The 15-term lawmaker is a former House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman and has bipartisan Senate support. 

Washington has imposed a new round of harsh economic sanctions against a number of Iranian officials and agencies on Thursday, designed to punish the regime for rampant human-rights abuses and its continued role as a state sponsor of terrorism. 

Reps. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) and Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) officially threw their hats in the ring Thursday for the top Democratic spot on the House Foreign Affairs Committee after Sherman defeated ranking member Howard Berman Tuesday in the race for California's redrawn 30th Congressional District.

Sherman is one rank ahead of Engel in terms of seniority. Engel is more powerful with Democratic leaders, several of whom backed Berman over Sherman.

Netanyahu on Thursday denied he had rooted for Romney and described the U.S.-Israel relationship as "firm."

The Iranian president said the "era of using nuclear weapons is over" — and denies he is plotting atomic bomb. 

Obama's visit marks a rapid thawing of relations between the U.S. and Burma after the long-reclusive country adopted democratic reforms.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed America's $2 billion presidential election as a “battleground for the capitalists” and “an excuse for hasty spending” during a speech at the Bali Democracy Forum on Thursday, The Associated Press reports.

Ahmadinejad is in Indonesia trying to shore up support for his country, which is under a U.S.-led international embargo over its alleged nuclear weapons program. The Iranian leader used the forum to once again call for direct talks between the United States and Iran on a “wide range of issues,” an approach the Obama administration has rejected in favor of focusing on the nuclear program.

“We believe in friendly relations between nations and governments and Iran welcomes any relations based on justice and mutual respect,” he said, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency. “It should be investigated that who and why severed ties with Iran 33 years ago.”

The State Department issued an updated travel advisory for Burundi on Thursday warning Americans in the tiny east African nation of the threat posed by Somali Islamists.

“Because Burundi participates in peacekeeping operations in Somalia, the terrorist organization al-Shabaab, based in Somalia, has threatened to conduct terror attacks in Burundi,” the advisory reads. “It may also target U.S. interests in Burundi.”

The advisory says political tensions have remained high since the disputed 2010 election and warns of the risks posed by widespread corruption and lawlessness.

Syrian President Bashar Assad declared that he would “live and die” in Syria, suggesting that the West would not intervene in his country’s civil war because it’s “more than the world can afford.”

Assad indicated he would not accept proposals for him to leave in a political transition to bring an end to the 19-month Syrian conflict.

“I am not a puppet. I was not made by the West to go to the West or to any other country,” Assad said in an interview in English with Russia Today that will air Friday.