TEHRAN — Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, voiced support on Saturday for his country’s nuclear deal with world powers while emphasizing that it did not signal an end to Iran’s hostility toward the United States and its allies, especially Israel. “Their actions in the region are 180 degrees different from ours,” he said. Speaking after a special prayer marking the end of the Muslim […]
WASHINGTON — President Obama on Wednesday urged lawmakers to support the nuclear deal reached with Iran, saying that failure to put it into effect would increase the likelihood of war in the Middle East and accelerate a nuclear arms race in the region that would threaten the safety of the United States. “That’s the choice that we face,” Mr. Obama said in opening comments at a news […]
Video | Iranians Celebrate Nuclear Deal Iranians took to the streets on Tuesday night to celebrate the nuclear accord between the United States and Iran. By THOMAS ERDBRINK July 14, 2015 TEHRAN — Weary of sanctions and isolation, many ordinary Iranians rejoiced on Tuesday over a historic nuclear agreement with world powers led by the United States, the main enemy for nearly four decades. But their excitement was tempered […]
Reporter’s Notebook By DAVID E. SANGER and MICHAEL R. GORDON July 11, 2015 VIENNA — Absent real pronouncements 11 days after the hard-and-fast deadline for a nuclear deal with Iran, people have begun looking to the balconies to determine if a deal is imminent. Well, one balcony: Mohammad Javad Zarif’s, Iran’s foreign minister, who on Saturday spent a lot of time in the sun. As the diplomacy churned on, Mr. Zarif was reading […]
VIENNA — The talks to complete a landmark accord limiting Iran’s nuclear program have been extended for several days after negotiators acknowledged that they would be unable to meet a Tuesday deadline. To give negotiators more time to pursue a final accord, the diplomats agreed to extend through Friday an interim nuclear accord called the Joint Plan of Action. That interim agreement, which had been set to […]
By MICHAEL R. GORDON and THOMAS ERDBRINK July 5, 2015 VIENNA — Secretary of State John Kerry warned Iran on Sunday that hard choices were still needed to seal a landmark nuclear accord, and that the United States was prepared to walk away if a sound agreement could not be reached. “We are not yet where we need to be on several of the most difficult issues,” Mr. Kerry said in a […]
An unmanned SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket explodes after liftoff from Cape Canaveral, Florida, June 28, 2015. Reuters/Mike Brown WASHINGTON The failure of a SpaceX rocket over Florida on Sunday should not lead U.S. officials back to Russia to look for a rocket engine that can get military equipment into space, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain said on Monday. “This mishap in no way diminishes the […]
Five former members of President Obama’s inner circle of Iran advisers have written an open letter expressing concern that a pending accord to stem Iran’s nuclear program “may fall short of meeting the administration’s own standard of a ‘good’ agreement” and laying out a series of minimum requirements that Iran must agree to in coming days for them to support a final deal. Several of the senior […]
For an earnest young Christian named Ben Lowe, revelation came on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, in Africa. A relentless warming of the lake was reducing the catch of fish, the people were going hungry — and he had learned of scientific evidence that climate change was to blame. For the Rev. Brian Sauder, who grew up attending a small Anabaptist church in rural Illinois, the moment […]
By RICK GLADSTONE June 17, 2015 The monitoring group overseeing the destruction of Syria’s chemical arms stockpile said Wednesday that almost all effluent from the neutralized weapons had been eliminated, portraying the progress as a great success in the nearly two years since Syria agreed to relinquish its arsenal. But the news from the group, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, was partly overshadowed by outrage over […]
After a federal court rejected attempts by cable and phone companies to stop net neutrality on Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission’s plan for new Internet rules went into effect. Under the new rules, the FCC can assert extra authority over the Internet to establish equal access to Internet speeds and Web sites. Companies like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon have claimed that the rules are beyond the FCC’s […]
By CHARLIE SAVAGE June 13, 2015 WASHINGTON — The United States has transferred six lower-level detainees from the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where each had been held for more than 13 years, the military announced early Saturday. The departures, to Oman, were the first from the prison in six months and reduced the inmate population there to 116 prisoners. The six men are all Yemenis and have each […]
WASHINGTON — In a major shift of focus in the battle against the Islamic State, the Obama administration is planning to establish a new military base in Anbar Province and send 400 American military trainers to help Iraqi forces retake the city of Ramadi. Although a final decision by the White House has yet to be announced, the plan follows months of behind-the-scenes debate about how prominently […]
WASHINGTON — President Obama has authorized the deployment of up to 450 more American troops to Iraq to train and assist the Iraqi forces battling the Islamic State, the White House announced on Wednesday, signaling a major shift of focus in the fight against the Sunni militant group. The United States forces will use Al Taqqadum, an Iraqi base near the town of Habbaniya in eastern Anbar […]
An illustration picture shows a projection of binary code on a man holding a laptop computer, in an office in Warsaw June 24, 2013. Reuters/Kacper Pempel/Files WASHINGTON The chairman of the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee said on Sunday the Chinese government was likely to have been behind the recent breach of U.S. government computers, which may have compromised the personal data of 4 million current and […]
U.S. Government Suffers Massive Cyberattack The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is reporting a cybersecurity incident that affects its systems and data. The breach may have compromised the personal information of 4 million current and former federal workers. “Within the last year, OPM has undertaken an aggressive effort to update its cybersecurity posture, adding numerous tools and capabilities to its networks,” according to a statement on […]
U.S. President Barack Obama speaks during a town hall meeting with Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Fellows (YSEALI) at the White House in Washington June 1, 2015. Reuters/Kevin Lamarque WASHINGTON President Barack Obama signed into law on Tuesday legislation passed by Congress earlier in the day reforming a government surveillance program that swept up millions of Americans’ telephone records. Reversing security policy in place since shortly after […]
The word ‘password’ is pictured on a computer screen in this picture illustration taken in Berlin May 21, 2013. Reuters/Pawel Kopczynski/Files WASHINGTON At 3:59 p.m. EDT on Sunday, the National Security Agency and telecommunications companies will begin mothballing a once-secret system that collected Americans’ bulk telephone records, shutting down computers and sealing off warehouses of digital data. If the U.S. Congress fails to act, key provisions of […]
Diane Foley in August after ISIS beheaded her son, James. She has taken part in a review of government policy on hostages. By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS May 29, 2015 WASHINGTON — When President Obama met recently with the mother of James Foley, the American hostage beheaded last August by the Islamic State, she said, he told her that freeing her son and the other American hostages held with him had […]
SYRIA. Islamic State fighters tightened their grip on the historic Syrian city of Palmyra on Thursday and overran Iraqi government defenses east of Ramadi, the provincial capital that they seized five days earlier. The twin successes not only pile pressure on Damascus and Baghdad but throw doubt on a U.S. strategy of relying almost exclusively on air strikes to support the fight against Islamic State. U.S. and […]
By PETER BAKER May 21, 2015 WASHINGTON — President Obama denied that the United States and its allies were losing the fight against Islamic State forces in the Middle East, but he acknowledged in an interview posted online on Thursday that more should be done to help Iraqis recapture lost territory. While repeating his refusal to commit large-scale American forces to the region, the president said Sunni fighters in […]
Letter From the Mideast By JODI RUDOREN May 13, 2015 JERUSALEM — The most recognizable Israeli artwork depicting the Iranian nuclear threat was the cartoon bomb that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu drew a red line through at the United Nations in 2012. Now comes Andi Arnovitz, an Orthodox Jewish-feminist painter and printmaker, with a series of collages that are a bit more sophisticated and just as unsettling. There is […]
David and Charles Koch If you doubt whether Republicans are serious about defeating Hillary Clinton, consider this: At a California meeting last week headed by billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch, an $889 million budget was unveiled before the network of conservative donors they assembled. Some have gone so far as to suggest this essentially makes the Koch network America’s “third” political party. After all, their warchest […]
By Doina Chiacu WASHINGTON Sat Jan 10, 2015 10:31pm IST U.S. President Barack Obama speaks about the French hostage situation during his visit to Pellissippi State College in Knoxville, Tennessee, January 9, 2015. Credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque Related Topics Dozens of world leaders lead hundreds of thousands of French citizens in an unprecedented march. Pics WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama will highlight plans next week to […]
