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Six dead and Mogadishu mayor wounded in blast at his office

Six people were killed and the mayor of Mogadishu wounded in a bombing at the mayoral offices in the Somali capital, the government said on Wednesday, in an attack claimed by Al-Shabaab jihadists. United Nations special envoy James Swan had met the ma…

Italy PM faces Russia cash questions after Salvini refusal

Italian premier Giuseppe Conte on Wednesday tried to answer parliament’s questions about an alleged bid by Matteo Salvini’s League party to broker covert Russian funding after the far-right minister refused. Interior Minister Salvini, an admirer of Ru…

With a Bang, Israel’s Explosive Politics Move Into Palestinian Territory

With a Bang, Israel’s Explosive Politics Move Into Palestinian TerritoryAnadolu Agency/GettyDARSALAH, West Bank—The bulldozers came early to Wadi Hummus, the whimsically named hamlet in Sur Baher, a neighborhood in southeastern Jerusalem. They rumbled in slowly Monday at 6:00 in the morning, and immediately their maws began to carve huge chunks out of buildings, most of them partially built. The din of the de-construction was heard far and wide,  and activists embedded on-site to protest the demolition activity said that two hours earlier they’d seen soldiers place explosive charges in the vicinity of a multi-story building, so a big bang was anticipated as journalists assembled.In point of fact, Gal Berger, a veteran Palestinian affairs correspondent for the Kan News broadcaster, chided his Israeli colleagues for suddenly paying so much attention to something that “happens every week.” But this operation is set against the backdrop of an ugly election campaign as right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu struggles not only to keep his office but to avoid criminal indictments. A hard line against Palestinians will be seen as a plus by some in his base. After the Netanyahu Fail, What Is Trump’s Israel-Palestine Solution? Let Others Pick Up the PiecesAnd with these demolitions, Israel was destroying structures located in the West Bank’s Area A, which is defined under the Israeli-Palestinian Oslo Accords as exclusively administered by the Palestinian Authority. In a statement, Israel’s Civil Administration, which is in fact the Israeli army department responsible for civilian life in the West Bank—which has been under Israeli military occupation since the war of 1967—said the demolition of 12 “illegally constructed” buildings and two foundations fell in an area “under an injunction prohibiting building signed by the Central Command on the outskirts of Sur Baher in close proximity to the security fence.”The reference is to a 2011 military order prohibiting construction within about 300 yards of Israel’s security barrier, which went up after a succession of terror attacks in 2002. Israel claims the buildings in question were erected after 2014. The demolitions followed an Israeli Supreme Court ruling accepting the army’s contention that the buildings, including those in Palestinian-administered territory, constituted “a security danger to the area of the security fence.”On Monday, there was no access to the actual site of the Wadi Hummus demolition, an Israeli army operation supported by military police, and, beyond the official statement, no information was available from Israeli authorities. In turn, spokespeople for the Israel Defense Forces, the police, the military police and the civilian administration claimed not to be responsible for the task. Official sources varied in the number of buildings affected by the demolition order, but most of the structures were uninhabited. Only two families were physically displaced.As Iran-U.S. Tensions Rise, Hezbollah Readies for War With IsraelThe entire undertaking could be seen and heard from a few hundred feet away, across the “security fence,” which U.S. President Trump has extolled as a wall, but which, in the segment that slices through Wadi Hummus, is in fact merely a dusty road flanked by fairly loose barbed wire fencing along each side. At about 8:00 a.m., Khaled Abu Mahmid, a middle-aged attorney clad in a plain black suit, stood on a neighbor’s balcony and surveyed the ruins of the home he’d built just on the Palestinian side of the road-acting-as-fence, in the small town of Darsalah.Until Monday morning, he resided in the four-story dwelling with his wife and four children, one of whom is a married son who lived in the multi-family unit with his own wife and three young children. Abu Mahmid, a West Bank Palestinian, held to a lawyerly argument. “The Israeli high court’s decision to destroy the home, is not a legal decision. It is political, because the home was built in 2008, before the security road was built.”His home was in Area B, which, following Oslo, is under Palestinian civil control and joint Israeli-Palestinian security control. Area C, 61 percent of the West Bank, is fully under Israeli control. Nobody—not Abu Mahmid, not the Israeli representatives—mentioned the fact that the Palestinian Authority, the undisputed sovereign of Area A, and the civilian authority in Area B, had no role in Israel’s internal debate about the right of the buildings to stand.Whenever Abu Mahmid’s home was built, no one disputes one thing: the buildings demolished on Monday are interspersed among other preexisting buildings unquestionably built prior to 2011, at equal distance from the security road, and their continued presence does not, apparently, constitute a substantial threat.Accompanying Abu Mahmid was Khaled el-Khatib, the mayor of Darsalah, a town located in Bethlehem’s administrative district, who said “we gave them the approval to build, through the Palestinian local government.” It is almost impossible for Palestinian residents of east Jerusalem to receive building authorizations from Jerusalem city hall. Speaking to the Israeli daily Haaretz, Aviv Tatarsky, a researcher for the left-wing Ir Amim advocacy group, said “residents who didn’t want to build without a permit sought a creative solution and were granted construction permits from the Palestinian Authority to build in areas A and B, where Israel has no authority concerning construction plans.”Israel’s “insistence to prevent this solution is a very cruel act,” he added. Asked where he would sleep that night, Abu Mahmid glanced at the rubble and turned away, for once overcome.For Jamal Darawy, chairman of the Bethlehem district’s eastern sector, “The main reason for demolishing is to weaken the Palestinian Authority, to show the world that we are not good enough to have a state.”He scoffed at the contention the Sur Baher homes posed a threat to Israeli security as “a fake reason,” pointing out that Arabs live on both sides of the security road, and Israelis, in any event, remain free to “continue guarding with their cameras and their border police units.” “Actually,” he said, “these homes are no danger to any Jews or Israelis or any human being.” No terror attacks have originated in Wadi Hummus. Asked why the homes in the neighborhood were judged a security threat, military police spokesman Baruch Honig said “the state of Israel does not wait for a terror attack to take place before acting.”At about 7:00 p.m., Nizar Amer, the acting spokesman for Israel’s foreign ministry, tweeted that “Israel has the full right to demolish the illegal buildings adjacent to the security fence in Sur Baher. This was carried out following a High Court of Justice ruling that these constructions constitute a security danger to Israeli civilians. This is a deliberate provocation by the Palestinian Authority. Those who knowingly built illegal houses took the law into their own hands.”About an hour later, a video started making the rounds of Israeli and Palestinian WhatsApp groups, showing an Israeli Border Police officer embracing a soldier, turning around for a smiling selfie and exulting “mazal tov!” as, behind them, an unfinished multi-story building in Wadi Hummus was detonated, neatly crumpling floor by floor. The video was taken at 7:30 p.m., police spokesman Honig said, and was “congratulatory at the conclusion of a 17-hour operation in intense heat.” Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

UPDATE 1-U.S. sees European maritime security effort in Gulf as ‘complementary’

KABUL/WASHINGTON, July 24 (Reuters) – The United States believes a proposed European initiative to bolster maritime security in the Gulf would complement ongoing U.S. efforts there instead of being a “stand-alone” operation, the top U.S. general said o…

Boris Johnson Vows to Get a Better Brexit Deal or Leave EU Without One

(Bloomberg) — Boris Johnson became British prime minister on Wednesday and immediately declared he will get the country ready for the “remote” prospect of a no-deal Brexit if it’s the only way to leave the European Union on time.Shortly after visiting…

Officials: Disturbed man grabs police gun, wounds 3 in Cairo

A disturbed Egyptian man snatched a gun from a policeman in Cairo and opened fire at passers-by on Wednesday, wounding at least three people, security officials said. The officials said the incident took place outside a busy bus station a few miles fr…

Democrats extract little from Mueller as partisan war over Russia report clouds testimony

The pattern as to what would unfold over the three and half hours of Robert Mueller’s first appearance answering questions about his investigation into whether Donald Trump was the Muscovian candidate for the White House, became clear early on.The form…

‘The Time Has Come To Act’: Boris Johnson Takes The Helm As U.K. Prime Minister

The polarizing and showboating new prime minister has vowed to deliver on the U.K. leaving the European Union in October, whether or not a deal is reached.

Boris Johnson Could Be The Next Churchill If He Delivers A Favorable Brexit Deal For The U.K.

Boris Johnson, Member of Parliament representing Uxbridge and South Ruislip, has been elected as the new Conservative Party leader after winning comfortably by a margin of 45,497 votes against rival Jeremy Hunt. Apart from the bombastic speeches, a ge…

Pentagon chief aims to ensure safe passage in Persian Gulf

The U.S. military intends to protect American commercial ships against Iranian threats in the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz but will not provide naval escorts in every case, the newly installed defense secretary said Wednesday. The aim of the U.S….

Boris Rebranded: The Making of Britain’s Prime Minister

Boris Rebranded: The Making of Britain’s Prime Minister(Bloomberg) — In a luxury hotel in the heart of one of London’s most expensive neighborhoods, Boris Johnson celebrated his victory in the race to become U.K. prime minister on Tuesday night.Gathered with his team at the reception in Brown’s Hotel in Mayfair, he and guests swapped stories of the six-week contest over salmon mousse and sausages on sticks. They toasted the triumph with glasses of premium rosé champagne. The entertainment was a magician performing card tricks.But the most spectacular act of wizardry had already taken place: the transformation of a politician derided as a failure 12 months earlier into the most powerful man in Britain.This story is based on conversations with parliamentarians, advisers and ministers and shows how Johnson convinced his skeptical colleagues to put their faith him. Now he needs to maintain that support if he’s going to survive as prime minister and deliver his promises to negotiate a better Brexit deal.In truth, the public face of the Brexit campaign was always popular with grassroots party members desperate to get out of the EU. But he faced one persistent question: was he popular enough among the 300 or so Conservative members of Parliament to be elected to lead them? A media star with a gift for comedy, Johnson won fame and fans among the British public in a way few politicians ever achieve. But the people’s touch never before had translated into acceptance among his peers in the Westminster.The point was made vividly during the leadership election after David Cameron quit in 2016 following the referendum to leave the EU. Johnson couldn’t even convince his own campaign manager and Brexit ally, Michael Gove, that he would make a good prime minister. Gove stood as a rival himself, citing his conviction that Johnson was simply not up to the job.A year ago, Johnson was at one of the lowest points in his career. He had just resigned from Theresa May’s cabinet in protest at her Brexit policy. He had given up his prestigious role of foreign secretary to wage a campaign against the deal May was proposing with the EU. He said it would bind Britain indefinitely to European trade rules and undermine the whole point of leaving the bloc of 28 countries.Read More: The Rivalry Shaping British PoliticsIn the corridors and cafes of the U.K. Parliament during the summer of 2018, Johnson often cut a solitary figure. His hands would be stuffed into his pockets, shoulders hunched, as he shuffled through the atrium on his own or with a loyal friend.When he stood up in the House of Commons chamber to make a speech on Brexit, few MPs in the room paid him any attention in the bitterly divided parliament. His record at the Foreign Office had been marred with gaffes. It was a lonely time, according to one of Johnson’s allies.But Johnson, 55, played the long game. He worked on a strategy with a few trusted allies, including Lee Cain, his media aide, and Conor Burns, the MP who had served as his parliamentary bag-carrier.Another key figure in Johnson’s career was also on the phone with him daily: Lynton Crosby, the Australian election consultant who delivered him two terms as London mayor and helped win general elections for Cameron in 2015 and Scott Morrison in Australia this year.Between them, Johnson and his supporters decided their man must keep a low profile. Let the world forget he exists so he can rebuild his brand from the ground up. He set out policy positions beyond Brexit in his weekly column for the Daily Telegraph newspaper, and worked to persuade his colleagues that he could be disciplined, serious and trustworthy.Johnson turned to James Wharton, a former Tory MP as his campaign coordinator, to help win friends in the House of Commons. Wharton set up a tight schedule of 15-minute meetings for Johnson and individual MPs so the candidate could gather their views and sell his credentials as the man who could defeat Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn and the Tory nemesis, Brexit hard liner Nigel Farage. Johnson was put on a fitness regime, with a diet to lose weight, a new haircut and smarter suits.Two more recruits to Johnson’s campaign were key. Grant Shapps, the former Conservative Party chairman, who knew Crosby from the 2015 Tory general election campaign, and Gavin Williamson, who May fired as defense secretary.Williamson brought experience organizing MPs as the government’s former chief whip, but Shapps had a different weapon: a sophisticated spreadsheet on which he had mapped all his Tory colleagues and their leadership preferences.Before he agreed to join Johnson’s campaign team, Shapps demanded that the candidate promise to work on the MPs who his data showed were vital. Johnson was as good as his word. He would hold face-to-face meetings with 16 Tory MPs every day, before going home to make dozens of calls in the evenings and at weekends, reinforcing his message to his colleagues.Williamson would then marshal an army of 78 handlers who would follow up with the MPs to check whether they were moving to support Johnson, sticking with a rival, or still undecided. The handlers fed back the answers through WhatsApp, and Shapps – who received advice from Crosby – crunched the numbers.The other key figure in Johnson’s team was his girlfriend, Carrie Symonds. A former Tory aide, Symonds knew the discipline that would be needed and kept Johnson focused. She would take a list of 40 or 50 MPs home and make sure Johnson called every one of them, as he’d promised to do.All this preparation meant that when May quit and the leadership campaign formally began in early June, Johnson was ready. The duo of Shapps and Williamson took on the work of marshaling MPs to vote for their man.“I came to the view that he’s the most trusted person to deliver Brexit, which is obviously the important issue of the day,” said Tory MP and minister Rishi Sunak. “He has a track record of delivery – not only winning elections, which he has done, on numerous occasions but also delivering in government,” he said. “That was the package.”Inside the campaign, secrecy was key. Wharton banned Shapps from sharing the results of his survey of MPs with Johnson. In early June, however, Shapps met Johnson in private and revealed he was going to win at least 105 votes, enough to guarantee him a place on the ballot of party members.On June 12, the night before the first vote among Tory MPs, Johnson was desperate for an update. “Come on Grant, tell me,” he said. Shapps gave him a low estimate of 108 votes of the 313 MPs eligible for the ballot.As the voting unfolded the following day, the Johnson team’s data became increasingly sophisticated. Shapps was eventually able to predict exactly that Johnson would win 114 votes during that first round of the contest before the result was declared.From the start, Johnson’s team wanted to take on Jeremy Hunt in the final two. They believed Hunt was the weakest of the rival candidates and would go down badly with the membership. In the final round of voting, some MPs suggested Johnson’s backers switched to support Hunt to ensure he went through and Home Secretary Sajid Javid was knocked out.“I think there’s more churn than the average washing machine,” said Trade Secretary Liam Fox, a Hunt supporter.Perhaps the most valuable endorsement for Johnson was the support he had from the uncompromising pro-Brexit European Research Group of Conservative MPs. Steve Baker and Jacob Rees-Mogg, who organize the ERG, united their colleagues behind Johnson’s campaign.Maintaining that support will be vital if Johnson is to keep the job he just won. Key to that will be following through on his promise to exit the EU by the deadline of Oct. 31 – with or without his new deal.“We have at last got our man where we want him,” Baker said. “What he has pledged I expect him to stand by.”\–With assistance from Robert Hutton, Kitty Donaldson, Thomas Penny, Stuart Biggs and Caroline Alexander.To contact the authors of this story: Tim Ross in London at [email protected] Shankleman in London at [email protected] Morales in London at [email protected] contact the editor responsible for this story: Flavia Krause-Jackson at [email protected], Rodney JeffersonFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

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