*News and analysis

Indications are growing that Chinese companies are scrapping plans to purchase oil from the United States and are instead turning to Iran for imports in what appears to be a result of escalating trade tariff war between Beijing and Washington.   Sinopec, Asia’s top refiner, was quoted by media as …

President Hassan Rouhani says new US sanctions are aimed at targeting the Iranian nation, adding the plan has made Washington more isolated than ever, even among its allies. “Today, the United States is isolated in the public opinion of the world, and is even more secluded among the Iranian people …

The toll from a suicide attack at an election rally in southwestern Pakistan in the second election-related attack on Friday hit 128 people killed, officials said, amid growing tensions over ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s return ahead of the July 25 vote. The bombing was the most deadly attack in …

US President Donald Trump’s first official visit to the UK after assuming office comes between a NATO summit in Brussels and a meeting on Monday in Helsinki with Russian President Vladimir Putin. During a brief visit to Britain, on the heels of a tense NATO summit in Brussels, Trump scrambled …

The leader of Yemen’s Ansarullah revolutionary movement Sayyed Abdul Malik Badreddine al-Houthi said Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are going to great lengths to further the agenda of the US administration in the Middle East and please their masters. Addressing his supporters via a televised speech broadcast from the …

Iran on Friday threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, a vital artery for oil shipments from the Middle East. The warning comes in response to the US, which is trying to cut off Iranian crude exports. From Moscow, Supreme leader’s senior adviser for international affairs, Ali Akbar Velayati said …

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says all the remaining signatories to a 2015 landmark nuclear agreement have political will to stand up to the United States’ move to withdraw from the deal. Zarif made the remarks while addressing reporters in the Austrian capital Vienna on Friday following a meeting …

South Korea on Sunday rejected reports that it had stopped importing oil and condensate from Iran. Iran’s media quoted an announcement by South Korea’s Embassy in Tehran as saying that imports from the Islamic Republic still continued. On Friday, Reuters reported that Seoul was no longer lifting Iran’s oil and …

A Bangladeshi resident and a member of Saudi Arabia’s security forces have been killed in an attack on a security checkpoint in the town of Buraydah in the Qassim province. “A security checkpoint on the Buraydah-Tarfiyah road in Qassim region came under fire from three terrorists riding in a vehicle …

Iran’s Petroleum Minister Bijan Zanganeh says there has been no major change in the country’s production and export of crude oil despite recent threats by US President Donald Trump to halt the oil trade activities of the Islamic Republic.   Zanganeh added that Iran had already devised a plan to …