Yahoo

The United States has imposed new sanctions against an airline company, which routinely transports Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. In a statement on Thursday, the US Department of the Treasury said Dena Airways is being designated for sanctions based on a 2001 presidential order designed "to impede terrorist funding".     Dena Airways handles flights for the government of Iran. In November 2017, a previously US-sanctioned airline, Meraj Air, transferred its "VIP flight operations" to Dena Airways, the US statement said. According to Trita Parsi, executive director of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), Dena Airways operates only one aircraft, which is being used by President Rouhani.

As Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Egypt started their campaign to isolate Qatar on June 5, 2017, accusing it of aiding "terrorism" and being too close to Iran, the messaging used by the Arab quartet struck a familiar tone. The blockade against Qatar, now nearing the one-year mark, is often referred to as Saudi-led, but the language used by the "Arab quartet" has been consistent with private statements attributed to Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed (also known as MBZ), as revealed in diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks in 2010 and 2011. A review of this trove - which included secret communications from the US embassy in Abu Dhabi between 2004 and 2010,

Fascinated by Jackson and his seemingly inhuman abilities, Yagnick and Tripathi began to investigate just how the pop legend was able to accomplish his feat. Along with another colleague, Dr. Sandeep Mohindra, they published their observations from a neurosurgeon's point of view on Tuesday in the Journal of Neurosurgery: "How did Michael Jackson challenge our understanding of spine biomechanics?" On the left, how the body is supposed to bend; on the right, how Michael Jackson did it When the human body bends forward with the back straight, the doctors explain, the erector spinae muscles that run parallel to our vertebrae "act like cables" and support the body as the center of gravity shifts.

The Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA) will start withdrawing SR1 banknotes from the market from Thursday, SAMA announced on its website on Wednesday. The SR1 banknotes will be replaced with one-riyal coins. The SR1 banknotes will, however, remain in circulation until these are withdrawn from trading in accordance with a specific time plan, the SAMA announcement said. The SR1 banknote accounts for 49 percent of the volume of traded cash, as it is often dealt between people and rarely deposited into banks, a section of the Arabic media quoted an official as saying.

Sophie Parker shares her story of being bullied for having a birthmark on her face. Her mum Frances stepped in and the bullying stopped. The full interview can be viewed on the Victoria Derbyshire show on iPlayer.

First, Angelina Jolie directed a film about the effect of war on a young girl in Cambodia, First They Killed my Father. Now, she has produced a film set in Afghanistan, saying at the premiere: "There are few countries in the world where it's harder to be a young girl." The Breadwinner, made by Irish film-maker Nora Twomey, is an animation written, produced and directed by women, and adapted from the Canadian bestseller by author Deborah Ellis. It features the voice of teenage Canadian actor Saara Chaudry as Parvana, an 11-year-old growing up under the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001. When her father is wrongfully arrested, Parvana disguises herself as a boy to save her mother and sisters from

It's impossible to say with any level of precision what a US attempt to overthrow the Iranian government might cost, but our experience with Iraq offers some clues. Economic sanctions hurt millions of ordinary Iraqis. But Saddam Hussein was able to manipulate the shortages caused by sanctions to posture his regime as the sole source of sustenance for the population. As veteran journalist David Rieff noted in a detailed analysis of the 1990s sanctions regime, they "palpably failed to dislodge his [Saddam's] government and in fact strengthened him politically." After sanctions failed to displace Hussein's government, many proponents of regime change in Iraq placed their faith in Ahmed Chalabi and