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National security adviser John Bolton is expected to announced Monday that the U.S. will shutter the Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) office in Washington, D.C., The Wall Street Journal reported. “The Trump administration will not keep the office open when the Palestinians refuse to start direct and meaningful negotiations with Israel,” Bolton is expected to say, according to a draft of his speech reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Bolton will reportedly threaten the International Criminal Court with sanctions if it carries out investigations into the U.S. and Israel. ADVERTISEMENT The action against the PLO, which serves as the main entity...

The launching ceremony of the Port-Said Gowind corvette, the first warship built in Egypt, took place on September 6th, 2018 in Alexandria. This launching constitutes a success for Alexandria Shipyard team. It also reflects the effectiveness of Naval Group’s industrial cooperation schemes. This industrial achievement demonstrates the strength of the strategic partnership between Naval Group and Egypt. (Picture source ) The launching of the Port Said corvette shows the capabilities of the Alexandria shipyard, as it is the first warship built in Egypt. This launching ceremony celebrates the rise in competences of the Alexandria Shipyard team which is now able...

AT least two British visitors to Paris were among seven victims of a savage knife attack in the French capital, police said last night. A suspect ‘of Pakistani or Afghan origin’ began ‘slashing passers-by’ on the Loire Quay in the north of the city on Sunday night, according to reports. The knifeman, who was also armed with a metal bar, first stabbed three people outside the MK2 cinema complex, "including two English tourists", according to investigators.

More than 18,000 people marched Saturday in Paris as part of an international mobilization to show popular support for urgent measures to combat climate change in advance of a San Francisco summit. Crowds overflowed a plaza in front of City Hall before marching east to the Place de la Republique, carrying an urgent message that it’s up to the public to put global warming at the top of the political agenda. “Planet in Danger,” read some banners. Activists around the world encouraged “Rise for Climate” protests before the summit taking place Sept.12-Sept. 14. California’s governor proposed the event after President...

U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered that $25 million earmarked for the care of Palestinians in East Jerusalem hospitals be directed elsewhere as part of a review of aid, a State Department official said on Saturday. Trump called for a review of U.S. assistance to the Palestinians earlier this year to ensure that the funds were being spent in accordance with national interests and were providing value to taxpayers. “As a result of that review, at the direction of the President, we will be redirecting approximately $25 million originally planned for the East Jerusalem Hospital Network,” the State Department official...

EU ministers approved a common defence plan on Monday despite sharp differences over how far it should go, as Donald Trump's election win stoked fears about Washington's commitment to European security. Trump's campaign threat to think twice about defending NATO allies unless they up their defence spending has driven calls for the European Union to press ahead on its own, despite objections from Britain. EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini insisted the plans — to boost the bloc's ability to respond to external conflicts, help partner countries build their defence capabilities and protect EU citizens — would not undermine NATO....

In Magyar Idők, Zoltán Kottász contends that the 2019 European Parliament election campaign will be the first EP election in which real European issues will dominate. While in the past, EP elections in all member states were determined by domestic issues, in 2019, EU voters will decide about the future and identity of Europe, the pro-government commentator suspects. Kottász predicts that the campaign will be fought between what he calls ‘globalist multculturalist parties’ led by French President Macron, and ‘forces which champion national sovereignty’ that oppose migration. Kottász thinks that PM Orbán’s anti-multiculturalist and anti-immigration vision are becoming increasingly popular...

“This is not prison; this is a genocide,” stated an audience member following August 29 movie screenings concerning the Gaza Strip at the Washington, DC office of the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL). Typifying the Israel-hating audience of about 25 that filled FCNL’s small Capitol Hill presentation room, this woman’s comments demonstrated how Quakers at FCNL and beyond have joined the global demonization of Israel. The woman, a self-professed member of the radical anti-Israel organization Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), “was totally sickened” by the evening’s viewings of Gaza in Context and Gaza: A Gaping Wound. These two...

France does not want to finance a populist Europe, the country’s foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has indicated, just as the fight over the EU’s new long-term budget begins in earnest. These strong words were said in Paris on Wednesday during the annual conference of French ambassadors, a meeting at which the French head of diplomacy officially indicates the most important directions of the country’s foreign policy. 71-year-old Le Drian, who after the victory of French President Emmanuel Macron took the helm of French diplomacy, said that France and Germany intend to work out a common position on migration before...

The French government announced on Tuesday that it will push ahead with the long-planned reform to deduct income tax directly from workers’ paychecks on a monthly basis from January 2019. After days of wavering and speculation that they would ditch the reform, the French government finally announced on Tuesday that from January 2019 workers will indeed have their income tax taken directly from their paychecks automatically. The change will see most workers in France have their income tax automatically taken out of their wages each month by their employers, as is the case in most other European countries, rather than...

Fourteen climate researchers, including six from U.S. universities, have been selected for French President Emmanuel Macron’s “Make Our Planet Great Again” initiative. The scientists applied to move to France to carry out climate science projects in the country’s top research laboratories. The selected researchers include some of America’s brightest scientific talents: Alexey Fedorov, a Yale professor and Guggenheim fellow, and James Clark, a Duke University climate expert, according to a press release Wednesday from France’s Ministry of Higher Education and Research. The applicants’ projects, covering a range of topics including Arctic climate change and improving air quality, are expected to...

WASHINGTON — America's allies in Europe are plotting ways to bypass President Donald Trump's sanctions on Iran as they work to keep the nuclear deal alive without the United States. With a second round of U.S. sanctions set to take effect in November, European officials are working at cross-purposes with Trump's "maximum pressure" campaign as they try to preserve as much business as possible with Iran. The goal is to persuade Iran's leaders to stay in the deal for a few more years — perhaps long enough for Trump to be replaced and for a new U.S. president to rejoin...

On August 27, fierce battles erupted in Tripoli's districts after the Seventh Brigade, an armed group based in Tarhouna, 65km southeast of the capital, launched a surprise offensive against rival militias. A truce was reached the next day but clashes resumed shortly after, forcing authorities to close Tripoli's only functioning airport. … On Monday, the social media website Facebook was blocked in Tripoli and the surrounding cities. Libyan utility LPTIC, which owns the two state-run telecoms firms, said in a statement that a lack of security had led to outages. Maintenance engineers were unable to reach some stations which had...

Earlier, the former US Secretary of State said that President Trump’s decision in May to leave the 2015 Iran nuclear deal “weakens our security, breaks America’s word [and] isolates us from our European allies.” In an interview with CBS’ “Face the Nation”, former US Secretary of State John Kerry berated President Donald Trump for having described the Iran nuclear accord, or the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) as the “worst deal ever.” “Unfortunately — and I say this sadly — more often than not, he really just doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He makes things up. And he’s...

"We are close to a historic turning point at the continental level. I am astonished at the stupor of a political left that now exists only to challenge others and believes that Milan should not host the president of a European country, as if the left has the authority to decide who has the right to speak and who does not -- and then they wonder why no one votes for them anymore." — Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini. "This is the first of a long series of meetings to change destinies, not only of Italy and of Hungary, but...

Africa's population is soon going to "double" and "whatever the circumstances" will mass migrate to Europe -- "and that is a good thing," according to the executive director of Bono's "ONE" NGO. "As Africa's population doubles, a lot of them, whatever the circumstances, will be coming to Europe, as economic migrants or as refugees, they will be coming, many of them," ONE co-founder Jamie Drummond told the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade and Defence last year. "And that is a good thing." "Because we will be senile," Drummond said. "We will be senescent demographically. We'll need their youthful...

EU Trade Commissioner Gives Ground: We’re Willing To Drop Auto Tariffs To Zero (If The US Will Do The Same)(Full Title) President Trump’s hard line on tariffs has won a significant concession from the European Union, at least the promise of one. Trump has been warning all summer that he could add a tariff on automobile imports which would have a significant impact on automakers in Europe (as well as Japan and Mexico). Today the European Union Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom said the EU was willing to drop all of its existing tariffs on cars and other goods to zero...

This month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan intimated that his country might consider leaving NATO. Meanwhile, on a visit to Moscow last week, Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu referred to Russia as a “strategic partner”—a first. This talk is empty. Erdogan may well be angry at Washington, but ultimately, Ankara is going to have to do whatever it takes to restore its ties with the West. Doing so might not be enough to pull the country out of its economic crisis, but Erdogan has few other options if he wants to avoid a potentially worse political meltdown: He depends too...

While John McCain's 2009 running mate Sarah Palin is being excluded from his funeral services, the man she ran against, former Democrat Vice-President Joe Biden is very much involved. A longtime US Senator, Biden eulogized Senator McCain at a Thursday memorial service in Phoenix saying he always thought of McCain "as a brother"..... At least seven are dead after a tractor-trailer crashed head-on into a packed Greyhound bus along Interstate 40 in northwestern New Mexico..... LATE WORD FROM AMSTERDAM OF A FRIDAY KNIFE ATTACK AT AMSTERDAM'S CENTRAL TRAIN STATION TWO REPORTED INJURED AND THE ATTACKER SHOT BY POLICE AND ARRESTED....

The Trump administration has decided to cancel all U.S. funding of the United Nations aid program for Palestinian refugees, part of its determination to put its money where its policy is as it seeks a recalculation of U.S. foreign aid spending and prepares its own Israeli-Palestinian peace plan. In an announcement to be made within the next several weeks, the administration plans to voice its disapproval of the way the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, spends the funds and to call for a sharp reduction in the number of Palestinians recognized as refugees, dropping it from more than...