Jordan has announced its intention to reclaim full sovereignty over farmland leased to Israel as part of the 1994 peace treaty. Calling such a change "unacceptable" after so many years, Israel has vowed to renegotiate the deal.

"We are practicing our full sovereignty on our land," King Abdullah II said Sunday, announcing the Kingdom's intention to opt out of parts of the peace treaty which permitted Israelis to use 405 hectares of their farmland. In an "era of regional turmoil," the King stressed, "our priority in these regional circumstances is to protect our interests and do whatever is required for Jordan and the Jordanians."

Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty in 1994, part of which included handing over lands to Tel Aviv for 25 years which Amman can claim back if it cancels the existing arrangement. The territories in question are known in Arabic as al-Baqura and al-Ghamr, and Naharayim and Zofar in Hebrew.

The agreement is automatically renewable unless either Tel Aviv or Amman gives a year's notice to terminate the deal. The deadline for renewing the leases within the one year's notice is set for this Thursday, October 25.

Senior Afghan officials have praised voters who cast ballots in weekend parliamentary elections that were plagued by violence and organizational problems, saying the turnout shows that Afghans are rejecting the ideology of Taliban militants.

"The Taliban wanted to build a stream of blood, but the Taliban was defeated and the Taliban's thoughts and ideas were rejected," Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah told a cabinet meeting on October 22.


Around 4 million out of 8.8 million registered voters in a country of more than 30 million cast their ballots over the two-day voting at more than 4,500 polling centers across the country, according to election authorities, despite deadly militant attacks in which dozens of people were killed and delays caused by technical and organizational problems.


The Taliban had issued several warnings in the days leading up to the poll demanding the more than 2,500 candidates for the lower house of parliament withdraw from the race and for voters to stay home.

Preliminary results of the parliamentary elections, which were seen as a key test of the government's ability to provide security across the country, were expected to be released on November 10 at the earliest. Final results will likely be out sometime in December, an election commission spokesman has said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree allowing Russia to target Ukrainian companies and individuals with sanctions in response to Ukrainian sanctions against Russia, the Kremlin website reported on Monday.

The decree was issued as "a response to unfriendly actions of Ukraine" related to the introduction of sanctions against citizens and legal entities of Russia, as well as "in order to protect national interests," according to the website.

The Russian government was ordered to "determine the lists of individuals and legal entities in respect of which special economic measures are applied", and "identify special economic measures applicable to individuals and legal entities."

Dissident Saudi Prince Khalid bin Farhan Al-Saud has demanded King Salman bin Abdulaziz to abdicate the throne in favour of his brother Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz after the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi; an incident that has provoked international outrage.

Prince Khalid bin Farhan, who lives currently in Germany, said: "King Salman's royal line should not be imposed as a fourth kingship. Your brothers were kings, and you also became one. It is not Saudi Arabia's absolute fate that one of your grandchildren becomes the ruler, and then the rest of your offspring monopolises the throne afterwards. Among the Saudi Royalty, there are highly cultivated, and humane princes with a good educational level and they are popular outside and even inside the ruling family."

During an interview with the German DW TV, The Saudi prince also stated: "Your brother Ahmed bin Abdulaziz is highly ethical, and you are aware of this, not only you but the whole royal family and the Saudi people realise it. So, the wise thing to do, if you have any wisdom left, is to abdicate the throne in his favour and save what remained of your dignity."

Australia's governing coalition has lost its one-seat parliamentary majority after a by-election in Sydney.
Kerryn Phelps, a local doctor and popular independent candidate, comfortably won the Wentworth seat.

"This win tonight should signal a return of decency, integrity and humanity to the Australian government," she told supporters.

Australia has had six prime ministers in eight years, and now faces further uncertainty.

Riyadh is investing widely to wean itself off oil: but the dark allegations about the fate of dissident Jamal Khashoggi put its ambitious economic plan in perilWhen Mohammed bin Salman was touring the UK and US earlier this year, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia - and its de facto ruler - could have relied almost exclusively on businesses backed by the kingdom's money.

Landing in London, "MBS" might have dispensed with his chauffeur-driven car, travelling into the capital by Uber, while his aides finalised his itinerary on smartphones powered with chips designed by Cambridge-based ARM Holdings. After glad-handing bank chiefs in the City, any investment plans they discussed could have been further developed using cloud office app Slack.

India will respond against aggressors who challenge its sovereignty with "double the force," Prime Minister Narendra Modi has stated, noting that his government is not shy of taking "bold" steps to defend the country's interests.

"The strength of our Army has always been for self-protection, and it will remain so in the future too," the Prime Minister said during his speech at Police Commemoration Day, stressing that "the best technology is being made available to the Indian Army."

Noting that while his government is committed to taking "big and bold" decisions, India has "never been greedy" to take someone else's land, Modi stressed. But "whosoever poses a threat to Indian sovereignty will be answered with double the force," the PM declared.

Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii is considering running for president in 2020, a source with direct knowledge of her deliberations told POLITICO.

Rania Batrice, an adviser to the progressive congresswoman and deputy campaign manager on Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign, has been putting out feelers for digital and speechwriting staff for Gabbard. One person approached about the positions say that 2020 wasn't mentioned explicitly, but it was heavily implied.

Batrice denied that the staffers are being hired for a presidential campaign. She did not dispute, however, that Gabbard is considering joining what's expected to be a crowded field of Democratic presidential contenders.

The Trump administration has decided to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), the most comprehensive disarmament treaty ever negotiated between Washington and Moscow. National Security Adviser John Bolton, a long-time opponent of arms control, reportedly will inform Russian President Vladimir Putin this week that the United States will do so. The Trump administration will also be briefing our key European allies on the decision, which will complicate relations with Germany and France who favor maintaining the treaty. This is the latest in a series of U.S. steps over the past 20 years that have put the Russians on the defensive, and led Russian President Vladimir Putin to be more assertive in protecting Moscow's interests in East Europe.

The INF treaty actually eliminated an entire class of intermediate-range missiles from the U.S. and Soviet arsenals in 1987. The Pentagon opposed the treaty, and Secretary of Defense Weinberger and his deputy for arms control and disarmament, Richard Perle, resigned in protest over President Ronald Reagan's decision to go forward. The Pentagon has opposed all presidential decisions to pursue disarmament, although-in the case of INF-the Soviets destroyed more than twice as many missiles as the United States, and the European theatre became safer for U.S. forces stationed there. The treaty and the improved bilateral relations actually led to a slowdown in military spending in both the United States and Russia.

In 2002, President George W. Bush created the worst of all possible strategic worlds when he abrogated the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM), the cornerstone of strategic deterrence and one of the pearls of Soviet-American arms control policy. Bush inflicted the diplomatic wound of abrogating a treaty without cause in order to incur the expense of moving into the world of National Missile Defense (NMD) without any guarantee that even rogue missiles could be stopped. There is no better example of the creation of national insecurity than the Bush administration's foolish belief that we could create an impenetrable nuclear umbrella.

The US Central Command (CENTCOM) says that it's fine to kill civilians in Syria while these civilians are trapped in the ISIS-held area.

On October 21, Commander of CENTCOM Army Gen. Joseph Votel commented on a series of airstrikes on the mosque in the village of al-Susah in the southeastern Deir Ezzor countryside, which took place last week and reportedly resulted in the killing of at least 46 civilians. According to AP, he said that he's very satisfied by the actions of the US-led coalition.

"The determination that was made by the leadership on the ground that this was this mosque was not being used as a mosque," Votel told reporters traveling with him in Qatar, according to AP. "These aren't hastily made decisions."

Additionally, the US-led coalition said that the targeted building was not used as a mosque. The coalition even claimed monitoring of the building "made us aware" of when only ISIS members were present. But this version does not explain dozens of killed civilians there, which are confirmed by both pro-Damascus and pro-opposition sources: the Syrian state news agency SANA and the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).

The blame and deny approach demonstrated by Army Gen. Votel and the coalition is common for the US military. On October 15, Amnesty International released a report slamming the coalition for its denials of civlian deaths during its operations in the city of Raqqah.

"Disturbingly, the Pentagon does not even seem willing to offer an apology for the hundreds of civilians killed in its 'war of annihilation' on Raqqa. This is an insult to families who - after suffering the brutality of IS rule - lost loved ones to the Coalition's cataclysmic barrage of firepower," Kumi Naidoo, Amnesty International's new Secretary General, said, according to the report.

In light of the recent remarks by the coalition and Army Gen. Votel show that the Washington establishment is still not interested in the truth and will not move to admit the real civilian death toll caused by its forces.