President Obama vowed Friday to stop any attempt by Congress to ratchet up sanctions against Iran while the U.S. and partner countries negotiate over its nuclear program. Obama also warned lawmakers that they would be responsible if a sanctions drive were to lead to the collapse of the ongoing talks. A diplomatic failure could even lead to a war, which “Congress will have to own” if it passes a new sanctions bill, he said [....]
BEIRUT: Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah confirmed Thursday that one of the party’s officials busted five months ago was found to be working with the Israeli and U.S. intelligences, adding that it was normal given Hezbollah’s size....
For years, it was thought that Israel had destroyed Syria's nuclear weapons capability with its 2007 raid on the Kibar complex. Not so. New intelligence suggests that Bashar al-Assad is still trying to built the bomb. And he may be getting help from North Korea and Iran.
LONDON - Al Qaeda militants in Syria are plotting attacks to inflict mass casualties in the West, possibly against transport systems or "iconic targets", the head of Britain's MI5 Security Service said on Thursday.....
By Aminu Abubakar and Faith Karimi, CNN, Jan. 10, 2015
Boko Haram militants opened fire on northern Nigerian villages, leaving bodies scattered everywhere and as many as 2,000 people feared dead, officials said. Islamist militants sprayed bullets as they stormed in, driving trucks and armored vehicles last weekend, local authorities said Friday. After they arrived, they unloaded motorcycles and pursued residents who fled into the bush, firing indiscriminately.....
Pakistan’s parliament on Tuesday passed legislation allowing military courts to try insurgents, one of a raft of measures aimed at clamping down on increasingly brutal attacks after Taliban gunmen massacred 134 children last month.With the unanimous vote of all lawmakers present in the lower house and the senate, the bill secured a two-thirds majority it required. Lawmakers from religious parties and an opposition party led by former cricketer Imran Khan stayed away.....
Iran’s system of government is a hybrid. One wing of it consists of a dictatorial theocracy, centered on Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The other wing is elected and comprises the parliament and the presidency. President Hassan Rouhani, a reformer, is worried about being stymied in his economic and diplomatic initiatives by regime hard liners. He has been attacked for...
US government asked for any documents it may have showing Duke of York lobbied on behalf of Jeffrey Epstein....Buckingham Palace said it was categorically untrue that the 54-year-old prince had tried to influence US prosecutors...There were also strenuous denials this weekend from the US lawyer who worked for Epstein and is also alleged to have had sex with a minor. Alan Dershowitz said the woman making the claims “should not be believed”. The former Harvard law professor said: “My only feeling is if she’s lied about me...
A suspected Libyan al-Qaida member has died just days before he was to go on trial in New York for the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa. The lawyer for Abu Anas al-Libi said his client, who had hepatitis C and advanced liver cancer, died Friday at a hospital in the New York area/ Libi and Khalid al-Fawwaz, a Saudi, were due to stand trial on January 12 for the attacks in Kenya and Tanzania that killed more than 200 people [....]
By Nicholas Thompson, newyorker.com, Dec. 31, 2014
Here are fourteen magazine stories that we published this year, selected—for reasons detailed here—based on the total amount of time that people spent reading them, and arranged chronologically.
By Jim Yardley & Jo Becker, New York Times, Dec. 30/31, 2014
....if the story of South Stream shows how larger geopolitical concerns can, at least temporarily, limit Mr. Putin’s ability to use his energy riches as a foreign-policy tool, it is also a case study of how he has operated in Europe, and will probably continue to do so...
By Kathryn Shattuck & Hubert Mandeville, New York Times interactive, Dec. 31, 2014
As a chronicle of the ups and downs of fictional British aristocrats and servants, “Downton Abbey” weaves a surprising amount of authentic historical context into its plots. Here is an episode-by-episode look at some of the show’s period details, and how those events have been covered in The New York Times. “Downton Abbey” returns for its fifth season on PBS on Sunday — check back each week during the new season for updates.
ISLAMABAD: A sub-committee meeting on Tuesday observed that law enforcement and security agencies lacked proper training to investigate the financing of terrorist activities [....]
[....] One million died. Two million fled. Today, the population of Ireland and Northern Ireland combined is still lower than it was before Abraham Lincoln became president. Now, the remains of some of those who tried to flee this cataclysm have been identified — on a beach in Canada [....] though they carried refugees of the Great Famine, coffin ships — illustrations of which resemble the sleeping quarters of Nazi concentration camps — were themselves deadly, claiming the lives of up to 100,000 would-be migrants [....]
There may be no exact translation for “humbug” in Chinese, but in recent days, as popular fervor for the trappings of Western-style Christmas enveloped this officially atheist nation, the defenders of traditional Chinese culture have fought back with Scrooge-like zeal....
