It is the U.S. that needs NATO, which allows the US to bypass the UN Security Council and engage in military adventures abroad, while keeping a safe distance across the Atlantic, says Eirik Vold of the Red Party of Norway

The mass invasion of Italy by Africans has allowed the notorious Nigerian criminal gang known as “Black Axe” to become established in that country—a group that is so numerous and violent that even the infamous Sicilian Mafia has been forced to strike a deal with them.

According to a report in the Nigerian Pulse newspaper, the “Nigerian gangsters are challenging the Italian mafia in its home turf of Sicily.”

The reason for the appearance of the Nigerian criminal gang is, the Pulse report says, “decades of migration. These Nigerian gangsters slip into Italy illegally along with millions of Africans looking to better their lives.”

With less than a week to go before President Trump is scheduled to meet with President Putin in Helsinki, the State Department has decided to renew its pressure campaign on Western businesses invested in Russia's Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Germany.

According to Reuters, the State Department has doubled down on previous warnings to Europe, most recently in May when Trump gave Merkel an ultimatum to drop the Russian gas pipeline, and has been "making it clear" to firms involved with "the Russian energy export pipeline sector" that they're at risk of being sanctioned.

"We have been clear that firms working in the Russian energy export pipeline sector are engaging in a line of business that carries sanctions risk," a spokesman for the U.S. State Department told Reuters.

President Trump is, rightly, stirring the pot in Europe today, reportedly demanding that NATO leaders increase their defense spending targets from 2 to 4%, according to the Bulgarian president.

“President Trump, who spoke, raised the question not just to reach 2%, today, but set a new target – 4%,” Bulgarian president Rumen Radev told reporters, according to Reuters, citing BNR public radio.

“NATO is not a bourse a which one can buy security. But yes, on the other hand, President Trump is right, as each country should build its effective capabilities, and the unwillingness with which Bulgaria spends money on defense is obvious.”

As a reminder, US only spends 3.57% of GDP (which is the most), and as one French official noted, "it wasn’t a demand, rather just a mention.".

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders confirmed that:

US President Donald Trump's recent criticisms of fellow NATO members at the Brussels summit Wednesday derives mostly from the fact that many of them endorsed Hillary Clinton, his former Democratic rival in the 2016 election, international affairs and security analyst Mark Sleboda told Sputnik.

A day after arriving in Belgium with First Lady Melania Trump, where the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is located, he jumped into the yearly summit by doing what he does best: berate the US' European allies.

During a breakfast meeting with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, Trump went straight for the throat by criticizing Germany's 2015 pipeline deal with Russia, calling Berlin a "captive of Russia," before diving headfirst on the debate on sharing the burden of NATO's collective defense budget.

Okay, well, Trump did it again. Antagonizing allies. This time it was Germany that took the main hit, over the fact that it pays Russia billions of dollars for oil and gas while relying on the US for its defense … against Russia. And yes, that is a strange situation. But it’s by no means the only angle to the story. There are many more.

Those expecting President Trump to make a stir at the NATO summit with demands for more military spending did not disappoint, as he not only demanded all member nations increase spending to 2% of their GDP immediately, but then pushed for them to ratchet up to 4%.

This stunned many, as the 2% demand is often repeated and met by a handful of NATO countries in the first place. No NATO nation is spending 4% of their GDP on their military, meaning this is a demand for precipitous spending increases alliance-wide.

Needless to say, the 4% is going to be a non-starter for most. Nations like Germany balked at increases to 2%, having no enemies on their borders and large economies. Expecting Germany to more than triple their military spending chasing this new level is even more unrealistic.

Speaking with journalists at the NATO summit in Brussels, Donald Trump said he "thinks" he can pull out of NATO without congressional approval.

The US president made the statement when asked if he had threatened to pull out of the alliance, and whether he thought he could do so without first consulting Congress.

Trump ignored the first question, but on the second question, he said, “I think I can.”

According to Politico, Trump warned his allies behind closed doors that they would need to radically increase defense spending or the US “will do our own thing.” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg then reportedly shifted the meeting to an allies-only emergency session, requiring European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to leave the room.

A Swedish dentist who was ruined after being fired and fined for revealing that over 80 percent of his refugee ‘children’ patients were actually adults, told RT that people coming to his country should not lie about their age.

The story of Bernt Herlitz, a dental hygienist from the Swedish island of Gotland, came under the spotlight in 2016 when he revealed an unpleasant truth. Herlitz was analyzing the teeth of “unaccompanied” minor migrants who started to arrive in the Scandinavian country as the worst refugee crisis since WWII struck Europe. It turned out that wisdom teeth of the ‘children’ were fully grown in 80 percent of cases, a sign clearly showing that Herlitz’ patients were far from being underage.

“If you have an X-ray you can easily see that the person is over or under 18 years old. About 80 percent were grown-ups,” he said, speaking to RT.

European Council President Donald Tusk told U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday to stop berating NATO allies over military investment levels ahead of what is expected to be a fraught alliance summit.

In a piece for the SVP website, National Councilor David Zuberbühler outlined the party’s position on the new EU gun law. Zuberbühler explained that complying with the new rules would result in more bureaucracy and less security, by requiring the Swiss cantons to establish large and costly administrative schemes. Noting that the new restrictions would do nothing to combat terrorism, the councilor explained that violent criminals would acquire their weapons on the black market. Zuberbühler also pointed out that in 2011 Swiss citizens had the opportunity to adopt strict gun controls through a referendum. These gun restrictions were rejected at the polls.

Despite the fact that the former Anti-Fascist Action activist has deleted the original tweet and offered his apology, the public found his explanation offensive and insufficient.

Researcher Tobias Hübinette of the foundation Multicultural Center (MKC) has incited the ire of fellow Swedes for equating Daesh* returnees with war veterans.

In a now-deleted tweet, Hübinette called a jihadi deserter arrested in connection with the deadly shooting in Örebro's "vulnerable area" of Vivalla a "Swedish war veteran." According to Sweden's national broadcaster SVT, the man previously fought in Syria for Daesh or a similar-minded terrorist organization before returning to Sweden.

"If correct, this is unfortunately not the first time that a returning Swedish war veteran who killed people in conflicts in other countries, continues with killing, even here," Hübinette tweeted.

The post sparked outrage in social media, evoking criticism from Conservative legislator Hanif Bali, among others.

One of the interesting aspects of the hysteria is that NATO’s supporters never seem to think it is necessary to explain why it would be a bad idea to end the alliance. In a spate of interviews ahead of the summit, NATO Ambassador Kay Bailey Hutchinson enumerated the many ways that Russia threatens Europe and U.S. interests. But while the threats she mentioned – political subversion through social media, nerve agent attacks in Great Britain, support for Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, violations of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) treaty, and annexation of Crimea – are all major threats, they are not the main threats that the U.S. faces today. Moreover, NATO has been ineffective in confronting these malign actions by Russia.

NATO’s ineffectiveness ought to be the key issue of discussion when considering its future. But to date, that weakness has been largely overlooked in the rush to blame Trump for allegedly destroying America’s alliances.

As the North Atlantic Treaty Organization prepares for its annual summit this week, there is much talk about tensions between Europe and Donald Trump’s United States. But just as the American public is divided over Mr. Trump, Europe has its own deep fissures. The most prominent example is Brexit, Britain’s vote, months before Mr. Trump’s election, to leave the European Union. A close second may be the EU’s clash with Poland, its largest Eastern European member.

One reason Poland infuriates the EU, according to Ryszard Legutko, is Warsaw’s unswerving pro-Americanism. After Brexit, Poland will be “the most Atlanticist country in the EU,” says Mr. Legutko, a professor of ancient philosophy who also represents Poland’s conservative governing party at the European Parliament.

The right-wing interior minister who closed Italy’s ports to aid groups that rescue migrants in the Mediterranean said Sunday that he wants to extend the prohibition to foreign navy ships.

Matteo Salvini said he would bring up Italy’s desire to keep navy ships carrying rescued migrants from its ports when European Union interior ministers meet this week in Austria. Salvini made the statement on Facebook after the Irish navy ship Samuel Beckett arrived in the Sicilian port of Messina with 106 migrants after participating in an EU-sponsored mission.

“Unfortunately, Italian governments over the past five years have signed agreements (in exchange for what?) so that all these ships disembark immigrants in Italy,” Salvini wrote. “With our government, the music has changed and will change.”

Swedish authorities held an emergency meeting this week to discuss the recent spate of gang shootings that have plagued Sweden’s cities and made crime a major issue ahead of elections in September.
The centre-left government in Stockholm has been facing a backlash over the recent crime wave — and the elephant in the room is migration.

The number of people with migrant backgrounds in Sweden is increasing rapidly, as new research shows. Around 44% of children in primary schools in urban areas do not have Swedish as their first language.

Almost half of the children aged 7 to 16 in Sweden’s metropolitan areas speak a minority language. In the country as a whole, the percentage is 27.6 with 44.1 per cent in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö.

“The Swedish hyper modernism is becoming increasingly supermaxed among the country’s children and adolescents, and Sweden is now one of the most multilingual countries in the western world,” researcher Tobias Hübinette writes in a blog.

A political party in Latvia has come under fire after its official Facebook page posted a Nazi-related ad, which apparently aims to show the EU as a tribal black man and Latvia as a blond white woman nursing a black baby.

The scandal started on Sunday, when the Latvian Social Democratic Workers' Party (LSDSP) posted the controversial picture ahead of the October parliamentary election. In addition to the semi-naked couple the image shows the rainbow flag of LGBT pride, the national flag of Latvia in the background and a former logo of the national tax agency. A note above it said it showed Latvia if people didn’t vote for the LSDSP.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says the three major European signatories to a landmark nuclear deal with Iran agreed to establish trade ties with Iran independent of the US dollar.

Since the United States' unilateral move in May to withdraw from the nuclear accord, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), European companies are under mounting pressure from Washington to cut business ties with Tehran.

US President Donald Trump announced on May 8 that Washington was walking away from the nuclear agreement and that he plans to reinstate US nuclear sanctions on Iran and impose "the highest level" of economic bans on the Islamic Republic.

Under the JCPOA, Iran undertook to put limits on its nuclear program in exchange for the removal of nuclear-related sanctions imposed against Tehran.

Lavrov said on Monday that the decision by France, Germany and Britain would mainly concern small and medium-sized companies.

European leaders are not only unable to counteract the demographic crisis on the Old Continent, but are also losing ground in terms of defense. President Trump’s skepticism and reservation about the military ideas of European bureaucrats Ankara’s increasingly aggressive actions towards Cyprus and Greece, and the rapprochement between Turkey and Russia highlight NATO’s weakness on the eve of its summit in Brussels.

The much anticipated resignation letter penned by the former UK Foreign Minister Boris Johnson has been released, and in as expected, he does not mince his words in unleashing a brutal attack on Thersa May, warning that "we have postponed crucial decisions — including the preparations for no deal, as I argued in my letter to you of last November — with the result that we appear to be heading for a semi-Brexit, with large parts of the economy still locked in the EU system, but with no UK control over that system."

He then adds that while "Brexit should be about opportunity and hope" and "a chance to do things differently, to be more nimble and dynamic, and to maximise the particular advantages of the UK as an open, outward-looking global economy", he warns that the "dream is dying, suffocated by needless self-doubt."

The comment comes ahead of the upcoming NATO summit in Brussels that is set to take place on 11-12 July, where the US is expected to demand other member-states to increase their military spending to 2% of GDP, in accordance with the alliance’s requirements.

US NATO Ambassador Kay Bailey Hutchison shared his opinion that Russia is attempting to "flip" Turkey and a number of other NATO members in an interview with Fox News.

"I do think Russia is trying to flip Turkey. They are trying to flip many of our allies. They want to destabilize the strongest defense alliance in the history of the world — NATO," she said.

Secretive Israeli intelligence firm Black Cube was hired to engage in a campaign to discredit local NGOs, along with individuals connected to Jewish billionaire George Soros, ahead of Hungary’s presidential election earlier this year, POLITICO reported Friday.

Recordings made by operatives of the Tel Aviv-based company were then used by Prime Minister Viktor Orban to attack rights groups and Soros himself in the days leading up to his landslide election victory in April, the report said.

The magazine cited a former employee of the firm as well as an individual with knowledge of the organization who both confirmed the details. It provided numerous pieces of evidence backing up its claim, including addresses and names of fake individuals and companies used in the operation which Black Cube has used in the past.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is working to get closer to countries in Central and Eastern Europe. In so doing the Israeli prime minister is seeking to form a pro-Israel alternative to the European Union, which includes countries that traditionally supported Israel but criticized its settlement policy in Palestinian occupied territories.

Netanyahu officially launched his plan a year ago, last July, when he was speaking at a meeting in Budapest, which included the Prime Ministers of Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia. At the time, it was not clear whether it was intended or deliberate that the microphone remained open in the presence of journalists before cutting it off, according to a report published by Haaretz on Sunday.

The Italian language version of Rolling Stone magazine has dedicated its July issue to inciting resistance against Italy’s Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, in a manner reminiscent of similar public attacks on President Donald J. Trump in the United States.

On a rainbow-colored background, the Rolling Stone issue bears the title “We are not with Salvini” in direct confrontation with the League leader’s campaign slogan in the lead-up to last March’s elections: “We are with Salvini.”

The well-known magazine of music and pop culture follows its statement with an ominous declaration: “From now on those who are silent are complicit,” suggesting that active resistance to the new government is the only acceptable position.

The accompanying editorial, probably written by Massimo Coppola, attempts to justify this radical position by underscoring the unique gravity of the present situation.

The Catholic church is being used as a pawn in a well-orchestrated plan to radically alter the Christian identity of European nations through mass migration, said Bishop Athanasius Schneider in a bombshell interview last week.

Schneider, who serves as auxiliary bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan, told the Italian daily Il Giornale that the current migrant crisis “represents a plan orchestrated and prepared for a long time by international powers to radically alter the Christian and national identity of the peoples of Europe.”

To achieve their objectives, these powers abuse “the true concept of humanism and even the Christian commandment of charity,” Schneider said, exploiting the moral authority of the church for anti-Christian purposes.

The powers in question “use the enormous moral potential of the church and their own structures to achieve their anti-Christian and anti-European goal more effectively,” he said.

Theresa May has been unable to contain Brexiteer anger over her “turd” Brexit proposals, with backbenchers reportedly moving to trigger a vote of no confidence in her leadership.

Left-liberal news anchor and political insider Robert Peston cited sources confirming formal letters calling for a confidence vote are being sent to Graham Brady, who chairs the 1922 committee of Tory MPs who do not hold government positions.

According to the ITV host, the letters appear to be a “spontaneous” response to the Prime Minister “traducing those who voted to leave [the] EU” rather than a concerted effort by Jacob Rees-Mogg — the party’s leading backbench Brexiteer — and his European Research Group faction.

The Spanish government reports that the number of migrants reaching the country by sea is up more than 120 percent this year as the so-called Western Mediterranean route gained recognition as an alternative way to Europe.
Spain’s Maritime Rescue Service said it pulled 373 migrants from seven boats attempting to cross the Mediterranean on Friday.

Spanish authorities say the rescues occurred in the Strait of Gibraltar — the shortest route between the African and European continents in the western Mediterranean — and near Alboran Island, which lies about 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of the Moroccan coast.

The Spanish Interior Ministry says 14,446 migrants reached Spain during the first six months of 2018. Almost 6,300 of them arrived in June, when the weather was fair and seas were calm.

Sweden’s Foreign Minister Margot Wallström called on Friday for the Israeli government to lift its 12-year-old siege of the Gaza Strip and to allow medical aid into the coastal enclave, Egypt’s Al-Shaab newspaper has reported.

“Israel has to lift the siege it imposes on Gaza, open border crossings and secure the arrival of medical and food assistance,” Wallström told the Swedish parliament. The minister pointed to the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territory. She has made several comments against the illegal and inhumane Israeli siege.

Wallström also pointed out that the ongoing Great March of Return protests that started on 30 March in Gaza have seen Israeli snipers kill 136 Palestinians and wound more than 15,000 others, including children.

As the EU scrambles to offer a viable package of economic incentives to convince Iran to stay in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) after the US withdrawal, some forces are attempting to undermine this effort and fully align the bloc’s policies with the Trump administration’s strategy of isolating Iran.

A case in point was an attempt in the European Parliament to block one of the key measures that EU governments proposed to preserve the JCPOA: to give a mandate to the European Investment Bank (EIB) to support financing investment projects in Iran. As of June 4, when the proposal was made, the Parliament had two months to object by issuing a resolution blocking the measure.

See something, say nothing? This appears the message in Sweden, where politically-correct authorities may punish those who dare complain about the government’s culture-rending and crime-spiking importation of vast numbers of Muslim migrants. The latest example is a dental hygienist fined approximately $50,000 for revealing that some refugees claiming to be “children” are actually adults. According to Swedish news organ Samhällsnytt (translation courtesy of Jihad Watch):

Boris Johnson has opened up an astonishing new Government split with a crude outburst against Theresa May’s new Brexit policy.

The Foreign Secretary stunned fellow Ministers with his four-letter dismissal of the Prime Minister’s plan at Friday’s special Chequers summit designed to unite the Cabinet. His comment risks making him the first victim of Mrs May’s fresh crackdown on dissent.

Mr Johnson – who has been accused of betrayal by Tory Brexiteers for not blocking Mrs May’s ‘soft Brexit’ proposals – spoke out against the plan for the UK to remain in line with Brussels rules in a new free trade zone with the EU.

- U.S. China trade war escalates as Russia stockpiles gold on the Keiser Report
- Trump's erratic and risky trade policies pose a risk to dollar as reserve currency
- China, Russia "getting cosier" with Silk Road and increasing economic cooperation
- China and Russia "want to do business outside of the dollar" and "dollar will finally reach its comeuppance"
- "No gold ever leaves China ... they are hoarding it and Russia is buying it"
- Makes sense to be "accumulating lots of gold"

In this final episode of the Keiser Report from Paris, France, Max and Stacy discuss if a genuine trade war has erupted between China and the U.S. and look at nations, including Russia, stockpiling gold and also cover our recent market update (June 21): Russia Buys 600,000 oz Of Gold In May After Dumping Half Of US Treasuries In April.

A NATO summit approaches that brings Donald Trump to Europe and then on to these [British] shores, and brings the usual clamour for more of the taxpayers’ money to be given to arms manufacturers.

Yet NATO is a demonstrably useless institution.

It’s largest ever active military deployment, for 12 years in Afghanistan, resulted in military defeat throughout 80% of the country, the installation of a pocket regime whose scrip does not run further than you can throw the scrip, and a vast outflow of heroin to finance the criminal underworld throughout NATO countries.

Look at this chart closely, and marvel at the fact that the NATO occupation began in early 2002.

Two summits, both in Brussels at a two-week interval, represent the status quo of the European situation. The meeting of the European Council on 28 June confirmed that the Union, founded on the interests of the economic and financial oligarchies, beginning with those of the greatest powers, is presently crumbling because of its conflicts of interest, which are not limited to the migrant question.

The remaining parties to the P5+1 nuclear deal, China, Russia, Germany, France, and Britain are all trying to save the pact since the pullout of the US. Whether they’ll be able to do so remains to be seen, but the joint effort is bringing the nations all closer together.

A Friday meeting in Vienna centered on saving the deal, and also provided opportunities for top-ranking diplomats from the various nations to hold closed-door, sideline talks. With the US having withdrawn itself from the deal, discussions on the deal are effectively now bringing everyone else in line and facing the US opposition to the deal as a mutual problem.

The nations are not only in agreement about the need to save the deal but seem to be heading in a direction which Iranian FM Javad Zarif called “practical,” in their united opposition to the US pullout from the deal.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says Tehran will continue cooperation with Europe in their multilateral nuclear deal if the remaining parties to the landmark accord can meet Tehran's expectations during their upcoming ministerial meeting.

Foreign ministers of Iran and the five remaining parties to the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), are scheduled to meet in the Austrian capital Vienna on Friday to discuss ways of maintaining the international accord after the US’ withdrawal.

In a telephone conversation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday night, Rouhani noted that the US withdrawal from the JCPOA has caused some problems in economic areas, banking transactions and oil sector for the foreign companies which have made investment in Iran, making them reluctant about continuing their operations in the country.

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has warned the European Union to listen to its increasingly disenfranchised citizens, respect its member-states, and face up to “reality” in a speech to the European Parliament.
“European sovereignty cannot mean building up Europe at the expense of member-states”, Morawiecki told MEPs in Strasbourg.

“Weak member-states and countries who feel they’re being ignored would be a recipe for indifference to the EU, in which the EU is seen as a problem and not a solution,” he warned.

The Polish premier claimed that, for his part, he wanted a strong Europe, but a strong Poland within it, and was not shy about highlighting the EU’s many problems.

“As a young man, I was a member of the anti-Communist opposition fighting for freedom and democracy,” he recalled.

Boris Johnson assembled six Eurosceptic ministers for a private meeting tonight ahead of Theresa May's crunch summit at Chequers tomorrow, it has emerged.

The Foreign Secretary gathered colleagues including David Davis and Michael Gove to the Foreign Office after livid Brexiteers claimed the PM's 'third way' plan would make it impossible to do a trade deal with the U.S.

Pro-Brexit ministers Liam Fox, Esther McVey, Penny Mordaunt and Andrea Leadsom were also at the private meeting tonight.

The ministers were 'drawing up plans' to 'eviscerate' Mrs May's proposals, the Daily Telegraph reported.

The PM was struggling to keep her Cabinet united after a briefing paper was circulated suggesting the UK would align fully with EU standards - effectively ruling out a broad transatlantic trade agreement.

A British woman holidaying in Zakinthos, reported to police in Kalamaki, that three Pakistani migrants tried to rape her yesterday near the Area of Laganas.

The young British woman, after an enjoying night at a club near Laganas, became lost on her way to her hotel so she asked a stranger for directions.

Instead of leading her to her hotel, the Pakistani man lead her to a local barn, where he was living with fellow countrymen. He obviously had already informed them by phone, as they were waiting for the lady totally naked.

The Cabinet are livid about this – why have Number 10 kept them in the dark while briefing the media and the German government? Who was told first, Dexeu or the Germans?

Khan al-Ahmar (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - European diplomats on Thursday tried to pay a solidarity visit to a West Bank village under threat of demolition by Israel but police barred them from reaching a school there.

Diplomats from Belgium, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and the European Union sought to visit the school in the Bedouin village of Khan al-Ahmar, which is funded by several European countries, but they were turned back at the village entrance.

Police at the scene said the area had been declared a closed military zone.

China is putting pressure on the European Union to issue a strong joint statement against President Donald Trump’s trade policies at a summit later this month but is facing resistance, European officials said.

“What the president is going to do is go into these meetings with the mindset to protect the American people, stand with our partners and allies - but as he has said many times before America is thought so often to be the world’s piggy bank. And that’s gotta stop,” Gidley told reporters as Trump flew to West Virginia. Trump has pressured some NATO allies to significantly increase military expenditure.

Israelis are becoming increasingly worried over the growing support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. Not a week goes by without the ranks of BDS swelling. Last week it was Hollywood actors and the Presbyterian Church who gave their backing for the campaign to end Israeli occupation and apartheid. This week it is Spain, which, according to the pro-settler news agency Arutz Sheva, is becoming the most hostile European nation to Israel.

After accepting nearly 1,500 migrants brought from Italy and Greece in an initial resettlement program in 2015, the Swiss federal government has refused a request from EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos to “include as many people as possible” in the latest scheme.

"We are currently refraining from participating in the second relocation program," says Emmanuelle Jacquet, State Secretariat for Migration.

Jacquet asserts that the EU has failed to meet certain prerequisites that might compel a different decision from her office.

Earlier this week, the New York Times published a piece outlining some of the new laws the Danish parliament has passed since the government, led by the center-right Venestre party under Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, introduced a package of immigrant-related reforms in early March.

Denmark has officially designated some urban areas as ghettos – areas that have dense populations of immigrants with high rates of unemployment and increasing levels of violence and gang activity. In one of the country's worst ghettos, for example, unemployment is almost 45%, 82% are from non-Western backgrounds, 53% have very little education, and 51% are low-income.

Specifically targeted at 25 of these low-income ghettos, the new laws are designed to discourage the congregation of immigrants in these areas, and to force assimilation where there is an unwillingness in the population to integrate into Danish society.

Washington's rapprochement with Italy apparently gets on Paris's nerves, Dr. Germano Dottori, a professor of strategic studies at Luiss University in Rome, told Sputnik, adding that the new Italian government is reshuffling the balance of power in the Mediterranean.

The Franco-Italian row was prompted by a shift in Rome's foreign policy after the euroskeptics' win, Dr. Germano Dottori, a professor of strategic studies at Luiss University in Rome, opined, suggesting that Italy is emerging as Donald Trump's new favorite in Europe.

According to the academic, a new foreign strategy adopted by the Italian government led by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte contradicts Paris's interests. He recalled that at a recent G7 summit, Conte made a symbolic gesture by endorsing Donald Trump's idea of re-admitting Russia into the G7.

For the first time ever, the European Parliament has approved setting-up an EU-wide fund to support the development of defense technologies and equipment. The move is aimed at boosting the European defense spending efficiency.

The initiative called the European Defense Industrial Development Program (EDIDP) is aimed at lending financial assistance to the EU defense companies in development of “new and upgraded products and technologies,” a press release published on the EU Parliament’s website says. The program, which envisages allocating €500 million ($582 million) from the EU 2019-2020 budget to co-finance defense projects, is expected to make the EU “more independent” in the defense field while making its defense spending “more efficient.”

Brexit leader Nigel Farage has slammed the European Commission president for building an army to rival NATO and the U.S. military, claiming the bloc is “hell-bent to be in direct collision with Donald Trump”.

The former leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) blasted the unelected Brussels boss Jean-Claude Juncker at the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday.

He was attacking the bloc’s ‘PESCO’ project, a Brussels defence cooperation agreement signed in November 2017 by 23 member states, informally known as the European Union (EU) army.

Polish lawmaker Dominik Tarczy?ski has stuck to his guns following a frank interview on the migrant crisis with Cathy Newman, insisting his government will not take a single illegal migrant because that is what his party promised before the elections.

The Channel 4 presenter, who became infamous online following her viral interview with Canadian scholar Jordan Peterson, had demanded to know how many “refugees” Poland had taken, to which the Law and Justice Party (PiS) politician replied: “Zero.”

“And you’re proud of that?” Newman demanded.

“If you are asking me about Muslim illegal immigrants, none, not even one, will come to Poland,” Tarczy?ski repeated.

“We took over two million Ukrainians — who are working, who are peaceful — in Poland. We will not receive even one Muslim, because this is what we promised… this is why our government was elected; this is why Poland is so safe, this is why we have not had even one terror attack,” he said.