Politics

Reuters A United Nations Security Council meeting to discuss recent protests in Iran turned into criticism of the United States for requesting to meet on what some member states said was an internal issue for Tehran. France’s ambassador to the UN said the protests do not threaten international peace and security, in what may be an implicit criticism of the ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump said he’s a “very stable genius” in an early Saturday tweet, a day after a new book about his first year in the White House claimed that many of his top aides and confidantes consider him unfit to hold office. “Throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart. ...

Bloomberg Lithuania’s top politicians clashed over whether to rejuvenate ties with Russia that were frozen following President Vladimir Putin’s 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. Lithuanian Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis has recently urged resuming dialog with the Russian government, advocating talks on topics such as trade, energy, agriculture and transport, while maintaining the current stance on Ukraine. President Dalia Grybauskaite, ...

RAMALLAH / Reuters Palestinians condemned as blackmail on Wednesday US President Donald Trump’s threat to withhold future aid payments over what he called the Palestinians’ unwillingness to talk peace with Israel. Trump drew praise from a cabinet minister in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government but a warning from a former Israeli peace negotiator of the dangers in cutting ...

Bloomberg North Korea contacted authorities in Seoul over a hotline for the first time in about two years, paving the way for a thaw during the Winter Olympics despite US President Donald Trump’s fresh taunts at Kim Jong Un. Officials from both countries spoke several times on Wednesday to conduct technical checks before agreeing to stop for the day, according ...

WASHINGTON / AGENCIES US President Donald Trump has signaled support for anti-government protests in Iran, but in two weeks he faces a decision on US policy towards the Islamic Republic that suddenly seems riskier than it did a week ago. The six days of demonstrations in several Iranian cities began over economic conditions, and Trump must decide by mid-January whether ...

AMMAN / Reuters The Syrian army backed by Russian jets escalated bombing of the last rebel bastion on the eastern outskirts of Damascus as they prepared to break a siege of an army base encircled by opposition forces, residents and witnesses said on Wednesday. They said the army was amassing elite forces to prepare for a major assault on the ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump is hardening his demands for a deal to protect young undocumented immigrants from deportation, a dispute with congressional Democrats that hangs over talks this week to avoid a government shutdown. Any deal on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, must also forbid immigrants from sponsoring family members to join them in the US, ...

Bloomberg Protests that have roiled Iran over the past five days will die down in a few days, according to a senior Iranian official, as authorities said hundreds of those involved in the unrest have been detained. The demonstrations broke out last week, starting in the holy city of Mashhad and spreading to other parts of the country, including the ...

Bloomberg The US will continue to withhold $255 million in military aid to Pakistan as the White House reviews the nation’s ‘level of cooperation’ in fighting terrorism, a National Security Council spokesperson said. The announcement came just hours after Trump in a tweet said the US has ‘foolishly’ given more than $33 billion in aid to the country and gotten ...