Turkish army says 48 Islamic State militants killed in Syria on Sunday

Turkish-led air and ground operations in Syria killed 48 Islamic State militants on Sunday while Turkish warplanes destroyed 23 buildings and shelters used by the jihadists, Turkey's armed forces said in a statement on Monday.

Turkey launched the 'Euphrates Shield' operation in support of Syrian rebels more than four months ago to drive Islamic State from the border and in recent weeks they have been besieging the Islamic State-controlled town of al-Bab.

US tanks arrive in Germany to help Nato defences

The largest shipment of US brigades since the fall of the Soviet Union is arriving in northern Germany.

The first of the 87 tanks and 144 military vehicles were being unloaded in the port of Bremerhaven on Friday.

The equipment and 3,500 US troops are to be deployed along Nato's eastern frontier. The deployment aims to allay worries of potential Russian aggression in eastern Europe.

However, some fear the large number will exacerbate tensions with Moscow.

Leaders of the left-wing regional government of Brandenburg - one of the German states through which the American brigades will be transported over the next two weeks - have called for further talks with Russia.

The arrival of the equipment and troops marks the start of a new phase of the US's Operation Atlantic Resolve, which foresees the continuous presence of an American armoured brigade combat team in Europe on a nine-month rotational basis.

The new forces will gather first in Poland, then fan out across seven countries from Estonia to Bulgaria, while a headquarters unit will be stationed in Germany.

Other Nato members are also increasing their presence in eastern Europe, with Britain sending fighter jets to the Black Sea area, while a battalion of troops, tanks and light armour will deploy to Estonia in the spring, backed by French and Danish troops. Germany also plans to send troops and tanks to Lithuania.

Israel to cut $6m from UN dues in protest over settlements resolution

Israel has announced it is cutting approximately $6m in its annual dues to the United Nations this year to protest last month’s security council resolution condemning Israeli settlements as “a flagrant violation under international law”.

Israel’s UN mission said the amount represented the portion of Israel’s contribution to the UN’s regular budget totalling more than $40m allocated “to anti-Israel bodies”.

It named the UN agency for Palestinian refugees known as UNRWA, the Division for Palestinian Rights, the committee investigating Israeli practices affecting Palestinian human rights, and information programs on “the Question of Palestine”.

Republican senators introduce bill to move US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem

 

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“It is unreasonable for Israel to fund bodies that operate against us at the UN,” Israel’s UN ambassador, Danny Danon, said. “The UN must end the absurd reality in which it supports bodies whose sole intent is to spread incitement and anti-Israel propaganda.”

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric, asked to comment, said: “We have not been informed.”

Israel’s UN mission said the cut in funding was the first in a series of steps under consideration by the foreign ministry and the mission in reaction to the recent security council resolution.

The Obama administration’s decision to abstain and allow the UN security council to approve a long-sought resolution condemning Israeli settlements as an obstacle to a two-state solution was a sharp rebuke to a longstanding ally and marked a striking rupture with past US vetoes.

Israel’s UN mission said it would move forward on additional initiatives “aimed at encouraging structural change within the UN with the ultimate goal of ending anti-Israel activities” after Donald Trump becomes US president on 20 January.

The president-elect has criticized Barack Obama’s green light for the security council condemnation.

On Thursday, the Republican-controlled US House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a bipartisan resolution rebuking the United Nations for criticizing Israeli settlements and declaring unwavering support for Israel. The non-binding resolution insists that the United States reject any future UN actions that are similarly “one-sided and anti-Israel”.

Trump wants to build a ‘Great Wall.’ The original was a giant boondoggle.

Donald Trump loves a good construction project, so it's no surprise that he's a fan of the Great Wall of China. A couple of months ago, Trump said this about the feat: “The Great Wall of China, built 2,000 years ago, is 13,000 miles long, folks. ... And they didn't have ... tractors, they didn't have cranes, they didn't have excavation equipment.”

In that tweet, and on the campaign trail, Trump famously promised that Mexico will foot the bill. But that country has repeatedly declined the invitation, and Congress has other ideas. This week, Republican leaders said construction could start as soon as April — and that it would be paid for by American taxpayers, at least at first.

That means Trump's “Great Wall” shares something else with its namesake: its funding source.

China's Great Wall was started by Emperor Qin Shi Huang in the 3rd century B.C. to keep barbarian nomads out. The project lasted thousands of years, one of the most massive construction projects ever undertaken. Like most projects of huge ambition and overrun, it was also tremendously expensive. Historian Walter A. McDougall estimated that the Ming Dynasty alone spent “several million ounces of silver” on construction costs during its reign from the 14th to 17th centuries A.D. All that silver came from taxes and other government revenue, including the huge amounts of silver the Chinese mined in Peru and shipped back across the Pacific via Southeast Asian trade routes.

[Some facts for Donald Trump about the Great Wall of China]

How much Trump's wall may cost depends a lot of who you ask. Trump has said it'll run about $8 billion, while CNBC predicts that the real price will run between $15 and $25 billion, plus maintenance costs.

Of course, China's Ming dynasty was also able to “control” costs thanks to a relatively cheap labor force. Most construction was done by soldiers, convicts or commoners who were essentially forced to work. It was dangerous and often deadly work, keeping workers in cold and remote places for months or years at a time. The wall earned the nickname of “the longest cemetery on Earth” because there were so many deaths — 400,000 by one estimate.

Another reason for Trump to take note? Historians agree that China's Great Wall was a major boondoggle and probably not worth it in the end. It didn't really keep foreigners out. Anyone could sneak in — they just needed to find an unmanned entrance or gap. Eventually the military conscripts sent to guard the wall started mingling and trading with the Mongols, giving the barbarian hordes what they really wanted all along: customers for their wares.

Or, as historian Arthur Waldron told Mother Jones: “the Great Wall was bad fiscal and foreign policy, mainly paid for with pain.”

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