Today In International News: December 1, 2017

Courtesy of NBC News

• Ex-national security adviser Michael Flynn has pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI about meetings with Russia's ambassador weeks before Donald Trump became president.

• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that a U.S. threat to destroy North Korea in the event of a war was “a bloodthirsty tirade” and military action against Pyongyang would be a big mistake.

• Emperor Akihito, who has spent much of his nearly three decades on Japan’s throne seeking to soothe the wounds of World War Two, will step down on April 30, 2019 - the first abdication by a Japanese monarch in about two centuries.

• A Turkish-Iranian gold trader told jurors in a New York federal court that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan authorized a transaction in a scheme to help Iran evade U.S. sanctions.

• Backers of a U.S.-Russian plan to build nuclear reactors across the Middle East bragged after the U.S. election they had backing from Donald Trump’s national security adviser Michael Flynn for a project that required lifting sanctions on Russia.

• United Nations Security Council ministers will meet on Dec. 15 to discuss North Korea’s nuclear and missiles programs and the body will also meet separately this month to discuss human rights abuses in the North Asian country, an annual meeting that its ally China has tried to prevent for the past 3 years.

• President Donald Trump is likely to announce next week that the United States recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, a move that would upend decades of American policy and possibly inflame tensions in the Middle East.

• The Palestinian president's office and senior officials have warned of the potential destructive effects of any move denying their claim to occupied East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state. The warnings comes as US President Donald Trump is due to decide as early as the next week whether to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

• A federal warrant has been issued for the arrest of a Mexican immigrant acquitted of murder charges in the 2015 killing of Kate Steinle. President Trump seized on Steinle's killing as a presidential candidate, pointing to it as an example of the need to strengthen immigration laws.   He chimed in on the subject after the verdict was announced, calling it "disgraceful.” 

• A Canadian judge suspended part of a Quebec law banning people from wearing full-face veils when giving or receiving public services, handing a provisional victory to civil liberties groups who argued that the law is unconstitutional and discriminates against Muslim women.

• Bosnian Croat war crimes convict Slobodan Praljak used cyanide to kill himself in court after losing his appeal, according to preliminary autopsy findings, Dutch prosecutors said.

• Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister said that Lebanon had been “hijacked” by Hezbollah and could only flourish if the Iranian-backed group disarmed.

• The British government has issued a fresh warning about the security risks of using Russian anti-virus software. The UK cyber-security agency will say the software could be exploited by the Russian government.

• Since President Trump came into office, U.S. troop numbers have been edging up in the 3 countries where the U.S. is most deeply involved in fighting — Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.