The chief justice said that in the 18 years he has served on the highest court in America, “the hardest decision he had to make” was not related to the First Amendment, or the death penalty, or the separation of powers—but whether to erect fences and barricades around the Supreme Court. While those fences were […]
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In the first days of the Iranian New Year holiday in March, the police showed up at a cafe in Tehran with orders to shut it down for two days. The cafe had run afoul of Iranian law by serving women who were not covering their hair with head scarves, they said. Since then, the […]
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In April 2008, a senior British intelligence official flew to Tel Aviv to deliver an explosive revelation to his Israeli counterparts: Britain had a mole in Iran with high-level access to the country’s nuclear and defense secrets. The spy had provided valuable information — and would continue to do so for years — intelligence that […]
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در آوریل ۲۰۰۸ یک مقام ارشد سرویس اطلاعاتی بریتانیا برای انتقال اخبار محرمانه و جنجالی به همتایان اسرائیلی خود به تل‌آویو سفر کرد: بریتانیا در ایران جاسوسی با سطح بالای دسترسی به اسرار هسته‌ای و دفاعی کشور دارد. به گفته مقامات اطلاعاتی، این جاسوس اطلاعات ارزشمندی در اختیار آنان قرار داده بود – و سال‌ها […]
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration on Thursday sanctioned Russia’s Federal Security Service and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps intelligence organization, accusing them of wrongfully detaining Americans. It’s the first rollout of new sanctions authorizations established last year by President Joe Biden for use against those holding Americans unjustly captive. Still, the sanctions are largely […]
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WASHINGTON — The Biden administration on Thursday imposed sanctions on the F.S.B., Russia’s intelligence agency, for its role in detaining Americans like Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter who has been accused of espionage. The administration also announced sanctions on Iran’s intelligence services and four senior Iranian officials, who the administration says have participated […]
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A senior Iranian cleric and member of a powerful government committee was shot and killed by a security guard at a bank in the northern province of Mazandaran on Wednesday, according to the Iranian authorities. In CCTV camera footage shown on the Iranian news media, the cleric, Ayatollah Abbas Ali Soleimani, is seen sitting on […]
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Saudi Arabia, like many other Arab states, had refused to engage with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria for more than a decade after he violently crushed his country’s Arab Spring uprising — bombing, gassing and torturing his own people in a conflict that morphed into a long-running war that is still in progress. So when […]
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After eight years of crushing civil war in Yemen, where hundreds of thousands of people have died of violence and hunger, a new round of talks this week has raised a glimmer of hope for a breakthrough in one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. The difference between these negotiations and those of years past […]
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WASHINGTON — A few days after an American civilian contractor in Iraq died in a rocket attack by Iran-backed militias in December 2019, President Donald J. Trump retaliated by ordering a drone strike that killed a top Iranian general. After a U.S. civilian contractor was killed and six other Americans were injured on Thursday in […]
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They are the last survivors of an international crisis that hobbled Jimmy Carter’s presidency and may have cost him re-election. Many are now in their 80s. With the former president gravely ill in hospice care, some of the 52 Americans who were held hostage in Iran for 444 days are looking back on Mr. Carter’s […]
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There was a time when all roads to peace went through Washington. From the 1978 Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt brokered by President Jimmy Carter to the 1993 Oslo Accords signed on the White House lawn to Senator George Mitchell’s Good Friday Agreement that ended the fighting in Northern Ireland in 1998, America […]
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After Mr. Connally’s campaign collapsed, he and Mr. Barnes went into business together, forming Barnes/Connally Investments. The two built apartment complexes, shopping centers and office buildings, and bought a commuter airline and an oil company, and later a barbecue house, a Western art magazine, a title company and an advertising company. But they overextended themselves, […]
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After Mr. Connally’s campaign collapsed, he and Mr. Barnes went into business together, forming Barnes/Connally Investments. The two built apartment complexes, shopping centers and office buildings, and bought a commuter airline and an oil company, and later a barbecue house, a Western art magazine, a title company and an advertising company. But they overextended themselves, […]
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And money talks. Hoeven has seemingly expressed little public concern about the rail industry since the East Palestine derailment. In 2021, however, he, Cramer, and Armstrong did send a letter to the Surface Transportation Board advocating for the Canadian Pacific, or CP, and Kansas City Southern, or KCS, merger. As The American Prospect reports, Hoeven […]
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For years, Iran’s standing as a Mideast power has been battered on a number of fronts. Some Arab neighbors have forged ties with Israel, giving it a foothold in the Persian Gulf. Regional states have closed down financial channels that once allowed Tehran to evade U.S.-led sanctions over its nuclear and weapons programs. Iran has […]
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RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Only five years ago, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, derided Iran’s supreme leader, saying he “makes Hitler look good.” Last week in a development that had the world doing metaphorical double takes, the Saudis not only re-established diplomatic relations with Tehran but also spoke […]
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When Beijing stepped into the role of mediator this week in the surprise rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, it signaled a new level of ambition for Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, who has sought to burnish his image as a global statesman in an escalating rivalry with the United States. China’s top diplomat quickly […]
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Saudi Arabia had sought a suspension of hostilities with Iran for years, first through talks held in Baghdad that eventually went nowhere. Biden administration officials said the Saudis briefed them about the discussions in Beijing, but the Americans expressed skepticism that Iran will live up to its new commitments. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the […]
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JERUSALEM — Israeli leaders have for years considered Iran an existential threat, viewed Saudi Arabia as a potential partner and hoped that shared fears of Tehran might help forge formal relations for the first time with Riyadh. The news of a rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia on Friday was therefore greeted in Israel with […]
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The announcement by Iran and Saudi Arabia that they are re-establishing diplomatic ties could lead to a major realignment in the Middle East. It also represents a geopolitical challenge for the United States and a victory for China, which brokered the talks between the two longstanding rivals. Under the agreement announced on Friday, Iran and […]
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RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Saudi Arabia and Iran reached an agreement that paves the way for the re-establishment of diplomatic ties after a seven-year split, a major realignment between regional rivals, the countries said Friday in a joint statement. Saudi and Iranian officials announced the agreement after talks hosted this week in China, which maintains […]
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Protests erupted in more than a dozen cities across Iran on Tuesday over what some fear may be the poisoning of thousands of schoolgirls and the government’s inability to contain the growing crisis, videos posted on social media show. “Death to the child-killing regime,” protesters chanted, some holding signs reading, “Protect the safety of schools,” […]
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As their currency plunged to new lows recently, Iranians did what they had grown all too used to: They crowded exchange shops, hoping to convert their increasingly worthless rials into dollars. At the grocery store, prices had climbed so high that many people had only enough to buy vegetables. And as the Persian New Year […]
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An engineer strode onstage at an event in Tehran, wearing tight pants and a stylish shirt, and clutching a microphone in one hand. Her long brown hair, tied in a ponytail, swung freely behind her, uncovered, in open defiance of Iran’s strict hijab law. “I am Zeinab Kazempour,” she told the convention of Iran’s professional […]
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As officials in Ukraine anxiously watch evolving diplomatic overtures between Moscow and Beijing, China’s top leader will host the president of Belarus — a staunch Kremlin ally — with the pomp of a state visit next week. On Saturday, China announced the visit, to take place over three days starting on Tuesday, for President Aleksandr […]
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TIRANA, Albania — Customers at one of Albania’s biggest banks got a shock shortly before Christmas when a curt text popped up on their cellphones: “Your account has been blocked. The balance of your account is zero. Thank you.” The messages, which turned out be fake, signaled the opening of a disruptive new front in […]
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WASHINGTON — A year ago, the United States did something extraordinary — it released previously classified intelligence that exposed Russia’s plans to invade Ukraine. Last week, Antony J. Blinken, the secretary of state, made a similar move when he warned China’s top foreign policy official, Wang Yi, against providing weapons to Russia. In a previous […]
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On Feb. 7, Iran unveiled a new underground Air Force base called “Eagle 44” in a slick propaganda video. On the wall was a clue hiding in plain sight: a poster with silhouettes of fighter jets. One in particular stands out. It’s situated front and center, and is in the shape of a state-of-the-art military […]
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While many in the world see the Chinese spy balloon as a sign of Beijing’s growing aggressiveness, China has sought to cast the controversy as a symptom of the United States’ irrevocable decline. Why else would a great power be spooked by a flimsy inflatable craft, China has argued, if not for a raft of […]
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Some readers might object to dwelling on one instance of misguided sensitivity at one small college when the country is in the midst of a nationwide frenzy of right-wing book bans, public school speech restrictions, and wild attempts to curtail drag performances. But I think this moment, when we’re facing down a wave of censorship […]
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