Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi attends a press conference following a meeting with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow, Russia, April 18, 2025. Photo: Tatyana Makeyeva/Pool via REUTERS

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi will visit China on Tuesday, ahead of a third round of nuclear talks with the United States in Oman this weekend, as both Tehran and Beijing seek to deepen their bilateral ties.

“It is natural that we will consult and brief China over the latest developments in Iran-US indirect talks,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday, adding that Araghchi’s trip also aims to further the implementation of agreements between Tehran and Beijing as their relations grow stronger.

According to Jack Burnham, a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington, DC-based think tank, both countries recognize the increasing value of their cooperation on the global stage.

“The growing ties between China and Iran signal a rising ‘Axis of Aggressors’ coordinating their efforts to undermine US and Israeli national security,” Burnham told The Algemeiner.

“Iran remains a key supplier of cheap crude for Chinese refineries, while Chinese firms with close ties to the Chinese military have been accused of offering support to the Houthis [an Iran-backed terrorist group based in Yemen] in their strikes against US and Israeli targets,” he continued.

Iran’s growing ties with China come at a time when both countries are facing escalating sanctions from Washington, particularly targeting Tehran’s oil industry, as part of US President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign aimed at cutting the country’s crude exports to zero and preventing it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

“As the Trump administration seeks to increase pressure on Tehran to gain leverage in ongoing nuclear talks, China’s support for Iran may become a more significant aspect of the regime’s willingness to hold out — a key factor behind the US Treasury Department’s efforts to sanction Chinese refineries as negotiations continue,” Burnham told The Algemeiner.

In an interview with the Russian state news agency RT, Araghchi said that close collaboration with Moscow and Beijing is “a necessity” for Tehran, given the current international climate.

“We have started trilateral talks with Russia and China on the issue of Iran’s nuclear program for some time now,” the Iranian top diplomat said. “We are ready to continue these talks and expand them to other issues.”

“Iran, China, and Russia – in a coordinated move – can take effective steps towards international peace,” he continued.

Tehran became a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a Eurasian security and political group, in 2023 and also joined the BRICS group in 2024 — a bloc of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa that positions itself as an alternative to economic institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

In 2021, Iran and China signed a comprehensive 25-year strategic agreement covering energy, security, infrastructure, and communications, which ceded almost all of Tehran’s natural and mineral resources, infrastructure, and markets to Beijing in exchange for security guarantees against the West.

The latest example of their growing military cooperation was their joint naval drills earlier this year, called the Maritime Security Belt 2025, in Iranian territorial waters in the Gulf of Oman, located in the northern Indian Ocean.

As part of Tuesday’s visit to Beijing, a high-ranking judicial delegation will join Iran’s top diplomat to the Chinese capital.

Iranian Judiciary Chief Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei will attend the 20th summit of the chairs of supreme courts from the nine member countries of the SCO. The conference will focus on strengthening legal cooperation to combat terrorism, organized crime, trafficking, and cybercrime.

The high-level trip comes ahead of a third round of nuclear talks with Washington in Oman this Saturday, following Tehran’s previous consultations with Russia.

After Saturday’s second round of nuclear negotiations in Rome, Araghchi announced that an expert-level track would begin in the coming days to finalize the details of a potential agreement.

“Relatively positive atmosphere in Rome has enabled progress on principles and objectives of a possible deal,” Araghchi wrote in a post on X.

“We made clear how many in Iran believe that the JCPOA [a now-defunct 2015 nuclear deal that imposed limits on the Iranian nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief] is no longer good enough for us. To them, what is left from that deal are ‘lessons learned,’” he continued.

“For now, optimism may be warranted but only with a great deal of caution.”

Iran has previously rejected halting its uranium enrichment program, insisting that the country’s right to enrich uranium is non-negotiable, despite Washington’s threats of military actions, additional sanctions, and tariffs if an agreement is not reached to curb Tehran’s nuclear activities.

Last week, US special envoy Steve Witkoff said that any deal with Iran must require the complete dismantling of its “nuclear enrichment and weaponization program” — reversing his earlier comments, in which he indicated that the White House would allow Tehran to enrich uranium to a 3.67 percent threshold for a “civil nuclear program.”

The post Iran’s Top Diplomat to Visit China as Tehran Seeks to Strengthen Ties Amid US Tensions first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Pope Francis waves from a balcony, on the day he delivers his “Urbi et Orbi” (To the city and the world) message at St. Peter’s Square, on Easter Sunday, at the Vatican, March 31, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Yara Nardi

Pope Francis, who died on Monday at the age of 88 after leading the Catholic Church for 12 years, became an increasingly vocal critic of Israel’s war against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza in the months before his death.

The Vatican announced that Francis, who just one day earlier entered St. Peter’s Square in an open-air popemobile for the first time since surviving double pneumonia, died after a cerebral stroke, which put him into a coma and led to irreversible heart failure.

During his pontificate, Francis strongly condemned antisemitism and promoted interfaith dialogue between Jewish and Catholic communities. However, he also drew the ire of pro-Israel supporters and Jewish leaders, including the chief rabbi of Rome, for his sharp words against the Jewish state.

In December, he unveiled a nativity scene which featured a depiction of an infant Jesus wrapped in a keffiyeh — a traditional Arab headdress that has been repurposed after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel to signal support for the anti-Israel activist movement. Some observers suggested that the scene in St. Peter’s Square — which was titled “Nativity of Bethlehem 2024” and designed by two artists from Bethlehem, Johny Andonia and Faten Nastas Mitwasi — effectively erased Jesus’s Jewish roots.

“The pope’s inauguration of a nativity scene that showed baby Jesus cradled in a Palestinian keffiyeh is an affront to Jesus, the Bible, and the 80 percent of Christians who have fled Bethlehem since the Palestinian Authority took over the city,” Laurie Cardoza-Moore, president of Proclaiming Justice to the Nations, said of the display at the time.

“Let’s be clear. The pope can’t rewrite the Bible — Jesus was a Jew from Judea, not a Palestinian. He was born to a Jewish mother in Bethlehem, in Judea — there was no Palestine,” Cardoza-Moore continued. 

In November 2024, Francis released a book which condemned Israel for the deteriorating humanitarian conditions in Gaza. The pope accused Israel, without evidence, of inflicting a “famine” in Gaza and suggested that the Jewish state’s military tactics could be tantamount to a “genocide.” The Catholic faith leader also praised Jordan and Lebanon for accepting war refugees while not mentioning either country’s human rights issues.

“In the Middle East, where the open doors of nations like Jordan or Lebanon continue to be a salvation for millions of people fleeing conflicts in the region: I am thinking above all of those who leave Gaza in the midst of the famine that has struck their Palestinian brothers and sisters given the difficulty of getting food and aid into their territory,” Francis wrote. 

Hezbollah, a terrorist group based out of southern Lebanon, pummeled northern Israeli communities almost daily with missiles, rockets, and drones following the Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel perpetrated by Hamas, another Iran-backed terrorist group. The Lebanese Islamist movement fired over 10,000 projectiles at Israel over a year. About 70,000 Israelis were forced to evacuate their homes in northern Israel and flee to other parts of the country amid the unrelenting attacks.

Meanwhile, approximately 174,000 individuals of Palestinian descent currently reside in Jordan and are not eligible for citizenship within the state. These individuals are referred to as “ex-Gazans” and are generally excluded from state-run social support and health programs. Jordanians of Palestinian ancestry are generally underrepresented in the nation’s parliament and public universities partially due to discrimination and social barriers. 

“According to some experts,” Francis continued, “what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide. It should be carefully investigated to determine whether it fits into the technical definition formulated by jurists and international bodies.”

The pope later clarified his remarks, explaining that he does not necessarily believe the war in Gaza constitutes “genocide” but should still be “investigated.”

“I did not claim that Israel committed genocide,” he stated. “I was shown materials from the war, and I said that if this is true, then it needs to be investigated. I understand what is happening in Gaza. I think Hamas should no longer exist in the world, but the war should also not be prolonged.”

Francis’s increasingly sharp words led Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni, spiritual leader of Rome’s Jewish community, in January to criticize the pope for unfairly focusing his attention on Israel compared to other ongoing world conflicts, including those in Sudan, Yemen, Syria, and Ethiopia.

“Selective indignation … weakens the pope’s strength,” the chief rabbi of Rome said. “A pope cannot divide the world into children and stepchildren and must denounce the sufferings of all. This is exactly what the pope does not do.”

In his Easter 2025 message, Francis expressed empathy for the plight of Palestinians and the suffering of Israelis, calling on the Hamas terrorist group to release the remaining hostages in Gaza and for Israel to cease its military campaign. 

“I express my closeness to the sufferings … of all the Israeli people and the Palestinian people,” the pope said in his message. “I appeal to the warring parties: call a ceasefire, release the hostages and come to the aid of a starving people that aspires to a future of peace.”

Despite his sharp criticism of Israel, Francis has repeatedly expressed public empathy for the families of Israeli hostages in Gaza. 

In the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 attacks against Israel, Francis said that he prays “for those families who saw a feast day turn into a day of mourning, and I ask that the hostages be immediately released.”

The pope also met with family members of hostages in April 2024 to hear their stories. Following the meeting, Ashley Waxman Bakshi, the relative of a hostage, said the pope was “very clear about his solidarity for the release of the hostages.”

Despite the pontiff’s tumultuous relations with Israel, leaders within the Jewish state paid their respects to the Catholic faith leader, recognizing his significance to Christians globally. 

Israeli President Isaac Herzog praised Francis as “a man of deep faith and boundless compassion.”

“He rightly saw great importance in fostering strong ties with the Jewish world and in advancing interfaith dialogue as a path toward greater understanding and mutual respect,” Herzog said.

The post Pope Francis Maintained Rocky Relationship With Israel, Condemned War in Gaza During Final Months first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

According to the ADL, this image appears on an account belonging to Phoenix Ikner, the alleged perpetrator of a shooting attack on Florida State University (FSU) in Tallahassee. Photo: Screenshot

Phoenix Ikner, the alleged perpetrator of Thursday’s shooting attack on Florida State University (FSU) in Tallahassee which left two dead and six injured, expressed an interest in the Third Reich through his choice of names in his internet accounts, according to research from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an antisemitism watchdog group.

Describing Ikner as “an avid gamer and YouTuber,” the ADL said that its investigators found that “on various gaming accounts, the shooter used white supremacist imagery, including the Patriot Front logo and images of Hitler.”

An image provided by the ADL showed a simple cartoon of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s head with a word bubble saying “Nein!” — the German word for “no.”

1/ The ADL Center on Extremism has discovered that the alleged shooter at FSU yesterday was an avid gamer and YouTuber. During his various livestreams, he shared his screen revealing his various accounts, screen names, avatars, email inboxes and search history. Read on… pic.twitter.com/7WPK6k85Yb

— ADL (@ADL) April 18, 2025

Through analyzing Ikner’s livestream broadcasts, the ADL reported that his email inbox “included emails from the Steam gaming platform support team, which referred to him as ‘Schutzstaffel,’ ‘phoenxcool,’ and ‘itsyourboyphoenix.’ Schutzstaffel, or SS, was the Nazi paramilitary group responsible for the Final Solution during the Holocaust.”

Ikner sustained injuries during the attack which may result in significant time in the hospital.

“What we’re seeing — if in fact this individual has extremist views, and it seems at the very least he was exposed to extremism — is the continued crossover between extremism and the glorification of violence that eventually leads to violence,” said Carla Hill, a senior director of investigative research at the ADL’s Center on Extremism

FSU student Lucas Luzietti shared a 2023 class with Ikner where the two argued over the alleged shooter’s far-right ideology, racism, and conspiracism. According to USA Today, Ikner made racist statements about Black people ruining his neighborhood and believed that former US President Joe Biden won the 2020 election illegally. He also made clear to his classmates that he owned guns.

Another student who engaged in ideological exchanges with Ikner revealed that members of a political discussion group found the alleged shooter’s views so extreme they asked him to leave.

Reid Seybold, a former Tallahassee State College student, told NBC News that “basically our only rule was no Nazis — colloquially speaking — and he espoused so much white supremacist rhetoric, and far-right rhetoric as well, to the point where we had to exercise that rule.”

The ADL reported that the Patriot Front group referenced in Ikner’s online activity “distributed antisemitic propaganda on at least 431 occasions in 2023, making up 38 percent of the year’s antisemitic propaganda incidents. ”In most of these incidents, the propaganda included the phrase ‘No Zionists in government, we serve one Nation,’” the ADL explained. “Given the group’s neo-Nazi roots, there is no question that when Patriot Front mentions ‘Zionists’ in their propaganda, they mean Jews.”

Fascinations with Nazism or even an outright embrace of the ideology have shown up in previous school attacks over the last 30 years.

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold — the shooters behind the massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado on April 20, 1999 — selected Hitler’s birthday for the attack that left 13 dead and launched the modern school shooting phenomenon. Harris, the mass slaughter’s mastermind, wrote in his journal, “I love the Nazis … I f—king can’t get enough of the swastika, the SS, and the iron cross. Hitler and his head boys f—ked up a few times and it cost them the war, but I love their beliefs and who they were, what they did, and what they wanted.”

On March 21, 2005, 16-year-old Jeff Weise murdered nine people at Red Lake High School, in Red Lake, Minnesota before committing suicide. Weise posted on a Neo-Nazi website with the handle “NativeNazi.”

William Edward Atchison, a contributor to message boards on the Daily Stormer neo-Nazi site, attacked Aztec High School, in Aztec, New Mexico on Dec. 7, 2017, killing two before taking his own life.

Nikolas Cruz murdered 17 and injured 17 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida on Feb. 14, 2018. He had carved a swastika onto his gun’s magazine and also made online postings expressing racism, antisemitism, and anti-immigrant bigotry.

Recent months have seen two school shooters — Natallie Rupnow and Solomon Henderson — with confirmed neo-Nazi beliefs who attacked their classmates before committing suicide.

Rupnow killed two and injured six on Dec. 16, 2024, at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin. Henderson’s attack at Antioch High School in Nashville, Tennessee on Jan. 22 left one dead and one injured.

Both teenagers left “manifestos” explaining their actions. In Henderson’s he wrote, “Candace Owens has influenced me above all each time she spoke I was stunned by her insights and her own views helped push me further and further into the belief of violence over the Jewish question.”

The post Florida State University Shooting Suspect Expressed Interest in Hitler, Nazis, New Research Shows first appeared on Algemeiner.com.