Norway's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has proposed a bill to ban trade with Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine, declaring them an impediment to peace.
The Norwegian government said on Friday that it had submitted a bill with legally binding stipulations for consultation. The proposal recommends prohibiting Norwegian citizens and companies from profiting from or supporting Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise.
“The Israeli settlements in Palestine are in violation of international law. They contribute to displacement, extreme violence and a development that makes a peaceful solution impossible. We will prohibit trade with the illegal settlements,” Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said in a press release.
The Israeli government has built illegal settlements at a rapid pace, undermining the prospects of a Palestinian state.
The proposal follows a parliamentary resolution and would ban Norwegian exports to, and importation of goods from, Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
'This must end': Norway moves to cut trade with illegal Israeli settlements
Trump unveils new plane for Air Force One, a gift from Qatar
President Trump unveiled the new Qatari-gifted Air Force One plane on Friday, saying it will fly “further and faster” than any other model of presidential plane.
Trump toured the renovated Boeing jet at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland.
“There will never be one like this. This is very unique. This is considered the world’s most luxurious plane,” the president said. “When it was built, it was built at a level that will probably never be seen again.”
The plane features a new color scheme — red, white, gold and navy blue, a change from the two-toned lighter blues. It features the presidential seal on the left side and has a massive waving American flag on its tail.
The aircraft, designated by the Air Force as VC-25B, is expected to be a “bridge” aircraft in use between the aging Boeing 747-200s that have been used for more than two decades and the two new Boeing planes that were expected in 2024 but won’t be ready until 2028.
'We have lost': Trump's Iran pact seen as a strategic defeat in Washington
Imperial Germany famously signed a treaty under humiliating terms to end WWI at Versailles, codifying a surrender despite the fact that the war was overwhelmingly fought beyond its borders.
Likewise, Iran never got close to US shores during the war, and did not need to.
Its missile and drone attacks depleted the US’s stockpile of air defence interceptors to dangerous levels, while its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz drained Washington’s strategic oil reserve to a forty-year low and starved the global economy of fossil fuels.
The world was facing an “economic catastrophe”, US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday. The US president ended up signing a deal with Iran, at the same French palace where Germany and its foes ended WWI.
The Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the US and Iran ushers in 60 days of negotiations to reach a permanent end to the war started by the US and Israel. In Washington, both supporters and opponents have called the deal a debacle - even if they agree with ending the war on the MoU’s terms.
In Campaign to Seize More of Gaza, Israel Expands Attacks on Palestinians Near “Yellow Line”
Mustafa Al-Shawa awoke at 2:30 a.m. on Monday to the sound of gunfire and the rumble of tanks in Al-Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City. When he was finally able to go outside a few hours later, he found two yellow concrete blocks placed in the middle of the street—the Israeli military had moved them at least one hundred meters further west into Gaza where they now lay close to his home.
“They moved the yellow line forward to the Sanafour Junction. It used to be up by Al-Shaaaf Street,” Al-Shawa told Drop Site News. “This is the yellow line,” he said, pointing to the blocks. “There is another yellow line along Salah Al-Din Street that they have moved closer. Enough of what is happening to us. Enough of this suffering.”
Israel has been steadily encroaching further into Gaza, moving the “yellow line” that demarcates its area of control from 53% of the enclave since the start of the so-called ceasefire in October to well over 60%, in violation of the agreement. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently ordered the army to take 70%.
“We can’t leave the neighborhood because there is nowhere to go,” Al-Shawa said. “If we leave the area we’re in now, we’ll end up sleeping in the streets, in filth. There is no place left. Where are we supposed to go?”
Along certain parts of Gaza, Israeli troops have placed yellow concrete blocks to delineate the new border. Their placement of the blocks further west into the Al-Tuffah neighborhood on Friday accompanied by gunfire, tanks, and quadcopter attacks caused dozens of Palestinians in the area to pack up their belongings and flee later that day.
Iran dealt Israel a crushing defeat and vindicated America's anti-war majority
Following the announcement of a memorandum of understanding between Iran and the United States, it is time to revisit some criminal documents.
Back in early March, as Israel mobilised all its American cards to launch a war on Iran, Zionist writer Bret Stephens, who has a regular column in The New York Times, where he fervently defends an Israel that trains dogs to rape human beings - published his bucket list of what he wished Israel and the US should achieve against what he thought would soon be a defeated Iran.
With the immediate cessation of hostilities between Iran and the US, it is time to revisit that gaudy, delusional and unhinged column.
Stephens envisaged four scenarios of Israeli victory against Iran. The first was regime change, which he thought "nobody should discount, especially if Iran continues to be battered militarily and politically, perhaps with the loss of additional echelons of leadership".
Explosions Rock Kyiv, Poltava as Russia Launches Ballistic Missile Attack
Kyiv came under repeated Russian attacks in the early hours of Thursday, as ballistic missile threats were followed by a new wave of strike drones, Ukrainian officials said.
Ukraine’s Air Force initially warned of a “ballistic threat from the north,” prompting air alerts in Kyiv and several other regions. Authorities urged residents to move to shelters and remain there until the all-clear.
The first missile threat was briefly lifted at 12:58 a.m., but at 1:22 a.m. the military again declared a missile danger. Shortly afterward, the Air Force reported several ballistic missiles heading toward the capital and Poltava region.
A series of powerful explosions was heard in Kyiv at around 1:24 a.m. Explosions were also reported in Poltava. a city in central Ukraine.
‘At first, the idea does sound crazy’: meet the scientists trying to refreeze the Arctic
‘This would have been a wild dream a year ago,” says Andrea Ceccolini, standing on Arctic sea ice just a 4-mile snowmobile ride from the Inuit town of Cambridge Bay, northern Canada. To his left are sky blue ponds of meltwater created in the last few days by a sun that no longer sets in the high north summer. To his right, the sea ice is still a brilliant white, the light dusting of snow on top continuing to sparkle.
“It’s incredibly different, the boundary – I mean, you can point to it,” he says. The difference is the result of a bold geoengineering experiment being conducted by Ceccolini’s company, Real Ice, funded by the UK government.
Five months earlier, the team had braved temperatures of -40C on the sea ice to drill holes and pump 50,000 tonnes of ocean water up on to its surface. It froze almost immediately, thickening the 1.5-metre-deep ice by about 50cm, according to the new measurements.
That has protected the ice, at the start of the melt season at least, and is an early sign that one day, perhaps, it may be possible to refreeze a significant part of the Arctic.
Illegal settlements promoted in London at Great Israeli Real Estate Event
A Middle East Eye investigation can reveal details of properties advertised in occupied Palestinian territory, including illegal Israeli settlements, at the Great Israeli Real Estate Event on Sunday.
This comes after London Mayor Sadiq Khan said on Friday he had discussed the event with the Metropolitan Police, and that he had been "informed that any allegations of criminality relating to the potentially unlawful sale of property at the event would be assessed by the Met with a view to investigation".
MEE revealed details last week of companies set to participate in the event which had extensive links to illegal Israeli settlements.
On Sunday MEE saw numerous photos from the event, which was held at the Edgware United Synagogue.
The company Jerusalem Real Estate (JRE) advertised projects in French Hill and Ramat Eshkol, illegal settlements in occupied East Jerusalem, in a brochure at the event.
Abdullah Ibrahim, quiet giant of the jazz piano, has died at 91
Abdullah Ibrahim, the South African jazz pianist deemed his country's equivalent to Mozart by Nelson Mandela, died Monday in his adopted home of Germany after a short illness. He was 91 years old.
"Abdullah passed away peacefully with South Africa and its people in his heart," his partner, Marina Umari, said in a statement. "His love for his country never wavered, no matter where in the world he found himself."
In an extraordinarily accomplished career that spanned eight decades, Ibrahim helped bring bebop stylings to South Africa, and he bonded with Duke Ellington, who produced one of his early, influential recordings. In his later years, he became an idol and an inspiration to new generations of jazz pianists.
Abdullah Ibrahim was born Adolph Johannes Brand in 1934. His mother was a pianist at their church, and he began taking piano lessons at the age of 7. By the time he was 15, he was playing professionally — billed as Dollar Brand — and in the late '50s formed a group, the Jazz Epistles, that featured trumpeter Hugh Masekela. In January 1960, the group recorded Jazz Epistle Verse One, the first jazz album by an all-Black South African jazz ensemble.
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