US President Donald Trump, in a break with previous administrations, has vowed to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the American embassy there.

“Transferring the US embassy to Jerusalem would be a public and more explicit than ever declaration of war against Islam,” said the Shiite cleric, leader of the powerful Mahdi Army militia responsible for attacks against US troops in Iraq a decade ago, according to Middle East Eye.

Sadr called for the “formation of a special division to liberate Jerusalem were the decision to be implemented” and urged the Cairo-based Arab League, as well as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the world’s leading pan-Islamic body, to either take decisive action on the issue or disband themselves.

“Here is a case where the United States, for years, has let Beijing tell us who we could talk to in Taiwan. Just think about that for a minute. And now we have other governments telling us where we can put our embassy in Israel. Can they tell us where to put our embassy in Canada?” he asked sarcastically. “I’m not talking about relations with Canada or Israel. I’m talking about Germany saying, ‘Well, you can’t put your embassy in Canada there.’”

“Obviously the Middle East is a sensitive area,” he conceded. “You want to be prudent, you want to be careful. But you ought to do what the United States needs to have done. The qualms that others may have are things you need to alleviate, you need to deal with, you need to be reasonable about it, but they’re not qualms that stop you from acting in your own interest.”

“President Donald Trump raised concerns during the campaign by asserting that some allies are not pulling their weight and by suggesting that he might not object to Japan or South Korea developing their own nuclear weapons if they do not pay more for US military support,” Stars & Stripes noted in reporting Mattis’ travel agenda.

A defense official told CNN that “folks in Japan are very happy about the visit.” Japan has been looking to improve its military capabilities to deal with potential threats from China and North Korea.

The metaphorical clock assesses the danger of apocalypse based on the threats such as nuclear Armageddon, bioterrorism, climate change and other catastrophes. The group of experts behind the clock, known as the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, reset the time every year according to the threat level. Atomic scientists created the Doomsday Clock in 1947 as a response to the growing nuclear threats facing the world. 

It was the brainchild of the nuclear scientists who were involved in the Manhattan project - the scheme that created the first nuclear weapons. The physicists unveiled the Doomsday Clock after the atomic bombs they had helped to create decimated Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War Two.

Co-founder Eugene Rabinowitch said: “The Bulletin's clock is not a gauge to register the ups and downs of the international power struggle; it is intended to reflect basic changes in the level of continuous danger in which mankind lives in the nuclear age.” Just two days after Donald Trump's inauguration, the bulletin warned: "Terrorism involving nuclear or radiological materials remains one of the gravest threats to humanity and to global stability."

The Doomsday Clock came the closest it has ever been to midnight in 1953 during the Cold War. This was the year that the US created the hydrogen bomb. At the time, the Bulletin warned: "Only a few more swings of the pendulum, and, from Moscow to Chicago, atomic explosions will strike midnight for Western civilisation.”

In 1953, the clock was TWO MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT.

She will tell them that after Brexit, a "sovereign, global" Britain wants to enhance ties with its "old friends". On Friday, Mrs May will be the first world leader to hold face-to-face talks with Mr Trump in the White House. Post-Brexit trade opportunities, security and intelligence co-operation and the future of NATO are likely to feature significantly in the talks.

Theresa May is walking into a meeting with the most unorthodox president in decades, a man who today she will flatter, calling for the US and UK to "lead together again" as he starts to "renew his nation". A man who has found huge popularity among millions of voters precisely because he doesn't care for politician norms.

But also a man with whom Theresa May disagrees overtly on a very long list of issues, whose views millions of other voters are deeply worried about, who has just suggested he might support torture as president. The prime minister believes that she can draw on the relationship and traditions between our two countries to talk frankly to President Trump, to disagree as well as discuss.

Her aides say "she's not scared of anyone" and that the potential advantages of getting closer to the United States are well worth the risks of accusations of cosying up to a president who is not afraid of offending anyone - who has even made it a trademark.

In the Oval Office Mr Trump signed an executive order formally withdrawing the US from the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, an agreement with 11 Pacific Rim countries that was backed by President Barack Obama as part of his "pivot" to strengthen ties with Asia. After signing Mr Trump said: "Great thing for the American worker that we just did."

He also reinstated the so-called Mexico City Policy, a ban on giving taxpayers' money to international groups that perform or provide information on abortions. Mr Obama had rescinded the ban in 2009. The president announced his son-in-law and key adviser Jared Kushner would meet with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ahead of an effort to renegotiate the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) between the two countries and Mexico.

Mr Trump held a breakfast meeting at the White House with a dozen business leaders including Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, and executives from Dell, Johnson & Johnson, US Steel, and Lockheed Martin. He warned them he would impose a "substantial border tax" on companies moving their manufacturing out of the US, and promised tax breaks for those producing in America.

The first of the two draft orders, titled “Auditing and Reducing US Funding of International Organizations” and obtained by The New York Times, calls for terminating funding for any United Nations agency or other international body that meets any one of several criteria.

Those criteria include organizations that give full membership to the Palestinian Authority or Palestine Liberation Organization, or support programs that fund abortion or any activity that circumvents sanctions against Iran or North Korea. The draft order also calls for terminating funding for any organization that “is controlled or substantially influenced by any state that sponsors terrorism” or is blamed for the persecution of marginalized groups or any other systematic violation of human rights.

The order calls for then enacting “at least a 40 percent overall decrease” in remaining United States funding toward international organizations.

Yes, Donald Trump has done and said some things that are very regrettable over the years, but many Americans were willing to overlook those imperfections because at least he was willing to go to battle.  Now that he is president, will he inspire millions of other men to finally start acting like men again?

Too many men today would rather go to the spa than pick up a shovel.

Too many men today speak of the need for “safe spaces” and “trigger warnings”.

Too many men today are living in a state of suspended adolescence and are putting off marriage and family indefinitely.

Too many men today are more likely to be called a “snowflake” rather than a “warrior”.

Women want men that will love them, protect them and provide for them. Unfortunately, those kinds of men are being systematically demonized in our society today.  To the liberal mind, the “traditional man” has come to represent “male oppression” that must be eradicated at all cost.

This may sound strange to you, but this is the kind of philosophy that is being pounded into the minds of impressionable young adults at colleges and universities all across the nation.  And some of these impressionable young adults buy into this philosophy to a frightening degree.

Speaking at a two-day security conference in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, Lieberman, leader of the nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party and long-time ally of Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu, said that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) will fight till the bitter end and not settle for half-measures.

“It doesn’t matter where the next conflict breaks out, it has to be at full strength,” Lieberman told the audience. “You recruit the entire army, the entire reserves; you go full strength until the end, until the other side… raises a white flag. We don’t stop in the middle. If a quarter of the Strip is needed, then we occupy a quarter of the Strip. If more, then more,” he said, according to Haaretz.

The defense minister, known for his hawkish views and vocal support for settlement activity, lashed out at the international community, including the US, Russia, and especially the EU, for their attempts to play an intermediary role in the Israeli-Palestine dispute.

Some news outlets are calling it India’s “rice revolution” — a unique method of growing this long-prized grain that involves using variant planting methods and less water. Farmers like Sumant Kumar, who was recently featured in a piece published by the The Guardian, have been utilizing this novel technique to grow rice in relatively small land plots without pesticides, herbicides, or other synthetic additives — and you wouldn’t believe how much they’re producing.

Kumar, who cultivates rice in India’s poorest state, Bihar, is reportedly able to produce an astonishing 22.4 tons of rice per season on just one hectare (about 2.5 acres) of land, using only manure that he gathers from his farmyard. This exceptionally high volume is a world record, topping even the most “advanced” growing methods touted by international international humanitarian organizations as producing the highest yields.

“It beat not just the 19.4 tonnes achieved by the ‘father of rice,’ the Chinese agricultural scientist Yuan Longping, but the World Bank-funded scientists at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines, and anything achieved by the biggest European and American seed and GM companies,” wrote John Vidal for The Guardian. Growing crops naturally is the best way to produce the highest yields of healthy food.