Iran-US Nuclear Talks Canceled, Says Omani Foreign Minister
Omani Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr bin Hamad bin Hamood Al Busaidi announced on Saturday that the sixth round of nuclear talks between Iran and the United States, originally scheduled to take place on Sunday, would not take place.
In a post on X, Busaidi added that diplomacy and dialogue remain the only pathway to lasting peace.
"The Iran-US talks scheduled to be held in Muscat this Sunday will not now take place. But diplomacy and dialogue remain the only pathway to lasting peace," Busaidi said.
This development comes after Israel's recent strikes on the Islamic Republic of Iran.
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Hindustan Times
18 minutes ago
- Hindustan Times
‘Trump pushed US into another war': Putin aide calls strikes on Iran nuclear sites a failure
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Time of India
39 minutes ago
- Time of India
World Bank and IMF climate snub 'worrying', says COP29 presidency
The hosts of the most recent UN climate talks are worried international lenders are retreating from their commitments to help boost funding for developing countries' response to global warming. Major development banks have agreed to boost climate spending and are seen as crucial in the effort to dramatically increase finance to help poorer countries build resilience to impacts and invest in renewable energy. But anxiety has grown as the Trump administration has slashed foreign aid and discouraged US-based development lenders such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund from focussing on climate finance. Developing nations, excluding China, will need an estimated $1.3 trillion a year by 2035 in financial assistance to transition to renewable energy and climate-proof their economies from increasing weather extremes. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Buy Brass Laxmi Ji Idol For Wealth, Peace & Happiness Luxeartisanship Shop Now Undo Nowhere near this amount has been committed. At last year's UN COP29 summit in Azerbaijan, rich nations agreed to increase climate finance to $300 billion a year by 2035, an amount decried as woefully inadequate. Azerbaijan and Brazil, which is hosting this year's COP30 conference, have launched an initiative to reduce the shortfall, with the expectation of "significant" contributions from international lenders. But so far only two -- the African Development Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank -- have responded to a call to engage the initiative with ideas, said COP29 president Mukhtar Babayev. "We call on their shareholders to urgently help us to address these concerns," he told climate negotiators at a high-level summit in the German city of Bonn this week. "We fear that a complex and volatile global environment is distracting" many of those expected to play a big role in bridging the climate finance gap , he added. - A 'worrisome trend' - His team travelled to Washington in April for the IMF and World Bank's spring meetings hoping to find the same enthusiasm for climate lending they had encountered a year earlier. But instead they found institutions "very much reluctant now to talk about climate at all", said Azerbaijan's top climate negotiator Yalchin Rafiyev. This was a "worrisome trend", he said, given expectations these lenders would extend the finance needed in the absence of other sources. "They're very much needed," he said. The World Bank is directing 45 percent of its total lending to climate, as part of an action plan in place until June 2026, with the public portion of that spilt 50/50 between emissions reductions and building resilience. The United States, the World Bank's biggest shareholder, has pushed in a different direction. On the sidelines of the April spring meetings, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent urged the bank to focus on "dependable technologies" rather than "distortionary climate finance targets." This could mean investing in gas and other fossil fuel-based energy production, he said. Under the Paris Agreement, wealthy developed countries -- those most responsible for global warming to date -- are obliged to pay climate finance to poorer nations. Other countries, most notably China, make voluntary contributions. - Money matters - Finance is a source of long-running tensions at UN climate negotiations. Donors have consistently failed to deliver on past finance pledges, and have committed well below what experts agree developing nations need to cope with the climate crisis. The issue flared up again this week in Bonn, with nations at odds over whether to debate financial commitments from rich countries during the formal meetings. European nations have also pared back their foreign aid spending in recent months, raising fears that budgets for climate finance could also face a haircut. At COP29, multilateral development banks (MDBs) led by the World Bank Group estimated they could provide $120 billion annually in climate financing to low and middle income countries, and mobilise another $65 billion from the private sector by 2030. Their estimate for high income countries was $50 billion, with another $65 billion mobilised from the private sector. Rob Moore, of policy think tank E3G, said these lenders are the largest providers of international public finance to developing countries. "Whilst they are facing difficult political headwinds in some quarters, they would be doing both themselves and their clients a disservice by disengaging on climate change," he said. The World Bank in particular has done "a huge amount of work" to align its lending with global climate goals. "If they choose to step back this would be at their own detriment, and other banks like the regionally based MDBs would likely play a bigger role in shaping the economy of the future," he said. The World Bank declined to comment on the record.
Time of India
an hour ago
- Time of India
Why some key Tehran allies have stayed out of the Israel-Iran conflict
Hezbollah has long been considered Iran's first line of defense in case of a war with Israel. But since Israel launched its massive barrage against Iran, triggering the ongoing Israel-Iran war, the Lebanese militant group has stayed out of the fray - even after the U.S. entered the conflict Sunday with strikes on Iranian nuclear sites. A network of powerful Iran-backed militias in Iraq has also remained mostly quiet. Domestic political concerns, as well as tough losses suffered in nearly two years of regional conflicts and upheavals, appear to have led these Iran allies to take a back seat in the latest round convulsing the region. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Access all TV channels anywhere, anytime Techno Mag Learn More "Despite all the restraining factors, wild cards remain," said Tamer Badawi, an associate fellow with the Germany-based think tank Center for Applied Research in Partnership with the Orient. That's especially true after the U.S. stepped in with strikes on three nuclear facilities in Iran. Live Events The ' Axis of Resistance ' Hezbollah was formed with Iranian support in the early 1980s as a guerilla force fighting against Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon at the time. The militant group helped push Israel out of Lebanon and built its arsenal over the ensuing decades, becoming a powerful regional force and the centerpiece of a cluster of Iranian-backed factions and governments known as the " Axis of Resistance." The allies also include Iraqi Shiite militias and Yemen's Houthi rebels, as well as the Palestinian militant group Hamas . At one point, Hezbollah was believed to have some 150,000 rockets and missiles, and the group's former leader, Hassan Nasrallah once boasted of having 100,000 fighters. Seeking to aid its ally Hamas in the aftermath of the Palestinian militants' Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel and Israel's offensive in Gaza, Hezbollah began launching rockets across the border. That drew Israeli airstrikes and shelling, and the exchanges escalated into full-scale war last September. Israel inflicted heavy damage on Hezbollah, killing Nasrallah and other top leaders and destroying much of its arsenal, before a U.S.-negotiated ceasefire halted that conflict last November. Israel continues to occupy parts of southern Lebanon and to carry out near-daily airstrikes. For their part, the Iraqi militias occasionally struck bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria, while Yemen's Houthis fired at vessels in the Red Sea, a crucial global trade route, and began targeting Israel. Keeping an ambiguous stance Hezbollah has condemned Israel's attacks but did not immediately comment on the U.S. strikes on Iran. Just days before the U.S. attack, Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem said in a statement that the group "will act as we deem appropriate in the face of this brutal Israeli-American aggression." Lebanese government officials have pressed the group to stay out of the conflict, saying that Lebanon cannot handle another damaging war, and U.S. envoy Tom Barrack, who visited Lebanon last week, said it would be a "very bad decision" for Hezbollah to get involved. Iraq's Kataib Hezbollah militia - a separate group from Hezbollah - had said prior to the U.S. attack that it will directly target U.S. interests and bases spread throughout the region if Washington gets involved. The group has also remained silent since Sunday's strikes. The Houthis last month reached an agreement with Washington to stop attacks on U.S. vessels in the Red Sea in exchange for the U.S. halting its strikes on Yemen, but the group threatened to resume its attacks if Washington entered the Iran-Israel war. In a statement on Sunday, the Houthis' political bureau described the U.S. attack on Iran as a "grave escalation that poses a direct threat to regional and international security and peace." The Houthis did not immediately launch strikes. Reasons to stay on the sidelines Hezbollah was weakened by last year's fighting and after losing a major supply route for Iranian weapons with the fall of Syrian President Bashar Assad, a key ally, in a lightning rebel offensive in December. "Hezbollah has been degraded on the strategic level while cut off from supply chains in Syria," said Andreas Krieg, a military analyst and associate professor at King's College London. Still, Qassem Qassir, a Lebanese analyst close to Hezbollah, said a role for the militant group in the Israel-Iran conflict should not be ruled out. "The battle is still in its early stages," he said. "Even Iran hasn't bombed American bases (in response to the U.S. strikes), but rather bombed Israel." He said that both the Houthis and the Iraqi militias "lack the strategic deep strike capability against Israel that Hezbollah once had." Renad Mansour, a senior research fellow at the Chatham House think tank in London, said Iraq's Iran-allied militias have all along tried to avoid pulling their country into a major conflict. Unlike Hezbollah, whose military wing has operated as a non-state actor in Lebanon - although its political wing is part of the government - the main Iraqi militias are members of a coalition of groups that are officially part of the state defense forces. "Things in Iraq are good for them right now, they're connected to the state - they're benefitting politically, economically," Mansour said. "And also they've seen what's happened to Iran, to Hezbollah and they're concerned that Israel will turn on them as well." Badawi said that for now, the armed groups may be lying low because "Iran likely wants these groups to stay intact and operational." "But if Iran suffers insurmountable losses or if the Supreme Leader (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) is assassinated, those could act as triggers," he said.
