Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is warning a U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moving the embassy from Tel Aviv could destroy the Middle East peace process.

Reports say President Donald Trump may make an announcement as early as Monday. He could declare that the United States recognizes Jerusalem as the capital but put off physically moving the embassy.

“He’s still looking at a lot of different facts, and when he makes his  decision, he’ll be the one to want to tell you, not me,” Trump Middle East advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner said Sunday.

Trump made designating Jerusalem as the Israeli capital one of his campaign promises.

Abbas has been actively speaking out against such a move.

An Abbas advisor says he spent much of Sunday working the phones, calling several world leaders to “explain the dangers of any decision to move the embassy to Jerusalem or recognize [Jerusalem] as Israel’s capital.”

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the U.S. is “playing with fire.”

The militant Palestinian faction Hamas has called for a new intifada – an uprising – if the embassy is moved.

Former president Bill Clinton signed moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv into law in 1995. But a president can sign a waiver every six months if he feels a relocation would endanger U.S. national security.

Every president since Clinton – including Trump – has signed the waiver.

Israel seized control of Jerusalem in the Six Day War in 1967, and later annexed east Jerusalem – a move never recognized by the world community.

Palestinians want east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state. Israel contends the entire city is its undivided capital.

The United States has always said the future of Jerusalem must be settled as part of a Middle East peace deal.
…

The special counsel examining alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election removed a top FBI investigator from his team for exchanging text messages with a colleague that expressed anti-Trump views, two U.S. newspapers reported on Saturday.

The New York Times and the Washington Post identified the investigator as FBI agent Peter Strzok, the deputy head of FBI counter-intelligence. He was reassigned last summer to the FBI’s human resources department after the Justice Department’s inspector general began looking into the text messages, the papers said, quoting several unidentified people familiar with the matter.

Strzok played a key role in the FBI investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, the papers said.

During that probe and the 2016 presidential election, Strzok and an FBI colleague exchanged texts that disparaged then-Republican candidate Donald Trump and favored Clinton, his Democratic rival, the Washington Post said. The newspapers did not disclose details of the text messages.

Reuters was unable to reach Strzok for comment. The New York Times said that a lawyer for Strzok declined to comment, while the Washington Post said it repeatedly sought comment from Strzok, but received no response.

Mueller’s office confirmed Strzok’s removal, but did not elaborate on the cause.

“Immediately upon learning of the allegations, the Special Counsel’s Office removed Peter Strzok from the investigation,” spokesman Peter Carr said.

In apparent reference to the case, the Justice Department inspector general’s office said in a statement on Saturday that it was “reviewing allegations involving communications between certain individuals.”

The matter came up during a review that the Justice Department launched into the FBI’s decision to announce an inquiry into Clinton’s emails shortly before the November presidential election.

The statement provided no further details and it did not mention any individuals by name. The Department of Justice did not respond to a request for further comment.

The FBI was not immediately available for comment.

According to the newspapers, federal law enforcement officials became concerned that Trump and his supporters could use the exposure of the text messages to attack the credibility of Mueller’s investigation.

Mueller, a former FBI director, is looking into possible collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia, which ran an influence operation aimed at swinging the vote to Trump over Clinton, according to three U.S. intelligence agencies.

Trump has criticized the FBI’s handling of the Clinton email investigation, initially citing it as his reason for firing former FBI director James Comey on May 9. Some lawmakers have called for Mueller to resign.
…

Liz Whitehurst dabbled in several careers before she ended up on a Maryland farm, crating fistfuls of fresh-cut arugula in the November chill.

The hours were better at her nonprofit jobs. So were the benefits. But two years ago, Whitehurst, 32 — who graduated from a liberal arts college and grew up in the Chicago suburbs — abandoned Washington for a three-acre plot in Upper Marlboro, Maryland.

She joined a growing movement of highly educated, ex-urban, first-time farmers who are capitalizing on booming consumer demand for local and sustainable foods and who, experts say, could have a broad impact on the food system.

For only the second time in the last century, the number of farmers under 35 years old is increasing, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s latest Census of Agriculture. Sixty-nine percent of the surveyed young farmers had college degrees — significantly higher than the general population.

This new generation can’t hope to replace the numbers that farming is losing to age. But it is already contributing to the growth of the local-food movement and could help preserve the place of midsize farms in the rural landscape.

“We’re going to see a sea change in American agriculture as the next generation gets on the land,” said Kathleen Merrigan, the head of the Food Institute at George Washington University and a deputy secretary at the Department of Agriculture under President Barack Obama. “The only question is whether they’ll get on the land, given the challenges.”

The number of farmers aged 25 to 34 grew 2.2 percent between 2007 and 2012, according to the 2014 USDA census, a period when other groups of farmers — save the oldest — shrank by double digits. In some states, such as California, Nebraska and South Dakota, the number of beginning farmers has grown by 20 percent or more.

New to farming

A survey that the National Young Farmers Coalition, an advocacy group, conducted with Merrigan’s help shows that the majority of young farmers did not grow up in agricultural families.

They are also far more likely than the general farming population to grow organically, limit pesticide and fertilizer use, diversify their crops or animals, and be deeply involved in their local food systems via community-supported agriculture (CSA) programs and farmers markets.

Today’s young farmers also tend to operate small farms of less than 50 acres, though that number increases with each successive year of experience.

Whitehurst took over her farm, Owl’s Nest, from a retiring farmer in 2015.

The farm sits at the end of a gravel road, a series of vegetable fields unfurling from a steep hill capped by her tiny white house. Like the farmer who worked this land before her, she leases the house and the fields from a neighboring couple in their 70s.

She grows organically certified peppers, cabbages, tomatoes and salad greens from baby kale to arugula, rotating her fields to enrich the soil and planting cover crops in the off-season.

On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, she and two longtime friends from Washington wake up in semidarkness to harvest by hand, kneeling in the mud to cut handfuls of greens before the sun can wilt them. All three young women, who also live on the farm, make their living off the produce Whitehurst sells, whether to restaurants, through CSA shares or at a D.C. farmers market.

Finances can be tight. The women admit they’ve given up higher standards of living to farm.

“I wanted to have a positive impact, and that just felt very distant in my other jobs out of college,” Whitehurst said. “In farming, on the other hand, you make a difference. Your impact is immediate.”

Larger impact

That impact could grow as young farmers scale up and become a larger part of the commercial food system, Merrigan said.

Already, several national grocery chains, including Walmart and SuperValu, have built out local-food-buying programs, according to AT Kearney, a management consulting firm.

Young farmers are also creating their own “food hubs,” allowing them to store, process and market food collectively, and supply grocery and restaurant chains at a price competitive with national suppliers.

That’s strengthening the local and organic food movement, experts say.

“I get calls all the time from farmers — some of the largest farmers in the country — asking me when the local and organic fads will be over,” said Eve Turow Paul, a consultant who advises farms and food companies on millennial preferences. “It’s my pleasure to tell them: Look at this generation. Get on board or go out of business.”

There are also hopes that the influx of young farmers could provide some counter to the aging of American agriculture.

The age of the average American farmer has crept toward 60 over several decades, risking the security of midsize family farms where children aren’t interested in succeeding their parents.

Between 1992 and 2012, the country lost more than 250,000 midsize and small commercial farms, according to the USDA. During that same period, more than 35,000 very large farms started up, and the large farms already in existence consolidated their acreage.

Midsize farms are critical to rural economies, generating jobs, spending and tax revenue. And while they’re large enough to supply mainstream markets, they’re also small enough to respond to environmental changes and consumer demand.

If today’s young farmers can continue to grow their operations, said Shoshanah Inwood, a rural sociologist at Ohio State University, they could bolster these sorts of farms — and in the process prevent the land from falling into the hands of large-scale industrial operations or residential developers.

“Multigenerational family farms are shrinking. And big farms are getting bigger,” Inwood said. “For the resiliency of the food system and of rural communities, we need more agriculture of the middle.”

Numbers are still small

It’s too early to say whether young farmers will effect that sort of change.

The number of young farmers entering the field is not nearly large enough to replace the number exiting, according to the USDA: Between 2007 and 2012, agriculture gained 2,384 farmers between ages 25 and 34 — and lost nearly 100,000 between 45 and 54.

And young farmers face formidable challenges to starting and scaling their businesses. The costs of farmland and farm equipment are prohibitive. Young farmers are frequently dependent on government programs, including child-care subsidies and public health insurance, to cover basic needs.

And student loan debt — which 46 percent of young farmers consider a “challenge,” according to the National Young Farmers Coalition — can strain already tight finances and disqualify them from receiving other forms of credit.

But Lindsey Lusher Shute, the executive director of the coalition, said she has seen the first wave of back-to-the-landers grow up in the eight years since she co-founded the advocacy group. And she suggested that new policy initiatives, including student loan forgiveness and farm transition programs, could further help them.

“Young farmers tend to start small and sell to direct markets, because that’s a viable way for them to get into farming,” Lusher Shute said. “But many are shifting gears as they get into it — getting bigger or moving into wholesale.”

Just last year, Whitehurst was approached by an online grocery service that wanted to buy her vegetables. Because While Owl’s Nest produces too little to supply such a large buyer on its own, the service planned to buy produce from multiple small, local farmers.

Whitehurst ultimately turned the deal down, however. Among other things, she feared that she could not afford to sell her vegetables at the lower price point the service wanted.

“For now, I’m focused on getting better, not bigger,” she said. “But in a few years, who knows? Ask me again then.”
…

The Palestinians are warning the United States against recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Mahmoud Habash, an adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said Saturday that if President Donald Trump were to do so, it would amount to a “complete destruction of the peace process.”

Speaking in Abbas’ presence, Habash said “the world will pay the price” for any change in Jerusalem’s status.

Officials in Washington say Trump is considering recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital as a way to offset his likely decision to delay his campaign promise to move the U.S. Embassy there. 

Israel regards Jerusalem as its capital, a position nearly the entire world rejects, saying its status should be determined in peace talks with the Palestinians. The Palestinians claim the eastern part of the city as their future capital.
…

The world’s largest lithium ion battery has begun providing electricity into the power grid in South Australia.  The project is a collaboration between the state government, American firm Tesla, and Neoen, a French energy company. 

Tesla boss Elon Musk, who was not in attendance at the switch-on, had boldly promised to build the battery in South Australia within 100 days – a pledge that has been fulfilled.  The 100-megawatt battery was officially activated Friday.  Musk has said it was three times more powerful than the world’s next biggest battery, and promised to deliver it for free had it not been built on schedule.

The South Australian state government hopes the project can prevent power outages because it can rapidly deploy electricity when it is most needed and reduce prices.

Last September, South Australia suffered a state-wide power outage when storms damaged the electricity network.

State premier Jay Weatherill believes the new battery will guarantee energy supplies.

“People were making fun of South Australia for its leadership in renewable energy and blaming it for the black-out,” said Weatherill. “That, of course, has now been debunked as a myth.  We now know that our leadership in renewable energy is not only leading the nation but leading the world, and we are more than happy to supply our beautiful renewable energy stored in a battery to help out the national electricity market.”

Located near Jamestown, about 200 kilometers north of Adelaide, the Tesla-built 100 megawatt lithium ion battery is connected to a wind farm run by French energy company Neoen.

The farm has 99 wind turbines and generates electricity that can be stored in the battery to serve 30,000 people for about an hour.  In a statement, the California-based firm said the project in South Australia showed “that a sustainable, effective energy solution is possible”.

Critics of the battery have said the technology’s potential has been exaggerated.

The bulk of Australia’s electricity is still generated by coal, and the nation is one of the world’s worst per capita emitters of greenhouses gases.

 
…

The wife of Princeton student Xiyue Wang, imprisoned in Tehran on spying charges while conducting dissertation research in Iran, is imploring U.S. President Donald Trump to intervene in her husband’s case, saying the White House is the focus of “all my hope.”

In an interview from Beijing with VOA’s Mandarin Service, Wang’s wife, Hua Qu, said, “I have tried all kinds of avenues in the past but at the end of the day, the White House must step [in] to push Iran to release him.

“Really, all my hope is in the White House, in the Trump administration,” Qu said.

Detained in 2016

Wang, who was born in China, is a U.S. citizen enrolled in a doctoral program at Princeton University. A website associated with Iran’s judiciary said that Wang “collected a lot of classified information” during the course of his academic work in Iran.

He was detained in August 2016 and was subsequently convicted of “collaborating with foreign governments” and sent to prison. Tehran’s prosecutor confirmed in September that his appeal was rejected.

Princeton, Qu and U.S. authorities have denied he was involved in any improper activities, and U.S. State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said the State Department has repeatedly called for his release, including again this week.

“We continue to call for Mr. Wang and all unjustly detained prisoners to be released immediately,” Nauert said Wednesday. “We strongly condemn Iran’s subjecting Mr. Wang and other prisoners to these forced video appearances. … We call on Iran to immediately release him.

“Princeton University has confirmed to us that Mr. Wang is a graduate student who was conducting legitimate research in Iran,” Nauert said. “He has no association with the U.S. government and has never passed any information to the U.S. government about Iran.”

Studying Qajar dynasty

Wang was studying Farsi and conducting innocuous research on late 19th- and early 20th-century Iran, Nauert said.

“The rich history of Persian civilization is one that should be celebrated and studied,” she said. “The notion that research on the Qajar dynasty poses a threat to anyone is absurd.”

Daniel Day, Princeton’s assistant vice president of communications, said in a statement that “Mr. Wang was in Iran solely for the purpose of studying Farsi and doing scholarly research in connection with his Ph.D. dissertation.”

Iran’s accusations 

When Iran media issued a government-approved report of Wang’s August 2016 arrest, it said he was accused of passing confidential information about Iran to the U.S. State Department, to Princeton’s Sharmin and Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies, to the Harvard Kennedy School and to the British Institute of Persian Studies.

Wang “digitally archived” 4,500 pages of Iranian documents for foreign research institutions, according to Mizan Online. Sentenced to 10 years in July, his appeal was denied in August.

Day said Wang was studying historical records that pertained to the administrative and cultural history of the Qajar dynasty, which ruled from 1785 to 1925.

“His dissertation topic was not suggested to him by Princeton, the U.S. government, or anyone else,” Day said. “He selected his own topic and areas of research. He has no connection to any government or intelligence agencies, and the charge that he was engaged in espionage is completely false. He studied the archival materials solely for his own research, and to our knowledge did not share them with anyone at Princeton or elsewhere.”

Health suffering

Qu told VOA that her husband has suffered from serious health problems since his detention.

“He cries. He cries a lot,” Qu said. “I have never seen him cry before. To me, this seems like a symptom of depression.”

Wang has also had suicidal thoughts, a conclusion she reached after he told her of wanting to smash a glass to cut himself. “Mentally, he knows it’s not right” and he hasn’t done anything but he has that urge, she said.

After all, Qu said, Wang is a “victim” of U.S.-Iran political relations.

“What is happening has nothing to do with him as an individual,” Qu said. “He’s simply an innocent student. He has no value to Iran. He’s just a student.”

In July, President Trump warned Iran to release American citizens detained in the Islamic Republic.

“President Trump has spoken for him, too,” Qu said. “He said the U.S. government will protect Wang Xiyue’s interest, will rescue him. Now I hope he can really keep his promise and bring Wang Xiyue home.”

Beibei Su contributed to this report, which originated on VOA Mandarin.
…