European leaders have warned that Britain’s exit from the European Union will likely be without a crucial deal on $1 trillion in annual trade. Britain already quit the EU in January, but it remained in the EU single market and customs union during a transition period.
European Union leaders agreed on a 1.8 trillion euro ($2.2 trillion) stimulus package after Hungary and Poland withdrew their veto. Both EU member states threatened to torpedo funds if payments were tied to rule-of-laws standards.
Hungary and Poland have agreed on a compromise to unblock the European Union’s enormous stimulus package, including the coronavirus rescue fund, several sources told Worthy News.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations is trying to persuade Iran to resume its obligations under the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear arms deal, the Times of Israel reports. In a report to the Security Council published Tuesday, Antonio Guterres called on Iran to address concerns about its decision last year to begin, among other violations, the enrichment of uranium beyond the agreed limits.
The United States added Nigeria to a blacklist of countries that violate religious liberties Monday, DW reports. Joining Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and China, Nigeria is now listed as a country “of concern” “under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998.”
Iranian parliament has passed a “double-urgency” bill to increase the level of uranium enrichment to weapons-grade, Jerusalem Online reports. The move follows the recent assassination of top Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in Damavand, east of Tehran on November 27.
Terrorists belonging to the Islamic State-linked Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) are believed to be responsible for the deaths of 20 Christians who were murdered in North Kivu Province in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) between November 20 and November 25, Morning Star News reports. The number of jihadist attacks on civilians has increased since the DRC army launched a large-scale offensive in October 2019.
Iranian officials have taken a major step to suspend U.N. inspections of the country’s nuclear facilities.
The Trump administration plans to tighten sanctions on Tehran during its final months in power, the top US envoy on Iran said on Wednesday, as he urged President-elect Joe Biden to use the leverage to press for a deal that reduces the regional and nuclear threats posed by the Islamic Republic.
U.S. President Donald J. Trump has pardoned Michael Flynn, his first national security advisor, who pleaded guilty to lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about his contacts with Russian officials.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Thursday that the US will withdraw government funding from organizations it identifies as engaging in “hateful BDS conduct,” the Washington Examiner reports. Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (BDS) is an international Palestinian-led, non-violent movement that challenges what its founders describe as “Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.”
The U.S. State Department hit East African al Qaeda affiliate group al Shabaab with a series of sanctions to hold the group accountable for recent terrorist attacks.
The United States hit Iran with new sanctions on Wednesday, as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made the case that undoing the actions of the Trump administration would be foolish and dangerous.
Former National Security Advisor Gen. H.R. McMaster for the Trump administration said in an interview with Fox News Thursday that President-elect Joe Biden should not rejoin the 2015 Iran nuclear deal upon taking office in on January 20.
The Trump administration announced Friday that it has placed sanctions on Lebanon’s ex-foreign minister, a key Christian parliamentary ally of the Lebanese Iran-backed group Hezbollah, PBS reports. The sanctions were placed on current lawmaker Gebran Bassil, who is a son-in-law of President Michel Aoun and head of the largest political bloc in Lebanon’s parliament.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has arrived in Venezuela at the start of a Latin American tour that will also take him to Cuba and Bolivia.
A senior official in Iran’s Islamist regime has described the recent normalization of ties between Israel and Arab states as a US-Israeli plot against Iran, which will ultimately fail, Jerusalem Online (JOL) reported. Secretary of Iran’s Expediency Council Mohsen Rezaei made his comments Wednesday at an international conference in Tehran on the decline of America.
The Justice Department announced that it was filing a forfeiture complaint related to two large shipments of Iranian missiles the U.S. Navy seized that were bound for Iranian-backed militants in Yemen sent by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which has been designated a foreign terrorist group by the United States.
The Trump administration imposed fresh sanctions on Iran’s oil sector Monday, also making it more difficult for a subsequent administration to reverse the measures, the Times of Israel reports. Affecting the National Iranian Oil Company, Iran’s oil ministry, and the National Iranian Tanker Company, the new measures were taken under counterterrorism authority, such that a new administration would have to take legal action to change course.
The Pentagon announced Monday that the US State Department has approved a further potential sale of 100 Boeing-made Harpoon Coastal Defense Systems to Taiwan in an arms deal which could be worth up to $2.37 billion, Reuters reports.