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Jimmy Carter, Former US President and Nobel Peace Prize Recipient, Dead at 100

Former US President Jimmy Carter attends an interview with Reuters in Cairo, Egypt, January 12, 2012. Photo: REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
Jimmy Carter, the Georgia peanut farmer who as US president struggled with a bad economy and the Iran hostage crisis but brokered peace between Israel and Egypt and later received the Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian work, died at his home in Plains, Georgia, on Sunday. He was 100.
US President Joe Biden directed that Jan. 9 will be a national day of mourning throughout the United States for Carter, the White House said in a statement.
“I call on the American people to assemble on that day in their respective places of worship, there to pay homage to the memory of President James Earl Carter,” Biden said.
Carter, a Democrat, became president in January 1977 after defeating incumbent Republican President Gerald Ford in the 1976 election. His one-term presidency was marked by the highs of the 1978 Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt, bringing some stability to the Middle East.
But it was also dogged by an economic recession, persistent unpopularity, and the Iran hostage crisis that consumed his final 444 days in office. Carter ran for re-election in 1980 but was swept from office in a landslide as voters embraced Republican challenger Ronald Reagan, the former actor and California governor.
Carter lived longer than any US president and, after leaving the White House, earned a reputation as a committed humanitarian. He was widely seen as a better former president than he was a president — a status he readily acknowledged.
World leaders and former US presidents paid tribute to a man they praised as compassionate, humble, and committed to peace in the Middle East.
“His significant role in achieving the peace agreement between Egypt and Israel will remain etched in the annals of history,” said Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in a post on X.
The Carter Center said there will be public observances in Atlanta and Washington. These events will be followed by a private interment in Plains, it said.
Final arrangements for the former president’s state funeral are still pending, according to the center.
In recent years, Carter had experienced several health issues including melanoma that spread to his liver and brain. Carter decided to receive hospice care in February 2023 instead of undergoing additional medical intervention. His wife, Rosalynn Carter, died on Nov. 19, 2023, at age 96. He looked frail when he attended her memorial service and funeral in a wheelchair.
Carter left office profoundly unpopular but worked energetically for decades on humanitarian causes. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 in recognition of his “untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.”
On Monday, the body awarding the Nobel Peace Prize repeated its praise for Carter’s work.
“Earlier this fall, the Committee had the pleasure of congratulating him on his 100th anniversary, stating that his work in favor of peace, democracy, and human rights will be remembered for another 100 years or more,” it said.
Carter had been a centrist as governor of Georgia with populist tendencies when he moved into the White House as the 39th US president. He was a Washington outsider at a time when America was still reeling from the Watergate scandal that led Republican Richard Nixon to resign as president in 1974 and elevated Ford from vice president.
“I’m Jimmy Carter and I’m running for president. I will never lie to you,” Carter promised with an ear-to-ear smile.
Asked to assess his presidency, Carter said in a 1991 documentary: “The biggest failure we had was a political failure. I never was able to convince the American people that I was a forceful and strong leader.”
Despite his difficulties in office, Carter gained global acclaim after his presidency as a tireless human rights advocate, a voice for the disenfranchised, and a leader in the fight against hunger and poverty, winning the respect that eluded him in the White House.
Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his efforts to promote human rights and resolve conflicts around the world, from Ethiopia and Eritrea to Bosnia and Haiti. His Carter Center in Atlanta sent international election-monitoring delegations to polls around the world.
A Southern Baptist Sunday school teacher since his teens, Carter brought a strong sense of morality to the presidency, speaking openly about his religious faith. He also sought to take some pomp out of an increasingly imperial presidency — walking, rather than riding in a limousine, in his 1977 inauguration parade.
The Middle East was the focus of Carter’s foreign policy. The 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty, based on the 1978 Camp David accords, ended a state of war between the two neighbors.
Carter brought Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland for talks. Later, as the accords seemed to be unraveling, Carter saved the day by flying to Cairo and Jerusalem for personal shuttle diplomacy.
The treaty provided for Israeli withdrawal from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and establishment of diplomatic relations. Begin and Sadat each won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1978.
By the 1980 election, the overriding issues were double-digit inflation, interest rates that exceeded 20 percent, and soaring gas prices, as well as the Iran hostage crisis that brought humiliation to America. These issues marred Carter’s presidency and undermined his chances of winning a second term.
HOSTAGE CRISIS
On Nov. 4, 1979, revolutionaries devoted to Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had stormed the US Embassy in Tehran, seized the Americans present, and demanded the return of the ousted shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was backed by the United States and was being treated in a US hospital.
The American public initially rallied behind Carter. But his support faded in April 1980 when a commando raid failed to rescue the hostages, with eight US soldiers killed in an aircraft accident in the Iranian desert.
Carter’s final ignominy was that Iran held the 52 hostages until minutes after Reagan took his oath of office on Jan. 20, 1981, to replace Carter, then released the planes carrying them to freedom.
In another crisis, Carter protested the former Soviet Union’s 1979 invasion of Afghanistan by boycotting the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. He also asked the US Senate to defer consideration of a major nuclear arms accord with Moscow.
Unswayed, the Soviets remained in Afghanistan for a decade.
Carter won narrow Senate approval in 1978 of a treaty to transfer the Panama Canal to the control of Panama despite critics who argued the waterway was vital to American security. He also completed negotiations on full US ties with China.
Carter created two new US Cabinet departments — education and energy. Amid high gas prices, he said America’s “energy crisis” was “the moral equivalent of war” and urged the country to embrace conservation. “Ours is the most wasteful nation on earth,” he told Americans in 1977.
In 1979, Carter delivered what became known as his “malaise” speech to the nation, although he never used that word.
“After listening to the American people I have been reminded again that all the legislation in the world can’t fix what’s wrong with America,” he said in his televised address.
“The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America.”
As president, the strait-laced Carter was embarrassed by the behavior of his hard-drinking younger brother, Billy Carter, who had boasted: “I got a red neck, white socks, and Blue Ribbon beer.”
‘THERE YOU GO AGAIN’
Jimmy Carter withstood a challenge from Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy for the 1980 Democratic presidential nomination but was politically diminished heading into his general election battle against a vigorous Republican adversary.
Reagan, the conservative who projected an image of strength, kept Carter off balance during their debates before the November 1980 election.
Reagan dismissively told Carter, “There you go again,” when the Republican challenger felt the president had misrepresented Reagan’s views during one debate.
Carter lost the 1980 election to Reagan, who won 44 of the 50 states and amassed an Electoral College landslide.
James Earl Carter Jr. was born on Oct. 1, 1924, in Plains, Georgia, one of four children of a farmer and shopkeeper. He graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1946, served in the nuclear submarine program and left to manage the family peanut farming business.
He married his wife, Rosalynn, in 1946, a union he called “the most important thing in my life.” They had three sons and a daughter.
Carter became a millionaire, a Georgia state legislator, and Georgia’s governor from 1971 to 1975. He mounted an underdog bid for the 1976 Democratic presidential nomination, and out-hustled his rivals for the right to face Ford in the general election.
With Walter Mondale as his vice presidential running mate, Carter was given a boost by a major Ford gaffe during one of their debates. Ford said that “there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford administration,” despite decades of just such domination.
Carter edged Ford in the election, even though Ford actually won more states — 27 to Carter’s 23.
Not all of Carter’s post-presidential work was appreciated. Former President George W. Bush and his father, former President George H.W. Bush, both Republicans, were said to have been displeased by Carter’s freelance diplomacy in Iraq and elsewhere.
In 2004, Carter called the Iraq war launched in 2003 by the younger Bush one of the most “gross and damaging mistakes our nation ever made.” He called George W. Bush’s administration “the worst in history” and said Vice President Dick Cheney was “a disaster for our country.”
In 2019, Carter questioned Republican Donald Trump’s legitimacy as president, saying “he was put into office because the Russians interfered on his behalf.” Trump responded by calling Carter “a terrible president.”
Carter also made trips to communist North Korea. A 1994 visit defused a nuclear crisis, as President Kim Il Sung agreed to freeze his nuclear program in exchange for resumed dialogue with the United States. That led to a deal in which North Korea, in return for aid, promised not to restart its nuclear reactor or reprocess the plant’s spent fuel.
But Carter irked Democratic President Bill Clinton’s administration by announcing the deal with North Korea’s leader without first checking with Washington.
In 2010, Carter won the release of an American sentenced to eight years hard labor for illegally entering North Korea.
Carter wrote more than two dozen books, ranging from a presidential memoir to a children’s book and poetry, as well as works about religious faith and diplomacy. His book Faith: A Journey for All was published in 2018.
The post Jimmy Carter, Former US President and Nobel Peace Prize Recipient, Dead at 100 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Pounds Gaza City Suburbs, Vows to Press on with Offensive

Smoke rises following an Israeli strike, in Gaza City, August 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Israeli planes and tanks pounded the eastern and northern outskirts of Gaza City overnight Saturday to Sunday, destroying buildings and homes, residents said, as Israeli leaders vowed to press on with a planned offensive on the city.
Witnesses reported the sound of explosions non-stop overnight in the areas of Zeitoun and Shejaia, while tanks shelled houses and roads in the nearby Sabra neighborhood and several buildings were blown up in the northern town of Jabalia.
Fire lit the skies from the direction of the explosions, causing panic, prompting some families to stream out of the city. Others said they would prefer to die and not leave.
The Israeli military said on Sunday that its forces have returned to combat in the Jabalia area in recent days, to dismantle militant tunnels and strengthen control of the area.
It added that the operation there “enables the expansion of combat into additional areas and prevents Hamas terrorists from returning to operate in these areas.”
Israel approved a plan this month to seize control of Gaza City, describing it as the last bastion of Hamas. It is not expected to begin for a few weeks, leaving room for mediators Egypt and Qatar to try and resume ceasefire talks.
Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz on Sunday vowed to press on with the offensive on the city where famine has been declared, which has raised alarm abroad and objections at home. Katz has said that Gaza City will be razed unless Hamas agrees to end the war on Israel’s terms and release all hostages.
Hamas said in a statement on Sunday that Israel’s plan to take over Gaza City showed it wasn’t serious about a ceasefire.
It said a ceasefire agreement was “the only way to return the hostages,” holding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responsible for their lives.
The proposal on the table calls for a 60-day ceasefire and the release of 10 living hostages held in Gaza and of 18 bodies. In turn, Israel would release about 200 long-serving Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
Once a temporary ceasefire begins, the proposal is for Hamas and Israel to begin negotiations on a permanent ceasefire that would include the return of the remaining hostages.
On Thursday, Netanyahu said that Israel would immediately resume negotiations for the release of all 50 hostages – of whom Israel believes around 20 are still living – and an end to the nearly two-year-old war but on terms acceptable to Israel.
‘HUNGRY AND AFRAID’
Around half of the enclave’s two million people currently live in Gaza City. A few thousand have already left, carrying their belongings on vehicles and rickshaws.
“I stopped counting the times I had to take my wife and three daughters and leave my home in Gaza City,” said Mohammad, 40, via a chat app. “No place is safe, but I can’t take the risk. If they suddenly begin the invasion, they will use heavy fire.”
Others said they will not leave, no matter what.
“We are not leaving, let them bomb us at home,” said Aya, 31, who has a family of eight, adding that they couldn’t afford to buy a tent or pay for the transportation, even if they did try to leave. “We are hungry, afraid and don’t have money.”
A global hunger monitor said on Friday that Gaza City and surrounding areas are officially suffering from famine that will likely spread. Israel has rejected the assessment and says it ignores steps it has taken since late July to increase aid.
The war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led gunmen burst into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mainly civilians, and taking 251 hostages.
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Iran Signals Willingness to Scale Back Uranium Enrichment to Ease Tensions

Atomic symbol and USA and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, September 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iran may be prepared to significantly reduce its uranium enrichment levels in a bid to stave off renewed UN sanctions and limit the risk of further strikes by Israel and the United States, according to a report published Sunday in The Telegraph.
Citing Iranian sources, the paper said Tehran is considering lowering enrichment from 60% to 20%.
The move is reportedly being championed by Ali Larijani, the newly appointed secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, who is holding talks with regime leaders.
“Larijani is trying to convince the system to reduce the level of enrichment in order to avoid further war,” a senior Iranian official told the paper.
The proposal, however, faces stiff resistance from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which has long opposed concessions on the nuclear program. Still, the report suggests Iran’s leadership may be open to greater flexibility, including the possibility of reviving engagement with Western powers.
Last month, i24NEWS reported exclusively that a delegation from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is expected to travel to Iran. The team of technical experts would seek to resume monitoring of nuclear sites, inspections that have been heavily restricted in recent years.
The development comes amid mounting regional tensions and could represent a critical turning point in the long-running nuclear standoff.
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Major Brush Fire Erupts Near Jerusalem, Evacuations Underway

A view of the new Tel Aviv-Jerusalem fast train seen over the HaArazim Valley (“Valley of Cedars”) just outside of Jerusalem, Sept. 25, 2018. Photo: Yossi Zamir/Flash90.
i24 News – A large brush fire broke out Sunday in the Cedars Valley area, near Route 1 and the Motza interchange, prompting an emergency response from Jerusalem district fire services. Several water-bombing planes were dispatched, and authorities have declared a “fire emergency.”
As a precaution, residents of Mevaseret Zion are being evacuated. Access to the town from Route 1 has already been blocked, and officials are weighing a full closure of the major highway.
Fire crews from the Ha’uma station are on site working to contain the flames, while motorists in the area are urged to heed traffic updates and follow instructions from emergency services.
Eight firefighting aircraft are currently operating above the blaze in support of ground teams. The fire comes amid one of the hottest, driest summers on record, with conditions fueling a series of destructive wildfires across the country.
Officials warn the situation remains critical, as the blaze threatens a vital transportation corridor leading into Jerusalem.