Iran Wants US to Lift Sanctions

VIENNA, Feb 21 (Reuters) - Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said on Monday that talks in Vienna on reviving Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers cannot succeed unless the United States is prepared to lift sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

Reuters reported last week that a U.S.-Iranian deal is taking shape in Vienna after months of indirect talks to revive a pact Washington abandoned in 2018 under then-President Donald Trump. read more

"The United States must prove its will to lift major sanctions," Raisi said in a joint news conference with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani in Doha.  "To reach an agreement, guarantees are necessary for negotiations and nuclear issues."

The draft text of the agreement also alluded to other issues, including unfreezing billions of dollars in Iranian funds in South Korean banks, and the release ,of Western prisoners held in Iran.

"Aggression is bound to fail. Resistance has brought results and none of the regional issues have a military solution," Raisi said.  Raisi was more cautious than Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh, who said earlier that the Vienna negotiations had made "significant progress".

Khatibzadeh also said that "nothing is agreed until everything is agreed" in the Vienna talks. "The remaining issues are the hardest," he told a weekly press briefing.  READ MORE...

Transatlantic Speed Records Set

Announcing an air-speed record from Savannah, Georgia, to Doha, Qatar, might sound trivial or even a little absurd. Until you consider the context: This was the world’s largest business jet flying 6,711 nautical miles nonstop at Mach 0.88, or 675 mph, for 13 hours and 16 minutes, on its first international flight. Then it becomes a corporate milestone.

Gulfstream’s new G700 then set another city-pair record from Doha to Paris, flying 2,953 nautical miles at an average speed of Mach 0.90 (690.5 mph) for 6 hours and 15 minutes, before returning to headquarters in Savannah.

Beyond the “records,” the transatlantic flights of Gulfstream’s new ultra-long-range jet shows the business-jet world—and potential buyers—that the aircraft lives up to the publicity it has attracted since first being announced in 2019. 

Plus, visiting the capital of Qatar was more than Gulfstream just throwing a dart at the map: Qatar Airways Group is its launch customer and plans to take delivery of the first G700, which has a list price of $78 million, next year. 

The flight gave Qatar Executive a chance to show off the Gulfstream flagship—with a fully outfitted interior—at a press conference in Doha.  READ MORE