By Ari Rabinovitch TIBERIAS, Israel, Jan 30 (Reuters) – When the floodgates are open, a torrent of water gushes into a dry river bed and races to the shore of the Sea of Galilee, a biblical lake in northern Israel that was being lost to drought and the growingContinue Reading
“Self-reliance and strength in science and technology”. That was the phrase General Secretary Xi Jinping used six times in his two-hour speech to China’s five-yearly Communist Party congress last October. It wasn’t a new policy: geopolitical rivalry has put research collaborations with the US under strain, Chinese universities have soughtContinue Reading
The controversial French magazine Charlie Hebdo hit headlines again last week after publishing derogatory cartoons purportedly in defense of Iranian women while making a mockery of the same women. Looking back at the magazine’s Islamophobic history, the cartoons did not come as a surprise as it continues to aggressively promoteContinue Reading
WASHINGTON — Foreign fighters are streaming into Syria and Iraq in unprecedented numbers to join the Islamic State or Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or other extremist groups, including at least 3,400 from Western nations among 20,000 from around the world, U.S. intelligence officials say in an updated estimate of aContinue Reading
A prominent Saudi opposition figure says the scale of human rights violations in the Persian Gulf kingdom has dramatically risen up ever since Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) took the helm of state affairs in 2017, and the vicious crackdown against dissidents now expands to their families and closeContinue Reading
The daughter of former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has been sentenced to five years in prison, her lawyer said Tuesday. The verdict against Faezeh Hashemi, who is a known Iranian activist, is “not final,” the lawyer, Neda Shams, said in a tweet. “The client is still in prisonContinue Reading
By Pepe Escobar The consensus among future historians will be inevitable: the 2020s started with a diabolic murder. Baghdad airport, January 3, 2020, 00:52 a.m. local time. The assassination of Gen.QassemSoleimani, commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic RevolutionGuards Corps (IRGC), alongside Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy commander ofContinue Reading
By Syed Zafar Mehdi On December 30, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution calling on the Haque-based International Court of Justice (ICJ) to offer its view on the legal consequences of the Israeli regime’s “prolonged occupation” of Palestinian territories, with 87 countries voting in favor of it. TheContinue Reading
China has reaffirmed its traditional friendly relations with Iran, saying Beijing’s ties with Tehran and its relations with the member states of the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) do not target any third party. “China and Iran enjoy traditional friendship. The GCC countries and Iran are all China’s friends, andContinue Reading