Israel is prepared to open its side of the crossing point with Syria following the return of UN peacekeepers to the Golan Heights following a four-year absence, the army said. Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman "authorised the reopening of the Alpha gate of the Quneitra crossing between Israel and Syria, allowing the UN to resume activity via the crossing pending Syria's reopening their side," it said in a statement Saturday.
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JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — The sun had just slipped behind the mountains, leaving a soft pink glow as the blue sea melted into the darkening horizon. It could have been a video postcard from a tropical paradise, except for the long white wave stretching the width of the bay — getting larger and closer with each passing second.
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Tesla has promised to revolutionize the automobile, but the high-end electric car maker keeps hitting road blocks created by its founder Elon Musk's erratic behavior and considerable ego. The settlement, which will leave the 47-year-old overseeing Tesla's daily operations, provides at least a momentary reprieve from the company's many challenges -- including Musk's own sometimes counterproductive instincts. Tesla is at something of a turning point.
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North Korea has said it cannot unilaterally give up its nuclear weapons and attacked the US for failing do more to build a relationship of trust. In a speech before the United Nations General Assembly in New York, North Korea’s foreign minister, Ri Yong Ho, said Pyongyang had in the last year taken “significant goodwill measures”. This included stopping nuclear and missiles tests, dismantling the nuclear test site, and pledging not to proliferate nuclear weapons and nuclear technology.
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The opening salvos of the trade war between the US and China were deafening, and while the battle is far from over, a rift between the countries may be beneficial to Beijing in the long term, experts say. Donald Trump, the US President, fired the first warning earlier this year by taxing key Chinese exports including solar panels, steel and aluminium. The most significant escalation rolled in this week with new tariffs affecting $200 billion (£150 billion) worth of items, effectively taxing half of all goods coming into the US from China. Beijing has retaliated each time in kind, most recently slapping tariffs of five to ten per cent on $60 billion of American goods. China has pledged to match the US shot-for-shot, and the world’s second largest economy is unlikely to blink anytime soon. Getting Washington to back down means caving into demands, but publicly bowing to the US would be far too embarrassing for Xi Jinping, China’s president. Still, experts say if Beijing can play its cards right, US trade war pressures could positively support China over the long term by lowering the inter-dependence of the two economies. “The fact that a quick political decision in either Washington or Beijing could create the conditions that start an economic tailspin in either country is actually a lot more dangerous than onlookers have acknowledged before,” said Abigail Grace, a research associate who focuses on Asia at the Center for New American Security, a think tank. Ambrose: China - US trade war “From both Trump and Xi, you’ve seen a willingness to engage in more head-to-head economic warfare, and that increases risk overall… that degree of leverage for either is not particularly helpful or productive.” For instance, the US implemented in April a seven-year ban on exports to Chinese telecom firm ZTE after learning it didn’t abide by a previous settlement agreement for violating trade sanctions. ZTE announced weeks after it planned to “cease major operating activities” because of financial consequences from the ban. Trump later tweeted he was working with Mr Xi to get ZTE back on its feet; the ban was lifted. That a Chinese company could be tanked by one decision indicates an unhealthy level of interdependence, Ms Grace said. Along those lines, she said it would be equally disastrous for the US if China started blocking shipments for items manufactured in the country crucial to American supply chains like parts for Apple's iPhone. Donald Trump's trade war is all about containing rampant China Thus the trade war could “force China to build a more vertically integrated supply chain within the country,” said Damien Ma, an economist and associate director at the Paulson Institute, a think tank. Doing so would allow China control from beginning to end, whether assembling widgets or dealing with more advanced technologies. “That’s a great outcome for China.” This is not lost on Mr Xi. “Internationally, it’s becoming more and more difficult [for China] to obtain advanced technologies and key know-how,” he said this week. “Unilateralism and trade protectionism are rising, forcing us to adopt a self-reliant approach; this is not a bad thing.” To properly do this, however, China needs to move away from supporting its wasteful, inefficient state-owned enterprises and support the private sector, said Nicholas Lardy, a China specialist and senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. While that’s easier said than done, Beijing has long known it would have to allow economic growth to mature away from manufacturing and exports and toward services sectors. In perspective | Emerging markets This could lead to more jobs created that are a better fit than factory gigs for China’s increasingly savvy middle class and growing numbers of university graduates, Ms Grace said. Plus, as Mr Trump continues to bellow and bully other nations, China may even be seen as “more politically stable,” Mr Ma said. One potential impact of that, he thinks, is the yuan becoming favored over the dollar as the reliable currency of choice for investments and transactions. China has long wanted to boost the role of its currency on the global stage. A report released this week by the European Central Bank that simulated the impact of the trade war echoed similar sentiments. It suggested the US would suffer from the brunt of diminished trade and deteriorating business and consumer confidence, whereas China could supplement lost trade with the US by selling to other countries. China is “giving a real, clear alternative - a choice,” Mr Ma said. “Before, even if you didn’t like the US, there wasn’t much of a choice, but China - even if you don’t like them that much … they are increasingly saying, we are a legitimate choice; we do offer things that you want and need”.
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It would be a few years before I learned to call non-consensual drunken sex “rape” and years more before I understood that all those nights I spent tipping back red Solo cups in fraternity basements were part of a larger culture of sexual assault.
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Britain is due to leave the European Union on March 29, 2019, but the terms of the departure remain unclear. In an interview with the Sunday Times newspaper ahead of her party's conference, May took aim at those who have scorned her "Chequers" Brexit proposals accusing them of "playing politics" with Britain’s future and undermining the national interest. "Unlike the prime minister I fought for this, I believe in it, I think it’s the right thing for our country and I think that what is happening now is, alas, not what people were promised in 2016." May says her "Chequers" proposals are the only viable option, but EU leaders have said parts of them are unacceptable and many Conservative lawmakers have threatened to vote down a deal based on May's blueprint.
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North Korea's foreign minister has warned of increasing "mistrust" between Pyongyang and Washington DC, announcing that his country would not take the first steps towards denuclearisation without further guarantees from the Trump administration. Ri Yong-ho, addressing the United Nations general assembly on Saturday, said North Korea was growing frustrated at the slow progress since the June summit between Donald Trump, the US president, and Kim Jong-un, North Korea's leader. Mr Kim has said he would permanently dismantle North Korea's main nuclear complex, but only if the United States takes unspecified corresponding measures, and he promised to accept international inspectors to monitor the closing of a key missile test site and launch pad. But Mr Ri said the North has not seen "see any corresponding response" from Washington - only an increasing emphasis on sanctions. Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, and Ri Yong-ho in Singapore in August "The perception that sanctions can bring us on our knees is a pipe dream of the people who are ignorant of us," he said, adding that the continued sanctions are "deepening our mistrust" and deadlocking the current diplomacy. "Without any trust in the US, there will be no confidence in our national security. "Under such circumstances there is no way we will unilaterally disarm ourselves first." Yet Mr Ri's comments were markedly different in tone from previous years, when the North lashed out after Mr Trump threatened to "totally destroy" the country. His speech was clearly meant to push a wary United States to agree to a declaration formally ending the Korean War, which ended with a ceasefire, not a peace treaty. Washington is wary of endorsing such a declaration, which could lead to a formal peace treaty. Mr Ri said that fully implementing the Singapore agreements - which were left vague - would mean the "current trend toward detente will turn into durable peace and the complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula. "The Korean Peninsula, the hottest spot in the globe, will become the cradle of peace and prosperity."
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Instead, they were among the thousands of items left by the grieving near the site of the largest mass shooting in modern American history. Stephen Paddock, 64, a retired real estate investor, poured gunfire from his 32nd-floor hotel suite into a crowd of 20,000 people attending the Route 91 Harvest festival last Oct. 1, then killed himself before police stormed his room. After the carnage, scores of Las Vegas residents and visitors placed an eclectic array of offerings in various areas of the gambling mecca, including the traffic island that’s home to the iconic “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign.
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Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh has reportedly contributed $10,000 to a GoFundMe campaign in support of Dr Christine Blasey Ford and her family. Mr Lesh is said to have made the donation to the campaign “Help Christine Blasey Ford” on Sunday 23 September, before Ms Ford testified to the US Senate Judiciary Committee over allegations that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a party when she was 15 years old. Lesh did not initially publicise his donation.
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Germany had invited Erdogan for the three-day state visit in an attempt to mend ties hit by a crackdown on his opponents following a failed coup in 2016, hoping to secure the release of several of its citizens who remain in detention. Chancellor Angela Merkel said after meeting Erdogan on Friday that "deep divisions" remain. On Saturday in Cologne, the Turkish leader sought to strike a conciliatory note.
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N'Djamena (AFP) - Six people, including two soldiers, died in an overnight Boko Haram attacks near Lake Chad, security and army sources said on Saturday, saying Chadian troops had killed 17 assailants in a counter-offensive. Three forestry officials and a customs officer and two soldiers were killed in attacks on Moussarom and Ngueleya located in the Lake Chad region, south of Baga Sola, a security source told AFP. Chadian army spokesman Colonel Azam said "17 Boko Haram members have been killed" although he put the civilian death toll at three instead of four.
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Some, like Jennifer Maher, said they feel unsafe in their Camp Lejeune homes but were told they will not be moved because assessment crews determined their houses are habitable. Another 267 suffered sustained damage but were habitable.
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Beijing and Washington are locked in a trade war that has seen them impose increasingly severe rounds of tariffs on each other's imports. The operation was the latest attempt to counter what Washington sees as Beijing’s efforts to limit freedom of navigation in the strategic waters, where Chinese, Japanese and some Southeast Asian navies operate. China’s claims in the South China Sea, through which about $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes each year, are contested by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.
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Iraq's foreign ministry voiced "regret" on Saturday over a US decision to shut its consulate in the southern city of Basra which has been rocked by weeks of deadly protests. "The ministry regrets the American decision to pull its staff out of Basra," a statement said. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo ordered all but emergency staff to leave Basra, with consular duties to be taken over by the embassy in Baghdad.
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Thousands of demonstrators hit the streets of Cologne Saturday as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan opened one of Europe's largest mosques at the end of his visit to Germany, with police out in force to manage rival rallies. The inauguration capped a controversial three-day state visit aimed at repairing frayed ties with Berlin after two years of tensions. During his stay in Berlin, Erdogan met twice with Angela Merkel for talks, with both leaders signalling their interest in a cautious rapprochement.
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