A phone call between US President Donald Trump and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron has been described as being “terrible” after the latter candidly criticised the former’s policies, a media report said.

“Just bad. It was terrible,” an informed source told CNN on Monday.

“Macron thought he would be able to speak his mind, based on the relationship. But Trump can’t handle being criticised like that.”

A White House statement said the call on May 31 with Macron was focused on trade and immigration.

“Both leaders discussed the migration problem in Libya, and timelines to solve it. President Trump underscored the need to rebalance trade with Europe,” the statement said.

The call with Macron came the same day the US announced a unilateral decision to slap steel and aluminium tariffs on American allies, including Mexico, Canada, and the European Union, CNN reported.

In a statement issued by the Elysee Palace ahead of the call, Macron said he “regrets the US decision to confirm tariffs in steel and aluminium.”

“This decision is not only illegal, it is a mistake on many points. It is a mistake because it responds to a worldwide unbalance that exists in the worst ways through fragmentations and economic nationalism,” it added.

Trump held a similar call with British Prime Minister Theresa May on Monday.

According to a Downing Street spokesperson, the two leaders discussed the tariffs as well as other matters.

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The United States has voted against a Kuwait-drafted United Nations Security Council resolution calling for the protection of Palestinian civilians while being the only country to back its own measure condemning Hamas for the recent violence in the Gaza Strip.

More than 120 Palestinians have been killed and thousands wounded by Israeli forces during weeks-long peaceful protests in the besieged Gaza Strip near the fence with Israel. Among the victims have been medical professionals and journalists.

Ten countries, including Russia and France, voted in favor of the Kuwait-sponsored resolution on Friday.

Four others – Britain Poland, the Netherlands, and Ethiopia – abstained, while the US, a major ally of Israel, was the only country to vote against it.

The resolution, which was revised three times and said to have been “watered down”, previously called for international protection for Palestinian people.

The final draft called for “the consideration of measures to guarantee the safety and protection of the Palestinian civilian population in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in the Gaza Strip”.
Nikki Haley, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said ahead of the vote.

Life in Gaza: Palestinians’ struggle to survive
US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley described the resolution as “grossly one-sided” as she pinned the blame on much of Palestinians’ suffering on the Hamas movement, which runs the Strip.

In a statement later on Friday, Hanan Ashrawi, Palestinian Liberation Organization executive committee member, said the US had once again demonstrated its “blind loyalty to Israel and tried to absolve it of any wrongdoing despite its egregious violations, deliberate massacres and willful killings and war crimes.

“With its veto, the United States is once again attempting to justify the lawlessness and cruelty of Israel’s military occupation, while providing Israel with legal and political cover to pursue its assault on the Palestinian people and on international law and international humanitarian law.”

‘Humiliating vote’
The US was in turn the only country to vote in favour of a revised draft-resolution it submitted subsequent to the Kuwait-sponsored initiative.

The second vote saw 11 countries abstaining and three rejecting it.

The US version had omitted references to Israeli use of force and protecting Palestinians.

It instead demanded that Hamas and other Palestinian groups cease “all violent provocative actions” in Gaza.

Al Jazeera’s James Bays, reporting from the UN headquarters in New York, said the US diplomatic efforts “seemed to have backfired”.

“I don’t know when there was last a resolution put to the Security Council that only got one vote in favour,” said Bays.

“It seems a very humiliating vote for the US, and one that is very starkly showing the divisions around the Security Council table on this issue,” he added.

“The US was not able to muster the support from its normal US allies, they are not coming to their support on this issue. Even though some of them did not support the Kuwait resolution – they abstained because they thought there wasn’t enough language criticising Hamas – they certainly didn’t support the US version of things.”

More than 80 homes have been destroyed by the Kilauea volcano eruption in Hawaii in the four weeks since lava began flowing, a top official said.

The number of homes swallowed by the lava flowing from fissures has jumped to at least 87, up the from the 77 reported destroyed Thursday, Hawaii Civil Defence spokesman Talmadge Mango said Friday.

The report of mounting damage followed a mandatory evacuation order issued on Thursday night for a portion of the Leilani Estates subdivision in the midst of “vigorous lava eruptions” threatening homes, CNN quoted the Civil Defence Agency as saying.

Residents were advised to evacuate by Friday afternoon. Emergency responders have no plans to rescue anyone from the evacuated areas past the deadline.

“They are being asked to leave. Period,” county spokeswoman Janet Snyder told reporters.

Four weeks have passed since the first eruption rocked Hawaii’s Big Island and lava continues oozing from volcanic fissures.

The US Geological Survey (USGS) said the lava from the Kilauea volcano has covered an area of 5.5 square miles — that’s four times as big as New York’s Central Park.

Fissure 8 remains the most active, the USGS said, sending “persistent fountains” of lava as high as 260 feet into the air.

Lava lobes from Fissure 8 were advancing 100 yards an hour, the USGS said.

“This is the hottest lava we’ve seen during this eruption,” Wendy Stovall, a scientist with USGS told CNN. “Lava can’t get hotter than where we are.”

Besides the lava, there’s also the danger of “vog”, or volcanic smog.

In addition to volcanic particles that can cause eye, skin and respiratory irritation, residents were warned to be on the lookout for sharp, thin strands of volcanic glass fibres known as “Pele’s hair”, a reference to the Hawaiian goddess of fire.

The Civil Defence Agency warned it could cause injury if it got in residents’ eyes or was breathed in.

The Israeli military has conducted overnight air strikes on the Gaza Strip’s northern areas, claiming it was targeting Hamas positions.

The development comes after the Israeli army shot dead 64 Palestinians protesting near the fence with Israel to call for their right of return.

Palestinians were marking 70 years since the Nakba, or Catastrophe, the day on which the state of Israel was established on May 15, 1948, in a violent ethnic cleansing campaign.

Throughout the past seven weeks, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been protesting as part of a weeks-long movement calling for the right of return for Palestinian refugees to the homes and villages they were forcibly expelled from by Zionist militias in 1948.

Since the protests began on March 30, Israeli forces have killed at least 113 Palestinians in the coastal enclave and wounded more than 12,000 people.

US vows to veto UN resolution for protection of Palestinians

The US will “unquestionably veto” a UN draft resolution which calls for “the consideration of measures to guarantee the safety and protection” of Palestinian civilians.

US Ambassador Nikki Haley called the Kuwait-sponsored resolution “grossly one-sided” and “morally bankrupt”.

“The resolution calls on Israel to immediately cease its actions in self-defense, but makes no mention of Hamas’ aggressive actions against Israeli security forces and civilians,” she said in a statement.

The draft resolution “deplores” and calls for a halt to “the use of any excessive, disproportionate and indiscriminate force” by the Israeli military. It also “deplores the firing of rockets from the Gaza Strip at Israeli civilian areas”.

It asks UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for a report on a potential “international protection mechanism”.

A vote on the draft resolution is expected to take place on Friday.

Saturday, May 19

Two Palestinians succumb to wounds

Mouin Abdelhamid al-Saai, a 58-year-old man, died in Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital on Saturday, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.

Israeli forces shot al-Saai on Monday as they fired live ammunition, tear gas and firebombs at protesters during demonstrations that coincided with the opening of the US embassy in Jerusalem.

The protests also came a day before Palestinians marked 70 years since the Nakba, or Catastrophe, the day on which the state of Israel was established on May 15, 1948, in a violent ethnic cleansing campaign.

Mohammed Mazin Alian, a 20-year-old man, also succumbed to his wounds on Saturday after he was shot by Israeli forces on Monday east of the al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.

This brings the total number of Palestinians killed since Monday in Gaza to 64.

Thursday, May 17

Israel targets ‘Hamas positions’ in overnight air raids

The Israeli military has said that it launched overnight air strikes on Hamas “infrastructure in military compounds” and “weapons production” facilities in the north of the besieged enclave.

The army alleged the “strikes were conducted in response to the heavy machine gun fire that targeted the city of Sderot” in the south.

While Hamas has not officially responded to the attacks, a security official from the movement told Anadolu Agency that several of its positions had been targeted.

The Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip said no one had been injured in the attacks.

Palestinians withdraw envoy to US

The Palestinian envoy to Washington has been recalled to Ramallah in protest over the US

Husam Zomlot was instructed to return by President Mahmoud Abbas, the foreign ministry announced in a statement.

It did not say how long Zomlot would be at headquarters.

Riad al-Malki, the foreign minister, said: “When they [the US] opened their embassy in Jerusalem there was a need for a decision from our side and this was our decision.”

Clashes and arrests near Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate

Israeli border police forces and Palestinian protesters clashed near

Many protesters were removed from the plaza, and others were arrested in the nearby area.

Demonstrators had gathered at the square outside the gate as part of Nakba Day protests.

“The Palestinians have been living here, I was born here, my father, my grandfather, my great great grandfather, I have no other place to go, I don’t even have a passport to go anywhere else,” said Mujid Keluti, a Jerusalem resident.

Netanyahu, Erdogan in Twitter spat as Israel, Turkey expel envoys

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu exchanged heated words on Twitter over Israel’s killing of Palestinian protesters in the Gaza Strip.

Netanyahu, in a Twitter post, said Erdogan “well understands terrorism and slaughter” because of his support for Hamas, a day after the Turkish leader accused Israel of “state terror” and “genocide”.

Pakistan’s Interior Ministry has asked for the suspension of former President Pervez Musharraf’s computerized national identity card (CNIC) and passport, a media report said on Friday.

In compliance with the order of a special court, the ministry on Thursday asked the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) and the Directorate General of Immigration and Passports to carry out the suspensions, the Dawn report said.

After the suspension of his CNIC and passport, Musharraf’s bank accounts would be frozen and his international traveling restricted.

A special court hearing a high treason case against Musharraf had on March 8 directed the ministry to suspend his passport and CNIC.

The court had also ordered the ministry and other departments, divisions and agencies to take steps for the arrest of Musharraf and attachment of his properties abroad.

The former military ruler is facing the treason trial for subverting the Constitution by declaring a state of emergency in November 2007, Dawn News reported.

Ending his self-imposed exile, the former military ruler returned to the country in March 2013 and a ban was imposed on his travel abroad by courts the following month.

After three years, in March 2016, he was able to leave for Dubai seeking medical treatment and has since not returned.

United States President Donald Trump has said that he will pardon Dinesh D’Souza, a controversial conservative Indian-American media personality, who was convicted of making illegal contributions to a Republican Party candidate for Senate.

Trump tweeted on Thursday, “Will be giving a Full Pardon to Dinesh D’Souza today. He was treated very unfairly by our government.”

D’Souza was prosecuted by Indian-American New York federal prosecutor Preet Bharara, and convicted in 2014 of making illegal election contributions of $10,000 to Republican Senate Candidate Wendy Long.

A journalist, author and filmmaker, D’Souza was a harsh critic of former President Barack Obama and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

He is known for stirring controversy with his angry rhetoric.

He was fined $30,000 and sentenced to five years of probation and eight months of overnight detention in a so-called halfway house.

Bharara defended his role tweeting, “D’Souza intentionally broke the law, voluntarily pled guilty, apologized for his conduct & the judge found no unfairness.

However, a Indian-American, Sant Chatwal, who illegally contributed $188,000 illegal election contributions to Clinton was not prosecuted by Bharara, but was taken to court by former Attorney General Loretta Lynch when she was the federal prosecutor in Brooklyn in 2014.

Chatwal on his conviction was not sentenced to overnight detention like D’Souza, but received three years of probation, a fine of $500,000 and $1 million in forfeiture.

Prosecutors kept Clinton’s name off the charges, saying only that Chatwal had made an illegal contribution.

Chatwal, however, named her as the recipient in court papers pleading for leniency.

Republican Senator welcomed D’Souza’s pardon, tweeting, “Dinesh was the subject of a political prosecution, brazenly targeted by the Obama administration bc (because) of his political views.”

D’Souza’s book, “The Roots of Obama’s Rage,” which claimed that Obama was furthering the anti-colonial ideology to run down the US, was later made into a film.

He also produced a scathing documentary on Clinton, “Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party.”

Bharara had also prosecuted Rajat Gupta, Raj Rajaratnam and Mathew Martoma for insider trading on Wall Street, and had Indian diplomat Devyani arrested.

The US has welcomed India and Pakistan’s decision to implement bilateral ceasefire agreement signed by the two countries in 2003.

“The US welcomes reports that the militaries of India and Pakistan have reaffirmed their commitment to fully implement the 2003 ceasefire along the Line of Control (LoC),” State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said in a statement on Thursday.

“The normalisation of relations between Pakistan and India is vital to both countries and the region,” she added.

On Tuesday, the Director Generals of Military Operations (DGMOs) of the two countries agreed to implement the ceasefire pact in an effort to ensure peace on both the international border and the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir.

A ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel appears to be holding following one of the worst days in violence in the Gaza Strip since the 2014 Gaza war.

Hamas said on Wednesday that armed groups in the Gaza Strip had agreed to a deal with Israel following a night of air attacks targeting several Hamas and Islamic Jihad positions in the coastal enclave.

The Israeli government had yet to comment on the offer but Khalil al-Hayya, Hamas’s deputy chief in Gaza, said the group was committed to a truce as long as Israel was.

“A number of mediators intervened in the past hours, and an agreement was reached to return to a ceasefire in Gaza”, Hayya said in a statement.

Hours earlier, a Hamas-affiliated Twitter account announced that the group had agreed to return to an understanding on a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip so long as the “occupier” did the same.

Reporting from Gaza, said Egyptian security officials had helped broker the deal after Israel warned of “tougher retaliation measures” against the groups’ leadership.

“The truce came about after Israel conveyed a message to the Egyptians that if the Palestinian factions didn’t stop, Israel would react in a stronger, harder way and target the leadership of those groups.

“It’s 10am local time (07:00 GMT), and the ceasefire appears to be sticking for now, it started at 4am local time,” he added.

“The Palestinians are projecting this image that they brokered the ceasefire. Israel will not admit that they agreed to one. But – however it’s happened – it’s worked and kept things quiet for the time being.”

Israeli Intelligence Minister Israel Katz sidestepped questions on whether Israel had agreed to a ceasefire, but said it was not interested in an escalation towards war.

“It all depends on Hamas. If it continues [to attack], I don’t know what its fate will be,” Katz told Israel Radio.

The Israeli army said it struck 60 targets belonging to Palestinian resistance groups after a “barrage of projectiles” were fired from Gaza into southern Israel on Tuesday.

The firing of rockets and mortar rounds came as Islamic Jihad vowed to avenge a deadly attack against its members last week.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas slammed Israel for the burst of violence, accusing it of “escalating tensions”.

“Difficult days have passed in the West Bank, Jerusalem and especially in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli occupation launched a fierce aggression on the Gaza Strip today with rockets and aircraft. This indicates that the occupation does not want peace. However, we want peace, and we demand peace”.

Tuesday’s exchange of fire came after weeks of deadly unrest in the enclave.

Since March 30, at least 121 unarmed Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in protests near the Israeli fence between Gaza and Israel. Palestinians are demanding their right to return to the homes and land their families were expelled from during the establishment of Israel in 1948.

Gaza – a territory of more than two million people – has been under a devastating Israeli-imposed blockade for the past 12 years, which has severely restricted the movement of Palestinians in and out of the territory.

On Tuesday, a group of Palestinians set sail from Gaza in an attempt to breach Israel’s naval blockade.

The vessel, carrying patients needing medical care, students and job-seeking university graduates, was later captured by Israeli warships and towed to Israel.

How the media covered death in Gaza and the Jerusalem ceremony
Israel withdrew its troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005 but, citing security concerns, maintains tight control of its land and sea borders, reducing its economy to a state of collapse.

Egypt also restricts movement in and out of Gaza through its border.

US-brokered peace talks have been stalled since 2014, and Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories have expanded.

Gaza experienced its most significant conflict in 2014 when at least 2,251 Palestinians, most of whom were civilians, were killed. At least 66 Israeli soldiers and six civilians were also killed.

Following the requests by the film exhibitors, distributors and production houses, Pakistan has imposed a temporary ban on the exhibition and screening of Indian films during Eid holidays.

According to media reports, the exhibition and screening of Indian and foreign films will be banned from two days before the Eid to until two weeks after the holidays.

Pakistani film producers and artists have been complaining for the last two years that their new films face stiff completion from the Indian and Hollywood movies.

Hindusthan Samachar/Shri Ram Shaw

Pakistan has “rejected” India’s protest against Islamabad’s move relating to administrative control over the Gilgit-Baltistan region, which is a part of Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

The “Gilgit-Baltistan Order 2018” was approved by Pakistan’s Cabinet on May 21 and it was also endorsed by the Assembly for the region.

Pakistan Prime Minister Khaqan Abbasi announced enforcement of the reform package for Gilgit Baltistan which was greeted with pandemonium and a shouting match in the local assembly. The order takes away powers of President in respect of tribal areas to empower its people.

Abbasi said that under the order, all the powers have been transferred to the people of Gilgit-Baltistan who will enjoy similar rights which the people of other provinces have without any discrimination. Several civil rights groups in Pakistan slammed the order.

India summoned Pakistan’s Deputy High Commissioner Syed Haider Shah in New Delhi on Sunday and lodged a strong protest over the order, saying no action should be taken to alter the status of any part of the territory under its “forcible and illegal occupation”.

“It was clearly conveyed that the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir which also includes the so-called ‘Gilgit-Baltistan’ areas is an integral part of India by virtue of its accession in 1947,” the Indian External Affairs Ministry had said in a statement.

Reacting to New Delhi’s protest over the move, Pakistan’s Foreign Office Spokesperson Muhammad Faisal in a statement claimed that the “Jammu and Kashmir was disputed territory and its final status will be determined through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite administered by the UN”.

He said: “Pakistan categorically rejects India’s protest against the Gilgit-Baltistan Order 2018 and its claim over Jammu and Kashmir as an ‘integral part’ of India. Everything from history to law to morality to the situation on the ground belies India’s spurious claim,” the spokesman said.

“These resolutions, pledging the right to self-determination to the people of Kashmir, were accepted by India, Pakistan and the international community,” he said.

A complete strike was observed across Gilgit-Baltistan on the call of the Opposition to protest against the order.