USA

05 Feb 2020; MEMO: A draft United Nations Security Council resolution on Tuesday condemned an Israeli plan to annex its settlements in the West Bank in a rebuke of President Donald Trump’s pro-Israel 'peace proposal', Reuters reports.

The draft text, circulated to council members by Tunisia and Indonesia, would seemingly face a US veto, but nonetheless offered some members’ dim view of the peace plan that Trump rolled out last week with great fanfare.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 4 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Tuesday that the world body is committed to its established position of a two-state solution with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 4 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday met with Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi on Iran, according to U.S. State Department.

The two discussed the IAEA's monitoring work in Iran, nuclear security, and the importance of the IAEA to U.S. security interests, State Department's Spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said in a statement.

Pompeo and Grossi pledged to stay in close contact on nuclear issues of concern, the statement added.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 5 (NNN-XINHUA) – UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, said, the UN is totally committed to the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“We are totally committed to the two-state solution. And we are totally committed to supporting Israelis and Palestinians, to come to a peace process with the two-state solution, based on international law, based on Security Council and General Assembly resolutions and based on the borders of 1967,” the UN chief said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military has deployed a new addition to its nuclear arsenal — a long-range missile armed with a nuclear warhead of reduced destructive power. The so-called low-yield missile joins other, more powerful weapons aboard stealthy submarines prowling the oceans.

ABOARD A U.S. MILITARY AIRCRAFT (AP) — The top U.S. commander for the Middle East slipped quietly into Iraq Tuesday, as the Trump administration works to salvage relations with Iraqi leaders and shut down the government’s push for an American troop withdrawal.

Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie became the most senior U.S. military official to visit since an American drone strike in Baghdad last month killed a top Iranian general, enraging the Iraqis.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Tuesday that “a wind of madness is sweeping the globe,” pointing to escalating conflicts from Libya and Yemen to Syria and beyond.

At a wide-ranging news conference, he said, “All situations are different but there is a feeling of growing instability and hair-trigger tensions, which makes everything far more unpredictable and uncontrollable, with a heightened risk of miscalculation.”

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Joe Biden’s third presidential bid enters a critical stretch after a disappointing finish in the Iowa caucuses sent the former vice president on to New Hampshire with a skittish donor base, low cash reserves and the looming threat of billionaire rival Michael Bloomberg and his unlimited personal wealth.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is on the verge of acquittal by the Senate, an end to only the third presidential impeachment trial in American history but coming at the start of a tumultuous campaign for the White House.

A majority of senators have now expressed unease with Trump’s pressure campaign on Ukraine that resulted in the two articles of impeachment. But there’s nowhere near the two-thirds support necessary in Republican-held Senate for the Constitution’s bar of high crimes and misdemeanors to convict and remove the president from office.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Would-be plotters bent on staging an attack aboard a passenger plane know they’ve first got to pass through a gauntlet of security measures at an airport, from body scans and spot interrogations to pat-downs and even close scrutiny of their shoes.

But a shooting that killed a person and wounded five this week on a Greyhound bus in California illustrates a stark reality about security on buses and trains: Anyone determined to carry out an attack on ground transportation faces few, if any, security checks.