Now that the historic Iran nuclear deal has opened Tehran to world markets, the Islamic republic has seen a rapid increase in foreign investment.

On Tuesday, Boeing Co confirmed a landmark deal to sell 100 of its 737 and 777 aircraft to Tehran for roughly $25 billion. This marks the first time the aerospace giant has done business with the Islamic republic since 1979.

Boeing isn't the only company jumping into the game. According to a new report from The Financial Times measuring foreign direct investment (FDI), Iran is now ranked 12th out of 14 in Middle Eastern nations in terms of foreign investment.

While Tehran's FDI has been climbing steadily since 2013, the real boom began after the lifting of sanctions in January. The country has gained 22 FDI projects during the first quarter of 2016.

This quarter accounted for 40% of all FDI since 2013.

The European Union's envoys on Tuesday decided to prolong sanctions against Russia through January 2017, Reuters reported, citing diplomatic sources. The sanctions target Russia's financial, energy, and defense sectors.

The decision has yet to be formally approved by the bloc's ministers but diplomats said there was no doubt they would. EU leaders are expected to meet in Brussels next week.

According to the sources, France and Britain asked for time to receive comments from their parliaments, though they have no power to block the decision.

The EU is reportedly planning a broader review of its policy towards Russia in the second half of this year. European Council President Donald Tusk plans to discuss the issue in October at the summit of the 28 European Union leaders.

Transnational corporations are wreaking havoc on financial, economic, social and ecological systems in a creeping colonisation of public life where just 147 organisations now controls 40 per cent of global trade.

We all have a feeling that something is not quite right any more. We know there is a creeping colonisation of public life by corporations because we know a slow motion coup d'état is taking place by transnational organisations facilitated by our political leaders. The incontrovertible proof stares at us in the face every day with wave after wave of financial, economic, social and ecological crisis.

A clear and troublesome picture of corporate power has emerged in recent years where rising inequality is now simply the distinction of expanding corporate activity and those being left behind.

A study in 2000 by Corporate Watch, Global Policy Forum and the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) revealed some alarming facts about a rising corporatocracy that should have been brought to heel by western government's years ago. Instead, corporations are now literally at the helm.

At the turn of the millennia this study confirmed that whilst there were around 40,000 worldwide corporations, just 200 had true global reach and influence. These colossal organisations, many larger than national economies controlled well over one quarter of global economic activity whilst 80 per cent of the world's population were either left out completely, marginalised or were net losers as a direct result of their activities.¹

In a speech at the Herzliya Conference, Israel's military intelligence chief, Major General Herzi Halevy, took Israel's long-standing position that it "prefers ISIS" over the Syrian government to a whole 'nother level, declaring openly that Israel does not want to see ISIS defeated in the war.

Maj. Gen. Halevy expressed concern about the recent offensives against ISIS territory, saying that in the last three months the Islamist group was facing the "most difficult" situation since its inception and declaration of a caliphate.

Israeli officials have regularly expressed comfort with the idea of ISIS conquering the whole of Syria, saying they find it preferable to the Iran-allied government surviving the war. At the same time, they were never so overtly supportive of ISIS and its survival.

Halevy went on to express concern that the defeat of ISIS might mean the "superpowers" leaving Syria, saying this would put Israel "in a hard position" after being so opposed to the survival of the Syrian government.

He then said Israel will do "all we can so as to not find ourselves in such a situation," suggesting that the Israeli military is looking at direct support for ISIS as a matter of policy, and not just rhetoric.

Yemeni intelligence sources disclosed that the US special troops have been deployed in the Southern part of Yemen.

"The US special and intelligence forces have arrived in Southern Yemen on the pretext of fighting the Al-Qaeda terrorist group," a Yemeni intelligence source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told FNA on Monday.

The source noted that the US troops have been stationed in al-Anad military base in Lahij province to the North of Aden province.

"The UAE has asked the US to dispatch its special forces to Southern Yemen to control Bab al-Mandeb Strait," the Yemeni source added.

In early May, the United States military deployed more than 200 US Marines in the port city of Mukalla in the Central province of Hadramout.

Yemen's Arabic-language al-Masirah news website reported that the forces were deployed in the strategic seaport and oil terminal.

Since the collapse of the Somali government in 1991, the constant struggle and chaos had engulfed the country. Corruption, violence, strong external influence and insecurity are some of the factors which are common in Somali's day-to-day politics. From all of this, radicalised and extremist groups have emerged and started to take hold of the society, especially in the south of the country. Al Shabaab was originally formed from the Al-Itihaad Al-Islamiya group, which emerged in the post regime change in the nineties. Al-Itihaad Al-Islamiya (AIAI) was focused on implementing strong Sharia law, seizing strategic locations in the country and bringing order and control in previously lawless areas. Though this may seem like a solid plan, establishing some kind of order in a chaotic region, even through Sharia, is better than total lawlessness; the Ethiopian government had other plans. Neighbouring state, Ethiopia, which is predominantly Christian, saw the rise of Islamism, Wahhabism and Salafism as a serious threat in Somalia. Al-Itihaad Al-Islamiya as well as the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) were destroyed by the Ethiopian military operations in 2004 and 2006, leaving only the most hardcore elements of these organisations still standing, thus the Al Shabaab, or "the youth", emerged.

The rise of Al Shabaab from the shadows was rather quick, the group rapidly grew from a core of just 33 to a force of more than 5,000 troops in less than four years. Their motivation and main objective at that time was to drive the Ethiopian forces out of the country; of course, that had to be done by a strong insurgency, which Al Shabaab was eager to lead. Though the Ethiopians managed to quell ICU and the AIAI, Al Shabaab, which rose from it ashes, was much more radical and determined in its ideas of implementing Sharia law and some form of an Islamic caliphate/state. Ethiopia's military actions hardened Somalis' religious views and made a fertile ground for spreading extreme religious ideologies, which made recruitment and funding for Al Shabaab much easier. After the withdrawal of Ethiopian forces in 2009, a split occurred in Al Shaabab: two conflicting factions were trying to impose their own views and doctrine on the group. One was led by Sheikh Aweys, a spiritual leader with fundamentally domestic aims, and Sheikh Moktar Ali Zubeyr also known as Godane (educated in Pakistan), who had a more ambitious and extremist agenda, which ultimately prevailed and took control over the group. At that moment, the Al Shabaab agenda changed from nationalistic to a more global and ideological rhetoric, which ended with pledging allegiance to Osama Bin Laden and promoting Al Qaeda's jihad across the horn of Africa.

A lawsuit filed in federal court in New York has accused presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump of repeatedly raping a 13-year-old girl more than two decades ago. A suit with similar allegations filed by the same plaintiff was dismissed in California.

The suit filed Monday, first reported by The Real Deal, alleges that the rapes occurred in 1994 at Upper East Side parties hosted by ex-hedge fund manager and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Trump had known Epstein for seven years by that time.

The plaintiff, known only as Jane Doe, claims that Trump and Epstein lured her and other girls to the parties at Epstein's mansion with promises of a modeling career. The plaintiff said that instead she was sexually assaulted by the two men in a way the suit characterizes as "savage."

The complaint alleges that Trump tied the plaintiff to the bed and raped her. It claims that when she pleaded for him to stop, Trump struck her in the face with an open hand and screamed "that he would do whatever he wanted," according to the suit.

Michele Flournoy, the US civil official predicted by many to head the Pentagon if Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton wins the US presidency in November, said she would alter American strategy to battle Daesh by assisting armed militias, called by Washington "moderate rebels," to crush the legitimate Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

Speaking at a Center for New American Security (CNAS) think tank conference on Monday, Flournoy, a senior fellow of the organization, urged the US military to put boots on the ground in Syria to assist in toppling the al-Assad government, recently successful in reclaiming large areas of the country from Daesh.

To accelerate the defeat of the legitimate Syrian government, Flournoy introduced the notion of a "no bombing" zone for the moderate rebels. These so-called moderates are widely accepted as being, in reality, the US-backed armed militias that have been tearing the country apart since the beginning of the civil war in 2011.

Between August 9 and 12, 1941, taking their battleships in turn to meet in a Canadian bay, US President Franklin Roosevelt (centre, left) and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (centre, right) discussed what to do about their adversaries at the time, Germany and Japan. Roosevelt had whispered, and Churchill later reporting him as saying aloud: "I will wage war, but not declare it."

Until February 21, 2014, President Barack Obama's (right) whispers were audible; President Vladimir Putin (left) didn't believe what he was hearing. Now there is armed US war against Russia on the Ukraine and Syria-Turkey fronts; exchanges of armed signals in the Black and Baltic Seas; and an all-fronts war against Russian capital. For the US, no declaration; for Russia, no way back.

Putin said as much at last week's St. Petersburg meetings: "People feel no danger and that is alarming for me. Why can't we see that we are dragging the world into an utterly new dimension? This is the problem." "I am not interested in laying blame now. I simply want to say that if this policy of unilateral actions continues and if steps in the international arena that are very sensitive to the international community are not coordinated then such consequences are inevitable." By consequences, Putin meant war, undeclared by the US against Russia, compelling Russia to forestall in its defence. "If we continue to act according to this logic, escalating [tensions] and redoubling efforts to scare each other, then one day it will come to a cold war."

Cold is not the kind of war Putin means. "I don't know where it [the deployment of the U.S. missile defense system in Europe] might lead to but I know for sure that we will have to respond."

Russia will take adequate measures to counter NATO's increasingly "aggressive rhetoric," President Vladimir Putin told MPs at the closing session of the State Duma. He called to create an international security system open to all countries.

It's necessary to create a collective security system void of "bloc-like thinking" and open to all countries, Putin said on Wednesday in Russia's parliament.

"Russia is ready to discuss this extremely important issue," he said, adding that such proposals have been so far left unanswered by Western countries.

"But again, as it was at the beginning of WWII, we don't see any positive response," he continued. "On the contrary, NATO ups its aggressive rhetoric and aggressive actions near our borders."

"In this environment, we must pay special attention to strengthening our country's defense capabilities," he concluded.