Citing the deteriorating security situation, the United States State Department has shut down its embassy in Sana’a, Yemen, The New York Times reported today. Late Tuesday, Jen Psaki, a State Department spokeswoman, said that because of the “uncertain security situation in Sana’a, we have suspended our embassy operation, and our...

Irina Bokova, the head of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) will not include a Palestinian poster collection in the organization’s  Memory of the World Register, The Times of Israel reported yesterday. Though an advisory board has recommended inclusion  of the collection, “[a]s director general, Bokova has...

Administration spokespeople were caught flat-footed after defending President Barack Obama’s characterization of the shootings at a Paris kosher market as “random,” only to back down after criticism later in the day. In a interview yesterday with Vox.com, President Obama referred to the terrorist who killed four Jews at the Hyper Cacher supermarket in Paris as “a...

In another indication that talks have yet to produce significant Iranian concessions, State Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki asserted Monday that the March 24 deadline to reach a political framework with Iran over its nuclear program was merely a “goal” and not a deadline. In November of last year, State Department...

In an interview published today by the BBC, Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad has claimed that the United States-led coalition keeps him informed of air strikes directed against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) that occur in Syrian territory. In response to a question from Jeremy Bowen, the BBC’s Middle...

The Syrian regime, with the assistance of commanders from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and thousands of Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon, is finalizing preparations for a new battle plan to combat opposition forces along its southern front, according to sources close to the Syrian regime (Arabic link). Over the past...

A German court ruled last week that an firebomb attack on a synagogue in the city of Wuppertal in July was motivated by a desire to bring “attention to the Gaza conflict,” not anti-Semitism, Benjamin Weinthal reported Saturday in The Jerusalem Post. Weinthal, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense...

Can your smartphone screen your breath to detect cancer? That could happen someday soon, if the Sniff-Phone project from Israel comes to fruition. The Sniff-Phone is the latest low-cost nanotech diagnostic tool proposed by Technion-Israel Institute of Technology Prof. Hossam Haick, developer of the Na-Nose breathalyzer technology now heading toward...

While Israel has facilitated reconstruction efforts in Gaza, political infighting between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas has prevented supplies from reaching the people who need them, according to a report written by Neri Zilber and published by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy today. Zilber writes: According to the...

An American embassy official told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that the United States has provided the Lebanese military with $25 million in aid. Providing armed assistance to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) is longstanding American policy: according to the official, “In 2014 alone, the United States provided over $100 million to...