TDB Top 5 International Stories: Monday 24th July 2017

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5:  Goodnight Sweet Prince

White House press secretary Sean Spicer has resigned. Say goodbye to a legend.

Sean Spicer was the perfect press secretary for the debut of Donald Trump’s White House. Much like his boss, he was astoundingly inarticulate, deeply incompetent, and reliably dishonest. The number of gaffes he made at the podium—in this golden era of occasionally televised and always live-tweeted White House pressers—would have been astounding and likely grounds for immediate firing any other chief executive.

But on Friday, Spicer resigned after the president offered FOX News contributor and Wall Street guy Anthony Scaramucci the job of communications director. According to the New York Times, “the president requested that Mr. Spicer stay on, but Mr. Spicer told Mr. Trump that he believed the appointment was a major mistake, according to person with direct knowledge of the exchange.”

He will continue in his role through August

Vice News

4:  Israel installs security cameras at al-Aqsa compound

Israel has installed new security cameras at the entrance to a contested Jerusalem holy site, as officials began indicating it was considering “alternatives” to the metal detectors at the shrine that set off a weekend of violence and raised tensions in the region.

Speaking from occupied East Jerusalem, Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan said Palestinians had feared that Israel would place CCTV cameras at the entrances to the al-Aqsa compound.

“The Palestinians are very angry about this because they consider this an additional security measure,” he said. “They’ve always maintained that the metal detectors may be the first move in the Israelis taking over the compound.”

Aljazeera

3:  Criminalizing Critics of Israel: Congress Considers Sweeping Bills to Fine & Jail Backers of BDS

U.S. lawmakers are seeking to criminally outlaw support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel. If a proposed bipartisan law is passed, backers of BDS could face up to 20 years in prison and a million-dollar fine. We speak to Rabbi Joseph Berman of Jewish Voice for Peace and Ryan Grim of The Intercept. His latest article is titled “U.S. Lawmakers Seek to Criminally Outlaw Support for Boycott Campaign Against Israel.”
Democracy Now

2:  DONALD TRUMP AND THE COMING FALL OF AMERICAN EMPIRE

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

EVEN AS PRESIDENT DONALD Trump faces ever-intensifying investigations into the alleged connections between his top aides and family members and powerful Russian figures, he serves as commander in chief over a U.S. military that is killing an astonishing and growing number of civilians. Under Trump, the U.S. is re-escalating its war in Afghanistan, expanding its operations in Iraq and Syria, conducting covert raids in Somalia and Yemen, and openly facilitating the Saudi’s genocidal military destruction of Yemen.

Meanwhile, China has quietly and rapidly expanded its influence without deploying its military on foreign soil.

A new book by the famed historian Alfred McCoy predicts that China is set to surpass the influence of the U.S. globally, both militarily and economically, by the year 2030. At that point, McCoy asserts the United States Empire as we know it will be no more. He sees the Trump presidency as one of the clearest byproducts of the erosion of U.S. global dominance, but not its root cause. At the same time, he also believes Trump may accelerate the empire’s decline.

McCoy argues that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was the beginning of the end. McCoy is not some chicken little. He is a serious academic. And he has guts.

During the Vietnam war, McCoy was ambushed by CIA-backed paramilitaries as he investigated the swelling heroin trade. The CIA tried to stop the publication of his now classic book, “The Politics of Heroin.” His phone was tapped, he was audited by the IRS and he was investigated and spied on by the FBI. McCoy also wrote one of the earliest and most prescient books on the post 9-11 CIA torture program and he is one of the world’s foremost experts on U.S. covert action. His new book, which will be released in September, is called “In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power.”

The Intercept

1:  Israel refuses to remove metal detectors from mosque despite rising violence

Israeli officials have said they will not remove metal detectors from outside a Jerusalem mosque, despite their installation triggering rapidly escalating confrontations with Palestinians.

Amid a mounting toll of deaths and injuries in the crisis, Israelis and Palestinians are braced for weeks of confrontation, as both sides appeared to dig in to their positions.

In addition to the metal detectors, Israel has also began installing sophisticated security cameras at one of the entrances to the compound housing the al-Aqsa mosque, known to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif and revered by Jews as the Temple Mount.

Security officials told Israeli media the cameras were intended to complement the metal detectors, not replace them.

The Guardian