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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is closing the Palestine Liberation Organization’s mission in Washington, the latest U.S. blow against the Palestinians and an international court during the stalled Mideast peace process. Some things to know: THE GIST The administration’s move to close the PLO office in Washington is not directly connected to the Trump White House’s opposition to the International Criminal Court, although the administration is trying to link them. But the Trump administration is trotting out discussions about the two on the same day — Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year — in a move certain to inflame...

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...

Former US president Bill Clinton says he is concerned about the impact Brexit will have on the Belfast Agreement. Speaking on the Pat Kenny Show on Newstalk, he said he was “most worried about the Good Friday Agreement, because I care so much about Ireland.” As president, Mr. Clinton played a key role in negotiating the peace process in 1998 which helped to end 30 years of violence in the North. […] “Even though Northern Ireland’s kept the peace, and there’s still cranes in Belfast where work is going in and the Irish economy is back to where it was...

The study, published in the journal Leadership, suggests that the Republicans viewed Trump as strongly representing what they stand for creating party unity and success in the election. Hillary Clinton may have lost out to Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential elections because the Democrats were too willing to welcome others with differing views into their party, a study has found. The study, published in the journal Leadership, suggests that the Republicans viewed Trump as strongly representing what they stand for creating party unity and success in the election. However, Democrats' greater inclusiveness and willingness to integrate members of...

Boris Johnson has attacked Theresa May's Brexit plan, saying she had "wrapped a suicide vest" around the British constitution and "handed the detonator" to Brussels. Writing in the "Mail On Sunday", the former Foreign Secretary said the Chequers deal had opened the UK to "perpetual political blackmail". Mr. Johnson quit his post in July after the plan was agreed by the cabinet.....

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....

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) on Friday raised the prospect that the London-based professor who told former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos that Russia had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton may be dead.DNC lawyers wrote in court filings Friday that Joseph Mifsud, who spoke to Papadopoulos during the 2016 presidential election, "is missing and may be deceased," Bloomberg News reported. The lawyers did not elaborate. The DNC stood by its claim in a statement to The Hill on Friday. The committee indicated that an investigator had been used to find Mifsud, who had disappeared for months, and was told the Maltese...

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...

The UK Labour Party has been charged with spewing anti-Semitic sentiments in recent years. In a 2013 speech at the Palestinian Return Center in London, for instance, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the following: Where, then, lies the grievance with Corbyn? At that meeting on Sunday, Jewish Labourites were not opposing the party leader for championing the Palestinians. They were opposing him for, to take one example, his 2013 attack on a group of “Zionists” he’d encountered, where he tackled them not on their arguments but on ethnic grounds, noting that despite “having lived in this country for a very...

British authorities on Wednesday indicted two men for the March chemical-weapons attack on a former Russian double agent on British soil. The new details add to the evidence that Vladimir Putin’s regime is responsible, but its reckless methods are the real stunner. Police and prosecutors allege the men they identify as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov—almost certainly pseudonyms—arrived at London’s Gatwick airport on Friday, March 2, smuggling the weapons-grade nerve agent Novichok in a small counterfeit perfume bottle. They ferried the chemical on suburban trains and the Tube through central London to a hotel, where nonfatal quantities of Novichok were...

A meeting at the UN Security Council today will discuss the nerve agent incidents in the Salisbury region of England earlier this year that killed one and sickened three others. The UN Security Council will discuss Syria on Friday..... The United States is chairing the Security Council this month and Nikki Haley has already chaired a meeting on the crackdown against opposition protesters by the government of Nicaragua.... "TREASON?" President Trump tweeted last evening in response to an anonymous op-ed piece in the "New York Times" said to be from a top Administration official.... In Sweden, the final poll from...

SOFIA (Reuters) — French President Emmanuel Macron ruled out on Thursday any trade war with the United States over its withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear deal as a wave of European companies quit business with Tehran, fearing the global reach of U.S. sanctions. European Union leaders united behind the 2015 accord, and Brussels announced it would launch a legal process banning EU-based firms from complying with the sanctions that U.S. President Donald Trump has reimposed on Iran. However, corporations face the choice of trading with the biggest economy in the world, the United States, or with Iran, risking sanctions and...

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...

Russian and Syrian aircraft attacked opposition targets in northern Syria Tuesday with a ground offensive anticipated in the region in coming days. Behind the Syrian government lines in northern Syria there was an Israeli air attack with Syria saying five missiles were intercepted by air defenses.... The British have just rolled out pictures of two Russians they claim were involved in the nerve agent incident.... Tropical Storm Gordon came ashore on the Gulf Coast last night near the Alabama-Mississippi border with gusty winds and heavy rains..... A big hurricane is building up in the Atlantic Ocean... At least 10 are...

This weekend, the WikiLeaks Twitter account claimed that cybersecurity expert Arjen Kamphuis went missing on August 20, two days before he was scheduled to fly to Amsterdam. This comes amid concerns about the security of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is about to end his six-year self-imposed confinement in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Norwegian police have opened an investigation into the disappearance of Arjen Kamphuis, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's associate, who was last seen in the northern Norwegian town of Bodo on August 20. ...

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...

After a long, hot summer beset by record temperatures, drought and deadly fires, imagine my shock, on returning to the European parliament, to be confronted with a report that denies the reality of climate change. Some of the claims made by the report’s author, the Ukip MEP Stuart Agnew, are pretty hair-raising. For instance, he claims that the effect of CO2 levels on our climate is “negligible”, and that it is “one of agriculture’s greatest friends”. Agnew claims there is a lack of concentration of CO2 and as a result there is no problem for the EU to solve. So...

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...