The French president floated a new proposal to Iran on how to soften the blow of the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal. The Iranian foreign minister said Tehran is ready to discuss it.

The 2015 international agreement lifted economic sanctions from Tehran in exchange for accepting restrictions on its nuclear industry. Last year, Washington pulled out of the deal and launched a "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran. The European signatories promised they would work on shielding the Iranians from the American U-turn, but Tehran was not satisfied and eventually started downgrading its commitments under the deal.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday said he has new proposals on what the Europeans can do about the situation.

"We have made proposals either for a softening of sanctions or a compensation mechanism to enable the Iranian people to live better," Macron said, without elaborating. He said he would relay his plan to Tehran ahead of the upcoming G7 summit that France hosts.

Responding to the news on Thursday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif indicated his government was willing to negotiate. "There are proposals on the table... and we are going to work on those proposals," he said at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs.

US President Donald Trump has stated that he is "the chosen one" to take on Beijing and that his life would be easier if he had not mounted a trade war with China.

The remark came during one of Trump's trademark "helicopter" press conferences, outside the White House on Wednesday. Fielding questions on a range of topics, the president touched on the tariff war with China that he launched in March 2018.
Noting that his life would be "much easier" if he did as other presidents and let China take advantage of the US economically, Trump said he had to do something about it.

I came across an interesting article on MEMO concerning Kosovo (Albanian) stance towards ISIS/ISIL, since 'Kosovo' is as local Albanians claim 'the youngest republic in Europe', which unilaterally proclaimed itself to be independent of Serbia in 2008.

Today it seems that so-called Kosovo has become fertile recruiting ground for ISIS. During 2014, dozens of people were arrested for suspected terrorist activity and more than 300 (officially) left for the Middle East to join ISIS and Al-Nusra Front; more than 30 have been killed, according to government figures. The strong presence of foreign fighters from the Balkans and Kosovo was suggested when Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi's speech declaring himself to be the "caliph" was translated into English, French, German, Turkish, Russian and Albanian.

During the first week of this month of August, the ex-ISIS commander and current head of Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra) Abu Mohammad al-Golani held a press conference in the occupied northern city of Idlib. He declared himself unconcerned by the ceasefire established in the course of thirteen meetings between Turkey and Russia at Astana; he said that the Syrian Army was weak and needed a long time to catch its breath, hence no attack was expected soon. He rejected the outcome of the Sochi meeting (stipulating withdrawal to between 12 to 20 km from the demilitarised demarcation line); and finally, he confirmed that his jihadists would not withdraw one single fighter or weapon even if requested to do so by friends (Turkey). A few days later, the Syrian Army launched an attack to liberate northern rural Hama and in particular the city of Khan Shaykhoun and surroundings. The main M5 road goes through Khan Shaykhoun and is therefore included in the demilitarised agreement, signed by Turkey and Russia.

The Astana agreement between Turkey and Russia, with the blessing of Iran and Syria, has also established static Turkish observation positions in Morek, south of Khan Shaykhoun (now in the current Syrian Army military operational theatre). Turkey is showing uncharacteristic timidity in the way it is contesting the military operation against the al-Golani group and other rebels and jihadists. Sources close to decision makers in Syria said "Turkey was not at all surprised at the operation and its objectives. The Astana agreement is being imposed by fire on those contesting it."

The Jihadist leader al-Golani was obviously misinformed about the capacities of the Syrian Army; he thought Damascus was on its knees and unprepared for battle. He also miscalculated his own strength when challenging Turkey, supposing that he could simply reject a deal agreed by Ankara and stand against it, unharmed. Refusing to withdraw his jihadists from the demarcation line has now cost him a strategic city, Khan Shaykhoun, together with the anger of the thousands of civilian inhabitants who fled to Idlib. Ankara has lifted its protection of al-Golani to help him realise who is running the show in the north-west of Syria - even if he is in command of thousands of jihadists. Al-Golani's underestimation of the Syrian Army is costing him a strategic city.

Israeli Air Force jets struck several targets in the Gaza Strip overnight on Wednesday after two rockets were fired toward communities in southern Israel.

According to a statement by the IDF Spokesperson's Unit, a number of military targets in a Hamas naval facility in the northern Strip were hit following rocket fire toward the community of Nahal Oz.

Shortly after the strike, a second projectile was fired toward Israel, landing in open territory and causing no damage or injuries. Shortly afterward, local Palestinian reports said that additional strikes targeted military posts near Gaza City and Khan Younis.

There were no injuries.

Earlier this week, the Syrian Army liberated a section of the Damascus-Aleppo highway and the strategic town of Khan Sheikhoun from terrorist militants, ending over five years of occupation by an al-Qaeda-affiliated militia group.

The Syrian military has taken control over the town of Khan Sheikhoun, and is now engaged in operations to clear the area of terrorist remnants, a field source has confirmed.

"At the moment, mopping up and demining operations are underway," the source said.

A Sputnik correspondent became the first foreign reporter to enter Khan Sheikhoun on Thursday, confirming that the strategic town is now under the control of the Syrian military.

Syrian forces entered Khan Sheikhoun itself on Sunday following heavy fighting with al-Nusra militants, and began bolstering its positions while advancing into the surrounding villages in the following days.

An alleged Israeli airstrike on an ammunition depot in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, belonging to the Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), is a declaration of war against Iraq, and Baghdad should openly respond to violations of its sovereignty, Iraqi lawmaker and a PMF official, Ahmed Asadi, said on Thursday.

"Israel's intervention into the sphere of our national interests is a declaration of war against Iraq, its people, sovereignty. The silence on the aggression is not a rational position ... We must take measures at the regional and international levels to resist the destruction of our airspace and military capabilities," Asadi said in a statement.

A significant part of US foreign policy rests on the notion of promoting the 'politics of chaos' as this chaos, as I pointed out earlier, plays a key role in maintaining US hegemony upon the international stage. The 'politics of chaos' is not just a strategy used against rival states and strategic competitors; it is also a display of the US deep-state's obsession with running the world unilaterally and denying other (emerging) powers their due status and the ability to challenge US primacy. What we therefore are witnessing in Hong Kong is not an indigenous uprising against China; but rather the engineered 'politics of chaos' aimed at destabilizing the region in order to hurt China both politically and economically. Could this just be a coincidence that the timing of the protests syncs perfectly with the dawn of made-in-China 5G technology, an invention that has the potential to take over the telecom world and thus further erode US hegemony?

Protestors in Hong Kong have not disappointed their financers. Numerous protestors have been seen carrying US flags; playing the US national anthem and asking the US Congress to pass the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act.

US President Donald Trump said Wednesday that other countries must assume the battle against Islamic extremists as the US negotiates a withdrawal from Afghanistan.

He also warned Europeans to take back nationals captured fighting for the Islamic State, or he will release them back to their countries.

Asked by journalists if he is concerned about the reemergence of the Islamic State group in Iraq, Trump said forces under his lead had wiped out the extremists' caliphate.

"At a certain point Russia, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, they are going to have to fight their battles too."

"We wiped out the caliphate 100 percent. I did it in record time. But at a certain point, all of these other countries, where ISIS is around ... are going to have to fight them. Because do we want to stay there another 19 years? I don't think so."

He singled out India and Pakistan as frontline countries that are doing little to fight jihadist groups.

"Look, India's right there, they are not fighting it, we're fighting it. Pakistan is next door. They're fighting it, very little.... it's not fair. The United States is seven thousand miles away," he told reporters.

Hong Kong is in for some big trouble. At least, that's what the Western media has been saying, offering endless predictions of a coming economic crisis in the city wracked by massive protests. But is its future really so dismal?

If one were to Google "Hong Kong" only a year ago, the search engine would return a plethora of results suggesting a vibrant tourist economy, advertisements for first-class flights and luxury getaways on the picturesque Victoria Harbour embankment. Repeating the same search today, however, will return an endless torrent of media coverage predicting imminent economic disaster, confidently linked to the city's heated protests and an insoluble political dispute with its government.