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An Israeli Foreign Ministry official says the country is sending an envoy to Washington amid a deepening rift with the Biden administration over six outlawed Palestinian rights groups TEL AVIV, Israel -- Israel is sending an envoy to Washington amid a deepening rift with the Biden administration over six outlawed Palestinian rights groups, a Foreign Ministry official said Tuesday. Israel last week designated the prominent Palestinian human rights groups as terrorist organizations, sparking international criticism and repeated assertions by Israel's top strategic partner, the United States, that there had been no advance warning ...Zarka said he personally updated U.S. officials...

LONDON, Aug 31 (Reuters) - Britain co-ordinated closely with the United States and did not push to keep a gate open at Kabul airport where a suicide bomber killed 13 U.S. troops and scores of Afghan civilians, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said on Tuesday. A Politico report on Monday said American forces decided to keep the Abbey Gate open longer than they wanted to allow Britain to continue evacuating personnel. "We got our civilian staff out of the processing centre by Abbey Gate, but it's just not true to suggest that, other than securing our civilian staff inside the...

The Chinese government seized on a scheduling delay during Vice President Kamala Harris’ ongoing trip to Vietnam to undercut the White House’s planned outreach regarding COVID-19 vaccine supply, according to a report Wednesday. Harris was set to announce a U.S. donation of one million doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine as part of a broader effort to cultivate closer ties with Vietnam and counteract Beijing’s influence in the region. When Harris’ team experienced a three-hour delay ahead of her planned meeting with Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc, China sent its own diplomat to meet with Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh...

“Chewing gum stuck on the sole of China’s shoes.” That’s how Hu Xijin, the editor of the Chinese Communist Party–run Global Times, described Australia last year. The disparaging description is typical of the disdain that China’s diplomats and propagandists have often shown toward governments that challenge Beijing—like Australia’s. China is now the great power of Asia—or so Beijing believes—but those pesky Australians, mouthing off about human rights and coronavirus investigations, refuse to bend the knee. Beijing has turned to economic pressure to compel Australia to fall in line. “Sometimes you have to find a stone to rub it off,” Hu...

BRUSSELS, Belgium - Amid significant gains being made by pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine and denies by Russia of a military intervention in the country, the European Union has issued a one week ultimatum for Moscow to remove its alleged forces from the country. European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said that Russia had a week to withdraw its soldiers from eastern Ukraine or face further severe sanctions, while Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said his country was "close to a point of no return - full scale-war" with Russia. The Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite went one step further, calling Russia's...

Barack Obama's diplomacy....