If the US and its allies launch any more attacks on Iran, they will incur “more painful and crushing responses,” the Islamic Revolutionary Guards of Iran warned, noting that the ‘Zionist regime’ of Israel would not be spared. The IRGC issued a statement in the early hours of Wednesday local time, after launching a volley of missiles against two bases used by US forces inside Iraq, in retaliation... 

The Trump administration plans to impose tariffs worth as much as $60 billion on Chinese products as early as this week to punish Beijing for what the U.S. perceives as intellectual property theft from American businesses, according to two people familiar with the matter. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer is leading an investigation into China’s treatment of intellectual property, and... 

Heightened tensions between the US and Russia did not seem to greatly concern an affable President-elect Donald Trump, who took to Twitter to praise Russian President Vladimir Putin’s limited response to President Barack Obama’s newly enacted sanctions. In response to President Obama’s decision to expel Russian diplomats and impose more sanctions on Russia, Russian President Putin has so far... 

An angry mob retaliating over attacks on firefighters and police has ransacked a Muslim prayer house in the French island of Corsica. The crowd set books, including several copies of the Koran on fire. Tensions mounted in Ajaccio, Corsica’s largest city of some 65,000 residents, after a night of violence in Jardins de L’Empereur. Two firefighters and a police officers were injured in what... 

On Tuesday we noted, with some alarm, that the US is set to deliver 20 new nuclear bombs to Germany, each of which has four times the destructive power of the one that was dropped on Hiroshima. For his part, Hans Kristensen, Director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, said the move blurs the line between tactical and strategic nuclear weapons,” while one... 

There is growing dissent in the EU over policies that led to a de fact trade war with Russia. Meanwhile the countries not toeing the line are reaping the benefits, irritating those who jumped on the sanctions bandwagon. Greek members of the European Parliament demanded Sunday that the EU cancel sanctions against Russia. MEPs Kostantinos Papadakis and Sotiris Zarianopoulos said in a letter to some... 

North Korea’s military supreme command has issued an ultimatum to South Korea demanding apologies for “all the major and minor hostile actions.” It has also threatened an immediate military response to any “insulting” action the South undertakes. “The supreme command of the Korean People’s Army Tuesday issued an ultimatum to the South Korean puppet group,” South Korean Yonhap agency...