Author: Daily Sabah With Reuters

Senior diplomats from Iran, Russia and China gathered in Beijing on Friday for talks on Tehran’s nuclear issues, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported, days after Iran rejected U.S. “orders” to resume dialogue over the Iranian nuclear programme. In 2015, Iran reached a deal with the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany and agreed to limit its nuclear programme in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions. But in 2018, Donald Trump, a year into his first term at the White House, pulled out of the pact. Last week, Trump said he had sent a letter to the Iranian…

The White House is urging federal agencies to refrain from laying off their cybersecurity teams, as they scramble to comply with a Thursday deadline to submit mass layoff plans to slash their budgets, according to an email seen by Reuters. Greg Barbaccia, the United States federal chief information officer, sent the message on Wednesday, in response to questions about whether cybersecurity employees’ work is national security-related, and therefore exempt from layoffs. “We believe cybersecurity is national security and we encourage Department-level Chief Information Officers to consider this when reviewing their organizations,” he wrote in the email to information technology employees…

Russia’s air base in Syria is sheltering about 9,000 people seeking refuge from a wave of sectarian violence, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday. Zakharova said Moscow was shocked by events in Syria and hoped those responsible for the violence would be punished.

Yemen’s Houthis said on Tuesday they will attack any Israeli ship that violates the group’s ban on Israeli ships passing through the Red and Arabian seas, the Bab al-Mandab Strait and the Gulf of Aden, effective immediately. The leader of Yemen’s Houthis said on Friday that the group would resume its naval operations against Israel if Israel did not lift a blockage of aid into Gaza within four days.

President Donald Trump told CEOs of major companies on Tuesday that new tariffs may go higher than 25%. “The tariffs are having a tremendously positive impact,” Trump told the Business Roundtable, brushing off the stock market reaction. He said they may rise above 25%. “The higher it goes the more likely it is they’re going to build” in the United States. He also defended Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who is leading a White House effort to shrink the federal government. “We’ve had some little hiccups, not big hiccups, but we saved a tremendous amount of money,” Trump said.

The cargo ship involved in Monday’s collision with a jet fuel tanker off England’s northeast coast is still alight, Britain’s coastguard said on Tuesday. “The Solong (cargo ship) is still alight and the fire on board the Stena Immaculate has greatly diminished,” the coastguard said in a statement. “Safety vessels and other vessels with firefighting capabilities are still on scene with more arriving today.”

Only seven countries met World Health Organization (WHO) air quality standards last year, data showed on Tuesday, as researchers warned that the war on smog would only get harder after the United States shut down its global monitoring efforts. Chad and Bangladesh were the world’s most polluted countries in 2024, with average smog levels more than 15 times higher than WHO guidelines, according to figures compiled by Swiss air quality monitoring firm IQAir. Only Australia, New Zealand, the Bahamas, Barbados, Grenada, Estonia and Iceland made the grade, IQAir said. Significant data gaps, especially in Asia and Africa, cloud the worldwide…

Britain will not impose retaliatory trade tariffs in response to U.S. duties on all steel and aluminium imports which are due to come into force on Wednesday, a British government official said on Tuesday. While the European Union plans to hit back against the 25% US tariffs on imports of the metals, the official – who asked not to be identified – said Britain would continue to engage with the U.S. in an attempt to secure an exemption. Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s official spokesman said on Monday that the UK and the US had a strong economic relationship which was…

Ukraine has carried out a drone attack on Moscow before a visit of Organization of Security and Co-operation in Europe’s (OSCE) Secretary General to the Russian capital on Tuesday, Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said. “This is not the first time that a visit to Moscow by a high-ranking foreign delegation has been accompanied by an attack by Ukrainian armed forces drones,” Zakharova wrote in a post on the Telegram messaging app. “Overnight, too, the Kyiv regime has sent drones into the capital when the OSCE Secretary General is visiting it.” The OSCE is the world’s largest regional security…

Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was arrested and taken into custody on Tuesday in Manila on an International Criminal Court warrant for the “war on drugs” that defined his term in office and which killed thousands of Filipinos. Here are some facts about the drug war during Duterte’s presidency from 2016 to 2022: CAMPAIGN VOWS TO ‘KILL’ As longtime mayor of the southern Philippine city of Davao, Rodrigo Duterte was known as “the punisher” for his harsh policies. His profanity-packed speeches and death threats to drug gangs were a feature of his successful campaign for the presidency in 2016. Among…