“People will die because of this vote,” US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said of the Security Council’s failure to reauthorize the cross-border mechanism.
Millions of Syrian lives hang in the balance after Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution on Friday that would have kept humanitarian aid flowing for another year to Syria’s impoverished northwest.
Algeria’s president managed to bring together Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh for the first time in 6 years, but divisions between the two rival factions they represent may be too deep at this point.
Even if the US terrorist designation is not lifted, and there is agreement on the JCPOA, the IRGC will still be the power broker of Iranian domestic politics.
As Qatar’s foreign minister visited Tehran Wednesday in an effort to follow up on talks to revive the Iran nuclear deal, there’s no indication the sides have come close to a resolution on the issue of removing the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) from the US terror list.
Iranians have grown accustomed to high inflation and rising prices, yet recent macroeconomic trends are unprecedented.
Iran’s official inflation rate is reaching new highs. The Statistical Center of Iran (SCI) — the country’s main statistics agency — reported a monthly inflation rate of 12.2% and a point-to-point rate of 52.5% for the Iranian month ending June 21. Both are record numbers.
Time is running out to prevent what Yemen envoy Tim Lenderking warns will be a “massive oil spill the likes of which the world has not seen.”
Off the coast of Yemen lies an aging oil tanker that could rupture at any moment. Experts say it’s not a matter of if but when the FSO Safer leaks more than one million barrels of light crude oil into the sea — four times the amount spilled in the Exxon Valdez disaster of 1989.
With Syria’s sole remaining route for cross-border aid in peril, a London-based oil company is lobbying for an initiative that would see the proceeds of Syrian oil being used for aid, with the money going to the UN rather than Damascus.
The EU partly wants the deal so it can buy oil and gas from the Iranian regime.
The EU also appears to want the nuclear deal in order not to lose its other economic relationships and trade with the ruling mullahs of Iran. Despite US sanctions, European countries are still trading with Iran; the Biden administration has yet to hold them accountable.
This week, France repatriated 16 women associated with the so-called Islamic State terrorist group and 35 children from camps in northeastern Syria.
Most states that have repatriated citizens have brought back women and children, including unaccompanied minors, but the plight of men and older boys still in detention, remains dire.
Several notable Israeli operational successes inside Iran have caused a shake-up in Iran’s intelligence leadership.
Israel is shifting from primarily targeting Iran’s regional allies to striking high-profile locations and figures within the Islamic Republic itself.
At the recent G7 Leaders’ Summit in Germany, Western leaders formally launched a global infrastructure and investment partnership, largely designed to compete with China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Since its launch in 2013, BRI has been marred by criticism of unsustainable infrastructure projects in some recipient countries—from debt traps to environmentally degrading and democracy eroding projects.