Iran election likely to seat new, hardline president as nuclear deal hangs in the balance
CBSN
Tehran — Iran is still battling a serious COVID-19 epidemic, but it hasn't stopped the government from going ahead with a presidential election. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei cast the first ballot on Friday morning.
Some 59 million Iranians are eligible to vote, but the question is, will they bother? Authorities here are worried that turnout could be embarrassingly low. For more than a decade, Iranians have been getting poorer. Disillusioned and fed up, many have lost faith in their country's political system, and their government. Iran's economy, battered by U.S. sanctions, endemic corruption and then the coronavirus pandemic, has withered, and the price of basic goods has skyrocketed.Zhytomyr, Ukraine — Exactly 1,000 days after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine, Russia's defense ministry accused Ukrainian forces on Tuesday of firing six U.S.-made and -supplied ATACMS missiles at the Russian region of Bryansk. If confirmed, it could be the first time Ukrainian troops had taken advantage of President Biden easing restrictions over the weekend on Ukraine's use of the U.S.-made missiles to strike targets deeper inside Russian territory.
President Biden's decision to allow Ukraine to fire U.S.-made and supplied missiles deeper into Russia — a major policy shift announced over the weekend after months of intense lobbying by Kyiv — has drawn a furious response from Moscow. While there was no immediate reaction directly from the man who launched the nearly three-year war on his neighboring nation, lawmakers aligned with President Vladimir Putin in Russia said Monday that the move was unacceptable and warned it could lead to a third world war.
Tel Aviv — After more than a year of bombing and homelessness, Gazans are looking to a new administration in Washington for help. President-elect Donald Trump's election victory has raised hopes and fears among the five million residents of the Palestinian territories — the warn-torn Gaza Strip and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.