USA

Ancient Bread Rises Again as Turkey Recreates 5,000-Year-Old Loaf

In the early Bronze Age, a piece of bread was buried beneath the threshold of a newly built house in what is today central Turkey. Now, more than 5,000 years later, archaeologists have unearthed it, and helped a local bakery to recreate the recipe -- with customers lining up to buy it. Round and flat like a pancake, 12 centimetres (five inches) ...

Salam Vows to Assert State Authority Over Arms

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam declared on Monday that Lebanon will no longer tolerate the presence of weapons outside the state’s control, marking a firm stance on national sovereignty and the rule of law. “We will not remain silent about the existence of any arms outside the authority of the state,” Salam said in an exclusive interview with ...

Syria Says it Arrested Islamic State Members Near Damascus

Syrian authorities said they arrested members of an Islamic State group cell near Damascus on Monday, accusing them of preparing attacks against the country. Since the fall of longtime Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad in December, IS attacks on the country's new rulers have been scarce, but the Islamist-led authorities have been trying to ...

Iran Rejects Push to Suspend Uranium Enrichment to Reach US Deal

Iran on Monday ruled out suspending its uranium enrichment as part of any nuclear deal with the United States, a key demand from Washington in successive rounds of talks between the foes. The issue of enrichment has come into focus in recent weeks, with Iran staunchly defending its right to enrich uranium as part of what it says is a civilian ...

Israel Marks Second 'Jerusalem Day' Under Shadow of Gaza war

Israeli police were deploying near the walls of Jerusalem's Old City on Monday ahead of an annual event marking Israel's capture of east Jerusalem, held this year under the shadow of the war in Gaza. Jerusalem Day, or "Yom Yerushalayim" in Hebrew, commemorates what Israel considers the reunification of the city under its authority in the 1967 ...

King Charles to Open Canada Parliament Tasked With Countering Trump

King Charles III was set to land in Ottawa Monday for a historic visit to open Canada's parliament, a brief trip seen as part of the pushback against US President Donald Trump's annexation threats. The 76-year-old monarch, who is also Canada's head of state as part of the Commonwealth, was invited by Prime Minister Mark Carney to deliver the ...

Trump Extends EU Tariff Deadline Until July 9

US President Donald Trump said Sunday that he would pause his threatened 50 percent tariffs on the European Union until July 9, after a "very nice call" with EU chief Ursula von der Leyen. Trump had threatened on Friday to invoke the steep tariffs as soon as June 1, saying talks with the European Union over his previous levies were "going ...

Trump Calls Iran-US Nuclear Talks 'Very, Very Good'

US President Donald Trump on Sunday described the latest negotiations between Washington and Tehran over Iran's nuclear program as "very, very good." Speaking on the tarmac at Morristown airport before boarding Air Force One, Trump hailed "real progress, serious progress" following a fifth round of nuclear talks, which wrapped up in Rome on ...

The Future of US-Iranian Negotiations

The finalization of negotiations between Iran and the United States is unending guesswork. What are the benchmarks that we should enlist if we were to track the evolution of the process, and is there any deadline that we may expect down the road? Unfortunately, none of these questions is likely to be answered since the Iranian agenda is shifting ...

Abraham Accords: Israeli Ambassador to Washington Cites Lebanon and Syria... Before Saudi Arabia

While Saudi Arabia is often cited as the next country to join the Abraham Accords, a statement by Israeli diplomat Yechiel Leiter upsets predictions. In an interview with Marissa Streit, CEO of US platform PragerU, the Israeli ambassador to the United States openly raises the possibility of Lebanon and Syria joining the normalization agreement ...

Trump defends block on foreign students at Harvard

US President Donald Trump defended on Sunday his administration's move to block foreign students at Harvard after a judge suspended the action, branded by the top university as unlawful. "Why isn't Harvard saying that almost 31% of their students are from FOREIGN LANDS, and yet those countries, some not at all friendly to the United ...