Russia's Economy is Withering

Russia's isolation from the west is a disaster for the long-term health of its economy, experts told Insider.

Trade isolation limits what Russia can import, making production more expensive.

Russia's situation will also greatly decrease its status as an energy superpower.

Russia's resilience in the face of sanctions surprised experts in the early months of the war in Ukraine, but there are growing signs that deepening isolation will result in a withered economy for years to come, and a greatly diminished standing as an energy superpower.

Since absorbing the early blows of western sanctions, Russia has largely retaliated by shutting out the west, trading exclusively with "friendly" countries, and shoring up partnerships with nations that can stomach doing business with a pariah state.  READ MORE...

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...

Iran Nuclear Deal

IMAGE SOURCE,REUTERSImage caption,
Iran's chief negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani says the West "needs to pay a price" for its actions


Critical talks with Iran to prevent the collapse of a nuclear deal have resumed in Vienna after a five-month pause.


Officials are discussing the possible return of the US to the 2015 accord, which limited Iran's nuclear activities in return for the lifting of sanctions.


Iran has violated key commitments since then-President Donald Trump pulled out in 2018 and reinstated US sanctions.


Joe Biden is willing to lift them if Iran reverses the breaches. But Iran wants the US to make the first move.


Western diplomats have warned that time is running out to negotiate a solution because of the significant advances Iran has made in its uranium enrichment programme, which is a possible pathway to a nuclear bomb.


Iran insists that its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful.


ANALYSIS: Could Iran talks succeed?
ANALYSIS: Threat of Israeli strike on Iran nuclear sites grows
BACKGROUND: Iran nuclear deal: What it all means


Diplomats from Iran and the five countries still party to what is known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) - China, France, Germany, Russia and the UK - met at a hotel in the Austrian capital on Monday afternoon, with US representatives participating indirectly.  READ MORE...