-day Iran is the only