Pressure On Palestine, Tweet War, Migrant Family Reunited

“If we learn nothing else from this tragedy, we learn that life is short and there is no time for hate.” —Sandy Dahl, wife of Flight 93 pilot Jason Dahl

President Puts Pressure (P)on Palestine: The Trump administration ramped up pressure against Palestine Monday when it ordered the closure of the Palestine Liberation Organization office in Washington because the PLO “has not taken steps to advance the start of direct and meaningful negotiations with Israel.” President Trump had threatened to close the office, which operates as a de facto embassy, last year after Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas delivered a speech at the UN that called on the International Criminal Court ( ICC) to investigate and prosecute Israeli citizens for alleged crimes against Palestinians. The PA governs Palestinian territories in the West Bank. Monday’s announcement follows an extended period of estrangement between the PA and Washington after the administration recognized Jerusalem last December as the capital of Israel, and later canceled most US aid to Palestinians.

The order to close the PLO office occurs just three days before the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Oslo Accords on September 13, 1993. That historic pact by Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat launched the peace process that paved the way for the PLO to open its Washington office in 1994.The decision to close the office, along with increased attacks against the ICC, highlights a number of international cooperation agreements President Trump has challenged, including withdrawing from the Iran deal and the UN human rights body, threatening to pull out of the World Trade Organization, and stopping funding for the UN body that aids Palestinian refugees. Neither the US nor Israel ratified the 2002 international treaty that established the ICC, which is based in The Hague. The Trump administration has questioned whether the court has jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute US citizens for actions in Afghanistan, because Afghan, US and US military law all could apply in different situations. Additionally it contends Palestinians violated US law by seeking prosecution of Israel at the ICC.

Eulogy For A Friend: Washington Post’s foreign correspondent covering Afghanistan, Pamela Constable, delivers a sad eulogy for her friend, a young Afghani journalist “with a different kind of courage”, who was killed Wednesday by a bomb blast near a club in Kabul. (WaPo)

Sweden’s governing center-left Social Democrats dodged a bullet after Sunday’s national elections. It was the largest single-vote-getter with 28.4 percent, followed by the center-right Moderate Party with 19.8 percent. Third place went to the far-right Sweden Democrats at 17.6 percent, which was up from 12.9 percent in 2014, but less of a showing than predicted.

The red-green bloc of center-left, leftist and environmental parties, led by the Social Democrats, had 40.6 percent of the vote. The center-right alliance, led by the Moderates, was just behind with 40.3 percent. The results mean neither bloc can command a majority in Parliament, and both have rejected the idea of any deal with the Sweden Democrats. (NYT)

Green With Envy: In 2009 industrialized nations pledged to mobilize $100 billion a year by 2020 to help the poorest countries deal with climate change. But out of the $10.3 billion pledged to a UN program called the Green Climate Fund, only $3.5 billion has been actually committed. The US had pledged $3 billion to the fund, and President Obama delivered $1 billion of that. Then last year President Trump cancelled the remaining $2 billion that had been promised. (NYT)

BYOM (Bring Your Own Missiles): North Korea celebrated the 70th anniversary of its founding Sunday with a huge military parade in Pyongyang, complete with artillery vehicles and goose-stepping soldiers, but no long-range ballistic missiles. (NYT)

– “‘Children jailed as adults’ seek justice from Australia: More than 120 Indonesians who say Australia wrongly jailed them as adults – when in fact they were children – have launched a bid for compensation.” (BBC)

– “Vostok 2018 war games will be Russia’s largest since 1981, Kremlin says: The massive military exercise will involve a military contingent from China.” (NBC)– “North Korea tries to play Beijing and Washington against each other — and come out the winner” (WaPo)

Tweet War: Bob Woodward’s new book “Fear: Trump in the White House” hits bookstores Tuesday. In an interview with CBS, Woodward describes the moment that was the most dangerous point of the president’s standoff with North Korea. Trump was prepared to send a tweet that would have been seen by Pyongyang as signaling an imminent US attack. “He drafts a tweet saying ‘We are going to pull our dependents from South Korea – family members of the 28,000 people there,’” Woodward said, referring to families of US troops stationed on the Korean peninsula. A back-channel message from the North Koreans about how they would interpret the tweet put the kibosh on it, but as Woodward says: “At that moment there was a sense of profound alarm in the Pentagon leadership that, ‘My God, one tweet and we have reliable information that the North Koreans are going to read this as ‘an attack is imminent.’” (Guardian)

Migrant Family Reunited: An 11 year old Guatemalan boy is starting fifth grade in Oregon, but he doesn’t want to tell his new American classmates how he spent his summer. That’s because he and his seven year old sister were placed with a foster family in New York after the Trump administration arrested his mother in Texas near the Mexican border and separated them from her. This family has been reunited for the present, but they await a hearing before an immigration judge where only 20 percent of asylum cases heard are accepted. The administration says all but about 400 children have been reunited with relatives. (NYT)

– “Giant Trap Is Deployed to Catch Plastic Littering the Pacific Ocean: A 2,000-foot-long floating boom, designed by the Ocean Cleanup, a nonprofit, will be used to corral plastics littering the Pacific Ocean.” (NYT)

– “NYC Subway Station Reopens 17 Years After It Was Destroyed During Sept. 11 Attacks: WTC Cortlandt subway station reopened in New York on Saturday, nearly 17 years after it was destroyed during the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.” (NPR)

– “Miss America 2019: Miss Michigan criticises Flint water crisis: A contestant in Sunday’s Miss America competition has been commended on social media for using her brief introduction to draw attention to the Flint water crisis.” (BBC)

– “Could Nasa’s James Webb Space Telescope detect alien life?: If it does launch as currently scheduled in 2021, it will be 14 years late. When finally in position, though – orbiting the Sun 1.5 million km from Earth – Nasa’s James Webb Space Telescope promises an astronomical revolution.” (BBC)

– “Tesla workers speak out: ‘Anything pro-union is shut down really fast’: Elon Musk has said he is ‘neutral’ about a union but former employees blame their firing on their efforts to organize while current workers say a ‘culture of fear’ persists” Elon drops it faster than he dropped his plans to help Flint. (Guardian)

– “’Tone deaf’ Playboy Club opens in New York, defying the #MeToo era: Club to open more than 30 years after Hefner declared Bunnies ‘a symbol of the past’ and 32 years after the city’s original closed” We only go to the Playboy Club for the menu. (Guardian)

– “‘Palau against China!’: the tiny island standing up to a giant: Archipelago is refusing to switch diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to China, despite a huge downturn in its tourism industry” (Guardian)

– “California Teenagers Could Sleep Later Under School Start Bill: …for decades, some doctors, educators and even politicians have been pushing for middle school and high school to start later.” (NYT)

– “How ‘Plaid Shirt Guy’ Got Prime Seating at a Trump Rally: Tyler Linfesty became known as Plaid Shirt Guy after he was captured on camera looking visibly skeptical during parts of President Trump’s speech in Billings, Mont., on Thursday.” He’s eyebrow raising what we’re all thinking. (NYT)

– “What’s driving the rise of the McVegan burger?: An overwhelming hunger for more vegan food is pushing even the fast-food giants to adapt.” Made with 100% fresh never frozen compliance. (BBC)

– “Huge gold-encrusted rocks unearthed in Australia: Miners in Western Australia say they have discovered two huge gold-encrusted rocks that are each estimated to be worth millions of dollars.” There’s gold up in them down unders! (BBC)

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