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Israel
THE US said it was “concerned” by the forced closure this week, of several Palestinian NGOS operating in the occupied West Bank. The Israeli military announced that it had raided and closed seven organisations in Ramallah, the West Bank city where the Palestinian Authority’s headquarters are located. In October, Israel labelled six of the NGOS terrorist organisations, for their alleged links to the leftist militant group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), although Israeli officials have not publicly shared any evidence of the links. The NGOS have denied links to the PFLP. American officials have reached out to their Israeli counterparts “at the senior level” to obtain additional information, which Israel has promised to provide, said US State Department spokesperson Ned Price. | AFP
G20 summit
RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping will attend the coming Group of 20 summit, the leader of host nation Indonesia said in an interview on Friday. The pair’s attendance would set the stage for showdown talks with President Joe Biden at a time when the US is at odds with both of the rival powers, particularly over crises in Ukraine and Taiwan. It has been unclear whether Putin and Xi would turn up to the November talks on Bali. Moscow is isolated after its invasion of Ukraine, while the Chinese leader is limiting foreign trips because of Covid-19. But President Joko Widodo, in an interview with Bloomberg, said both the leaders would attend the G20 summit in person. |
PUBLIC transport workers in London held fresh strikes on Friday over pay and conditions, cutting services on almost all underground and overground rail lines that link up the UK capital. The latest walkout comes during other industrial action across Britain, with workers in various sectors pushing for pay rises in line with decades-high inflation and the soaring cost of living. A spokesperson for Transport for London, responsible for most of the capital’s network, said there were “almost no Tube (underground train) services” with only a couple of lines functioning with “very reduced services”. |
AN UNMANNED yacht carrying assault rifles triggered a brief security scare after it washed up on the Indian coast, officials said. Three AK-47 rifles and an ammunition cache were recovered from the Lady Han after it drifted ashore on Thursday in a sparsely populated corner of western Maharashtra state, close to the location of a deadly seaborne terror attack in 2008. Anti-terrorism investigators seized the Uk-flagged boat after it was spotted by fishermen, but authorities established later that day the vessel belonged to an Australian couple who abandoned it at sea after engine failure on July 26. | AFP