BREAKING: Twelve countries issued a joint statement announcing national bans on trade in goods from illegal Israeli settlements:

🇫🇷 France
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
🇨🇦 Canada
🇩🇰 Denmark
🇪🇸 Spain
🇫🇮 Finland
🇮🇪 Ireland
🇮🇸 Iceland
🇳🇴 Norway
🇵🇱 Poland
🇵🇹 Portugal
🇸🇪 Sweden

Macron, UK PM Burnham, and Canadian PM Carney agreed the situation is deteriorating with "unprecedented" settler violence and settlement expansion, specifically calling the E1 project "inadmissible."

They salute measures already taken by Ireland, Spain, Netherlands, Norway, and Belgium.

The statement demands Israel immediately stop settlement expansion, hold violent settlers accountable, and investigate allegations against Israeli forces.

They "firmly oppose any action resulting in the annexation of Palestinian lands or forced displacement."

BIG: UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband:

The British government agrees that there is ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank perpetrated by settler terrorists.

And all too often, the Israeli government has turned a blind eye to this, and worse, members of it have made statements and taken actions to support the forced displacement of Palestinians.

NEW: Iran claims it shot down a US MQ-1 drone over the Strait of Hormuz.

BREAKING: UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband:

We will introduce an import ban on goods from illegal settlements in the occupied territories.

Countries that blocked an EU-wide ban on trade in goods from illegal Israeli settlements:

🇩🇪 Germany — "special relationship" with Israel.
🇮🇹 Italy — called it a "political choice" requiring unanimity.
🇭🇺 Hungary
🇨🇿 Czech Republic
🇦🇹 Austria

Opposing the bans:

🇺🇸 US — Ambassador Huckabee called it "irrational" and "discrimination against the Jewish people," warned of retaliation.

🇮🇱 Israel — Finance Minister Smotrich called for the British ambassador to be expelled; President Herzog accused the UK of election interference.

UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband:

To those who finance or facilitate illegal settlements, let me say this: you will face the full force of UK sanctions.

UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband:

The sanctions regime will target illegal settlements and settlement expansion, not Israel.

I oppose the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions, or BDS campaign.

UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband on Gaza:

Over 70,000 people have been killed in Gaza, at least 20,000 of them children.

20,000 children.

UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband:

Today, France and Canada are announcing, alongside Britain, that they will also ban the import of goods from illegal settlements.

Joining the Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium, Spain and Norway, which have either banned goods or are in the process of doing so, with many other countries—Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Poland, Portugal and Sweden—pledging today they will support further action.

NEW: Thailand summoned Israeli Ambassador over badly behaving Israeli tourists.

Foreign Minister Sihasak said he had a "frank discussion" about Israeli nationals using nominees to dodge foreign ownership rules and tourists causing friction in Koh Phangan, Koh Samui, and Phuket.

He said:

Tourism is important to us, but it isn't just about income — it's also about the dignity of Thailand.

Israeli arrivals surged 46% last year to 410,000.

Thailand is halving visa-free stays to 30 days from September 15.

An Israeli tourist was already deported from Koh Samui.

A nationalist rally is planned outside the Israeli embassy on Thursday.

France, UK, and Canada Lead 12-Nation Push Against Israeli Settlement Trade

France, the UK, Canada, and nine other countries are moving toward national restrictions on goods from Israeli settlements, bypassing an EU-wide deadlock.

READ MORE

Germany's Merkel on Russia:

Russia remains a country with which we must try to reopen dialogue.

WATCH: A Chinese military attaché passed a note to the Philippine Defense Secretary while he was speaking at a Seoul defense forum — restating that the 2016 South China Sea ruling is "illegal, null and void."

Teodoro read it aloud to the room, then responded line by line.

On "no binding force": "Because you don't want to be subjected to UNCLOS."

On China not accepting the ruling: "Of course, because you lost."

In Filipino he added: "Show a little decency, have a little shame."

The audience applauded.

He called it "actual coercion, bullying and aggression" and kept the note as a "memento."

Germany's Merkel on Russia:

We had a long history of gas deliveries going back to the Cold War.

Russia had proved to be a reliable partner, and there had always been tensions with the Americans over this issue.

Nord Stream 2 was never put into operation, and Nord Stream 1 was later shut down. The gas was cheaper, so that was an economic factor.

If we had not done that, we would already have had to buy more expensive gas from 2014. Instead, we only had to do so in 2022.

Economic advantage, difficult suppliers, and no American gas—that made the decision to use Russian gas easier for me.

Germany's Merkel on Trump:

Trump does not understand win-win situations. In alliances, he does not recognize that everyone can benefit.

For him, there is always a winner and someone who loses.

He always feels that he is being disadvantaged and wants to come out as the winner.

Alliances such as the European Union, where everyone can benefit, are something unfamiliar to him.

An AI-designed drug built for lung fibrosis appears to also reverse markers of biological aging.

Insilico Medicine's rentosertib — where AI identified the target protein and designed the molecule in 18 months — showed treated patients looking 3–6 years biologically younger across six independent aging clocks after 12 weeks.

The trial was small (42 patients), short, and only in people with lung disease.

Treating sick lungs could itself shift the clocks without being a general anti-aging effect.

A cardiologist told the NYT the missing experiment is a trial in healthy people.

Germany's Merkel:

As a European, I would never call the relationship with America into question.

I do not believe America will do so in the medium term either.

UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband:

What the Netanyahu government is doing in Gaza is a stain on the conscience of the world, and there is increasing evidence war crimes appear to have been committed.

UK Accuses Israeli Settlers of Ethnic Cleansing, Imposes Sweeping Sanctions

Ed Miliband accused Israeli settler terrorists of ethnically cleansing Palestinians in the occupied West Bank as he blamed the Israeli government for failing to intervene.

READ MORE

Russia's Foreign Minister Lavrov:

A wounded beast becomes much more dangerous.

Europe is a very badly wounded beast.

That is why there is even less stability now than there was in the 1970s.

Russia's Foreign Minister Lavrov:

The West miscalculated. It is impossible to artificially preserve its dominance, which lasted for more than 500 years.

It has to defend its position in fair competition—and throughout its entire history, it has never known how to do that.

The West has never lived, survived, or prospered honestly without doing so at the expense of others.