Russia’s biggest oil company, Rosneft (ROSN.MM), has agreed to take control of Iraqi Kurdistan’s main oil pipeline, boosting its investment in the autonomous region to $3.5 billion despite Baghdad’s military action sparked by a Kurdish vote for independence.

• October 20, 2017

The Senate Intelligence Committee investigating U.S. allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election said on Friday it had postponed a public hearing with Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s lawyer, and it would be rescheduled.

• October 20, 2017

Israel said on Tuesday it would not hold peace negotiations with a Palestinian government dependent on the Islamist Hamas group, responding to a new reconciliation agreement between the two main Palestinian factions.

• October 17, 2017

Sea trips between Vladivostok, Russia and isolated North Korea have resumed after a two-month break, with the transport of cargo, the RIA news agency reported on Monday, quoting the head of the company operating the route.

• October 17, 2017

Ukraine has filed a World Trade Organization complaint challenging Russian trade restrictions on beer, vodka, juice, wallpaper and a product close to President Petro Poroshenko’s heart: confectionery.

• October 17, 2017

By Benyamin Poghosyan, PhD, Executive Director, Political Science Association of Armenia

President Trump's decertification of the Iran deal will put in jeopardy a number of regional projects.
One of the key events shaping the geopolitics of the Middle East in the coming days most probably will be the US President Donald Trump's decision to decertify Iran nuclear deal (formally called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action - JCPOA), signed in 2015. President Trump has been a vocal opponent of the deal since he entered the Presidential race, and continued his tough stance on Iran after his election. The latest vivid example of this approach was President Trump's speech at the 72 Session of the UN General Assembly in September. READ MORE

• October 17, 2017

A senior official in the Russian parliament will discuss North Korea’s missile and nuclear program in separate talks with parliamentarians from Seoul and Pyongyang on Monday, TASS news agency said.

• October 15, 2017

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Sunday that President Donald Trump had instructed him to continue diplomatic efforts to calm rising tensions with North Korea, saying “those diplomatic efforts will continue until the first bomb drops.”

• October 15, 2017