British foreign minister discusses Iran with Saudi crown prince

Britain’s foreign minister Dominic Raab met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the kingdom on Monday and discussed Iran in addition to bilateral ties and climate change, the British foreign office said.

Raab’s visit comes as global powers work to revive a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran that Saudi Arabia had opposed for not addressing Tehran’s missile programme and support for regional proxies, including in Yemen.

Sheikh Tamim meets Palestinian PM Shtayyeh in Qatar

Qatar repeatedly has denounced Israeli attacks on Palestinians and denied any steps toward normalising ties with Tel Aviv as long as it continues its occupation.

Qatar’s Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani met with Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh in the Amiri Diwan on Monday, state news agency [QNA] reported.

Restraint and the Future of American Power

This week, the story I followed most closely wasn’t a breaking news item or global development, but an important debate taking place in Washington these days over whether or not restraint should serve as the guiding framework for U.S. foreign policy.

Burkina Faso: Jihadis Massacre More Than 100 Civilians

Islamists in the West African state have killed scores of civilians and set fire to their homes and businesses, according to the government.

Islamist fighters murdered at least 114 civilians in the West African country of Burkina Faso, the government said on Saturday.

For the U.S. and Russia, ‘Stable and Predictable’ Would Be a Good Start

When U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met last month with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, in Reykjavik, it prompted inevitable comparisons with another high-level encounter in Iceland’s capital: the famous October 1986 summit between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev that set the stage for the thawing of the Cold War.

America’s ‘Return’ Might Not Be Enough to Revive the West

The United States is “back,” proclaims U.S. President Joe Biden, seemingly as often as he can. The coming week will show if the same is true of the West. At successive summits of the G-7, NATO and the European Union, Biden and fellow leaders will confront a dual task: reviving the community of advanced market democracies and showing that the West is capable of resolving today’s complex transnational challenges.

Avec Olivier Dubois, journaliste otage au Mali

MANIFESTATION. Un rassemblement pour appeler à la libération du journaliste français s’est tenu ce mardi à 11 h 30 simultanément à Paris et à Bamako.

À l’initiative de Reporters sans frontières, du comité de soutien #FreeOlivierDubois, de France Médias Monde (Radio France Internationale, France 24, Monte Carlo Doualiya), des rédactions de Radio France, d’ex-otages tels que Florence Aubenas (Irak) et Didier François (Syrie), de l’Union des Clubs de la presse de France et des pays francophones, de SOS Otages et, bien sûr, des médias avec lesquels Olivier Dubois collabore (Le Point, Libération et Jeune Afrique), un rassemblement s’est donc tenu à Paris, place de la République, ce mardi 8 juin à 11 h 30. Au même moment, à Bamako, à la Maison de la presse une manifestation similaire a été organisée.

Un attentat à la voiture piégée fait au moins deux morts en Libye

Deux agents des forces de l’ordre ont été tués et cinq autres blessés dimanche soir dans l’explosion d’une voiture piégée visant un check-point dans la ville libyenne de Sebha (sud), a-t-on appris de source policière.

“Une voiture piégée a explosé au moment où elle franchissait un barrage déployé par les forces de l’ordre”, a déclaré à l’AFP un responsable de la police à Sebha, ville désertique située à 750 km au sud de Tripoli.

Biden and the Ayatollah’s Game Plan

[I]n dealing with the mullahs it is appeasement that encourages war.

[N]o sooner had Biden’s appeasement squad been deployed than Ayatollah Ali Khamenei… revive[d] the embers of several conflicts into blazing flames.

The revised budget… includes a 62 percent raise in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ share. The Quds (Jerusalem) Force, which is in charge of exporting revolution and keeping the pot boiling in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Gaza, sees its budget increased by almost 40 percent. Some estimates put the total increase of Iran’s military budget since 2019 at around 150 percent

G7 back steps to deter tax dodging by multinational firms

The Group of Seven wealthy democracies agreed Saturday to support a global minimum corporate tax of at least 15% to deter multinational companies from avoiding taxes by stashing profits in low-rate countries.

G7 finance ministers meeting in London also endorsed proposals to make the world’s biggest companies – including U.S.-based tech giants – pay taxes in countries where they have lots of sales but no physical headquarters.