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Iran

Two recent reports in major publications have documented the growing discontent within the ranks of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) that is beginning to threaten the group’s cohesion, even as it seeks to expand upon the territory it controls. The Washington Post reported on Sunday: Reports of rising tensions between foreign...

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Iran

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is holding joint naval exercises with an eye towards creating a joint maritime security force. The Saudi-based Arab News reports: The joint naval exercise began in the UAE on Monday with the participation of naval forces of the six Gulf states. The exercise will help...

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Diplomacy

71% of Americans believe that the nuclear deal being negotiated by the West and Iran “will not make a real difference in preventing Iran from producing nuclear weapons,” according to a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll released today. The Wall Street Journal reports: The poll found that 71% said the negotiations...

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Human Rights

Iraqi forces, substantially bolstered by Iranian-backed Shiite militias, launched an offensive last week to capture the Iraqi city of Tikrit from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Tikrit is a predominantly Sunni city and the hometown of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. It is reported that 30,000 fighters are...

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Iran

The belief that Iran could develop nuclear weapons under the auspices of a nuclear deal with the West has raised fears in the Arab world, leading many countries to build up their military arsenals. According to data released Sunday by IHS, a leading analyst of the global arms trade, Saudi Arabia has passed India to...

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Diplomacy

Iran’s unveiling of its new Soumar land-to-land cruise missiles on Sunday has raised questions about the intentions of the Islamic Republic’s missile development program. The Times of Israel reports: In a development significant both for its timing and its content, Iran unveiled on Sunday a new cruise missile that it claimed would extend the...

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Diplomacy

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has questions about twelve aspects of Iran’s past nuclear weapons research that the Islamic Republic has failed to satisfactorily answer, according to an analysis that appeared in The New York Times on Sunday. These twelve areas of past Iranian research include computer simulations, detonation experiments, and delivery systems...

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Iran

America’s strategy in fighting the Islamic State of Syria and Iraq (ISIS) has become “increasingly dependent on Iranian fighters,” according to an analysis published Friday in The New York Times. In the four days since Iranian troops joined 30,000 Iraqi forces to try to wrest Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit back...

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Diplomacy

David Grossman, a prominent author and frequent critic of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said in an interview with an Italian newspaper that “Iran threatens the entire world; this time Netanyahu is right,” Israel Hayom reported yesterday. Grossman also said that the American position towards Iran displayed “criminal naiveté.” “This is...

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Israel

A new stem-cell technology with the potential to treat neurodegenerative diseases including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is now in development by the Israel Prize laureate responsible for the blockbuster multiple sclerosis (MS) drug Rebif. Prof. Michel Revel’s company, Kadimastem, recently announced successful results of a preclinical trial in which its...

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