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US stocks extend rally as market eyes busy calendar next week

Wall Street stocks overcame early weakness Friday to push higher for a fourth straight positive session, following gains in most overseas equity markets.The upbeat session reflected a continuation of the market’s constructive trend after President Donald Trump said Tuesday he has no intention of firing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.The administration has also adopted a …

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WFP says has depleted all Gaza food stocks as Israel blocks aid

The UN’s World Food Programme said Friday it had depleted its food stocks in war-ravaged Gaza, where Israel has blocked all aid for more than seven weeks.After 18 months of war, the situation in Gaza “is probably the worst” it has been, the UN’s humanitarian office has said, with the head of the world body’s Palestinian refugee agency decrying the aid stoppage on Friday as “politically motivated starvation”.WFP, one of the main providers of food assistance in the Palestinian territory, said it had “delivered its last remaining food stocks to hot meals kitchens in the Gaza Strip” on Friday.It said “these kitchens are expected to fully run out of food in the coming days”.Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, said the crisis was “manmade”.”The Government of Israel continues to block the entry of food + other basics,” he wrote on X. “Nearly 2 months of siege. Calls to bring in supplies are going unheeded.” The World Health Organization said the situation was no different for medical supplies.After blocking aid during an impasse over the future of a ceasefire with Hamas, Israel resumed its bombardment of Gaza on March 18, followed by a ground offensive.Mohammed al-Mughayyir, an official with Gaza’s civil defence rescue agency, told AFP that the death toll from Israeli strikes on Friday had risen to at least 40. In the evening, the Israeli military issued an evacuation order for Palestinians in Zeitun and two nearby areas in the territory’s north ahead of another planned strike, saying it was responding to “terrorist activity” and “operating with force”.Gazans say they are threatened with death not just from bombardment, but from a lack of food.In addition to the WFP, aid agencies and Western governments have also voiced alarm.”We are literally dying of hunger,” Tasnim Abu Matar, a Gaza City resident, said earlier this week.- ‘Lifeline’ -“For weeks, hot meal kitchens have been the only consistent source of food assistance for people in Gaza. Despite reaching just half the population with only 25 percent of daily food needs, they have provided a critical lifeline,” the WFP said.The agency added that “more than 116,000 metric tons of food assistance –- enough to feed one million people for up to four months” was positioned at aid corridors ready to be brought in “as soon as borders reopen”.Following WFP’s warning, the World Health Organization’s chief said medical supplies were also “running out” in Gaza while 16 WHO trucks wait to enter.  “This aid blockade must end. Lives depend on it”, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X.WFP added that all 25 bakeries it supports in Gaza were forced to close on March 31 as wheat flour and cooking oil ran out during “the longest closure the Gaza Strip has ever faced”.Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz last week said his country would continue blocking aid because the tactic is “one of the main pressure levers preventing Hamas from using (aid) as a tool with the population”.On Wednesday, Germany, France and Britain called for an end to the “intolerable” blockade and warned of “an acute risk of starvation, epidemic disease and death”.The International Criminal Court in November issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu partly on suspicion of the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare.Netanyahu rejected the accusations as “absurd and false”.- ‘I found him on fire’ -At least 2,062 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel resumed its campaign against Hamas militants in mid-March.That brings the overall death toll of the war to 51,439, most of them civilians, according to the territory’s health ministry.Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel that began the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures. Among the fatalities on Friday were five members of the al-Taima family killed when an air strike hit their makeshift tent in Al-Mawasi, near Khan Yunis, the civil defence’s Mughayyir said.Gaza resident Ramy, who gave only his first name, said he lost his three-year-old son in a strike on their tent.”When I couldn’t find him, I went back to the tent and I found him on fire,” Ramy said.Israel’s military has threatened an even larger offensive if militants do not soon free hostages who remain in Gaza.Israel says militants are still holding 58 people captured during their October 2023 attack, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead. Senior Hamas official Taher al-Nunu told AFP on Friday that a delegation from the group would meet with Egyptian mediators “tomorrow to discuss Hamas’s vision for ending the war”, reiterating the group’s weapons “are not up for negotiation”.

Iran FM Araghchi in Oman ahead of nuclear talks with US

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi prepared for fresh nuclear talks with the United States in Oman on Friday after apparent progress in previous rounds.Araghchi flew into Muscat ahead of Saturday’s meeting with US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, their third encounter in as many weeks.Araghchi will lead Iran’s delegation of diplomats and technical experts in indirect discussions with the US side, foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei posted on X.Iran’s top diplomat was a negotiator of the landmark nuclear accord abandoned by Trump during his first term in 2018.Araghchi refused to discuss the talks as he signed copies of an Arabic translation of his book, “The Power of Negotiation” at a book fair in Muscat on Friday. The latest round will include expert-level talks on Iran’s nuclear programme, with Michael Anton, who serves as the State Department’s head of policy planning, leading the technical discussions on the US side, the department said.Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported that deputy foreign ministers Kazem Gharibabadi and Majid Takht-Ravanchi will head the Iranian technical team.Baqaei posted that Iran’s delegation is “resolved to secure our nation’s legitimate and lawful right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes while taking reasonable steps to demonstrate that our programme is entirely peaceful”.”Termination of unlawful and inhumane sanctions in an objective and speedy manner is a priority that we seek to achieve,” he added.According to Baqaei, the dialogue will again be mediated by Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi — who appeared with Araghchi at the book signing — on Saturday morning.The meeting follows two earlier rounds of Omani-mediated negotiations in Muscat and Rome starting on April 12.- Calling for ‘goodwill’ -Since his return to office in January, Trump has reimposed sweeping sanctions under his policy of “maximum pressure” against Tehran. In March, he sent a letter to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei calling for talks but warning of possible military action if they failed to produce a deal. Western countries including the United States have long accused Iran of seeking to acquire nuclear weapons — an allegation Tehran has consistently denied, insisting that its programme is for peaceful civilian purposes.Baqaei earlier Friday said “progress in the negotiations requires the demonstration of goodwill, seriousness, and realism by the other side”.Iran will treat Saturday’s talks seriously, Araghchi said in a recent interview, “and if the other party also enters seriously, there is potential for progress”.In 2018, Trump withdrew the United States from the nuclear deal signed three years earlier between Tehran and major world powers. The agreement eased sanctions on Iran in return for curbs on its nuclear programme.After Trump’s pullout, Tehran complied with the agreement for a year before scaling back its compliance.Iran currently enriches uranium up to 60 percent, far above the 3.67 percent limit in the 2015 deal but still below the 90 percent threshold required for weapons-grade material.In an interview published by Time Magazine on Friday, Trump said the United States will “lead the pack” in attacking Iran if nuclear talks do not lead to a new deal. But he expressed hope that an agreement could be reached and said he would be willing to meet Khamenei.

Syrian foreign minister raises new flag at UN headquarters

Syria’s foreign minister on Friday raised his country’s new flag at UN headquarters in New York, hailing the move as a “proclamation of a new existence” after the fall of Bashar al-Assad.Asaad al-Shaibani raised the three-starred flag, officially adopted after Assad’s December ouster, and later spoke to the Security Council, where he urged a lifting of international sanctions and for Israel to be pressured to leave Syrian territory.”This flag is not a mere symbol, but rather a proclamation of a new existence,” he said in his first United Nations speech.Since Assad’s fall to Islamist-led forces, Israel has deployed troops in a UN-controlled buffer zone that has separated Israeli and Syrian forces on the strategic Golan Heights since 1974.”We would like to ask the Council to make pressure on Israel to withdraw from Syria,” al-Shaibani said in his first UN speech.Israel has also launched airstrikes in Syria, which al-Shaibani slammed Friday as “not only a flagrant violation of international law and Syrian sovereignty, but also a direct threat to regional stability.””We have repeatedly announced our commitment that Syria will not constitute any threat to any of the neighboring countries or any country around the world, including to Israel,” he said.He also called for the lifting of all sanctions imposed under the previous government.Economic sanctions have hit the country hard, with more than 90 percent of Syrians living below the poverty line, according to the UN.Al-Shaibani was backed by the UN’s special envoy to Syria, Geir Pedersen, who warned that Israel’s “violations of Syria’s territorial integrity are undermining the transition.”He said Israel’s “highly confrontational” approach was “not warranted” given the space for diplomacy. Pedersen also called for sanctions to be eased. Some European and other Western states have eased certain sanctions on Syria, while others including the United States have said they would wait to see how the new authorities exercise their power, opting instead for targeted and temporary exemptions.Shaibani’s visit to the UN comes after Syria’s central bank governor and finance minister this week attended spring meetings at the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, for the first time in more than 20 years.Pedersen said the country’s transition from the Assad years was at a “truly critical juncture.”Much has been achieved, but “the situation is extremely fragile,” he warned, calling for more political inclusion and economic action.Pedersen, who was in Damascus two weeks ago, stressed the “urgent challenge” facing the Alawite community. In early March the minority — associated with Assad — were targeted by massacres, particularly on the coast, which killed more than 1,700 people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. bur-lk-abd-des/st/acb

Iran FM Araghchi arrives in Oman ahead of nuclear talks with US

Iran’s top diplomat Abbas Araghchi arrived in Oman on Friday ahead of fresh nuclear talks with the United States, after both sides said progress had been made in previous rounds.Foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei posted on X that “Araghchi and his accompanying delegation arrived in Muscat for the third round of Iran-US talks”.Iran’s Mehr news agency released a brief video showing the foreign minister disembarking from an Iranian government plane in Muscat.Baqaei said Araghchi would be leading the delegation of diplomats and technical experts in the indirect discussions with the US side.US President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, will represent the United States in the talks.The latest round will include expert-level talks on Iran’s nuclear programme, with Michael Anton, who serves as the State Department’s head of policy planning, leading the technical discussions on the US side, the department said.Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported that deputy foreign ministers Kazem Gharibabadi and Majid Takht-Ravanchi will lead the Iranian technical team.Baqaei wrote on X that Iran’s delegation is “resolved to secure our nation’s legitimate and lawful right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes while taking reasonable steps to demonstrate that our programme is entirely peaceful”.”Termination of unlawful and inhumane sanctions in an objective and speedy manner is a priority that we seek to achieve,” he added.According to Baqaei, the dialogue will again be mediated by Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi on Saturday morning.The meeting follows two earlier rounds of Omani-mediated negotiations in Muscat and Rome starting on April 12.- Calling for ‘goodwill’ -Since his return to office in January, Trump has reimposed sweeping sanctions under his policy of “maximum pressure” against Tehran. In March, he sent a letter to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei calling for talks but warning of possible military action if they failed to produce a deal. Western countries including the United States have long accused Iran of seeking to acquire nuclear weapons — an allegation Tehran has consistently denied, insisting that its programme is for peaceful civilian purposes.Baqaei earlier Friday said “progress in the negotiations requires the demonstration of goodwill, seriousness, and realism by the other side”.Iran will treat Saturday’s talks seriously, Araghchi said in a recent interview, “and if the other party also enters seriously, there is potential for progress”.In 2018, Trump withdrew the United States from a landmark nuclear deal signed three years earlier between Tehran and major world powers. The agreement eased sanctions on Iran in return for curbs on its nuclear programme.After Trump’s pullout, Tehran complied with the agreement for a year before scaling back its compliance.Iran currently enriches uranium up to 60 percent, far above the 3.67 percent limit in the 2015 deal but still below the 90 percent threshold required for weapons-grade material.In an interview published by Time Magazine on Friday, Trump said the United States will “lead the pack” in attacking Iran if nuclear talks do not lead to a new deal. But he expressed hope that an agreement could be reached and said he would be willing to meet Khamenei.