WarSclerotic

British counterterrorism police are investigating stabbings at Manchester Victoria train station that left three people injured, including a police officer, on New Year’s Eve, the Greater Manchester Police said.

Police were, however, keeping an open mind as there was no intelligence suggesting a wider threat, the Greater Manchester Police said in a statement posted on Twitter. They said a man is in custody and those injured were in a “serious” but not life-threatening condition.

The stabbings occurred at about 8:50 p.m.

“Tonight’s events will have understandably worried people but I need to stress that the incident is not ongoing, a man is in custody and there is currently no intelligence to suggest there is any wider threat at this time,” Assistant Chief Constable Rob Potts said in a statement.

Police said the man in custody is being held for “questioning on suspicion of attempted murder.”

Britain is currently on its second-highest threat level of severe, meaning an attack is considered highly likely and security officials say they are facing record levels of work in countering Islamist militants as well as far-right extremists after four major attacks last year.

Manchester itself was the scene of a suicide bomb attack in May 2017 that killed 22 people as they left an Ariana Grande concert.

Meanwhile, a car plowed into crowds celebrating New Year’s Day early on Tuesday in a suspected terrorist attack, leaving eight people injured, including one seriously.

A police spokesman said one suspect, in his 20s, had been detained and that he had described the incident as an “act of terror.” The spokesman declined to elaborate.

The incident happened shortly after midnight local time on Monday in a popular tourist area of Harajuku, near Meiji Shrine, in central Tokyo.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Monday they plan to upgrade their speedboats in the Persian Gulf with radar-evading stealth technology and new missile launchers as tensions rise between Tehran and Washington in the vital oil shipping route.

Ending a long absence of U.S. aircraft carriers in the region, the USS John C. Stennis entered the Persian Gulf last week, and was shadowed by the Revolutionary Guards’ speedboats.

There have been periodic confrontations between the Revolutionary Guards vessels and U.S. military in the Gulf, although the number of incidents has dropped in recent months.

“We are trying to increase the agility of the Guards’ speedboats and equip them with stealth technology to facilitate their operations,” Alireza Tangsiri, the Revolutionary Guards’ navy chief, was quoted as saying by the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency.

Tangsiri also said the speedboats will be equipped with new missiles and their speed will reach 80 knots (92 miles per hour).

He did not elaborate on whether Iran had already mastered these technologies or if they were still in the study phase.

Iran says it has been developing its own stealth technology for fighter jets and vessels, but the prototypes it has unveiled in recent years have mostly been met with derision by defense experts.

The Revolutionary Guards last week launched war games in the Gulf, through which a third of the world’s sea-borne oil passes, and warned that its forces were ready to respond to any hostile U.S. action.

In an indirect threat to Saudi Arabia and other U.S. allies in the region, the head of the Iranian armed forces warned that any Iranian confrontation with U.S. forces might also target Gulf nations that he said had invited them into the region.

“Iran’s regional enemies should know that alongside a pacifist doctrine, Iran has a powerful military force that are ready to protect Iran’s territorial integrity, and also hold accountable countries that proposed [the U.S. presence],” Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri was quoted as saying by Fars news agency.

A U.S.-Iranian war of words has escalated since U.S. President Donald Trump took Washington out of a world powers’ nuclear deal with Iran in May, and reimposed sanctions on its banking and energy sectors.

Iran has warned that if it cannot sell its oil due to U.S. pressure, then no other regional country will be allowed to do so either, threatening to block the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf.

The Guards’ naval arm lacks a strong conventional fleet. However, it has many speedboats and portable anti-ship missile launchers and can lay mines.

The population of Israel stood at nearly 9 million people as the country ushered in 2019 on Tuesday. According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, 74.3% of the population is Jewish, 20.9% is Arab, and another 4.5% are residents who immigrated to Israel under the Law of Return despite not being recognized as Jews.

In 2018 the population grew by 2%, and in 2025 it is expected to hit the 11 million mark.

A record-breaking 185,000 babies were born in 2018 – 74.4% were Jewish, 22.8% were Arab and 2.8% were others.

Also contributing the growth of the population was Jewish immigration, with some 28,000 people making their new homes in Israel. Their main countries of origin: Russia (31.5%), Ukraine (19.6%), France (8%) and the United States (7.9%).

The United States and Israel officially quit of the United Nation’s educational, scientific and cultural agency at the stroke of midnight, the culmination of a process triggered more than a year ago amid concerns that the organization fosters anti-Israel bias.

The withdrawal is mainly procedural yet serves a new blow to UNESCO, co-founded by the U.S. after World War II to foster peace.

The Trump administration filed its notice to withdraw in October 2017 and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu followed suit.

The Paris-based organization has been denounced by its critics as a crucible for anti-Israel bias: it has been a vehement critic of Israel’s sovereignty in east Jerusalem, named ancient Jewish sites as Palestinian heritage sites and granted full membership to “Palestine” in 2011.

The U.S. has demanded “fundamental reform” in the agency that is best known for its World Heritage program to protect cultural sites and traditions.

The withdrawals will not greatly impact UNESCO financially since it has been dealing with a funding slash ever since 2011 when both Israel and the U.S. stopped paying dues after “Palestine” was voted in as a member state. Since then officials estimate that the U.S. – which accounted for around 22% of the total budget – has accrued $600 million in unpaid dues, which was one of the reasons for President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw. Israel owes an estimated $10 million.

UNESCO Director Audrey Azoulay took up her post just after Trump announced the pullout. Azoulay, who has Jewish and Moroccan heritage, has presided over the launch of a Holocaust education website and the U.N.’s first educational guidelines on fighting anti-Semitism – initiatives that might be seen as responding to U.S. and Israeli concerns.

Officials say that many of the reasons the U.S. cited for withdrawal do not apply anymore, noting that since then, all 12 texts on the Middle East passed at UNESCO have been consensual among Israel and Arab member states.

In April of this year, Israel’s ambassador to UNESCO said the mood was “like a wedding” after member nations signed off on a rare compromise resolution on “occupied Palestine,” and UNESCO diplomats hailed a possible breakthrough on longstanding Israeli-Arab tensions.

The document was still quite critical of Israel, however, and the efforts were not enough to encourage the U.S. and Israel to reconsider quitting.

In recent years, Israel has been infuriated by repeated resolutions which ignore and diminish its historical connection to the Holy Land and that have named ancient Jewish sites as Palestinian heritage sites.

The State Department was unavailable for comment because of the U.S. government shutdown. Earlier, the department told UNESCO officials the U.S. intends to stay engaged at UNESCO as a non-member “observer state” on “non-politicized” issues, including the protection of World Heritage sites, advocating for press freedoms and promoting scientific collaboration and education.

The U.S. could potentially seek that status during UNESCO Executive Board meetings in April.

The United States has pulled out of UNESCO before. The Reagan administration did so in 1984 because it viewed the agency as mismanaged, corrupt and used to advance Soviet interests. The U.S. rejoined in 2003.

The United States and Israel officially quit of the United Nation’s educational, scientific and cultural agency at the stroke of midnight, the culmination of a process triggered more than a year ago amid concerns that the organization fosters anti-Israel bias.

The withdrawal is mainly procedural yet serves a new blow to UNESCO, co-founded by the U.S. after World War II to foster peace.

The Trump administration filed its notice to withdraw in October 2017 and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu followed suit.

The Paris-based organization has been denounced by its critics as a crucible for anti-Israel bias: it has been a vehement critic of Israel’s sovereignty in east Jerusalem, named ancient Jewish sites as Palestinian heritage sites and granted full membership to “Palestine” in 2011.

The U.S. has demanded “fundamental reform” in the agency that is best known for its World Heritage program to protect cultural sites and traditions.

The withdrawals will not greatly impact UNESCO financially since it has been dealing with a funding slash ever since 2011 when both Israel and the U.S. stopped paying dues after “Palestine” was voted in as a member state. Since then officials estimate that the U.S. – which accounted for around 22% of the total budget – has accrued $600 million in unpaid dues, which was one of the reasons for President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw. Israel owes an estimated $10 million.

UNESCO Director Audrey Azoulay took up her post just after Trump announced the pullout. Azoulay, who has Jewish and Moroccan heritage, has presided over the launch of a Holocaust education website and the U.N.’s first educational guidelines on fighting anti-Semitism – initiatives that might be seen as responding to U.S. and Israeli concerns.

Officials say that many of the reasons the U.S. cited for withdrawal do not apply anymore, noting that since then, all 12 texts on the Middle East passed at UNESCO have been consensual among Israel and Arab member states.

In April of this year, Israel’s ambassador to UNESCO said the mood was “like a wedding” after member nations signed off on a rare compromise resolution on “occupied Palestine,” and UNESCO diplomats hailed a possible breakthrough on longstanding Israeli-Arab tensions.

The document was still quite critical of Israel, however, and the efforts were not enough to encourage the U.S. and Israel to reconsider quitting.

In recent years, Israel has been infuriated by repeated resolutions which ignore and diminish its historical connection to the Holy Land and that have named ancient Jewish sites as Palestinian heritage sites.

The State Department was unavailable for comment because of the U.S. government shutdown. Earlier, the department told UNESCO officials the U.S. intends to stay engaged at UNESCO as a non-member “observer state” on “non-politicized” issues, including the protection of World Heritage sites, advocating for press freedoms and promoting scientific collaboration and education.

The U.S. could potentially seek that status during UNESCO Executive Board meetings in April.

The United States has pulled out of UNESCO before. The Reagan administration did so in 1984 because it viewed the agency as mismanaged, corrupt and used to advance Soviet interests. The U.S. rejoined in 2003.

The Trump administration will not present its long-awaited Middle East peace plan before the Israeli ‎election, set for April 9, Prime Minister Benjamin ‎Netanyahu said Monday. ‎ ‎

The rollout ‎for the plan, which U.S. President ‎Donald Trump has dubbed the “deal of the century,” ‎has been postponed several times. The deal is being ‎crafted by senior White House adviser Jared Kushner, ‎Trump’s son-in-law, and U.S. Special Representative ‎for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt.‎

Netanyahu, who is on a state visit to Brazil, told ‎reporters that Washington seeks to present the plan “at a time they believe would be the most conducive ‎to its success. They believe that presenting it ‎during election time would undermine its chances.” ‎

Also on Monday, a senior official on the prime ‎minister’s entourage to Brazil told Israel Hayom ‎that there are growing assessments in Israel that ‎the strikes on Iranian assets in Syria, which ‎foreign media often attributes to the Israeli Air Force, ‎have been successful in pushing the Islamic republic ‎out of the war-torn country. ‎

He also said that it appears that Operation Northern ‎Shield to eliminate the grid of Hezbollah terror ‎tunnels snaking under the Israel-Lebanon border has ‎prevented a war with the Iranian-backed Shiite ‎terrorist group. ‎