President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday his country is confronting its most severe economic challenge in 40 years, thanks to punishing American sanctions. He argued that the Iranian government “should not be blamed” for the crisis. Iranian state television has been reporting shortages and rationing of red meat in recent days, showing consumers complaining about prices that have risen by 75 percent in the last year, according to government statistics. The Trump administration reimposed sanctions on Iran last year after President Donald Trump decided to withdraw from the international nuclear accord reached with Tehran in 2015, calling it a “horrible one-sided deal.” Under the pact, Iran agreed to essentially freeze its nuclear program for at least 15 years in exchange for relief from oil and financial sanctions. Under American pressure, dozens of European companies have abandoned operations in Iran that they had started after the signing of the nuclear agreement, leaving thousands of Iranians jobless. Reimposed banking sanctions have sharply curtailed foreign investment and access to international credit, and oil sanctions have more than halved Iran’s crude exports, its main source of income. In his address, Rouhani did not refer to corruption and mismanagement, two other factors that analysts have cited in Iran’s economic free-fall.
The bodies of 52 people have been found after some 130 migrants went missing off Djibouti, when two boats capsized in rough waters. The U.N. migration agency said Wednesday 16 survivors were recovered, and the tiny East African nation’s coast guard continued a search and rescue operation after Tuesday’s accident. According to a U.N. statement, witnesses said large waves caused the overloaded boats to tip over about a half-hour after departing. An 18-year-old survivor told the migration agency he had boarded one of the boats with another 130 people, including 16 women. There were no immediate details on the second boat. Thousands of migrants from the turbulent Horn of Africa region set off every year from Djibouti to cross the Bab al-Mandab Strait for the Arabian Peninsula with hopes of finding work in rich Gulf countries. The U.N. said the vast majority of the migrants are Ethiopian, young and male. The agency’s Missing Migrants Project says at least 199 people have now drowned off the Djibouti coast near Obock, where the latest capsizing occurred, since 2014.
At least seven people have died this week amid unbearably frigid temperatures and snowy conditions in the Midwest — including a man hit by a city snowplow. The bitter arctic airmass has caused the mercury to plunge more than 40 degrees below zero (F) in some states, making it extremely dangerous to drive or even go outside. Four people died in vehicle crashes related to icy roads, and two men were found frozen to death: An 82-year-old man was found outside his home in Pekin, Illinois, when the high was minus 11 degrees, and a 55-year-old man who’d been shoveling snow was also found dead in a detached garage near his home in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin. The cold even led the U.S. Postal Service to suspend mail deliveries in Minnesota, western Wisconsin, Iowa and western Illinois. States of emergency have been issued in Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan and many schools and businesses are closing until the weather warms.
U.S. intelligence chiefs, citing a new American intelligence assessment of global threats, told senators that North Korea is "unlikely to give up" all of its nuclear weapons. "Its leaders ultimately view nuclear weapons as critical to regime survival," Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, said. That contradicted occasional assertions by Trump administration officials touting progress made in denuclearization talks with Kim Jong Un's regime. The Worldwide Threat Assessment report challenged other key tenets in President Trump's foreign policy and said nothing about the Mexican border, a Trump focus. It concluded that Iran is not currently working on developing a nuclear bomb, and that the Islamic State still has thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria, along with networks around the world. Trump last month said "we have won against ISIS."
President Trump phoned Venezuela opposition leader Juan Guaido Wednesday, not long after President Nicolas Maduro said he's willing to discuss the ongoing power struggle in Caracas. Venezuela's National Assembly this month declared the presidency void on grounds that Maduro's 2018 re-election was not legal. Guaido, the assembly's president and opposition leader, declared himself president and countries around the world started to pick sides. Amid the controversy, Venezuela has spiraled into violent protests, political marches and unrest. Maduro said Wednesday, "I am ready to sit down at the negotiating table with the opposition so that