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Iran billionaire Babak Zanjani sentenced to death

He was arrested in December 2013 after accusations that he withheld billions in oil revenue channelled through his companies. He denies the allegations.

One of Iran's richest men, Zanjani was blacklisted by the US and EU for helping Iran evade oil sanctions.

United States-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, and secured a promise that the Iranian military would not fire at United States warplanes that strayed into Iranian airspace, according to a new book by a ranking Bush administration official.

“We wanted a commitment that Iran would not fire on U.S. aircraft if they accidentally flew over Iranian territory,”

We also hoped Iran would encourage Iraqi Shiites to participate constructively in establishing a new government in Iraq

Egypt’s Parliament on Wednesday expelled a well-known television personality turned lawmaker over a dinner he had with the Israeli ambassador — a vote that exposed a raw nerve in the mostly tranquil relationship between the two countries.

Although Egypt and Israel enjoy close security cooperation, particularly in the struggle against Islamist extremists in Sinai, many Egyptians view Israel with hostility over its policies toward the Palestinians, and public interactions with Israeli officials are considered taboo.

That fear, he said, has its basis in a conspiracy theory: that Israel has secretly been helping Ethiopia build the dam as a means of hurting Egyptian interests.

Ex-Putin aide Mikhail Lesin died of 'blow to the head'

A former aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was found dead in the US last year, died of a blow to the head, coroners say.

Mikhail Lesin also had blunt force injuries to the neck, torso, arms and legs, Washington DC's chief medical examiner said.

The problem for Republicans is that they haven’t found a candidate who can appeal to Trump’s politically-disaffected supporters — whether they’re worried about immigration, jobs, terrorism or an overreaching social liberalism — without trafficking in slurs and empty bluster.

But that’s roughly what Nixon did in 1968 and 1972, when he addressed (liberal historians would say exploited, but we can have that debate another time) widespread anxieties over social change and disorder without ever repudiating racial equality or civil rights.

they’ve struggled, in part, because they lack a second Nixonian gift: An instinct for the non-ideological character of many American voters, primary voters included.

Black Daesh, white Daesh. The former slits throats, kills, stones, cuts off hands, destroys humanity’s common heritage and despises archaeology, women and non-Muslims. The latter is better dressed and neater but does the same things

Wahhabism, a messianic radicalism that arose in the 18th century, hopes to restore a fantasized caliphate centered on a desert, a sacred book, and two holy sites, Mecca and Medina. Born in massacre and blood, it manifests itself in a surreal relationship with women, a prohibition against non-Muslims treading on sacred territory, and ferocious religious laws. That translates into an obsessive hatred of imagery and representation and therefore art, but also of the body, nakedness and freedom. Saudi Arabia is a Daesh that has made it.

The West’s denial regarding Saudi Arabia is striking: It salutes the theocracy as its ally but pretends not to notice that it is the world’s chief ideological sponsor of Islamist culture

The New York Times analyzed every public utterance by Mr. Trump over the past week from rallies, speeches, interviews and news conferences to explore the leading candidate’s hold on the Republican electorate for the past five months.

The transcriptions yielded 95,000 words and several powerful patterns

The most striking hallmark was Mr. Trump’s constant repetition of divisive phrases, harsh words and violent imagery that American presidents rarely use

95,000 Words, Many of Them Ominous, From Donald Trump’s Tongue

On Thursday evening, his message was equally ominous, as he suggested a link between the shootings in San Bernardino, Calif., and President Obama’s failure to say “radical Islamic terrorism.”

The dark power of words has become the defining feature of Mr. Trump’s bid for the White House to a degree rarely seen in modern politics, as he forgoes the usual campaign trappings — policy, endorsements, commercials, donations — and instead relies on potent language to connect with, and often stoke, the fears and grievances of Americans.

Tales From Ukraine’s Surreal Front Lines

On a second level, the book is a work of analysis and history, as Judah delves into the post-WWII past of Western Ukraine, the heartland of Ukrainian nationalism, as well as that of Donetsk, the key rebel stronghold, which has always had closer ties to Russia.

allows Judah to understand the arguably fundamental issue at stake in the Ukraine conflict: the deep cognitive dissonance present within the country that allowed the violence to take root

Judge Declares Mistrial of Baltimore Cop in Freddie Gray Case

In what is a perceived legal blow for prosecutors, the jury was hung and the judge declared a mistrial in the trial of Baltimore police Officer William Porter in connection with Freddie Gray's death after he sustained injuries while in custody. Maryland circuit Judge Barry G. Williams indicated that he expected prosecutors to retry Porter.

Prosecutors considered Porter's case key to strengthening the case against Caesar Goodson Jr., who was driving the van. It was also seen as a signal of how the trials of the five other officers could go.

Two lines of trenches face off across No Man’s Land. A soldier marches, rifle in hand, along a ditch. These are instantly familiar images of World War I - but this is Britain, a century on and an English Channel away from the battlefields of the Western Front.

This overgrown and oddly corrugated patch of heathland on England’s south coast was once a practice battlefield, complete with trenches, weapons and barbed wire. Thousands of troops trained here to take on the German army. After the 1918 victory - which cost 1 million Britons their lives - the site was forgotten, until it was recently rediscovered by a local official with an interest in military history.

Now the trenches are being used to reveal how the Great War transformed Britain - physically as well as socially.

Thousands of miles from the battlefields of Europe, the armies of Britain and France clashed with imperial German forces in Africa’s deserts, cities and bush during World War I.

The 1914-18 war brought an end to German colonial rule in Africa, saw up to 2 million Africans sacrifice their lives for Europe and brought much social upheaval as cities grew to supply the war effort, hardening racial divisions.

“The First World War had a considerable impact on African colonies because European powers requisitioned their labor and their resources,” said historian Bill Nasson of the University of Cape Town.

Bill Keightley, a 20-year-old soldier from Melton, had gone over the top during the Battle of Loos but he lay severely wounded in a German trench for 36 hours after enemy machine-gunners had hit both of his legs.

His chances of surviving on a French battlefield which was to claim more than 50,000 British casualties were slight until a Gurkha soldier called Kulbir Thapa suddenly joined him in the trench.

Several times he has visited the Loos battlefield where his father, who died in 1967 aged 73, was so gravely injured and on the last trip a few weeks ago he suffered a minor heart attack.

In the 1996 presidential election, voter turnout had tumbled to the lowest level since the 1920s, less than 52 percent. Turnout rose slightly in November 2000. Then, suddenly: overdrive. In the presidential elections of 2004 and 2008, voter turnout spiked to levels not seen since before the voting age was lowered to 18, and in 2012 it dipped only a little. Voters were excited by a hailstorm of divisive events: the dot-com bust, the Bush-versus-Gore recount, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Iraq War, the financial crisis, the bailouts and stimulus, and the Affordable Care Act.

Putnam was right that Americans were turning away from traditional sources of information. But that was because they were turning to new ones: first cable news channels and partisan political documentaries; then blogs and news aggregators like the Drudge Report and The Huffington Post; after that, and most decisively, social media.

Politics was becoming more central to Americans’ identities in the 21st century than it ever was in the 20th. Would you be upset if your child married a supporter of a different party from your own? In 1960, only 5 percent of Americans said yes. In 2010, a third of Democrats and half of Republicans did.

British Labour Leader Offers Compromise on Trident Program

Stirring a divisive internal debate over defense, Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of Britain’s opposition Labour Party, suggested on Sunday that he might support the continued existence of the country’s Trident submarine fleet if it were sent on patrol without carrying nuclear

warheads.

The President reminded the audience that Americans have different relationships with gun ownership because we live in "different realities." A black high-schooler in Chicago, where 55 people were shot in the past seven days, for example, has a very "different reality" from the high-schooler in a rural area who grew up shooting a rifle for sport.

The room was split between people who are willing to try, even if there's no guarantee, and those who need a guarantee -- proof -- before they will try. Between optimism and resignation.The majority of Americans, Republicans and gun owners support universal background checks and closing the so-called "gun show loophole." In fact, one objection that came up repeatedly pointed up a grim irony: Obama's step forward is so small that "it won't work."

He said that there were 30,000 American's who were killed by gun violence. What if we could just lower it to 28,000? What if we could spare 2,000 families from the heartbreak of that kind of loss? Shouldn't we try?

what has also broken out of the vaults of offshore legal specialists Mossack Fonseca is one over-riding sense. The sense that normal rules do not apply to the global elite. In a new gilded age, taxes would – once again – appear to be for the little people.

the understanding of what had gone wrong in the first place has steadily shifted. Initially, there was almost no understanding at all: baffling news reports about credit default swaps suggested only sorcery going wrong. Slowly but surely, however, the world has learned that the banks that busted the global economy were also consumed with old-fashioned skulduggery: rigging rates, ripping off customers, and laundering Mexican drug money. Courtesy of the Lux tax leaks on sweetheart corporate deals, and the HSBC files, documenting Swiss lockers stacked with bricks of cash, the world learned much more, too, about the tax-dodging lengths that private wealth will go to in order to keep public coffers empty.

The people, then, will be sceptical about how the elite responds to the revelations. The UK government will, rightly, be expected to translate some impressive rhetoric on avoidance into reality. Declarations of resolve must now come backed with resources, unlike the recent Channel Island campaign which the HMRC has scaled back because of a lack of resources. Mr Cameron’s 2013 promise of openness must now be imposed on British tax havens, on pain of withdrawing dependency status. The register of beneficial ownership is welcome, but must come coupled with a serious checking mechanism, which – for the moment – is lacking.

spewing hate has a significant impact upon society. It is the equivalent of modern-day propaganda where the population is barraged with a stream of consistent messaging.  As ordinary people go about their daily lives, they are exposed repeatedly, day in and day out, to the same messages in numerous forms and by numerous people. Pretty soon, these messages begin to sink in and take effect.  The audience begins to adopt a worldview consistent with these messages, regardless of the degree of truth. 

Propaganda is powerful stuff.  Many people are susceptible to it and can be swayed by it, especially the less educated.

In America today, right-wing media is engaged in this very same activity through Fox News and extremist talk radio. 

A massive fire broke out during a fireworks display in a Hindu temple in south India early Sunday, killing more than 100 people and injuring at least 200 others, officials said.

The fire started when a spark from the unauthorized fireworks show ignited a separate batch of fireworks that were being stored at the Puttingal temple complex in Paravoor village, a few hours north of Kerala's state capital of Thiruvananthapuram, said Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, the state's top elected official.

Thousands had been packed into the temple complex when a big explosion erupted around 3 a.m., officials said. The blaze then spread quickly through the temple, trapping devotees within.

“Fires are outrunning us. We’re trying harder than ever to put them out, and they’re continuing to win, more and more, every year,” Williams said. “And it really isn’t for lack of effort. Even when we know it’s been stupid policy to fight every single fire, we’re still trying as hard as we can to do that.”

As the California fires have dominated the news, he’s been asked by friends and journalists why we can’t just fix wildfires, why we can’t just put them out. We have solved all sorts of complex environmental engineering problems. Why not wildfire?

The question illustrates “the root problem that got us into this mess,” he told me. “We think that we as humans should be able to dominate this phenomenon of wildfire. And in reality, we can’t. Even though we can put a person on the moon, and even though we can create this global computer network, we can’t. This is a natural phenomenon that is similar to the ocean in that it is really big, that it is much larger than us when it really gets going.”