Politics
Palestinian Mission Granted Embassy Status by the UK
A flag-raising ceremony was held outside the Palestinian mission in London on Monday, a day after the UK announced it would recognise the State of Palestine, along with Australia, Canada and Portugal.
Other countries, including France, are due to follow suit in recognising Palestinian statehood at the annual UN General Assembly that opens Monday in New York.
Head of Mission Husam Zomlot hailed the “long overdue” recognition as the flag was raised in front of a crowd outside the building in Hammersmith in west London.
Holding up a plaque reading “Embassy of the State of Palestine”, Zomlot said it would be put up soon, “pending some legal work, some bureaucratic work”.
He called the recognition move an “acknowledgement of a historic injustice” at a time of “unimaginable suffering” for the Palestinian people in the war in Gaza.
He said the UK’s recognition had particular resonance as Britain was pivotal in laying the groundwork for the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, through the 1917 Balfour Declaration.
Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said the Palestinian Authority could now “set up an embassy and an ambassador in the UK”.
“We will set out the diplomatic steps with the Palestinian Authority, there will be a series of different stages and processes to go through,” Cooper told the BBC.
“On that practical side the most important thing is that it’s part of that process to keep everyone working towards a two-state solution,” she added.
Questioned on when the British consulate in east Jerusalem would become an embassy, Cooper said it had been there for longer than the Israeli state, “so it will continue for now, and we will set out the diplomatic process with the Palestinian Authority”.
Following Sunday’s announcement, Britain’s foreign ministry updated its travel advice page to remove the reference to “Occupied Palestinian territories”, replacing it with “Palestine”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has denounced the push for recognition as “absurd”, saying it would “endanger” Israel’s existence.
He has also vowed to accelerate the creation of new settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The war in Gaza follows Hamas’s attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023 that resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 65,208 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, which the UN considers reliable.
- US lawmakers believe there should be more frequent visits
- First House of Representatives visits Beijing in six years.
- Dong says visit to strengthen China-US communications.
A delegation of US lawmakers met with Chinese Defence Minister Dong Jun on Monday in the first House of Representatives visit to Beijing in six years, with talks aimed at bolstering exchanges including military-to-military communication.
The bipartisan delegation was led by Democratic US Representative Adam Smith of Washington, the current top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, which oversees the US Defense Department and armed forces.
“We are the first delegation from the United States House of Representatives since 2019 and we feel strongly that there should be more frequent visits and more robust conversation,” Smith told Dong.
“We want to open up the lines of communication. And in particular around military matters,” Smith said, according to a pool report organised by the US embassy in Beijing.
Trip follows call between leaders
Dong said the visit marked a “good” phase in efforts to strengthen China-US communications, according to the pool report.
He urged the lawmakers to “eliminate interfering and restrictive factors and adopt constructive and pragmatic measures” to help improve military-to-military relations and bilateral ties, China’s state-run news agency Xinhua reported.
The Chinese military is willing to build stable and positive military ties based on respect and peaceful coexistence, while safeguarding national sovereignty, security and development interests, Dong was quoted by Xinhua as saying.
The trip followed a call on Friday between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping as they seek a way out of strained ties exacerbated by trade tensions, US curbs over semiconductor chips, the ownership of TikTok, Chinese activities in the South China Sea, and matters related to Taiwan.
The leaders agreed to further talks on the sidelines of a forum in South Korea at the end of October. Trump also said he would visit China early next year and that Xi would come to the US at a later date.
In a readout of the meeting issued in Washington, Smith said that the US delegation also discussed with Chinese officials the current status of economic negotiations and the impact that tariffs are having on bilateral trade, the need for China to help stem the flow of the deadly drug fentanyl to the US and the status of negotiations on the future of TikTok.
“The delegation discussed the issue of critical minerals and concerns with China’s actions to restrict the global supply and processing of rare earth minerals,” Smith said.
Smith said the delegation emphasised the need to increase dialogue and transparency between the two countries, especially at the military-to-military level, including stressing that the US seeks a peaceful resolution to the issue of Taiwan.
In a separate meeting between China’s Vice Premier He Lifeng and the visiting US lawmakers on Monday, He called on Beijing and Washington to “engage in candid communication, enhance trust and resolve doubts” to develop stable, healthy and sustainable trade and economic relations, according to Xinhua.
The US lawmakers were welcomed by Premier Li Qiang, China’s No.2 political leader, on Sunday.
The COVID-19 pandemic ended formal House visits in 2020, and relations rapidly unravelled due to intense debate over the origins of the coronavirus that spread all over the world.
- Nato accuses Russia of violating airspace in Estonia, Poland.
- UK’s Cooper warns of risk of armed conflict with Russia.
- Russia denies accusations, calls for serious security discussions.
Nato allies accused Russia at the United Nations on Monday of violating the alliance’s air space in Estonia and Poland – actions that Britain said risked triggering an armed conflict.
Confronting Russia at a meeting of the United Nations Security Council, British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “Your reckless actions risk direct armed confrontation between Nato and Russia. Our alliance is defensive but be under no illusion we stand ready to defend Nato’s skies and Nato’s territory.”
“If we need to confront planes operating in Nato space without permission then we will do so,” she said.
Estonia said on Friday that three Russian MiG-31 fighter jets had entered Estonian airspace without permission and stayed for a total of 12 minutes before they were forced to withdraw in an episode that Western officials said was designed to test NATO’s readiness and resolve.
The Security Council convened on Monday to discuss the issue. Nato consultations were due to take place on Tuesday. The incident occurred just over a week after more than 20 Russian drones entered Polish airspace, prompting Nato jets to shoot some of them down.
Cooper’s comments were echoed by other Western ministers in the Security Council, including EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, who suggested the multiple incidents could not be considered an accident.
Ukraine’s foreign minister said such actions by Moscow should be met robustly and renewed an offer by Kyiv to integrate its air defences into those of neighbouring Western countries to counter the Russian front.
“A strong response means that a threat should not be escorted, neither for 12 minutes, nor for one minute. It should be neutralized,” said the minister, Andrii Sybiha.
The United States’ new envoy to the UN, Michael Waltz, making his first appearance since taking his post, said Moscow needed to defuse tensions, not exacerbate them.
“I want to take this first opportunity to repeat and to emphasise the United States and our allies will defend every inch of Nato territory,” Waltz said.
Russia’s deputy ambassador to the UN, Dmytry Polyanskiy, said there was no evidence backing their claims and accused European powers of levying baseless accusations.
“We won’t be partaking in this theater of the absurd,” he said. “When you decide that you want to engage in a serious discussion about European security, about the fate of our common continent, about how to make this continent prosperous and secure for everybody, we’ll be ready.”
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump will sign an executive order later this week that declares that a deal to divest TikTok’s US operations from its Chinese owner Bytedance, will meet requirements set out in a 2024 law, a White House official said on Monday.
The United States is confident that China has approved the deal and does not plan further talks with Beijing about its details, the official told reporters on a conference call, but added that additional paperwork is required from both sides to approve the deal.
Trump is trying to keep the short video app with 170 million US users from being banned after Congress passed a law that ordered it shut down by January 2025 if its US assets were not sold by the owner ByteDance.
Trump has delayed enforcement of the law through mid-December amid efforts to extract TikTok’s US assets from the global platform, line up American investors and ensure the new ownership qualifies as a full divestiture needed under the 2024 law.
Last week’s progress toward a deal on TikTok marked a rare breakthrough in months-long talks between the world’s two biggest economies that have sought to defuse a wide-ranging trade war that has unnerved global markets.
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