Edward Finkelstein

Talks with the U.S. should be pursued to secure national interests as long as "threats and unreasonable expectations" are avoided, President Masoud Pezeshkian posted on X on Tuesday.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Iraq against moving closer to Iran, as former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki appears set to regain power with the backing of Iran-aligned Shiite partie

Saudi Arabia is positioning itself as a new hub in Africa’s gold trade, announcing that it is ready to begin purchasing bullion directly from Sudan in a move that could reshape long-established export routes dominated by Dubai.

Air France resumed flights to Dubai on Saturday, just one day after suspending the route, citing geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. The abrupt stop-and-go decision has raised questions about the airline’s risk assessment and consistency.

Egypt ended 2025 with a sharp rise in the value of its gold holdings, as the Central Bank of Egypt increased bullion’s role in the country’s reserve mix to cushion against global volatility and swings in hard-currency liquidity.

Sudan’s gold sector is posting record production numbers even as the state captures only a thin slice of the proceeds, highlighting how the war has accelerated the shift of the industry into informal channels.

The White House said on Thursday that Iran had stepped back from plans to carry out 800 executions of protesters that were reportedly scheduled for Wednesday, while stressing that the United States continues to keep “all options” on the table.

Riyadh has thrown its weight behind Washington's move to blacklist Muslim Brotherhood branches across the Middle East, marking a significant escalation in the regional crackdown on the Islamist movement.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen declared Saturday that Europe "fully" supports the massive protests sweeping Iran and condemned the "violent repression" against demonstrators.

Cameroon says it will tighten controls on artisanal and small-scale gold mining from January 2026, aiming to curb smuggling that officials say is siphoning off revenues in a sector with significant potential but no operating industrial gold mines.

At CES in Las Vegas, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang unveiled the company’s next AI computing platform, Vera Rubin, and highlighted that a significant part of its performance depends on technology developed in Israel.

In Harasta, a suburb east of Damascus, restoration crews are working to bring a centuries-old public bathhouse back into use after years in which war and displacement disrupted daily life across Eastern Ghouta.