... In the wake of US abrogation of the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran, and its attempt to pressure the rest of the world to follow suit, Iran expected China and at least a few of their other oil customers to defy the US oil embargo. That has not happened so far. Rouhani met Xi Jinping in Kyrgyzstan on Friday to get a clear idea of Chinese intentions, but Xi seems to have remained non-committal.

Meanwhile, the European mechanism that was supposed to insulate the trade in basic humanitarian supplies from US sanctions has yet to get off the ground – and may never fly.

Faced with economic strangulation, Tehran has less and less to lose. Whether it was behind the tanker attacks or not, it had signalled its intention to make the rest of the world pay some of the price for US brinksmanship. The message from Iranian officials over the past two months has been that, if Iran could not export its oil through the Gulf, nor should other nations. Tehran has also slapped down a nuclear ultimatum. If sanctions pressures are not significantly eased by 8 July, it will throw off some of the shackles of the 2015 nuclear deal, most importantly by raising the level at which it enriches uranium. That will ring alarm bells around the world, by cutting the time Iran would need to make a bomb.

Trump now appears to realise that the train he boarded is not heading to a glorious summit, but a potentially devastating conflict in the Gulf, and that some of his own officials, notably the national security adviser, John Bolton, are quite content – enthusiastic, even – to keep driving in that direction...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/14/shinzo-abe-iran-ayatollah-talks-analysis-trump

On July 22 (2018), Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is scheduled to address an Iranian-American audience at the Reagan Presidential Library in California. The speech is part of a deliberate policy of escalating tensions with Iran, targeting its economy and supporting Iranian opposition groups—all for the purpose of pressuring and destabilizing Iran. At least one member of an Iranian terrorist group that has killed American citizens will also be in attendance. But it won’t be to disrupt Pompeo’s speech; rather, to support it. In fact, the member is on the invitation list.

Last month, the same terrorist group held an event in Paris, busing in thousands of young people from Eastern Europe to hear Donald Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani call for regime change in Tehran. A similar event in Paris last year was addressed by John Bolton, who recently became President Trump’s national security adviser.

How an organization that was only delisted by the US Department of State as a terrorist group in 2012 could so soon after win influential friends at the heart of America’s current administration is the strange and sinister story of the Mujahedin-e Khalq, better known by its initials, MEK. Commonly called a cult by most observers, the MEK systematically abuses its members, most of whom are effectively captives of the organization, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW). Regardless of its delisting by then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton—a political calculation on her part since many senior Democrats, as well as Republicans, had been persuaded by the MEK’s lavish lobbying efforts—the group has never ceased terrorizing its members and has continued to conduct assassinations inside Iran.

In the 1980s, the MEK served as a private militia fighting for Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War. Today, it has a different paymaster: the group is believed to be funded, in the millions of dollars, by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In Washington, D.C., as in Paris, France, the MEK pays tens of thousands of dollars in speaking fees to US officials. Bolton, in particular, is a long-time paid supporter of the MEK, reportedly receiving as much as $180,000 for his appearances at the group’s events...

(Much more...) https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/07/20/why-trumps-hawks-back-the-mek-terrorist-cult/

BAMAKO (Reuters) - At least 95 people were killed in an overnight attack on an ethnic Dogon village in central Mali, local officials said on Monday, the latest bout of ethnic violence fuelling the country’s security crisis.

Fighting between Dogon hunters and Fulani herders has killed hundreds since January, including a March attack in which gunmen killed more than 150 Dogon, one of the worst acts of violence in the West African country’s recent history.

Sunday’s attack took place in the Sangha district, where Fulanis from the neighbouring Bankass district descended on a Dogon village after dark, Bankass mayor Moulaye Guindo told Reuters on Monday. “Armed men, apparently Fulanis, fired at the population and burnt the village,” said Siriam Kanoute, an official for the nearby town of Bandiagara. He said the current death toll of 95 would likely rise as more bodies were being found...

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-mali-security/about-100-malians-killed-in-attack-on-dogon-village-idUKKCN1TB1GS?il=0