The U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Wednesday it had failed to secure an agreement with Iran during talks over disputed atomic activities and that the Islamic Republic had rejected a request to visit a military site. The failure of the two-day meeting may hamper any resumption of wider nuclear negotiations between Iran and six [...]
Officials with the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency begin a second round of talks Monday with Iranian officials over the country’s nuclear program, a day after Tehran cut off crude exports to British and French companies in retaliation for a new round of sanctions imposed on the regime. The two days of talks come amid heightened [...]
A leading Chinese newspaper accused Western countries on Monday of stirring civil war in Syria, where police and militia patrols clamped down on a district of the capital to prevent new demonstrations against President Bashar al-Assad. After almost a year of protests against Assad’s 11-year rule, the uprising has moved to his centre of power [...]
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai is in Pakistan for talks expected to focus on attempts to bring the Taliban into the peace process. Mr Karzai is likely to tackle claims that Pakistani military personnel continue to support the insurgency. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is due to join the meeting later for talks focusing on trade [...]
The United Nations General Assembly is set Thursday to take up a symbolic resolution condemning President Bashar al-Assad’s violent crackdown in Syria after China and Russia blocked the Security Council from approving enforceable measures aimed at curbing the violence. The anticipated vote follows news that al-Assad has moved up a vote on a constitutional referendum [...]
An oil pipeline in the central Syrian city of Homs was attacked Wednesday, setting off a huge blaze, while regime troops stormed several residential neighborhoods in the nearby city of Hama, activists said. The Local Coordination Committees and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Homs pipeline was in the rebel-held neighborhood of [...]
As diplomats at the United Nations slammed Syria, violence continued to rage on the ground and residents wondered out loud what the implications of total war might be. “Everyone we’ve been talking to … believes that the country is heading towards, or already is in, a full-blown war, and recovering from that is going to [...]
ran is capable of carrying out military strikes on U.S. interests all around the world if the Islamic Republic is attacked by the United States, Iran’s ambassador to Moscow said on Wednesday. The United States has tried to force Tehran to scrap sensitive nuclear work by imposing sanctions targeting Iran’s central bank and giving U.S. [...]
The UN’s failure to agree a resolution on Syria is “disastrous” for the country’s people, the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon has said as President Assad’s government launched its most intense bombardment so far of rebel-held areas. Speaking at the UN headquarters in New York, Ban said he had briefed the security council about a [...]
Malaysia has halted palm oil exports to Iran because of payments problems and Asian oil buyers have cut crude purchases as Western sanctions tighten a financial noose around Iran. Traders in China said they would cut iron ore purchases from Iran, which are worth over $2 billion a year, because of sanctions that have forced [...]