April 3rd, 20210PARIS – Officials from Iran, China, Russia, France, Germany and Britain met virtually on Friday to discuss a possible return of the United States to the 2015 nuclear deal, the European Union said in a statement on Thursday.
The Biden administration has been seeking to engage Iran in talks about both sides resuming compliance with the...
July 22nd, 20200This is an election year, so we can expect a fresh round of China-bashing. American politicians love to use China as a punching bag; it never stops, really, but the trend accelerates when candidates are running for office.
Some punches deserve to be thrown: China does a lot of things we don’t like. It challenges American interests,...
September 29th, 20190NEW YORK/U.N. — Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, has ruled out negotiations on its nuclear program with the United States so long as sanctions remained in place and said he was not interested in a “memento photo” with President Trump.
“I would like to announce that our response to any negotiation under sanctions is...
August 23rd, 20190Democracy’s premise is that ordinary citizens can make solid decisions on complex issues. But this basic principle and the structure of laws and practices erected over the centuries to safeguard it are being questioned as rarely before.
It’s not just that political leaders in various Western democracies seem to have little regard...
May 31st, 20190MECCA — Saudi Arabia’s king told an emergency Arab summit on Thursday that decisive action was needed to stop Iranian “escalations” in the region following attacks on Gulf oil assets, as American officials said a U.S. military deployment had deterred Tehran.
King Salman had opened an earlier meeting of Arab Gulf leaders with a...
May 24th, 20190NEW YORK — Half of all Americans believe that the United States will go to war with Iran “within the next few years”, according to a Reuters/Ipsos public opinion poll released on Tuesday amid increased tensions between the two countries.
While Americans are more concerned about Iran as a security threat to the United States now...
May 17th, 20190WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Trump said on Thursday he hoped the United States was not heading to war with Iran as he met with Swiss President Ueli Maurer, whose nation has served as a diplomatic conduit between the two countries.
Asked by reporters if Washington was going to war with Tehran, Trump responded, “Hope not” as he...
May 10th, 20190WASHINGTON, DC — On Thursday, President Trump urged Iran’s leadership to sit down and talk with him about giving up Tehran’s nuclear program and said he could not rule out a military confrontation given the heightened tensions between the two countries.
At an impromptu news conference at the White House, Trump declined to say...
May 6th, 20190WASHINGTON, DC - The Trump administration is deploying a carrier strike group and bombers to the Middle East in response to troubling “indications and warnings” from Iran and to show the United States will retaliate with “unrelenting force” to any attack, national security adviser John Bolton said on Sunday. Though Bolton cited...
May 3rd, 20190LONDON — Iranian President Hassan Rouhani signed a bill into law on Tuesday declaring all U.S. forces in the Middle East terrorists and calling the U.S. government a sponsor of terrorism.
The bill was passed by parliament last week in retaliation against President Trump’s decision this month to designate Iran’s elite...
April 29th, 20190NEW YORK — Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif does not believe President Trump wants war with Iran, but he told Reuters on Wednesday that Trump could be lured into a conflict.
“I don’t think he wants war,” Zarif said in an interview at the Iranian mission to the United Nations in New York. “But that doesn’t...
April 26th, 20190American middle class consumers are enjoying the strongest wage growth in a decade, but higher gasoline prices are eating a good chunk of that increase for many, and it looks like pump prices are headed higher.
Gasoline pump prices have already jumped about 25 percent this year, the fastest rate in three years. Trump administration...
April 12th, 20190Palestinian activist Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israeli financial interests, has been denied entry to the United States after airline staff informed him he wouldn't be flying.
Barghouti was at Ben Gurion International Airport on Wednesday when he was told by U.S....
February 15th, 20190American politicians from the two main parties have finally found something to agree upon: More intervention in Venezuela.
“Now, despite (President Nicolas) Maduro, there is hope (in Venezuela),” wrote Democratic Senator Dick Durbin in USA Today. “These events (meaning the current political instability in the country) are a...
February 4th, 20190WASHINGTON, D.C. — According to a new study by the Pew Research Center, participation in a religious congregation is a key factor to civic engagements, happiness and health.
People who are active in religious congregations tend to be happier and more civically engaged than either religiously unaffiliated adults or inactive members...
January 3rd, 20190Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif rejected a U.S. warning against carrying out space vehicle launches and missile tests, saying on Thursday they did not violate a U.N. resolution.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a pre-emptive warning to Iran earlier on Thursday against pursuing three planned space rocket...
December 21st, 20180TEL AVIV — Israel will escalate its attacks against Iranian-aligned forces in Syria after the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday.
Some Israeli officials have said President Trump’s move, announced on Wednesday, could help Iran by removing a U.S. garrison that...
November 3rd, 20180Although ties between Washington and Tel Aviv are stronger than ever, Israeli leaders are aware of a vastly changing political landscape. The U.S.' own political turmoil and the global power realignment — which is on full display in the Middle East — indicate that a new era is, indeed, in the making.
Unsurprisingly, this new era...
October 6th, 20180President Trump said on Tuesday that he warned Saudi Arabia’s King Salman he would not last in power “for two weeks” without the backing of the U.S. military.
“We protect Saudi Arabia,” Trump said to cheers at a rally in Southaven, Mississippi. "Would you say they’re rich. And I love the King, King Salman. But I said...
October 5th, 20180Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman praised his relationship with Donald Trump after the U.S. president told supporters he had warned the king he would not last in power “for two weeks” without U.S. military backing.
“I love working with him. You know, you have to accept that any friend will say good things and bad...
October 5th, 20181From presidents Truman to Trump, U.S. administrations have never actually been an “honest broker” of peace between Palestinians and Israelis, regardless of all the rhetoric and official positions. On the contrary, the U.S. has provided tremendous diplomatic, economic and military support to Israel ever since its creation in...
October 1st, 20180Seth Anziska’s Preventing Palestine: A Political History From Camp David to Oslo is a deeply insightful and profoundly disturbing book that traces the tortuous path of Middle East peace-making during the past four decades. It was quite painful to read.
Having been a close observer and sometimes participant in many of the...
September 1st, 20180MOSCOW — Russia will begin a major naval exercise in the Mediterranean on Saturday, the Ministry of Defense announced, a move the Kremlin said was justified by a failure to deal with militants in Syria’s Idlib province.
Idlib and areas surrounding it are the last major enclave held by rebels opposed to Syrian President Bashar...
August 26th, 20180British Airways and Air France said on Thursday they would halt flights to Iran from September for business reasons, months after President Trump announced he would re-impose sanctions on Tehran.
British Airways said it was suspending its London to Tehran service “as the operation is currently not commercially viable.”
BA,...
August 22nd, 20180Iran warned on Wednesday that it would hit U.S. and Israeli targets if it were attacked by the United States after President Trump’s security adviser said Washington would exert maximum pressure on Tehran going beyond economic sanctions.
A U.S.-Iranian war of words has escalated since Trump withdrew Washington from the world...
August 13th, 20180Iran’s Supreme Leader Sayyed Khamenei on Monday rejected President Trump’s offer of unconditional talks to improve bilateral ties and he also accused the Iranian government of economic mismanagement in the face of reimposed U.S. sanctions.
The Trump administration reimposed the sanctions last week after pulling out of a 2015...
August 11th, 20180ADEN — Saudi-led coalition air strikes on Thursday killed dozens of people, including children traveling on a bus through a market, in Yemen’s Saada province, a Yemeni health official and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said.
The Western-backed alliance fighting the Houthi Yemeni group said in a statement that...
July 31st, 20180TEHRAN - The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on Tuesday dismissed President Trump’s tentative offer of talks with Tehran, saying the Islamic Republic was not North Korea.
Trump said on Monday he would be willing to meet Iran’s leader without preconditions to discuss how to improve ties after he pulled the United States out...