The nuclear accord with Iran required a difficult series of compromises for world powers and Tehran.
For President Barack Obama, it meant climbing down from demands that Tehran halt almost all of its enrichment of potential bomb-making material and shutter an underground facility possibly impervious to an air attack. It also meant dropping pledges to secure “anytime, anywhere” inspections and Iran’s complete answering of questions related to past weapons work.
But Iran’s supreme leader was forced to retreat on some key issues, too. Relief from crippling economic sanctions won’t come on Day 1, as he long clamored for, and his country will have to open up military sites to international inspectors at some point if the Islamic Republic is going to fulfill its commitments. Iran also will have to adhere to multiyear restrictions on enrichment and nuclear research and development that Ayatollah Khamenei and other leaders once opposed.
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Iran reached a historic deal with six world powers on Tuesday that promises to curb Tehran’s controversial nuclear program in exchange for economic sanctions relief.
The accord was announced on Tuesday by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and the European Union’s foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini in a joint statement in the Austrian capital, Vienna.
Zarif acknowledged that the final agreement wasn’t perfect, but described the announcement as a “historic moment.”
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Euro zone leaders made Greece surrender much of its sovereignty to outside supervision on Monday in return for agreeing to talks on an 86 billion euros bailout to keep the near-bankrupt country in the single currency.
The terms imposed by international lenders led by Germany in all-night talks at an emergency summit obliged leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to abandon promises of ending austerity and could fracture his government and cause an outcry in Greece.
“Clearly the Europe of austerity has won,” Greece’s Reform Minister George Katrougalos said.
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Image: Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
Serena Williams slugged her way to a sixth Wimbledon singles title Saturday morning, completing her second so-called “Serena Slam” and positioning herself for tennis history.
The 33-year-old American defeated Garbine Muguruza of Spain, 6-4, 6-4, to win her fourth consecutive Grand Slam tournament, beginning with last year’s U.S. Open and including this year’s Australian and French open titles. She accomplished a similar sweep in 2002-2003.
The Wimbledon win is also Williams’ 21st Grand Slam title.
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Serena Williams celebrates after winning the women’s singles final at Wimbledon,in London on July 11. Kirsty Wigglesworth / AP
Chinese authorities have evacuated tens of thousands of people, canceled scores of trains and flights and shuttered seaside resorts as a super-typhoon with wind gusts up to 200 kilometers per hour (125 mph) heads toward the southeastern coast.
China’s national weather service said super Typhoon Chan-hom is expected to make landfall by early Saturday at Fujian or Zhejiang province, and has issued its highest-level alert.
Zhejiang’s Civil Affairs Bureau said nearly 60,000 people were evacuated from coastal areas. The country’s railway service said more than 100 trains between the region’s cities are canceled through Sunday.
More than 50 years after South Carolina raised a Confederate flag at its Statehouse to protest the civil rights movement, the state is getting ready to remove the rebel banner.
A bill pulling down the flag from the Capitol’s front lawn and the flagpole it flies on passed the South Carolina House early Thursday morning. It should get to Gov. Nikki Haley’s desk before the end of the day.
The governor promised to sign it quickly, but didn’t say exactly when. That’s important, because the bill requires the flag be taken down within 24 hours of her pen hitting the paper and shipped to the Confederate Relic Room.
Paul Salopek is two years into a 21,000-mile walk that will take him from Ethiopia to South America’s Tierra del Fuego archipelago, retracing the path of human migration out of Africa. Even the most intrepid travellers would classify his walk as an extraordinary achievement – but Salopek believes that humans are hardwired to walk long distances. After all, our ancient ancestors were hunter-gatherers who walked some 2,500 miles per year.
Inspired by this belief that humans are not meant to be sedentary, the nomadic 52-year-old National Geographic Fellow and veteran foreign correspondent decided that rather than fly, he would travel on foot from one story to the next, writing many of them for his Out of Eden Project Dispatches. And he maintains that his walk isn’t a radical departure; it’s an extension of his peripatetic life. He’s been on the move since he was six, when his father quit his US government job and moved the family to a small town in Central Mexico.
Around one-third of the Great Wall of China has been destroyed by vandalism and exposure to the elements, according to Chinese state-run media.
While human behavior — like the use of the wall’s stones for home-building or sale on the — has contributed to the deterioration, overgrown plants also have endangered the structure, Xinhua reported. As a result, whole sections of the UNESCO World Heritage site have large gaping holes and are crumbling — particularly in rural areas east of Beijing, it added in a report over the weekend.
“The destruction of the Great Wall has natural and human causes,” Dong Yaohui, vice chairman of the nonprofit Great Wall Society, told NBC News on Tuesday, calling for the creation of a systematic conservation plan. “The urgent task is to protect what is left.”
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Visitors walk on a section of the Great Wall of China in 2014 in Mutianyu, near Beijing, China. Kevin Frayer / Getty Images file
The USA’s 5-2 victory over Japan in the Women’s World Cup soccer final roused the nation Sunday, sparking celebrations far and wide, online and off.
Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, personally attended the match, while President Barack Obama posted an invitation to the White House to the winners:
An emotional high point came when one of the game’s greatest ever players, veteran striker Abby Wambach, raced to the stands to kiss her wife, former player Sarah Huffman.
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The Last Time the U.S. Won the Women’s World Cup 1999
Sometime in the next few weeks, aides expect President Obama to issue orders freeing dozens of federal prisoners locked up on nonviolent drug offenses. With the stroke of his pen, he will probably commute more sentences at one time than any president has in nearly half a century.
The expansive use of his clemency power is part of a broader effort by Mr. Obama to correct what he sees as the excesses of the past, when politicians eager to be tough on crime threw away the key even for minor criminals. With many Republicans and Democrats now agreeing that the nation went too far, Mr. Obama holds the power to unlock that prison door, especially for young African-American and Hispanic men disproportionately affected.
But even as he exercises authority more assertively than any of his modern predecessors, Mr. Obama has only begun to tackle the problem he has identified. In the next weeks, the total number of commutations for Mr. Obama’s presidency may surpass 80, but more than 30,000 federal inmates have come forward in response to his administration’s call for clemency applications. A cumbersome review process has advanced only a small fraction of them. And just a small fraction of those have reached the president’s desk for a signature.
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Even though President Obama is expected to commute dozens of sentences, he will barely make a dent in clemency applications.Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
Image: Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
Image: Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
Down it comes
Tombs used for the wealthy during the Nabataean era. The kingdom stretched south from its capital of Petra, in Jordan, to Madain Salih, in the region of present-day Saudi Arabia. Photo © John Stanmeyer/National Geographic
James' World 2 