BAHRAIN BECOMES LATEST ARAB NATION TO RECOGNIZE ISRAEL

Bahrain on Friday agreed to normalize relations with Israel, becoming the

latest Arab nation to do so as part of a broader diplomatic push by

President Donald Trump and his administration to further ease the Jewish

state's relative isolation in the Middle East and find common ground with

nations that share US wariness of Iran.

Trump announced the agreement on the 19th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001,

terrorist attacks following a phone call he had with Israeli Prime Minister

Benjamin Netanyahu and Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa. The three

leaders also issued a brief joint statement marking the second such Arab

normalization agreement with Israel in the past two months.

The announcement came less than a week before Trump hosts a White House

ceremony to mark the establishment of full relations between Israel and the

United Arab Emirates, something that Trump and his Middle East team brokered

in August. Bahrain's foreign minister will attend that event and sign a

separate agreement with Netanyahu.

"There's no more powerful response to the hatred that spawned 9/11 than this

agreement,'' Trump told reporters at the White House.

Friday's agreement is another diplomatic win for Trump less than two months

before the presidential election and an opportunity to shore up support

among pro-Israel evangelical Christians. In addition to the UAE deal, Trump

just last week announced agreements in principle for Kosovo to recognize

Israel and for Serbia to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Like the UAE agreement, the Bahrain-Israel deal will normalize diplomatic,

commercial, security and other relations between the two countries. Bahrain,

along with Saudi Arabia, had already dropped a prohibition on Israeli

flights using its airspace. Saudi acquiescence to the agreements has been

considered key to the deals.

REVELATIONS FROM 'RAGE,' BOB WOODWARD'S NEW BOOK ABOUT TRUMP

Bob Woodward's forthcoming book, Rage, spurred extensive uproar following

Washington Post and CNN reports on Wednesday on some of the famed

investigative journalist's bombshell claims.

"Rage" is a follow-up to Woodward's 2018 bestselling book "Fear," which

portrayed a chaotic White House in which aides hid papers from Trump to

protect the country from what they viewed as his most dangerous impulses.

While Trump slammed "Fear," he also complained that he didn't speak to

Woodward for the book, which resulted in his agreeing to extensive

interviews for "Rage."

Woodward's reporting - which is largely based on 18 interviews with Donald

Trump - show the president implicating himself with his own words,

admitting, for example, that he knowingly downplayed Covid-19. Here are the

most explosive revelations from Woodward's book.

- TRUMP KNEW CORONAVIRUS WAS A SIGNIFICANT THREAT EARLY ON

Despite recognizing the danger of a potentially lethal virus, Trump said, "I

wanted to always play it down," Trump told Woodward on March 19, mere weeks

after he told reporters that the COVID-19 was eventually "going to

disappear... like a miracle."

-'LOVE LETTERS' TO KIM JONG-UN

Woodward acquired 27 "love letters" Trump exchanged with the North Korean

dictator. Kim flattered Trump in these missives by repeatedly calling him

"Your Excellency"; he also remarked that there's a "deep and special

friendship between us will work as a magical force". Kim writes in one

letter that meeting again would be "reminiscent of a scene from a fantasy

film".

- FEARS ABOUT WAR WITH NORTH KOREA

Trump's national security team voiced concerns that the US might have neared

nuclear war with North Korea amid heightened tensions in 2017. "We never

knew whether it was real . or whether it was a bluff," Woodward quoted the

US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, as saying.

- TRUMP FAILS TO ACKNOWLEDGE WHITE PRIVILEGE AND THE PLIGHT OF BLACK

AMERICANS

Woodward asked Trump about white privilege. As white men of the same

generation, both with privileged upbringings, surely Trump could understand

his advantages and the need to "understand the pain and anger" felt by Black

people.

"No," Trump replied to Woodward. "You really drank the Kool-Aid, didn't you?

Just listen to you. Wow. No, I don't feel that at all."

-THE US HAS A NEW SECRET WEAPONS SYSTEM

During one of Trump's interviews with Woodward, he bragged about the US's

new weapons tech. "I have built a nuclear - a weapons system that nobody's

ever had in this country before."

Woodward claimed that other sources backed Trump's statement, and that they

were surprised Trump discussed it.

- TOP TRUMP OFFICIALS THOUGHT TRUMP WAS DANGEROUS

Former cabinet officials were alarmed by Trump's impulsiveness and lack of

focus. "The president has no moral compass," Woodward quoted Mattis as

saying. Mattis also reportedly said that Trump's foreign policy moves showed

enemies "how to destroy America. That's what we're showing them. How to

isolate us from all of our allies. How to take us down. And it's working

very well.

"He's dangerous," Mattis reportedly said in conversation with ex-national

intelligence director Dan Coats. "He's unfit."

Coats also thought that the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, had damaging

information about the president. Coats "continued to harbor the secret

belief, one that had grown rather than lessened, although unsupported by

intelligence proof, that Putin had something on Trump", Woodward said.

AFGHAN PEACE TALKS TO OPEN IN DOHA, 19 YEARS AFTER 9/11 TRIGGERED WAR

Talks between the Afghan government and Taliban insurgents start in Qatar's

capital Doha on Saturday with the goal of bringing an end to nearly two

decades of a conflict that has laid waste to the country and killed tens of

thousands of combatants and civilians.

It is also the United States' longest overseas military action, vexing three

successive US presidents.

Officials, diplomats and analysts say that although getting both sides to

the negotiating table was an achievement in itself, it does not mean the

path to peace will be easy.

"The negotiations will have to tackle a range of profound questions about

the kind of country Afghans want," Deborah Lyons, the United Nations Special

Representative for Afghanistan, told the U.N Security Council this month.

The talks open with an inauguration ceremony which will be attended by U.S.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. It takes place a day after the 19th

anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the United States that triggered its

military involvement in Afghanistan.

NEPAL PM OLI, PRACHANDA STRIKE POWER-SHARING DEAL

Nepal's ruling Communist Party on Friday resolved the protracted differences

between Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and his opponent Pushpa Kamal Dahal

"Prachanda" by agreeing to a power-sharing deal, ending the dispute in the

party, according to a senior party official.

The 13-member powerful Standing Committee meeting held at the Prime

Minister's official residence in Baluwatar also decided to resolve the

border issue between Nepal and India through political and diplomatic means,

Communist Party of Nepal (CPN) spokesperson Narayan Kaji Shrestha said.

During the meeting, the work division between Oli and Prachanda was settled.

Prachanda will serve as executive chairman of the party with full power and

handle the party's affairs, while Oli will focus on the government affairs,

the official said. "The government is required to hold consultation with the

party while deciding on issues of national importance," said Shrestha.

AL-QAEDA THREATENS CHARLIE HEBDO FOR REPUBLISHING MOHAMMED CARTOONS: SITE

Al-Qaeda has threatened French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo with a repeat

of a 2015 massacre of its staff, after it republished controversial cartoons

of the Prophet Mohammed, the SITE observatory said on Friday.

Al-Qaeda in its publication One Ummah had warned that Charlie Hebdo would be

mistaken if it believed the 2015 attack was a "one off", after the magazine

printed the "contemptible caricatures" in a defiant issue that marked the

start of the trial in Paris of suspected accomplices in the attack.

The comments came in an English edition of the Al-Qaeda publication that

purported to mark the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the

United States carried out by the terror network.

It said it had the "same message" for the France of President Emmanuel

Macron as it did for his predecessor Francois Hollande who was president at

the time of the 2015 attacks.

It said France under Macron "gave a green light" to the republication of the

cartoons.

The trial, which began on September 2 and is expected to continue until

November, sees 14 suspected accomplices face justice even though all the

perpetrators were killed in the wake of the attacks.

Charlie Hebdo's republication of the cartoons drew new condemnation from

states including Iran, Pakistan and Turkey.

GERMANY APPROVES RUSSIAN REQUEST TO ASSIST IN NAVALNY PROBE

Berlin's Justice Ministry has approved a request from Moscow for legal

assistance in the investigation of the poisoning of opposition leader Alexei

Navalny, and has tasked state prosecutors with working with Russian

authorities, officials said Friday.

Berlin state prosecutors said in a tweet that their office had been

commissioned to provide legal assistance to Russia and information on

Navalny's state of health, "subject to his consent."

The office said it would provide no further information on the request at

this time.

Germany's Defence Ministry has said the data about Navalny has already been

provided to the Hague-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical

Weapons, of which Russia is a member.

On Wednesday, the Russian Foreign Ministry invited German Ambassador Geza

Andreas von Geyr to reaffirm Moscow's demand for Germany to provide Russian

authorities with the medical data, including biological materials, the

results of samples and tests to allow Russian experts to study and check

them.

NORTH KOREA ISSUES SHOOT-TO-KILL ORDERS TO PREVENT CORONAVIRUS: U.S.

North Korean authorities have issued shoot-to-kill orders to prevent the

novel coronavirus entering the country from China, according to the

commander of US forces in the South.

The impoverished North - whose crumbling health system would struggle to

cope with a major virus outbreak - has not confirmed a single case of the

disease that has swept the world since first emerging in China, the North's

key ally.

Pyongyang closed its border with China in January to try to prevent

contamination, and in July state media said it had raised its state of

emergency to the maximum level.

U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) commander Robert Abrams said that the border

shutdown had increased demand for smuggled goods, prompting authorities to

intervene.

The North introduced a new "buffer zone, one or 2 km up on the Chinese

border," General Abrams told a conference organised by the Center for

Strategic and International Studies in Washington on Thursday.

"They've got North Korean SOF (Special Operations Forces) out there. ...

Strike forces, they've got shoot-to-kill orders in place."

The border closure had effectively "accelerated the effects" of economic

sanctions imposed on the North over its nuclear programs, he added, with

imports from China plunging 85 percent.