World News

U.S. authorities have seized one of North Korea’s largest cargo ships in connection with a scheme to illicitly export tons of coal in violation of international sanctions, Justice Department officials said Thursday.

European countries said on Thursday they wanted to preserve Iran’s nuclear deal and rejected ‘ultimatums’ from Tehran, after Iran scaled back curbs on its nuclear program and threatened moves that might breach the pact.

French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have cautioned against an escalation in the dispute over Iran’s nuclear deal after Tehran said it would stop abiding by parts of the deal and U.S. President Donald Trump said he was open to talks with Iranian leaders.

In a highly unusual move, national security adviser John Bolton convened a meeting at CIA headquarters last week with the Trump administration’s top intelligence, diplomatic and military advisers to discuss Iran, according to six current U.S. officials.

The United States tightened the screws further on Iran with sanctions on its metal industry on the day Tehran said it was suspending some of its commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that China ‘broke the deal’ in trade talks with Washington and would face stiff tariffs if no agreement is reached.

Iranian President Hassan Rouani threatened Wednesday to resume enrichment of uranium if the terms of the 2015 nuclear accord, from which the U.S. withdrew this time last year, were not renegotiated within 60 days among the powers that remain signatories to it.

The diplomatic cable from Beijing arrived in Washington late on Friday night, with systematic edits to a nearly 150-page draft trade agreement that would blow up months of negotiations between the world’s two largest economies, according to three U.S. government sources and three private sector sources briefed on the talks.

A U.S. official says intelligence information that prompted the Pentagon to send an aircraft carrier and Air Force bombers to the Middle East included indications that Iran had moved short-range ballistic missiles aboard boats in or near the Persian Gulf.

Four B-52 bombers are being deployed to the Middle East in response to what administration officials said earlier this week are threats of a possible attack by Iran or allied fighters on American troops in the region. Two of the bombers are expected to leave Tuesday from Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, arriving at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar on Wednesday, CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports.

Iran is ‘considering retaliating against U.S. interests in the Gulf’ in response to the Trump administration’s ever-tightening restrictions against the Islamic Republic, according to an anonymous senior Israeli intelligence official.

Iranian President Hassan Rohani has said Tehran will resume high-level enrichment of uranium if world powers do not protect its interests against U.S. sanctions.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made an unannounced visit to Baghdad, where he met with Iraqi officials to discuss the United States’ security concerns amid what he called ‘escalating’ Iranian activity.

Syrian and Russian warplanes have been escalating airstrikes on the last remaining rebel redoubt in northern Syria. The air raids are as much a message to Turkey as to die-hard rebels and jihadists in the province of Idlib, say analysts.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence is set on Tuesday to offer new incentives to Venezuela’s military to turn against President Nicolas Maduro, responding to an attempted uprising that fizzled out last week, a senior administration official told Reuters.

Turkey will never bow to U.S. sanctions over its agreement to purchase Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile defense systems, Vice President Fuat Oktay said on Sunday regarding a deal that has strained ties between the NATO allies.

The Trump administration warned China and Russia on Monday that the U.S. won’t stand for aggressive moves in the Arctic region, which is rapidly opening up to development and commerce as temperatures warm and sea ice melts.

Pope Francis is pushing for a global authority that supersedes the rights of individual countries, all with the goal of pursuing the common good.

U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton says a carrier strike group led by the USS Abraham Lincoln recently deployed to the Persian Gulf is “in response to a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings” from Iran.

The United States’ allies in Europe have criticized its recent decisions to restrict oil trade with Iran and to limit the extension of waivers for nuclear non-proliferation projects.