Today In International News: December 6, 2017

Courtesy of Al-Jazeera

• President Donald Trump has announced that the US formally recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and will begin the process of moving its embassy to the city, breaking with decades of US policy.

• Protests have broken out in the Gaza Strip in response to US President Donald Trump's expected decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital, as Palestinian leaders called for 3 days of rage against the move.

• Palestinian Islamist group Hamas said U.S. President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and decision to move the U.S. embassy to the city was a “flagrant aggression against the Palestinian people”.

• The Palestinian delegate to the UK said that President Trump's move to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel signals a declaration of war in the region. 

• Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer advised President Trump to declare Jerusalem the "undivided" capital of Israel.

• United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that there was no alternative to a 2-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians and that Jerusalem was a final-status issue that should be resolved through direct talks.

• Houthi rebels in Yemen have held dozens of journalists captive for days at a television station in the capital, Sanaa.

• The US Defense Department acknowledged that the U.S. has roughly 2,000 troops on the ground in Syria, 4x more than what officials had claimed just a month ago.

• Saudi Arabia is interested in reaching a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement with Washington, the U.S. government’s energy chief said, a step which would allow American companies to participate in the kingdom’s civil nuclear program.

• President Vladimir Putin confirmed that he would run for re-election in March 2018.

• While President Donald Trump was delivering his inaugural address on Capitol Hill in January 2017, his incoming national security adviser Michael Flynn, texted a former business partner that a nuclear power project that would require lifting sanctions on Russia was “good to go”

• Federal officials from the Department of Justice (DOJ) have filed new charges against the undocumented immigrant recently acquitted in the murder of Katie Steinle.