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DESPITE MUCH heated rhetoric, the Trump administration is doing little to counter Iranian aggression. In Syria, its strategy of striking deals with Russia has opened the way for Tehrans forces to establish control over a corridor between Damascus and Baghdad. In Afghanistan, Iran is steadily building a strategic position even as President Trump balks at a plan to strengthen U.S. support for the Afghan government. In Yemen, the United States enables its Persian Gulf allies to pursue an unwinnable proxy war with Tehran whose main result has been the worlds worst humanitarian crisis.

In only one area has the Islamic Republics toxic ambition been relatively contained: the production of material for use in nuclear warheads. According to international inspectors and the U.S. intelligence community, Iran has largely abided by the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal, which greatly reduced its stockpile of enriched unranium and placed strict limits on its nuclear activities. If the regime continues complying, it could be a decade or more before Iran could again threaten to become a nuclear power. Yet perversely, Mr. Trump is matching his passivity toward Irans regional meddling with an apparent determination to torpedo the nuclear pact.

After grudgingly certifying in July that Iran was meeting the terms of the deal a test mandated by Congress every 90 days Mr. Trump told the Wall Street Journal that he planned to find the regime noncompliant when the next certification is due in October. How to reach such a finding if the intelligence community judges otherwise? According to Foreign Policy, Mr. Trump ordered a group of political aides, including now- fired strategist Stephen K. Bannon, to cook up a rationale something that presumably will be made easier by their lack of data or expertise.

The real experts puzzle over what Mr. Trump could hope to accomplish by announcing that Iran is noncompliant other than satisfying what appears to be his compulsive urge to spoil President Barack Obamas legacies. Without proof of Iranian noncompliance, U.S. partners in the nuclear deal, including the European Union, Russia and China, would surely refuse to support the nullification of the accord or the reimposition of sanctions. Iran might respond to decertification by resuming uranium enrichment, even if Mr. Trump did not reimpose U.S. sanctions. That would present the White House with the ugly old problem of how to stop Iranian progress toward a bomb. Could Mr. Trump credibly threaten Iran with military action even while using the threat of force against North Korea?

The principal weakness of the nuclear accord is its temporary nature. Most of its provisions will expire in eight to 13 years, leaving Iran free to stockpile an unlimited quantity of nuclear materials. It follows that the challenge for a rational U.S. administration would be not how to get out of the deal now, but how to extend its restrictions into the future. U.S. partners would likely be ready to cooperate in a strategy aimed at that goal and they ought to be pressed to do more to stop Irans non-nuclear misbehavior. But there is no reason to expect support for a foolish U.S. move that would rekindle a dormant Iranian threat while tolerating its truly dangerous behavior.

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Trump may be planning to make a very bad decision on the Iran deal - Washington Post

Since the real estate company owned by President Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, started doing business in Maryland in 2013, it has been the state's most aggressive practitioner of a controversial debt-collection method called body attachment, where a landlord gets a judge to order the arrest of former tenants who fail to appear in court for allegations of unpaid rent, fines, and fees, The Baltimore Sun reports, citing court records. In all, 20 former tenants have been detained, and a dozen have filed for personal bankruptcy protection to avoid arrest.

Kushner Cos. owns 17 apartment complexes with nearly 9,000 units in Maryland, mostly in the Baltimore area, and pays other firms to manage them. The company earns at least $30 million in profit a year off $90 million in revenue from the properties, The Baltimore Sun reports, and the Kushner-controlled entities have managed to collect $1 million out of the $5.4 million in judge-approved judgments against 1,250 tenants since 2013, averaging $4,400 per judgment including original debt, court costs, lawyer fees, and interest.

Kushner Cos. "follows guidelines consistent with industry standards" and state law, and its management partner, Westminster Management, "only takes legal action against a tenant when absolutely necessary," company CFO Jennifer McLean said in a statement. And real estate interests say that body attachments for former tenants who miss two court appointments can be the only way to make delinquent tenants pay up. At least some tenants say they were never notified of the court dates, or dispute the money owed.

Not all collection agencies use body attachments, in part because "they don't want to risk the public relations issue," Amy Hennen at the Maryland Volunteer Lawyers Service tells the Sun. Garnishing wages, which can be ruinous for poor people barely scraping by, is "harsh" enough, she said. "But certainly the body attachment is probably the worst, because we're talking about what is effectively a debtors' prison, which is something out of Charles Dickens." You can read more at The Baltimore Sun. Peter Weber

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Assad credits Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah for his army's gains - The Week Magazine

Nintendos biggest competitors in the console market, Sony and Microsoft, both recognize a handful of Middle Eastern regions on their respective websites, including Saudi Arabia, The United Arab Eminence, and Israel. The full list from the official Xbox site even includes often overlooked countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Azerbaijan.

But no Iran. The second largest population in the middle east, home to over 78 million residents, has no representation in the world of console gaming.

According to research -- from a 2015 Landscape Report provided by the Iran Computer and Video Game Foundation (IRCG) and the Digital Games Research Center (DIREC) -- there are roughly 23 million gamers in Iran. Its an absolutely enormous market, but ultimately ignored for a variety of reasons. Nintendos annual fiscal report for 2017 offers at least a surface-level explanation as to why the company (and many others) would avoid such a region.

The report states, Domestic and overseas business activities involve risks such as a) disadvantages from emergence of political or economic factors, b) disadvantages from inconsistency of multilateral taxation systems and diversity of tax law interpretation, c) difficulty in recruiting and securing human resources, and d) social disruption resulting from terror attacks, war and other catastrophic events.

But despite the lack of love from major gaming companies, Iranians continue to buy, sell, and play games through any means necessary. Its an odd market controlled by a sometimes unpredictable fluctuation of supply from outside sources and demand from Iranian players. This economic rollercoaster -- coupled with a rise of online-only titles and Irans less than stellar internet speeds -- can make the gaming climate in Iran seem unstable.

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A Hard Sell - Mashable

Iran's Judiciary Spokesman Gholam Hossein Mohseni-Ejei speaks during a press conference in Tehran.

The Iranian Judiciary has issued a ruling demanding that the US government pay around 245 million dollars in damage to a number of victims of chemical attacks carried out by Saddam Husseins troops during the 1980 to 1988 imposed war on Iran.

Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, Iran's Judiciary spokesman, made the remarks on Sunday, while noting that the amount would be distributed among 18 victims of the attacks who had filed for the legal action.

Hundreds of thousands of Iranians were killed in the Iraqi-imposed war and many more were affected by the chemical weapons like mustard gas that were used by the regime of the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Many of those Iranians who were attacked by chemical weapons and are alive today continue to suffer the lingering aftereffects.

Iraq once possessed a huge arsenal of chemical weapons, the production of which was facilitated by exports of chemicals as well as financial and technological support from the United States and other Western countries.

Iraq is believed to acquire the technology and the materials to develop chemical weapons from the US and a number of Western countries. According to reports, US spy agency, CIA, had knew about Iraqs use of chemical weapons as early as 1983, but the US took no action against the violations of international law, and even failed to alert the UN.

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US must pay $245mn in damage to chemical victims of Iraq-Iran war: Judiciary - Press TV

LEVISON Wood is a serving British Army officer and explorer who has branched out into television.

He has already embarked on three epic treks on camera and now he is setting off on his latest on the Channel 4 documentary From Russia To Iran: Crossing The Wild Frontier. Here's his bio...

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Born on May 5, 1982, Levison Wood is an active member of the British Army and has fought in the war in Afghanistan.

He grew up in Stoke-on-Trent before going on to study History at the University of Nottingham.

In April 2006 he was commissioned as an officer in the Parachute Regiment of the British Army.

During his time in Afghanistan, he served in Helmand province, scene of some of the bloodiest and deadliest fighting during Britain's involvement in the country.

Wood is not married and has previously spoken about the difficulties for any woman to be with him given how long he spends overseas due to work currently.

In 2010 Wood decided to leave the Army and started pursuing a career in photography and journalism before going on to become a best-selling author.

However, he recently decided to rejoin the Army as a Major in the 77th Brigade which was only formed in January 2015.

The 77th Brigade's mission is to work across government organisations to achieve the goals of Defence Engagement and Building Stability Overseas Strategies.

The brigade is named in honour of the 77th Indian Infantry Brigade which fought against the Japanese in Burma during the Second World War.

Speaking about the group's work he said: "We will go and meet other counterparts and capacity build and train up friendly foreign fighters.

"There is a lot of civil military liaison, the point of the 77 Brigade is to have non-kinetic effects.

"Social media is a very small part of the unit, it is mainly about having an effect, whether it is through media or other operations."

Beginning in southern Russia, Levison will walk the vast Caucasus Mountains crossing through Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia and into Iran - a country which has been closed off to much of the West.

Wood will travel with locals and live as they do as he heads towards his final destination - the shores of the Caspian Sea in Iran.

This will be Wood's fourth epic TV walk after his previous efforts - Walking the Nile, Walking the Himalayas and Walking the Americas all received widespread praise and acclaim from critics.

From Russia To Iran: Crossing The Wild starts on Sunday, August 20 at 8pm on Channel 4.

It is on at the same time as Far From The Madding Crowd on BBC One, Dragons' Den on BBC Two, Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part Two on ITV and The Ant and Dec Story on Channel 5.

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Who is Levison Wood? From Russia To Iran presenter, British Army officer and explorer - The Sun