Israel’s parliament on Thursday passed into law a controversial bill that defines the country as an exclusively Jewish state.

The “Jewish nation state” bill downgrades Arabic as an official language and says advancing Jewish settlement is a national interest. It also states that the “whole and united” Jerusalem is its capital, BBC reported.

Israeli Arab MPs condemned the legislation but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised it as a “defining moment”.

The bill, backed by the country’s right-wing government, says that “Israel is the historic homeland of the Jewish people and they have an exclusive right to national self-determination in it”.

It was passed after a stormy session in the Knesset that lasted more than eight hours. Sixty-two MPs voted for the bill, with 55 against.

However some clauses were dropped following objections by Israel’s president and attorney-general, including a clause that would have enshrined in law the creation of Jewish-only communities.

Israeli Arabs make up about 20 per cent of the Israel’s population of about nine million people.

They have equal rights under the law, but have long complained of being treated as second class citizens and say they face discrimination and worse provision of services such as education, health and housing.

Arab MP Ahmed Tibi said the bill’s passing represented the “death of democracy”.

Adalah, an Arab rights NGO, said the law was an attempt to advance “ethnic superiority by promoting racist policies”.

Last week, Netanyahu defended the law, saying: “We will keep ensuring civil rights in Israel’s democracy but the majority also has rights and the majority decides.”

Eleven Afghan journalists and media workers have been killed in the first half of the year amid deteriorating security, an independent media safety group said on Wednesday.

“The first six months of 2018 was the bloodiest reporting period for journalists and the media community in Afghanistan. About 89 cases of violence and intimidation were reported, 11 of which involved the killing of journalists,” Afghan Journalists Safety Committee (AJSC) told Xinhua news agency.

A group of nine reporters was killed on April 30 in a suicide bombing while they were covering a terrorist attack at a diplomatic district. The attack was later claimed by the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group.

Two other journalists were shot dead in southern Kandahar and eastern Khost provinces in the same month.

The press safety group also expressed concern over the continuation and expansion of violence and threats to Afghan journalists posed by terrorist groups, particularly Taliban and IS affiliates.

“The intensity and scale of violence has been unprecedented during this period of 2018,” AJSC added.

Scores of displaced Syrians were turned away by the Israeli army as they attempted to approach the border fence along the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The group is among tens of thousands of Syrians who have arrived near the frontier over the past month following renewed fighting along the country’s southern Deraa and Quneitra provinces.

The incident on Tuesday happened in Quneitra, where the Syrian government is fighting to push out the last remaining pockets of rebels and fighters belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS).

The displaced Syrians stopped some 200 meters away from the fence before an Israeli soldier told them to leave.

“You are on the border of the State of Israel. Go back, we don’t want to hurt you,” the soldier shouted in Arabic through a loudspeaker at the crowd, Reuters TV footage showed.

The crowd, which included women and children, then walked back slowly towards the IDP encampment. Some stopped midway and waved white cloths in the direction of the Israeli frontier.
The Syrian regime, Russia accused of breaching ceasefire in Deraa
“Go back before something bad happens. If you want us to be able to help you, go back,” the Israeli army officer told the crowd “Get a move on.”

‘Extreme conditions’
Lama Fakih, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch, told Al Jazeera both the Israeli and Jordanian governments have an obligation to not push back fleeing asylum seekers.

“The tens of thousands that have been displaced are fleeing extensive bombardment. They have left in many cases with literally the clothing on their backs,” Fakih said.

“They are living in areas where is intense heat without adequate shelter, without adequate humanitarian assistance, and despite the extreme humanitarian conditions and insecurity in the area, both the Israeli and the Jordanian government have persisted in not allowing these asylum seekers to try to seek refuge across the border.”

Al Jazeera’s Stefanie Dekker reporting from the occupied Golan Heights said the hundred or so Syrians that gathered along the border on Tuesday had nowhere else to go.

And despite both Israel and Jordan providing some tents for some of the refugees, there are concerns about their living situation.

“What we understand is that they have gone back to the tents in the makeshift camps where they’re residing,” Dekker said, adding the displaced have to deal with the rising temperatures as well as sanitary and water issues.

“There is another concern that people who have been living under rebel control of years [which] is repercussion measures by the Syrian government,” said Dekker.

“There are activists in these areas, journalists, families who are simply afraid of what will happen to them when the government takes over the villages they’ve been living in.”

The UN estimates that 160,000 Syrians have been displaced because of recent unrest, triggered largely by the Syrian government and its Russian ally’s attempts to retake rebel-controlled territory along in the south.

Israel has given humanitarian aid to IDPs in encampments close to a 1974 Israeli-Syrian disengagement line on the Golan but has said they would not be allowed to cross into the Israeli-held territory.

A witness on the Syrian side of the frontier said people were seeking shelter wherever they could as the offensive drew closer to their location.

‘Inadequate, inhumane response’
According to Fakih, the displaced group includes journalists, humanitarian aid workers and other individuals who the Syrian government has targeted, detained and executed in the past

What is the effect of Syria regime’s recapture of Jordan crossing?
Fakih said Israel’s response to developments along the border falls short of what is required to alleviate the suffering of displaced Syrians.

“Quite simply it is inadequate and inhumane. These are individuals that are desperate for assistance. The response from the Israeli government has been to provide assistance across the border which has been inadequate. There are serious concerns for displaced populations that remain in Syria.”

Government forces backed by Russian air support have recovered large swaths of territory across southern Syria in the last three weeks, advancing unopposed by Assad’s western and regional foes into the strategically vital region near Jordan and Israel.

The campaign in the southwest is now expected to target rebel-held enclaves at the frontier with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Israel signaled it would not impede the offensive, even as it struck Syrian army posts near the frontier in retaliation for a drone incursion.

Aljazeera

President Donald Trump was forced into a rare admission of error after a political firestorm following his defense of Russia over claims of meddling in the 2016 US elections.

Republican and Democrat politicians in the United States, as well as intelligence officials, denounced Trump’s failure to challenge his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin over alleged interference in the elections, calling his responses at a joint news conference in Finland as “shameful” and “disgraceful”.

Speaking at the White House on Tuesday, Trump said he misspoke when he addressed reporters in Helsinki a day earlier, adding he accepts the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia did meddle in the elections won by him.

Trump faces bipartisan rebuke over ‘treasonous’ summit with Putin
“I said the word ‘would’ instead of ‘wouldn’t,'” Trump told reporters. “The sentence should have been, ‘I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia.'”

But Trump maintained that Russia’s action had no impact on the result, which saw him defeat Democrat rival Hillary Clinton, and denied his campaign had colluded in the effort.

In the Finnish capital on Monday, Trump refused to say he believed US intelligence agencies over Russia’s denials of meddling and delivered no condemnation of Moscow’s interference.

‘Fake news going crazy’
Trump also blasted the media for its coverage of his meeting with Putin and NATO officials last week.

“While I had a great meeting with NATO, raising vast amounts of money, I had an even better meeting with Vladimir Putin of Russia. Sadly, it is not being reported that way – the Fake News is going Crazy,” the president said on Twitter.

reporting from the White House, said Trump “was sticking to the script” in his comments – a rare occurrence.

“He was almost reading this [statement]; very much an example of a White House in damage control mode, where the communications team has worked very hard to parse the statement of the president in Helsinki and try to turn it into something other than what many people believe they witnessed – and that was a president standing apart from his intelligence agencies and the conclusion that Russia meddled in the 2016 US election,” said Halkett.

Trump criticised
The political firestorm over Trump’s performance at the Helsinki news conference engulfed the US administration and spread to his fellow Republicans, eclipsing most of the frequent controversies that have erupted during the president’s turbulent 18 months in office.

Taking direct issue with the president who appointed him, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said US spy agencies have been “clear” and “fact-based” in their assessment that Moscow interfered in the presidential race two years ago.

Trump-Putin summit brings an end to frosty US-Russia relations

John McCain, the senior Republican senator, said Trump’s seeming acceptance of Putin’s denial was a historical “low point” for the US presidency.

The language used by Democrats was much harsher, including accusations of “treason”.

“For the president of the US to side with President Putin against American law enforcement, American defense officials, and American intelligence agencies is thoughtless, dangerous, and weak,” Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer said.

Democratic California Representative Jimmy Gomez charged: “To side with Putin over US intelligence is disgusting; to fail to defend the US is on the verge of treason.”

Some lawmakers said they would seek remedies against Russia in Congress.

Several senators from both parties backed tougher sanctions on Russia, but it was unclear if Republican congressional leaders would support such a move or what new sanctions might be crafted.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, who called Russia’s government “menacing,” said he would consider additional sanctions on Russia and reiterated his support for US intelligence findings that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.

Last week, the US Department of Justice indicted 12 Russians for hacking Democratic Party computers.

Aljazeera

US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin will hold their first official summit here on Monday, in which the leaders are expected to address issues including Syria, Ukraine conflicts, nuclear disarmament and the alleged interference of Moscow in the 2016 American elections.

Trump arrived here on Sunday night from Scotland after wrapping up his UK visit.

The summit is scheduled to start at 1.20 p.m. at the Presidential Palace with a private meeting between Trump and Putin, accompanied by interpreters, reports Efe news.

The meeting will last about one-and-a-half hours.

Trump and Putin will then hold a working lunch together with their ministers and advisers, followed by a joint press conference.

Trump previously said he has “low expectations” for the summit, while the Kremlin stressed the most important thing is to establish channels of dialogue in order to improve bilateral ties.

The two leaders are also expected to discuss Syria, where the US aims to restrain the Iranian military presence and hopes that Russia can exert more influence over Tehran in that regard.

The agenda will likely include the possible extension of the New START Nuclear Arms Reduction Treaty, which is set to expire in 2021.

Moscow has repeatedly slammed the deployment of US missile systems in eastern Europe, while Washington has condemned Russia’s alleged violations of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, under which the signatories are obliged to eliminate all short- and medium-range nuclear and conventional missiles.

Ukraine is another item on the agenda, although the conflict in the east of the country between the Kiev army and the pro-Russian rebels backed by Moscow has been entrenched for months and the last agreed ceasefires have been ineffective.

Helsinki has beefed up security for this event, with increased police patrolling around the city.

Part of the downtown will be closed on Monday, everyday life of ordinary people has been affected and public transport are disturbed, reports Xinhua news agency.

The police said 16 or more demonstrations were registered before and during the summit, and on Sunday around 2,500 people got together at the city’s Senate Square to protest against the summit and Trump.

According to Mayor of Helsinki Jan Vapaavuori, it was the two presidents themselves that decided to meet in the city, adding that he had no expectations over the summit but only provided suitable circumstances for it, and the city was not worried about the protests at all.

More than 2,500 children are waiting to be reunited with their parents after being separated at the US border, according to the latest government estimate.

The number was revealed for the first time on Friday as the US government gave its first indications of how reunions of those thousands of parents and children could go, reports CNN.

There are about 2,551 children between the ages of five and over in government custody who could be eligible for those reunions, administration officials wrote in a court filing on Friday.

The reunions of those children with their parents will occur in six to eight designated Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities, according to the filing.

Officials will use a new, streamlined vetting process to facilitate reunions by the court-ordered deadline of July 26.

In a statement following the filing, the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department HHS spokeswoman Evelyn Stauffer said: “This number represents the total possible cohort of minors who could potentially be subject to the court order, and, based on past experience, includes a significant number of minors who cannot or should not be reunified with the adults in question.”

The government noted that things will proceed differently for these reunions from the ones for the children under age five, because of previous rulings in the ongoing lawsuit over family separations at the border and lessons learned from the earlier reunions, which numbered fewer than 60.

The new steps does not include DNA-testing and background checking of the families, CNN reported.

President Donald Trump’s “zero-tolerance” policy to prosecute all adults crossing the border illegally resulted in the separation of thousands of children from their parents after entering the US, though this case was filed long before that policy and affects almost all families separated at the border still in government custody.

After an initial backlash, Trump signed an executive order aimed at keeping families together at the border.

(IANS)

Thousands of displaced people have returned to Syria after negotiations brought about a pause in hostilities following a week-long government offensive aimed at regaining the territory from armed opposition, a UK-based watchdog said on Saturday.

Russian mediators acting on behalf of the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad negotiated a ceasefire with the armed militias in Daraa province, where the UN estimated that some 300,000 people were forced to leave their homes due to intense fighting involving heavy airstrike and artillery campaigns, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).

However, the war monitor added that thousands of others whose towns and villages were captured by pro-government troops were reluctant to return for fear of reprisals, reports Efe news.

The SOHR said smoke columns could be seen rising from burning properties the town of Saida, located to the east of Daraa city and was re-captured by government forces this week.

For its part, the Free Syrian Army opposition central command in the region released a statement saying the protection of civilian life was imperative.

Around 159 civilians have been killed by clashes in Daraa since the start of the government offensive, the SOHR said.

Dozens of people were still missing and four in critical condition as torrential rain that has killed 20 people pounds western and central Japan, according to local officials.

Intense rainfall triggered huge landslides and flash floods in Hiroshima, Okayama, Kyoto and other regions, while hampering rescue operations.

Local authorities said on Saturday a total of 20 people were killed in rain-related accidents, while public broadcaster NHK said the death toll had risen to 38 with 50 others unaccounted for.

The broadcaster also said that more than 1.6 million people had been ordered to evacuate from their homes.

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told his ministers to “make an all-out effort” to rescue victims, saying: “The situation is extremely serious.”

Japan’s Meteorological Agency retained special weather warnings for three prefectures in the main island of Honshu, down from five, and urged vigilance against landslides, rising rivers and strong winds amid what it called “historic” rains.

More rain forecasted
Although a weather front had settled between western and eastern Japan, there was a risk that heavy rains would continue as warm air flowed towards the front with already-saturated areas facing more rain on Sunday, the agency said.

In Motoyama, a town on Shikoku island about 600 km from Tokyo, 583 millimetres of rain fell between Friday and Saturday mornings.

Minako Sakurai, an agency official, told reporters heavy rain was expected to continue until Sunday in western and eastern Japan.

Abe ordered his ministers to “make an all-out effort” to rescue victims [Kyodo via Reuters]
Some areas have been hit by more than a metre of rainfall, according to the government.

In Hiroshima, the body of a man in his 60s was found near a bridge early Saturday and another man was killed when a mudslide struck his house, a local government official said.

A 52-year-old woman in Kyoto was found dead by a river on Friday, while in neighbouring Hyogo prefecture a construction worker was swept away by flood waters and died.

Television footage showed a wooden bridge being washed away in Hiroshima by a rain-swollen muddy river.

Rescue workers dug into the dirt as landslides crushed houses in the same region, while several people evacuated to their rooftops as floods swamped entire residential areas in part of the Okayama region.

Yoshihide Suga, chief cabinet secretary, said that about 48,000 troops, police and firefighters have been deployed for rescue operations.

Although Japan is among the most modernised of Asian nations, rural areas are hit hard by the rainy season each year, often resulting in casualties and heavy damage.

Aljazeera

A trade war between US and China officially began on Friday as President Donald Trump’s administration imposed tariffs on $34 billion worth of Chinese products, with Beijing vowing to “fight back”.

The penalties went into effect at 12:01 a.m., reports The New York Times.

Minutes after the tariffs went into effect, a spokesperson for China’s Commerce Ministry said in a statement: “China promised not to fire the first shot, but in order to safeguard the country’s core interests as well as that of the people, it is forced to fight back.”

The statement did not however, provide details on its retaliation.

The administration’s 25 per cent tariffs are targeting Chinese products such as industrial machinery, medical devices and auto parts.

On Thursday, Trump showed no signs of backing down from his fight and suggested the possibility of tariffs on almost $500 billion more of Chinese goods.

“Thirty-four, and then you have another 16 in two weeks and then, as you know, we have 200 billion in abeyance and then after the 200 billion we have 300 billion in abeyance. OK?” Trump told reporters aboard the Air Force One.

“So we have 50 plus 200 plus almost 300.”

Following Friday’s development, rhe Shanghai Composite index fell 1.1 per cent, after reaching more than a two-year low this week, reports the Guardian.

Chinese manufacturers have already been hit by a strengthening yuan that has made exports more expensive.

Trump and his advisers argue the tariffs are necessary to pressure China into abandoning unfair practices such as stealing intellectual property and forcing American companies to hand over valuable technology, reports CNN.

In addition to the tariffs, the White House is placing restrictions on investment and on visas for Chinese nationals.

The clash with China comes as the Trump administration is also fighting over trade with American allies such as Canada and the European Union.

American tariffs on steel and aluminium imports have provoked retaliatory measures against billions of dollars of American exports.

The United Nations is “deeply alarmed” about the government offensive in southern Syria, which is forcing thousands of families to flee their homes and has caused civilian deaths.

About 270,000 have fled, the UN said, with tens of thousands currently stuck by the border with Jordan after the Russian-backed government offensive began to recapture rebel-held southwestern Deraa province.

According to the UN, nearly half of the displaced are children.

“This is the largest population displacement in southern Syria since the onset of the crisis,” Anders Pedersen, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Jordan, wrote in a statement on Wednesday.

Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said on Wednesday that dozens of trucks were waiting for Syrian permission to supply humanitarian aid from Jordan to Syria.

Safadi was speaking at a news conference following talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow.

After artillery strikes hit Jordanian territory from Syria, he said Jordan’s armed forces were ready to defend country’s interests.

Amman has kept its borders shut for the new wave of refugees from Deraa, as the country says it is unable to host additional Syrians.

Jordan currently hosts more than 650,000 of the 5.2 million Syrian refugees spread across the region, according to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR).

However, the Jordanian government puts the number at 1.3 million, as the UNHCR only counts registered refugees, whereas Amman includes Syrians who have not received UN asylum.

The UN has dispatched humanitarian assistance over the past two months and has been helping to provide essential supplies such as food, water, soap and medical equipment with extra supplies prepared in case for further escalation in conflict.

Children are at particular risk of dehydration and diarrhoea, Pederson noted.

UN urges Jordan to admit some of refugees from Syria’s Deraa
“The United Nations reiterates its readiness to assist as much as needed but, at the same time, it also reminds all responsible parties that our effectiveness depends on facilitation of the provision of humanitarian aid and protection to people in need, in line with the parties’ obligations under international humanitarian law,” Pederson wrote.

“The United Nations reminds all states and parties involved in the conflict that a delay in responding to the worsening humanitarian crisis could only lead to catastrophic results.”

Since the war in Syria began in 2011, Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon have shouldered much of the responsibility in hosting Syrian refugees.

The UN’s concern comes as Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov met in Moscow on Wednesday to discuss the situation in Deraa, located near the Jordanian border.

Safadi said the situation in southern Syria was a cause for serious concern and needed to be resolved as soon as possible.

He said on Wednesday dozens of trucks are waiting for Syrian permission to supply humanitarian aid from Jordan to Syria.

After artillery strikes hit Jordanian territory from Syria, Safadi said Jordan’s armed forces were ready to defend country’s interests.