Blinking under the garish lights of a hotel ballroom in southern Iraq, Wael Makhsusi argued his case to a young audience. Microphone in hand, the engineer in his 30s stood onstage in Basra with other novice candidates in Sunday’s parliamentary election. Among them were independents and hopefuls drawn from the …

Brazil’s Economy Minister Paulo Guedes argued that the government should use some $200 million from international reserves to pay the New Development Bank (NDB), the BRICS bank. To do this, a new understanding must be reached at the Federal Court of Accounts (TCU) on the cap on public spending, which …

“Karabakh belongs to the Republic of Azerbaijan and it is part of Islam”, “Karabakh belongs to the Republic of Azerbaijan and must be returned to it”; these are just some of the comments made by Iranian Shiite clerics last year who are close to government institutions in the Iranian political …