The U.S. is pressing Israel to implement a deal is has signed several years ago with Jordan for building the Red-Dead joint project — a pipeline that connects the Red Sea and the Dead Sea, Israeli and U.S. officials tell me.
Why it matters: The project, which is set to be built in Jordanian territory, is the biggest and most strategically important infrastructure project in Jordan to date and is one of the main areas of cooperation between Israel and Jordan. The projects includes water desalinization, energy and tourism facilities. Two key goals are to save the Dead Sea, which is gradually shrinking, and cement the Israeli-Jordanian relationship for generations to come. The U.S. is a central partner in the project and is also supposed to provide $100 million in funding.
This spring, President Trump signaled a potential desire to replace the agreement, calling on Twitter for the “KOREAN WAR TO END!” and promising a "peace regime" with Kim Jong-un in Singapore. Meanwhile, the armistice agreement that ended the Korean War — a truce, not a peace treaty — endures, reaching its 65th anniversary on Friday.
The big picture: History is littered with peace proclamations that North Korea signed and then ignored. While Pyongyang has repeatedly renounced the Armistice, and both sides have violated it on occasion, it’s the one deal with North Korea that has stood the test of time.
Newly excavated 174-million-year-old fossils in northwest China are a new dinosaur species named Lingwulong shenqi — or "amazing dragon of Lingwu" — that roamed the supercontinent of Pangea, a new study found.
The big picture: The study, published this week in Nature Communications, details the oldest diplodocoid — massive sauropod dinosaurs with long necks and tails — ever found. It also pushes back estimates of their evolution by 15 million years.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected Russian President Vladimir Putin's proposal to organize a summit with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Moscow because he didn't want to undercut President Trump's forthcoming Middle East peace plan, according to Israeli officials.
Why it matters: Netanyahu and Abbas haven't met since September 2010. This is the second time Netanyahu has rejected such a proposal from Putin, after another offer in September 2016. Putin's new attempt to inject himself into the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is a challenge to the Trump administration, which has been working on a peace plan for the last 18 months. The White House "peace team," which is being boycotted by the Palestinian leadership, still hasn't decided if and when to launch its proposal.
Chinese leaders are pleased President Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker reached a deal to avoid a deeper trade war, at least for now, but say no progress has been made for a similar U.S.-China deal, Caixin Global reports.
What they're saying: “It is certainly a good thing to not fight a trade war, not only for the U.S. and Europe, but also for the whole world,” Ministry of Commerce Spokesman Gao Feng said today. “We will keep an eye on whether the two sides’ joint statement can get implemented.” Gao added that in order to begin talks with the U.S. to resolve the trade standoff, China would need "an assurance that the other side will keep its promises — a reference to Washington’s levying of protective tariffs last month after previously promising not to do so," per Caixin's report.
A 26-year-old man detonated a small explosive device outside of the U.S. embassy in Beijing on Thursday, injuring himself but causing no further damage or loss of life.
Why it matters: Security incidents are considered extremely rare in the Chinese capital — where protests are tightly controlled — and all references to the explosion were censored from social media platforms WeChat and Weibo within hours, according to CNN.
National security adviser John Bolton issued a statement on Wednesday that a planned fall White House visit for Russian President Vladimir Putin would be pushed to next year, citing Special Counsel Robert Mueller's ongoing investigation:
"The President believes that the next bilateral meeting with President Putin should take place after the Russia witch hunt is over, so we’ve agreed that it will be after the first of the year.”
Between the lines: The Kremlin had played coy after Trump's invitation, Reuters reports, suggesting the two leaders could meet on the sidelines of an international gathering, like November's G-20, instead.
On Tuesday, the Israel Defense Forces used two surface-to-air missiles to shoot down a Syrian fighter jet that strayed two kilometers into Israeli airspace over the Golan Heights.
Why it matters: It is the first time Israel has shot down a manned Syrian aircraft in four years, and comes at a time of heightened tensions in the region, as Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad moves to mop up remaining resistance to his regime, and a host of foreign countries with a stake in the conflict push to shore up their interests.
The three biggest U.S. airlines — American, United and Delta — have removed references to Taiwan from their websites, complying with a demand from the Chinese government.
Why it matters: It's an example of China using one of its most powerful weapons against the United States — wielding its massive market leverage to influence American companies — to enforce one of its key foreign policy tenets.
