Globe Trot: What does Obama really want from a deal with Iran?

IRAN: While U.S. President Barack Obama has hinted at his vision of U.S. relations with Iran, his real objective in the wake of a nuclear arms agreement remains unknown. That highlights the importance of looking at what hasn’t been said.

CUBA: After meeting with Cuban President Raul Castro on Saturday, Obama must soon decide if he will remove Cuba from the U.S. terrorist list, something the State Department is advocating. The historic meeting in Panama with the Cuban leader is part of a long quest that began, not surprisingly, at Miami fundraisers for Obama.

YEMEN: More than 16,000 third-country nationals are stranded in Yemen, and the first chartered flight yesterday delivered many to Khartoum, the capital of the Islamic regime in Sudan—proving how difficult it will be for many of Yemen’s expat workers to find safe haven.

And speaking of Yemen, Iran, and South America, the Houthi rebels now fighting for control of Yemen against Saudi Arabia, say they do not take direction from Tehran, contrary to press reports, but did receive aid from Venezuelan strong man Hugo Chavez.

KENYA: In the wake of the al-Shabaab attack on Garissa University College, the West is ignoring the mushrooming threat of Islamic extremism in Africa

Those who could prove they were Muslim by reciting the shahada, the Quranic verses that constitute the Islamic profession of faith, were freed. But “if you were a Christian, you were shot on the spot,” Collins Wetangula, vice chairman of Garissa’s student union, told the international media. Some had their throats slit. By nightfall, 148 students and staff lay dead.

SUICIDE based on reasoned decision is gaining acceptance, not only for the terminally ill but for the “relatively healthy and cognitively intact” elderly, according to a session on “Rational Suicide” at the recent American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry 2015 annual meeting. We’ve long covered assisted suicide in the Netherlands and Belgium, where euthanasia cases surged by 27 percent last year.

FRANCE: Cobblestone roadways comprised 33 of 158 miles of yesterday’s opening day of The Paris-Roubaix bicycle race, and the “convicts of the cobbles,” are determined to keep the race a cobbled classic. “Replacing each stone is like an exercise in macro-dentistry, a root canal for the road.” (subscription required)

NOTE: After a mostly failed effort to move Globe Trot to Tuesdays and Thursdays, the column is bouncing back to a Monday, Wednesday, Friday rotation.