Trump urges U.N. council to renew Syria chemical arms inquiry U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence WASHINGTON (Reuters) NOVEMBER 16, 2017  - U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday urged all members of the U.N. Security Council to back the renewal of the international inquiry into chemical weapons attacks in Syria, saying it was needed to prevent President Bashar al-Assad from using the arms.  “Need all on the UN Security Council to vote to renew the Joint Investigative Mechanism for Syria to ensure that Assad Regime does not commit mass murder with chemical weapons ever again,” Trump said in a note on Twitter.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards arrest more dual nationals 11/9/2017 9:16:12 AM Iranian authorities have previously denied holding detainees for ransom and accuse Western governments of holding Iranians on trumped-up charges. LONDON (Reuters) NOV. 9, 201  - Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have arrested at least 30 dual nationals during the past two years, mostly on spying charges, according to lawyers, diplomats and relatives, twice as many as earlier reported by local or international media. The number marks a sharp rise since 2015, when an international nuclear deal raised hopes of detente with the West. In the years before that the number of dual nationals detained at any given time was in single figures. It also points up a new trend as a majority of those arrested since then, 19 out of the 30, have citizenship in Europe. Previously most of the detainees were Iranian Americans. Detainees’ relatives and lawyers said the Guards were using them as bargain...

U.N. rights rapporteur condemns harassment of journalists in Iran 10/28/2017 10:25:26 PM   facebook Google+ ► Print Asma Jahangir, the U.N. special rapporteur on the Iran rights situation UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) Oct. 27, 2017  - A U.N. special rapporteur said on Thursday there had been little change in the human rights situation in Iran over the past year, voicing outrage over the harassment of journalists and adding that progress on women’s rights was extremely slow. A day after submitting her report to the world body, Asma Jahangir, the U.N. special rapporteur on the Iran rights situation, told reporters that torture was widespread in Iran and that some people were imprisoned for seeking justice. Jahangir said she had not attempted to assess the impact of sanctions on human rights in Iran in her report because she had not been allowed to visit the country, which does not recognize her mandate. 

U.N. fears 'further exodus' of Muslim Rohingya from Myanmar 10/7/2017 7:43:51 AM Some 515,000 Rohingya have arrived in Bangladesh in an unrelenting movement of people GENEVA/YANGON (Reuters) - Oct. 6, 2017-  The  United Nations  braced on Friday for a possible “further exodus” of Muslim Rohingya refugees from Myanmar into Bangladesh six weeks after the world’s fastest-developing refugee emergency began, U.N. humanitarian aid chief said. Some 515,000 Rohingya have arrived in Bangladesh from Myanmar’s western state of Rakhine in an unrelenting movement of people that began after Myanmar security forces responded to Rohingya militant attacks with a brutal crackdown. The United Nations has denounced the Myanmar military offensive as ethnic cleansing but Myanmar insists its forces are fighting “terrorists” who have killed civilians and burnt villages. Rights groups say more than half of more than 400 Rohingya villages in the north of Rakhi...

VIENNA, Reuters, SEPTEMBER 26, 2017  - The U.N. nuclear watchdog’s chief urged major powers on Tuesday to clarify a part of their nuclear deal with Iran dealing with technology that could be used to develop an atom bomb, an area Russia said the agency should leave alone.The 2015 pact between six major powers and Iran restricts its nuclear activities in exchange for the lifting of sanctions against the Islamic Republic. Compliance with those curbs is being verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency. IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano has defended the deal as a major step forward while declining to comment specifically on criticism of it by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has called the accord - reached by predecessor Barack Obama - “an embarrassment to the United States”. But while Nikki Haley, U.S. Ambassador to the  United Nations , has infuriated Tehran by saying the IAEA should widen its inspections to include military sites, diploma...

How Trump Can Improve the Iran Deal Ballistic missiles next to a portrait of Iran’s supreme leader in Tehran, Sept. 25. He can decertify the accord as too dangerous to continue while renegotiating its worst aspects. By Mark Dubowitz and  David Albright The Wall Street Journal, September 25, 2017 -  Powerful voices at home and abroad are pressuring President Trump to give his blessing to his predecessor’s nuclear agreement with Iran. Mr. Trump has repeatedly pledged to renegotiate the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or scrap it altogether. There is a way for him to highlight the agreement’s egregious deficiencies while showing his determination to improve the deal or leave it. We call this strategy “decertify, waive, slap and fix.” The president should follow through on his commitments by refusing to certify the JCPOA under the 2015 Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act. That law requires Mr. Trump to certify every 90 days that I...