A New Perspective on Constantine

(Worthy News) – Gulf states that long opposed Israel’s every move are proposing a rapprochemont in the hopes of restarting the Palestinian peace process.

The development comes just days ahead of historic meetings between President Trump and Middle Eastern leaders. It consists of a draft proposal reportedly offered up by Sunni Muslim Gulf states and offers closer economic and diplomatic ties with Israel in exchange for significant moves in restarting the Palestinian peace process.

The plan, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, is outlined in a draft document circulated by the Gulf states, the mostly Sunni Muslim countries that line the Persian Gulf, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, among others. [ Source ]

(Worthy News) -President Trump has moved to broaden a ban on federal dollars going to international groups that perform abortions or provide abortion information, senior administration officials said Monday.

The so-called “Mexico City Policy” would apply broadly to organizations receiving U.S. global health assistance, compared with past versions of the ban which specifically targeted international family planning groups.

In all, about $8.8 billion in funding could be impacted, far more than the $600,000 covered under the previous version of the ban, which critics call the Global Gag Rule. The expanded policy is being dubbed “Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance.” The officials, who requested anonymity and were not authorized to speak on the record, said the ban would apply to groups working on HIV/AIDS, malaria, maternal and child health, reproductive issues and global health. [ Source ]

(Worthy News) – In coming weeks and months, President Trump will attempt tax reform more sweeping, consequential and controversial than those of Presidents George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan.

He is betting that commerce and his own political fortunes will soar if he gets his supply-side ideas into the tax code. While his administration and Congress have struggled to follow through on other parts of his agenda, Trump aims to rally support for tax reform by traveling the country, hosting roundtables and bringing industry groups to the White House. He’ll also lean on members of Congress hesitant about the size and scope of his ambitions.

The president doesn’t have a bill yet, just a few principles. But they’re enough to make clear that he agrees with Speaker Paul Ryan and House Republicans about a dramatic, conservative tax overhaul, and is looking to press for more than they are yet comfortable with. [ Source ]

(Worthy News) – The unprecedented global ransomware cyberattack has hit more than 200,000 victims in more than 150 countries, Europol executive director Rob Wainwright said Sunday.

The head of the pan-European Union policing agency said that few had given in to the demands for payment to unblock files so far, but warned that the situation was escalating.

Wainwright said he was worried that the ransomware attack might spread further once people return to work on Monday and log on to their computers.

Wainwright said the attack was indiscriminate, fast-spreading and unique because the ransomware was being used in combination with a worm — meaning that the infection of one computer could automatically spread it through an entire network. [ Source ]

(Worthy News) – Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas met with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Sochi resort in Western Russia on Thursday, and said that solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will be “impossible” without the participation of Moscow in the peace process.

“It is impossible to solve the Palestinian issue without Russia’s meaningful participation in the peace process. That is what we have been emphasizing at all international meetings,” Abbas said in his meeting with Putin, according to the official Russian State news agency Tass.

Putin said Russia “will continue to give its full support to the resumption of direct dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis.”

“The peaceful coexistence of the two states — Palestine and Israel — is an indispensable condition to ensure genuine security and stability in this region,” Putin said. [ Source ]

(Worthy News) – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday urged Muslims to throng to the Temple Mount in a show of solidarity with Palestinians as he issued a string of challenges to Israel, which he called “racist and discriminatory.”

“We, as Muslims, should be visiting Al-Quds more often,” he said, referring to Jerusalem by its Arabic name.

“Each day that Jerusalem is under occupation is an insult to us,” he added, at the opening ceremony of the International Forum on al-Quds Waqf in Istanbul, Turkey’s Hurriyet news reported. [ Source ]

(Worthy News) – US President Donald Trump has approved supplying weapons to Kurdish forces fighting so-called Islamic State (IS) in Syria, the Pentagon says.

Kurdish elements of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) would be equipped to help drive IS from its stronghold, Raqqa, a spokeswoman said.

The US was “keenly aware” of Turkey’s concerns about such a move, she added.

Turkey views the Kurdish rebels as terrorists and wants to stop them taking more territory in Syria. [ Source ]

(Worthy News) – U.S. President Donald Trump ignited a political firestorm on Tuesday by firing FBI Director James Comey, who had been leading an investigation into the Trump 2016 presidential campaign’s possible collusion with Russia to influence the election outcome.

The Republican president said he fired Comey, the top U.S. law enforcement official, over his handling of an election-year email scandal involving then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

The move stunned Washington and raised suspicions among Democrats and others that the White House was trying to blunt the FBI probe involving Russia. [ Source ]

(Worthy News) – Three years ago, hardly anyone knew his name.  But in a once-unimaginable scenario, Emmanuel Macron — at 39, the boy wonder of an aging political establishment — won the French presidency Sunday with a tidal wave of popular support. He will soon be France’s youngest head of state since ­Napoleon Bonaparte as well as its first modern president who does not belong to either of the center-left or center-right parties that have run this country for 60 years.

After the Brexit campaign’s success in Britain and Donald Trump’s upset victory in the U.S. presidential election, ­Macron’s triumph was billed as having slowed the global tide of anti-establishment populism. In the vote’s second and final round, he defeated Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Front, an anti-immigrant party tainted by the perception that it is tolerant of anti-Semitism and Nazi nostalgia.

Macron, who has never held elected office, has now been elected to one of the most powerful executive positions in the Western world and will be the leader of Europe’s second-largest economy. He did it, analysts say, through a combination of luck and a campaign message attuned to a new political moment. [ Source ]

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Prodigy Macron charts unlikely path from obscurity to Palais Elysee – Times of Israel

(Worthy News) – US President Donald Trump has succeeded in persuading Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas to make the kind of concessions that will enable the diplomatic process to move forward, World Jewish Congress President Ron Lauder told Israeli politicians at The Jerusalem Post Annual Conference in New York.

Lauder is the Jewish leader closest to Trump: their families have been friends for decades; he has free access to the president; and he has advised him on how to advance diplomatic initiatives in the Middle East. He also has built up ties with Arab leaders for decades and was Netanyahu’s unofficial envoy to Syria in the latter’s first term as prime minister.

Behind the scenes at the conference, Lauder briefed ministers Naftali Bennett, Ayelet Shaked and Ofir Akunis, as well as opposition leader Isaac Herzog on his impressions from talking to Trump about how to solve the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. [ Source ]