A New Perspective on Constantine

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo plans to use newly declassified U.S. intelligence on Tuesday to publicly accuse Iran of ties to al Qaeda, two people familiar with the matter said, as part of his last-minute offensive against Tehran before handing over to the incoming Biden administration.

The United States has an important role to play in relaunching an Israeli-Palestinian peace process that would create a two-state resolution to the conflict at the pre-1967 lines, the Munich Group said in advance of US President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20.

Israel’s Accountant General announced Monday that the country’s budget deficit for 2020 was $50.4 billion, the highest it has ever been and three times higher than it was in 2019, Ynet News reports. The record figure was largely anticipated in light of the economic devastation wrought during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The outgoing Trump administration, in one of its last foreign policy acts, is putting Cuba back on the official list of state sponsors of terrorism, reversing an Obama-era decision that aimed to normalize diplomatic relations between the U.S. and the communist island.

Indonesia was dealing with the aftermath of two significant disasters, including a plane crash and two landslides in which at least nearly 80 people perished.

A Christian lay leader in Pakistan was taken into police custody last month as hundreds of Muslims descended on his Lahore neighborhood threatening to kill him for sharing a post against Islam on his Facebook page, Morning Star News reports. The outraged mob also threatened to burn down homes in Raja Warris’ neighborhood in the Charar area of Lahore, causing Pakistani Christians in the community to flee for their lives.