A missile industry veteran has been tapped as Iran’s new defense minister, replacing the previous minister who was killed on Feb. 28, the first day of U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran. Iranian parliamentarians overwhelmingly approved the appointment of Mehrdad Akhlaghi Ketabchi, 68, as the country’s new defense chief on Sunday. Akhlaghi studied chemical…
Iran and the United States have begun indirect talks in Doha, with the Qataris and Pakistanis mediating, a source with direct knowledge of the discussions told the Reuters news agency on Wednesday. U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, President Trumps’s son-in-law, met with Qatar’s prime minister on Tuesday but are not attending Wednesday’s technical…
From 1970 until 2000, the costs of disaster averaged $70-$80 billion. Those mainly preventable costs doubled this century to average $180-$200 billion annually, according to a recent report published by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR). Most of the exorbitant costs of disaster are preventable with proper funding and planning –one of the…
