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The Trump administration gave Iran a proposal for a nuclear deal during the fourth round of negotiations on Sunday, a U.S. official and two other sources with direct knowledge tell Axios. Why it matters: It was the first time since the nuclear talks started in early April that White House envoy Steve Witkoff presented a written proposal to the Iranians.Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi took the proposal back to Tehran for consultations with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, President Masoud Pezeshkian and other top officials.President Trump said Tuesday in Saudi Arabia that he'd presented "an olive branch" to the Iranians but...

President Donald Trump on Thursday will visit a U.S. installation at the center of American involvement in the Middle East... Trump plans to address troops at Qatar’s al-Udeid Air Base, which was a major staging ground during the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and supported the recent U.S. air campaign against Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis. The president has held up Gulf nations like Saudi Arabia and Qatar as models for economic development in a region plagued by conflict as he works to entice Iran to come to terms with his administration on a deal to curb its nuclear program. The...

President Donald Trump said on Thursday that the United States was getting very close to securing a nuclear deal with Iran, and Tehran had “sort of” agreed to the terms. “We’re in very serious negotiations with Iran for long-term peace,” Trump said on a tour of the Gulf, according to a shared pool report by AFP. “We’re getting close to maybe doing a deal without having to do this… there (are) two steps to doing this, there is a very, very nice step and there is the violent step, but I don’t want to do it the second way,” he...

Starfish Prime was a high-altitude nuclear test conducted on July 9, 1962 as part of a group of tests collectively known as Operation Fishbowl. While Starfish Prime was not the first high-altitude test, it was the largest nuclear test ever conducted by the United States in space. The test led to the discovery and understanding of the nuclear electromagnetic pulse (EMP) effect and a mapping of seasonal mixing rates of tropical and polar air masses. Key Takeaways: Starfish Prime Starfish Prime was a high-altitude nuclear test conducted by the United States on July 9, 1962. It was part of Operation...

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, the head of the jihadist terrorist organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), praised President Donald Trump in an address on Wednesday for taking the “courageous and historic” step of lifting sanctions on his country. Sharaa delivered a speech to the Syrian people following an in-person meeting with President Trump in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where President Trump concluded the first of three stops in a Middle East tour on Wednesday. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who first met Sharaa shortly after HTS toppled the half-century-old Assad family regime in Damascus, arranged and presided over the meeting. The...

There’s more to Donald Trump’s Middle East trip than billion-dollar contracts, parades of camels and a storm back home over Qatar’s offer to give the president a new Air Force One. A tour narrowly billed by the White House as a chance for Trump to show he’s a master dealmaker is jumbling the region’s geopolitical jigsaw puzzle.Wherever he goes, Trump’s brings disruption that can forge possibilities. And he takes risks – for instance, his decision on this trip to lift sanctions on Syria to give a war-ravaged nation a second chance.But the move revives a perennial question about Trump’s entire...

Donald Trump has said his administration is now exploring the possibility of normalising relations with Syria - his comments coming shortly after he met Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, whose forces ended the decades-long dictatorship of the Assad family. The extraordinary encounter, unthinkable just months ago, was short but significant. "I think he has got the potential," Trump remarked after his meeting in Riyadh, 37 minutes long, with the former Syrian fighter formerly linked to Al-Qaeda. The $10m US bounty on his head was only lifted in December. Video footage of their conversation in a lavish Saudi royal palace showed...

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday had tea with a former jihadist who until recently had a $10 million US bounty on his head. Interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, once known by his militant nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, met Trump in Riyadh six months after leading a swift campaign that toppled the half-a-century-old Assad regime, ejecting Iran-backed armed groups and declaring himself leader of the country. Al Sharaa was placed on the US Specially Designated Global Terrorist list in 2013 for heading al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, known as Al Nusra Front, and allegedly orchestrating suicide bombings across...

SUMMARY Donald Trump has met the Syrian interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, in Saudi Arabia this morning The brief meeting came after the US lifted sanctions on Syria - Trump said the move is designed to "give them a chance at greatness" Until December, the US offered a $10m reward for al-Sharaa's arrest, our correspondent Lina Sinjab writes from Damascus Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman attended the US-Syria meeting, while Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan joined remotely Trump then addressed a Gulf leaders' summit - saying again he wanted a deal with Iran, but they must stop "sponsoring terror" After...

Iran is ready to sign a nuclear deal with certain conditions with President Donald Trump in exchange for lifting economic sanctions, a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader told NBC News on Wednesday. Ali Shamkhani, a top political, military and nuclear adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is one of the most senior Iranian officials to speak publicly about the ongoing discussions. He said Iran would commit to never making nuclear weapons, getting rid of its stockpiles of highly enriched uranium which can be weaponized, agree to only enrich uranium to the lower levels needed for civilian use,...

Radical Islam in Latin America By Chris Zambelis In the wake of the September 11 attacks, the possibility of al-Qaeda infiltrating Latin America became a priority for U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials. However, the most publicized incidents of radical Islamist activity in Latin America have not been linked to al-Qaeda but instead to the Lebanese Shi’ite Hezbollah, which is ideologically and politically close to Iran. These include the March 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina and the July 1994 attack against the Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association (AIMA), also in the Argentine capital, allegedly in retaliation for...

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.'s Senate hearing on Wednesday was immediately thrown into chaos when several protesters, including a co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, began screaming, causing them to be removed. “You’re killing poor kids in Gaza and paying for it by cutting Medicaid for kids here,” Ben Cohen appeared to shout during the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions hearing before being escorted out by U.S. Capitol Police officers.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — President Trump urged Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa to sign the Abraham Accords in a previously unplanned meeting on Wednesday, one day after lifting all sanctions on the Middle Eastern country. The two leaders met on the sidelines of a Gulf Cooperation Council gathering in Riyadh, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan phoning into the conversation. Syria currently doesn’t recognize Israel’s statehood, and the Abraham Accords were just one of Trump’s requests to Syria in an effort to normalize relations. Trump also told the Syrian leader to make all foreign terrorists leave Syria, deport Palestinian terrorists, help...

During the fighting in the Gaza Strip, Israel managed to capture a local Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) agent, who admitted during his interrogation that he had been operating as a double agent. The agent revealed that his role was to lull Israel’s defense establishment into a false sense of security on the eve of Hamas’s deadly terrorist attack on October 7, 2023. According to a report published on Channel 12 News on Tuesday evening, the agent lied to Shin Bet officials in a conversation held just hours before the attack. In that conversation, he stated, “There is no preparation...

“His Father Was A German Immigrant Who Made His Living From A Brothel – So It Is No Surprise That Such A Father Should Produce Such A Son'; 'Is There Not One Sane Person In The West Who Would Take This Unbridled Madman To An Insane Asylum?! On May 9, the "Conversation" column again addressed Trump's imminent announcement of the name change from Persian Gulf to Arab Gulf, as he departed for his Middle East visit. The column, which was titled "I'll Take You For A Ride," stated that if Trump did so, the name of Trump's residence would be...

Iran indicated Tuesday that it would be willing to accept temporary limits on uranium enrichment as part of a nuclear deal with the U.S. — accepting the same terms that were in President Barack Obama’s deal in 2015. The Trump administration is insisting, at least publicly, on the dismantling of Iran’s enrichment program. The Times of Israel reported: Iran is open to accepting temporary limits on its uranium enrichment, its deputy foreign minister said Tuesday, while adding that talks with the United States have yet to address such specifics. Tehran and Washington held their fourth round of nuclear talks on...

The United States is ready to go "all in" on sanctions against Russia, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent declared, signaling the administration's readiness to impose even harsher measures to pressure Moscow into peace negotiations. -snip- Bessent was critical of former US President Joe Biden's sanctions approach, describing them as "egregiously weak," particularly when it came to Russian energy. He argued that the weakness in these sanctions allowed Russia's military operations to continue, largely because of concerns about rising energy prices in the US. "A major factor that has enabled the Russian war machine's continued financing was the Biden administration's egregiously...

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) has said that his country was moving steadily closer to normalising relations with Israel, following similar moves from other Gulf countries, and amid a big push by the United States for a Saudi-Israeli deal. “Every day, we get closer,” the crown prince told US broadcaster Fox News, according to excerpts seen by Reuters of an interview scheduled to air later on Wednesday. The interview with the crown prince, widely known as MBS, came as US President Joe Biden’s administration presses ahead with an effort to broker historic ties between the two countries...

Is Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman trying to sabotage Joe Biden’s reelection bid? It’s quite possible. The Saudi leader, known as MBS, has made clear his disdain for President Biden, and his fury over insults lobbed at him by this White House. He is a powerful force behind the current surge in oil prices, which could — if sustained — contribute to Biden’s defeat. Oil prices are soaring — up 19 percent since the start of the year. Since they lag behind crude oil, gasoline prices have only jumped 14 percent so far. But, unless oil markets take a...

Edan Alexander reunited with his family on Monday at the Re'im Camp in southern Israel after 584 days in Hamas captivity. After a moving hug to his parent's he was surprised by how much his younger brother had grown, and exclaimed: "This kid is a giant, who is he?!" Kan News reported that Edan described being tied hand and foot inside a cage, deprived of daylight, and suffering from extreme hunger in a Hamas-controlled tunnel in the southern Gaza Strip. During his release, Alexander was visibly weakened, struggling to walk due to the toll of prolonged confinement. Lots of pics...