Corona Pandemic: Israel was down to a handful of daily COVID cases. Now it's around 11,000. What happened?

Just months ago, Israel was a world leader in vaccinating its population and appeared to be putting a stranglehold on the virus that causes COVID-19, wrestling down its daily case count to double digits — and at times, near zero.

But any potential celebration was short-lived, as the more contagious delta variant gained traction and spread quickly, to the point where Israel's most recent daily case count was around 11,000 — a level not seen since January.

Read more at: Israel was down to a handful of daily COVID cases. Now it's around 11,000. What happened? | CBC News

EU removes US from safe travel list as COVID infections rise

The European Union has recommended that the US, along with four other countries, be removed from its list of countries exempt from restrictions on non-essential travel.

"Israel, Kosovo, Lebanon, Montenegro, the Republic of North Macedonia and the United States of America were removed from the list," a statement from the European Council said.

Read more at: EU removes US from safe travel list as COVID infections rise | News | DW | 30.08.2021

US Elections: Trump's Turkish Ally Erdogan and other populists/authoritarian leaders around the world Stay Mum on Biden Victory

Erdogan, along with the leaders of Russia, Israel, Iran, Hungary, Saudi Arabia and China, offered no initial congratulations to the president-elect.

Read more at: Trump's Turkish Ally Erdogan Stays Mum on Biden Victory | Greek Reporter Europe

Whatsapp; discovers targeted attacks against the system

WhatsApp discovers 'targeted' surveillance attack against the system.

Read more at :

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-48262681

EU-Israel relations: EU rejects public call to ban Israeli settler products

Read more at:
https://euobserver.com/foreign/144767

Middle East: Israel strikes Iranian targets in Syria

Netanyahu confirms air strikes on Iranian targets in Syria Israel acknowledged on Sunday that it carried out a weekend air strike on what it called an Iranian arms cache in Syria.

Read more at:
http://www.france24.com/en/20190113-israel-claims-air-strike-iran-target-syria

Middle East: Iran threatens to block Strait of Hormuz over US oil sanctions - by Saeed Kamali Dehghan

A potential confrontation between the US and Iran is brewing in the Strait of Hormuz after Tehran threatened to block the Gulf passageway in retaliation for Washington’s looming sanctions against Iranian oil exports – a threat the US military said would be immediately countered.

The Trump administration is demanding all countries end imports of Iranian oil by 4 November as part of its new policy of hostility towards Tehran after Washington’s unilateral exit from the 2015 nuclear agreement.

Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, responded during a rare visit to Europe this week by signalling that Tehran could disrupt regional crude shipments and cut its cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog.

On Thursday the commander of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, whose forces patrol the Strait of Hormuz – through which one-fifth of the world’s oil passes in tankers – said the Guards were ready to put Rouhani’s words into action if necessary.

The US navy signalled it was ready to confront Tehran militarily in response.

Mohammad Ali Jafari, the Guards commander, was quoted by the semi-official Tasnim news agency as saying: “We will make the enemy understand that either everyone can use the Strait of Hormuz or no one.”

Bill Urban, a spokesman for US Central Command, said Washington and its allies provided security in the region and would not stand idly by. “Together, we stand ready to ensure the freedom of navigation and the free flow of commerce wherever international law allows,” he said.

The threats will bring back memories of the latter years of the 1980s Iran-Iraq war, when US forces attacked Iranian territorial waters after a US ship struck an Iranian mine.
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Rouhani returned to Tehran on Thursday after lobbying European leaders to deliver a robust rebuttal to the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal.

“The Americans have claimed they want to completely stop Iran’s oil exports. They don’t understand the meaning of this statement because it has no meaning for Iranian oil not to be exported while the region’s oil is exported,” Rouhani said this week in Switzerland.

“If you can do such a thing, do it and see the result,” Rouhani added in a threat that was lauded at home by the commander of the Quds force, Qassem Suleimani.

Rouhani had two overarching messages during his visit to Europe, Geranmayeh said. “First, Iran expects more concrete action from all parties to the nuclear agreement to sustain economic channels. Second, sustaining oil exports and market share is a red line for Iran.

“If Trump implements his threat to squeeze Iran’s oil exports, Tehran is prepared to escalate against the US to impose direct costs for global oil markets. This is a core issue of national security behind which there is growing backing from the political establishment.”

Despite the US’s withdrawal, the deal has not yet collapsed as Europe remains committed to salvaging it. Geranmayeh said Europe was expected to present a more concrete economic package to Iran during a ministerial meeting at the JCPOA’s joint commission on Friday.

Also at stake is Rouhani’s political career. The agreement is the moderate cleric’s main achievement in office, for which he was rewarded with a second term last year, but Trump’s antagonism towards Iran has empowered Rouhani’s hardline opponents at home, risking him becoming an early lame duck.

Trump’s hostility has compounded the country’s economic woes, while Iran is going through weeks of protests due to a currency crisis and environmental issues. Hardliners have started their onslaught on Rouhani, blaming his economic performance for the protests.

Note EU-Digest: some political analysts believe that one of the reasons Trump is meeting with Putin is also to find out how Russia would react in case the US and its two major allies in the Middle East, Israel and Saudi Arabia, attacked Iran.

 Read more: Iran threatens to block Strait of Hormuz over US oil sanctions | World news | The Guardian

EU diplomats plot against Trump on Jerusalem - by Andrew Rettman

EU diplomats in the Middle East will try to undermine Donald Trump's plan to establish Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

The blueprint for the EU counter-measures was contained in a confidential report filed by EU states' ambassadors in East Jerusalem and Ramallah, in Israeli-occupied Palestine, after the US president, on 6 December, unilaterally recognised Israel's claim to the holy city.

Trump's decision was "a fundamental shift in US policy", the 49-page EU report, seen by EUobserver, said.

"This is the first time that one of the final status issues has been subject to a policy change by a third party since the … Oslo Accords [in 1993]," the report added.

EU leaders should send out a "common message", the text said, that Europe will "continue to respect the international consensus" that Jerusalem should be shared by Israel and Palestine in a two-state solution.

EU states should also "ensure that the location of their diplomatic missions remains in line with its provisions on location until the final status of Jerusalem is resolved," the report said, after Trump promised to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

The EU report on Jerusalem is a yearly exercise meant to steer talks by ministers in Brussels.

The 2017 edition contained several new recommendations designed to hamper Trump's plan.

It urged EU capitals: to push their line on Jerusalem in all "bilateral and multilateral contacts" in 2018; to "unequivocally oppose" Israeli laws to alter the city's status; and to consider "development of further actions on distinguishing between the territory of the state of Israel and the occupied territories".

Previous EU actions included blocking grants for Israeli settler firms and publishing label guidelines for settler products in European retailers.

The 2017 report also called for "systematic media outreach in support of … [the] EU policy on Jerusalem".

It said high-level EU visits to the city should "ensure that logistics follow EU policy, e.g. through choice of hotel, change of transport between East and West", referring to Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem and Israel's West Jerusalem.

There was less violence in the city last year despite some "confrontations" between Palestinian protesters and Israeli police after Trump's announcement, the EU text noted.

Thirteen Palestinians and seven Israelis were killed in violent incidents in total in Jerusalem in 2017, compared to 23 people the year before, and 41 the year before that.

But Israeli settlers were seizing Palestinian land at a "record" pace "including in areas identified by the EU and its member states as [being] key to the two-state solution", the EU report warned.

Israel advanced plans for more than 3,000 housing units in East Jerusalem last year, it said.

This added to the 215,000 settlers who have moved there since Israel conquered it in 1967 to live among the 317,000 Palestinians who are still left.

"Developments in 2016 to 2017 indicate that the Israeli authorities are taking active measures to prepare for settlement expansion in [the E1] area," the EU ambassadors added, referring to a zone that would cut off East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank and cut the West Bank into two cantons if it fell into settlers' hands.

The EU said Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu had systematically ignored its appeals on the issue.

"International objections were met by more announcements [of settlement expansion]," the EU ambassadors said.

The diplomats painted a grim picture of life under Israeli occupation.

They spoke of Israel's "long-standing policy of political, economic, and social marginalisation" of Palestinians, which "worsened" last year and which caused the kind of "high levels of stress and depression" that were fertile ground for violence.

They condemned killings on both sides, but singled out Israeli soldiers for "excessive use of force".

They also said Palestinian economic activity in East Jerusalem halved over the past 10 years and that 75 percent of Palestinians now lived below the poverty line.

That figure rose to 84 percent among Palestinian children, half of whom dropped out of school.

"The city has largely ceased to be the Palestinian economic, urban, and commercial centre it used to be," the EU report said. 

Read more: EU diplomats plot against Trump on Jerusalem

Saudi Arabia: "the hypocrisy continues" as Trump and the Saudi king discuss major pact to confront Iran - by Ben Norton

"the hypocrisy continues"

President Donald Trump and the monarch of the repressive Saudi regime spoke on the phone for more than an hour on Sunday. According to a White House statement, “The two leaders reaffirmed the longstanding friendship and strategic partnership between the United States and Saudi Arabia.”

The official Saudi Press Agency reported that Trump and Saudi King Salman stressed the “depth and strength of the strategic relations between the two countries.”

The two agreed to greater military intervention in the Middle East, and the creation of so-called safe zones in Syria and Yemen. The details of how such zones would be created are not clear, but if they were instituted, it would likely take direct U.S. military involvement.

Hillary Clinton ran her 2016 presidential campaign against Trump on a pledge to create a “safe zone” in Syria, though she had previously acknowledged that instituting a safe zone could “kill a lot of Syrians” and lead to “American and NATO involvement where you take a lot of civilians.”

Reuters reported, citing a senior Saudi source, that the two leaders “agreed to step up counter-terrorism and military cooperation and enhance economic cooperation.”

The White House said Trump and Saudi King Salman also “agreed on the importance of strengthening joint efforts to fight the spread of radical Islamic terrorism.”

Saudi Arabia, a close U.S. ally since the 1930s, is a theocratic absolute monarchy that brutally represses all internal dissent, beheads nonviolent protesters and funds and spreads extremist Islamism throughout the globe. A leaked 2014 email from Hillary Clinton revealed, citing Western intelligence sources, that the U.S.-backed regimes in Saudi Arabia and Qatar supported the genocidal militant group ISIS.

Saudi Arabia also has the world’s second-largest oil reserves, plays a leading role in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and has been offered more than $115 billion in weapons deals by the U.S. government in the past eight years. U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia continue uninterrupted under Trump.

Note EU-Digest: Where there has been no difference between the Obama and Trump Administrations policies is in their both dedicated "love and admiration" for Saudi Arabia, the main source and training center for the worlds most dangerous terrorists, including those which masterminded and carried out the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the twin Towers in New York. 

Saudi Arabia is also one of the most oppressive, undemocratic and anti-women's rights countries in the world.  

They were, however, not included by the Trump Administration on their Ant-Muslim (possible Islamic terrorist) immigration list. 

The Obama Administration also never singled them out.  

So when you hear a US government official speak about "American values "- you might ask, what does he/she mean by that?

Read more: Trump and the Saudi king discuss major pact to confront Iran - Salon.com

Weapon dealers: ISIL ramps up fight with weaponised drones-weapns dealers should be arrested not protected

Why aren't the weapon dealers who sell terrorists weapons arrested?

As fighting raged in eastern Mosul on a recent afternoon, a black Humvee arrived at an Iraqi army command post with a collection of plastics, electronics and rotor blades lashed to its back.

Soldiers leaped to unload the cargo, which comprised the remnants of the latest tool in ISIL's armoury: drones.

The haul included a number of small devices of the kind favoured by filmmakers and hobbyists, costing a few hundred dollars apiece. But there were also larger, fixed-wing craft fashioned out of corrugated plastic and duct tape, apparently made by the fighters themselves.

Since mid-2014, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group has held Mosul, after sweeping through northern Iraq in a shock offensive.

It is now their last urban stronghold in the country, and for more than two months, the Iraqi army's operation to retake the city has met fierce resistance, including snipers, ambushes and suicide attacks using explosive-laden trucks. Drones have been used for reconnaissance and to relay instructions to suicide bombers, said General Abdul Wahab al-Saadi, a commander with the elite counterterrorism service in eastern Mosul.

"They use them to give directions to suicide car bombs coming towards us, as well as to take pictures of our forces," Saadi told Al Jazeera.

In the past, ISIL has used drones in Iraq and Syria for general intelligence-gathering, as spotters for mortar firing, and even for filming propaganda videos. Soldiers have regularly spotted these drones over army positions on the outskirts of Mosul, prompting bursts of gunfire skywards.

But there is a fresh threat, Saadi said: ISIL has begun to use the drones themselves as weapons. "They also use a new tactic, where the drone itself has a bomb attached to it," he explained.total of 37,910 organs from living and deceased persons were donated in 2015.

Note EU-Digest:The question that must be asked - who sold the drones to ISIS? Why are they not persecuted or are the weapons sold by the same people who say they are "fighting" ISIS  so they can perpetuate the wars against terrorism forever?

Read more: ISIL ramps up fight with weaponised drones | IS

Weapons Industry: “War is Good For Business”: Is the EU About to Grant a 3.5 Billion Euro Subsidy to Weapons Companies? - by Andrew Smith

Recently the European Parliament will be debating the general EU budget for 2017/18. The main focus of the debate is likely to be the knock-on impacts of Brexit and the falling pound, infrastructure, migration and the many other major challenges facing the continent.

Understandably, a lot of significant items are likely to be overlooked, including a crucial point, that could see the EU taking steps towards adopting an institutional military-industrial strategy. Buried within the budget is the EU’s first proposed Preparatory Action for defence research.

If the budget is agreed, this would effectively be a trial-run that would see the European Parliament subsidising military research for the first time. It would represent an important precedent. At present, the European Commission finances exclusively civilian or dual-use R&D through its €80 billion Horizon 2020 programme.

The proposal, would cover the period of 2017-2020 at the estimated cost of€50-100 million – paving the way for a full research programme that the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS), which made the proposal in the first place, estimates would cost at least €3.5 billion between 2021-2027.

Right from the start, the process has been influenced by those with a vested interest. The group that put the EUISS report together included high level representation from some of the biggest arms companies in the world. In fact, the majority of those on the Group of Personalities that the EUISS appointed to develop proposals are from the arms trade, so the pro-military conclusion is not particularly surprising.

In effect the arms industry has been brought in to advise the EU on military strategy and reached the conclusion that what is needed is more military spending.

Needless to say, arms companies already benefit from huge amount of public money. A lot of arms company R&D is already funded by member states. Supporters of the change have made clear that they do not foresee any parallel reduction of national budgets for military research, with manyn Member States still bound by their NATO commitments.

There is no question that security is a major challenge and that the EU has a critical role to play in addressing it. However, threats to security are multi-faceted and the solutions that the EU proposes to address them must be clearly based on the Treaties and core values of the EU.

The EU was envisaged as a peace project. The European Parliament stood up for those values this February, when it voted to support an arms embargo against Saudi Arabia due to its devastating bombardment of Yemen. Many of the weapons being used in the destruction are made in Europe, with many being manufactured by the same companies that would benefit from the proposed subsidy.

The EU should be investing in jobs and research projects that promote sustainable industries and contribute to the prevention of conflicts. This proposal could mean taking funds from other projects for something that would only benefit those that profit from war and conflict.

In a busy news agenda, the change may not be generating the headlines that the precedent deserves, but it is getting grass-roots opposition, with over 62,000 people having signed a European Network Against Arms Trade petition to oppose the spending.

Underpinning the opposition is the broader question of what kind of Europe we want. Do we want a social Europe that invests in people and peace, or do we want one that focuses on arms, militarism and war?

As UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has said ‘the World is over-armed and peace is under-funded.’ The EU could play a big role in changing this, but right now it risks doing the exact opposite

There is an international dimension to it too. The ADS, a trade body for arms companies, is clear about its motivations for supporting the proposal, which it says is focused on trying to “maintain and improve long-term competitiveness in the European Defence Industry.”

No explanation is provided for where the money would come from. Would it mean cutting 3.5bn EUR from other budgets? What would be cut in order to fund it? There is also very little explanation of how it will be spent or what checks-and-balances will be in place to stop it from becoming a blank-cheque for arms companies.

Do we want a social Europe that invests in people and peace, or do we want one that focuses on arms, militarism and war?

Read more:  Is the EU About to Grant a 3.5 Billion Euro Subsidy to Weapons Companies?