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Doomed? Why Iran's Economic Mess Will Get Worse Simon Constable The matter at hand is the decision earlier this month by the Trump administration not to certify the so-called nuclear deal, and that means Iran will soon be subject to harsh U.S. sanctions. Overall the result will be a squeezed economy. Current situation Even the latest official statistics for the Iranian economy don't look good. The unemployment rate stands at 11.9% and the inflation rate at 8.3%, according to TradingEconomics.com. However, at least some of the government figures may be more aspirational than actual. Take, for instance, the inflation rate....

(Via CNN) No person accepted to the United States as a refugee, Syrian or otherwise, has been implicated in a major fatal terrorist attack since the Refugee Act of 1980 set up systematic procedures for accepting refugees into the United States, according to an analysis of terrorism immigration risks by the Cato Institute. Oh Really? No Refugees implicated in terrorism? Read on…

A public university is paying a radical 89-year-old linguist hundreds of thousands of dollars to teach his famously leftist brand of politics, according to records obtained by Judicial after a months-long battle with the taxpayer-funded institution. Judicial Watch launched an investigation after the University of Arizona (UA), located in Tucson with an enrollment of about 40,000, announced that it hired Noam Chomsky to teach a general education course for undergraduates titled “What is Politics?” In the announcement UA describes Chomsky as a “world-renowned linguist” and one of the “most cited scholars in modern history.” The reality is that Chomsky is...

In announcing the imposition of the sanctions against Iran promised back in May, President Trump tweeted on Tuesday: “The Iran sanctions have officially been cast. These are among the most biting sanctions ever imposed, and in November they will ratchet up to yet another level. Anyone doing business with Iran will NOT be doing business with the United States. I am asking for WORLD PEACE, nothing less!” On Monday the president explained why he was imposing the sanctions, and asking other nations to cooperate: “We urge all nations to take such steps to make clear that the Iranian regime faces...

A senior Hamas official said in an interview with the Turkish news agency Anadol that an agreement would be reached between Israel and Hamas by the end of the month. The official said that the agreement would be for five years and would include, inter alia, the halting of arson attacks, the return of dead bodies and the establishment of a port and an airport in the Sinai Peninsula. The official's statement comes after London's Asharq Al-Awsat claimed on Monday that Hamas had agreed to a "gradual ceasefire" in exchange for Israel reopening the Kerem Shalom crossing. Last week, Maariv...

The Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, assassinated a top Syrian rocket scientist on Saturday using a car bomb, the New York Times first reported Tuesday. The scientist, Aziz Asbar, led a confidential unit known as “Sector 4” at the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center developing cutting edge missile technology designed to further Syria’s efforts to initiate the long range bombing of Israeli cities. Asbar was killed along with his driver near the research center, which lies in the town of Masyaf and has long been believed to host chemical weapons development. The center has twice been the target of Israeli...

The Trump administration announced Monday the reimposition of sanctions on Iran that were lifted as part of a nuclear agreement with the country. The sanctions will take effect at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday and follow through on the order President Trump gave when he withdrew from the nuclear pact in May. "The United States is fully committed to enforcing all of our sanctions, and we will work closely with nations conducting business with Iran to ensure complete compliance. Individuals or entities that fail to wind down activities with Iran risk severe consequences," Trump said in a statement Monday. "The JCPOA, a...

President Trump is set to reimpose several sanctions against Iran, following his decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal. On Monday, the Trump administration is expected to announce the first wave of sanctions targeting Iranian automobile exports, trade and resources needed for nuclear development. The president pulled out of the deal back in May and gave a grace-period for U.S. allies to make prep for the fallout like cutting ties with Iranian businesses. The administration threatened to punish any country still making deals with the Islamic republic when the sanctions take effect.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Monday that the leaders of the United States, Saudi Arabia and Israel were isolated in their hostility to Iran. "Today, the entire world has declared they are not in line with US policies against Iran," Zarif said

Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' office claimed that White House Adviser Jared Kushner's reported efforts to limit UNRWA activities are "a continuation of the subversive plots to eliminate the Palestinian problem." A statement from Abbas' office emphasized the need to "oppose" and "foil" the US plan. It is believed that US President Donald Trump's proposed peace plan will remove the question of PA "refugees" from the negotiating table. The peace plan, the contents of which have not yet been revealed, was by the PA as "aiming to eliminate the Palestinian problem and negate all of the Palestinian nation's legitimate...

The hundred-some billion dollars that President Obama sent to Iran apparently has come and gone, leaving the Iranian economy once again desperate to avoid collapse.  The pallets containing more than a billion dollars in hard currency have funded terror groups, and the rest of the haul apparently has gone to pay for debts, spending, and graft, leaving the real economy gasping for air, unable to generate hard currency yet dependent on imports. Steve Hanke reports at Forbes: Iran's rial plunged from 98,000 IRR/USD on Saturday to 112,000 IRR/USD on Sunday on Tehran's Ferdowsi Street.  That stunning 12.5% one-day plunge has pushed the...

Iran By Alan Peters, Contributing Editor TheClerics Lash Back as Iranians Question Their Legitimacy VIGOROUS ATTACKS ON THE CREDIBILITY and legitimacy of the clerical leadership in Iran have continued to mount since the February 20, 2004, Majlis (Parliament) elections which, despite the removal of so-called “reformists” from the ballot, still failed to attract a meaningful voter turn-out. The elections showed the extent of electoral fraud to which the clerics were forced to turn, highlighting their tenuous hold on power. There are now signs that the underpinnings of the clerics will be attacked still further, especially as evidence is now available...

A court in Egypt sentenced 75 members of the Muslim Brotherhood to death for their involvement in a protest against the military coup in 2013. The sentencing of 660 other members of the Muslim Brotherhood will be announced...

The Obama administration approved a $200,000 grant to a group in Sudan with ties to Al Qaeda even though it had been designated a terrorist-financing organization by the U.S. years earlier, a conservative think tank revealed this week. Further, an agency official acknowledged the prior administration allowed taxpayer money to flow to the group even after its designation was discovered. The 2014 grant to the Islamic Relief Agency, through the U.S. Agency for International Development, was revealed by Sam Westrop of the Middle East Forum in a story for the National Review. “More stunningly, government officials specifically authorized the release...

The Obama administration approved a grant of $200,000 of taxpayer money to an al-Qaeda affiliate in Sudan, the Middle East Forum (MEF) discovered. The grant was approved ten years after the US Treasury designated the Islamic Relief Agency (ISRA) as an organization which funds terrorists. Government officials also authorized the release of at least $115,000 of the grant after they realized that the Khartoum-based ISRA was on the Treasury’s list of terror organizations. ISRA, also known as the Islamic African Relief Agency (IARA), was designated as terror-supporting organization in October 2004, due to its connection with Osama bin Laden and...

A Polish charity has been hit with a massive phone bill after a GPS tracker it had put on a stork was stolen. In April 2017, Polish environmental group EkoLogiczna placed a GPS tracker on the back of Kajtek, a white stork, to collect data about the bird’s winter migration route as well as its feeding habits. In the year that followed, Kajtek travelled some 6,000 kilometres but was last recorded on 26 April in the Blue Nile Valley in eastern Sudan.In a Facebook post, the group explains that “for unknown reasons” Kajtek stayed in the area for over two...

Heavy fighting in Yemen between pro-government forces and Shiite rebels has killed more than 600 people on both sides in recent days, security officials said Monday. A charity said meanwhile that an airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition had destroyed a new cholera clinic in the country's north. Government forces, backed by the Saudi-led coalition, have been advancing along the western coast in recent weeks as they battle the Iran-allied rebels, known as Houthis. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media. Witnesses, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals,...

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudan said on Wednesday it had cut all defence ties with North Korea, in a rare admission that it used to have such ties in the first place. The announcement came as Washington is locked in a standoff over Pyongyang's missile and nuclear weapons programmes, and as Sudan, which is still on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, reels from an economic crisis. "Sudan's government would like to affirm that its defence production sector has cancelled all contracts ... with North Korea, and ended all relations, direct or through a third party," the foreign ministry...

Many who had been sleeping rough are from Sudan, Somalia and Eritrea... riot police have cleared more than 1,000 migrants and refugees from one of the largest makeshift camps in Paris, where they had been sleeping rough for months...More than 2,000 migrants and refugees had been sleeping on pavements under bridges and canals in northern Paris. At about 6am, riot police arrived at the largest of the camps, where more than 1,700 people have been sleeping under a motorway bridge along canal Saint-Denis...The interior ministry said people would be housed in temporary shelter while their documents and administrative situation were...

What do we know about Noura Hussein? The 19-year-old Sudanese woman is currently on death row in Omdurman, Sudan, for killing a man in self-defense. She was convicted of murdering her husband, who raped her on their “honeymoon.” When she was 16, Noura’s family attempted to force her to marry a man, despite the fact that Islam prohibits marriage without consent. Refusing the marriage, she ran 155 miles away from her family home to a town called Sennar. She lived with her aunt for three years, determined to complete her high school education and with her eyes on further studies....