US President Donald Trump threatened to obliterate parts of Iran if it attacked “anything American”, in a new war of words with Tehran after it condemned the latest US sanctions and called White House actions “mentally retarded”. Mr Trump on Monday signed an executive order imposing largely symbolic economic sanctions against Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other senior …

US President Donald Trump says he is not looking for war with Iran but has warned that if a conflict did occur, it would result in “obliteration”. “I’m not looking for war, and if there is it’ll be obliteration like you’ve never seen before. But I’m not looking to do that,” Mr Trump told NBC News in an interview a …

A broad field of US Democratic presidential candidates have delivered their sales pitches to party leaders in Iowa, touting their ability to engage voters, defeat Donald Trump and deliver on longtime party goals such as universal healthcare. The 19 Democrats running for 2020 had five minutes each to sum up their case for the presidency. Most agreed on the problems, …

The United States has cut $US700 million ($987 million) in aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras after US President Donald Trump blasted the Central American countries for over-migration and threatened to shut the US-Mexico border. A surge of asylum seekers from the three countries have sought to enter the US across its southern border in recent days, and US …

Daesh has lost its final shred of territory in Syria, according to US-backed forces which have declared an end to the group’s self-declared caliphate that once spanned a third of Iraq and Syria, . Syrian Defence Force (SDF) spokesman Mustafa Bali took to Twitter on Saturday to announce a “total elimination of [the] so-called caliphate” after IS militants were defeated …

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has submitted his long-awaited report on alleged collusion between Russia and President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign. The Attorney General William Barr will now summarise the report and decide how much to share with Congress. A justice department official said Mr Mueller’s report did not recommend any further indictments. The special counsel has already charged six former …

Concerned with the possibility that the Chinese government could swipe American intellectual property through its dealings with Google and use it to advanced its military, US Joint Chiefs Chairman General Joseph Dunford said Thursday that he will be addressing the matter at a meeting with executives from the tech company next week. Speaking at an Atlantic Council event in Washington, DC, Dunford …

The Ethiopian crash on Sunday killed 157 people, and was the second disaster involving the Boeing 737 MAX 8 in less than five months. In October, the unexplained crash of a Boeing 737 MAX 8 in Indonesia killed 189 people. The world’s biggest plane maker is facing its most serious crisis in years, as the decades-old 737 series, a plane …

A US senator has said that she was raped by a superior officer while serving in the Air Force. Senator Martha McSally, who was the first female US fighter pilot to fly in combat, was speaking at a hearing on sex assaults in the military. The Arizona Republican said she did not report the rape as she felt ashamed and …

The US goods trade deficit has surged to a record high in 2018 as strong domestic demand fuelled by lower taxes pulled in imports, despite the Trump administration’s America First policies. President Donald Trump pledged on both the campaign trail and as president to reduce the deficit by shutting out more unfairly traded imports and renegotiating free trade agreements. The …