President Donald Trump has said he is ordering the lifting of U.S. sanctions on Syria to start the process of normalizing relations between Washington and Damascus in hopes of bolstering the war-torn country’s new government, more than a decade after the Obama administration severed diplomatic ties at the outset of the civil war that ended with the ousting of dictator Bashar al-Assad last year. Speaking in Riyadh, where he addressed a Saudi-American investment forum on the first…
Trump’s plan to accept free Air Force One replacement from Qatar raises ethical and security worries
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is ready to accept a luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet as a gift from the ruling family of Qatar during his trip to the Middle East this coming week, and U.S. officials say it could be converted into a potential presidential aircraft. The Qatari government said a final decision hadn’t been made. Still, Trump defended the idea — what would amount to a president…
The Iranian middle class, long a force of political moderation, stability, economic growth, and the base of the country’s reform movement, is shrinking fast under the pressure of Western sanctions, researchers say. Left in its wake are rising societal resentments and an ever-increasing wealth gap. A study published in the European Journal of Political Economy has used an innovative method to investigate…
Citizen Lab found that an online network pushed out deepfake videos during Israel’s airstrikes on Tehran’s Evin Prison. An investigation by TheMarker and Haaretz reveals the Persian-language online campaigns indirectly funded by Israel In early 2023, Reza Pahlavi made his first official visit to Israel. He’s the son of the last shah of Iran, who was overthrown in the 1979…
A few weeks ago, in a public act at the White House, with Benjamin Netanyahu at his side, surprised, Donald Trump – the man whom the prime minister and his followers are convinced they have in their pocket – announced that the United States was opening direct, high-level talks with Iran. The gap between what the U.S. president is doing…
