Nana Efua Mumford, executive assistant to The Washington Post's editorial board, lamented on Sunday that Jussie Smollett's story appeared to be falling apart because she felt like she needed the story to be true.

Some 95 percent of pickpockets operating on or near public transportation in Brussels are foreigners, according to figures obtained by a member of parliament.

Belgian MP Brecht Vermeulen reportedly requested information regarding the nationalities of petty thieves from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and shared his findings with local outlet Sceptr.

Between 2008 and the first quarter of 2018, only five percent of pickpockets caught by authorities held Belgian nationality.

Barely a week after being sworn in as the head of the Justice Department, Attorney General William Barr is reportedly planning to announce as early as next week that Robert Mueller has completed his investigation and that a confidential report on Mueller's findings will be submitted to Congress in the very near future.

According to CNN, the preparations - which are in line with an NBC report from late last year that the Mueller report would be completed by the end of February - "are the clearest indication yet that Mueller is nearly done with his almost two-year investigation." Barr has said that he wants to be as "transparent" as possible while being "consistent with the rules and the law."

Top diplomats of Iran and China have emphasized the two nations’ determination to promote their “strategic” relations in various areas as a high-ranking delegation from Tehran visits Beijing for talks.

During a meeting on Tuesday with Chinese State Councilor Wang Yi in Beijing, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Tehran views the “strategic partnership between Iran and China as one of our most important relations.”

“Our relationship with China is very valuable to us. We consider the comprehensive strategic partnership between Iran and China as one of our most important relations,” said the Iranian minister.

Fired FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe has said that he believes 'it's possible' that President Donald Trump is a secret Russian agent.

CNN's Anderson Cooper posed the question to McCabe on Tuesday night, asking: 'Do you still believe the President could be a Russian asset?'

'I think it's possible,' McCabe replied. 'I think that's why we started our investigation, and I'm really anxious to see where (special counsel Robert) Mueller concludes that.'

McCabe went on to blast Trump in his interview with Cooper, following similar remarks from his recent media tour to tout his new book.

The Washington Post published an op-ed Tuesday comparing President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency on the border with the the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party during Germany’s Weimar Republic.

The article, “Emergency powers helped Hitler’s rise. Germany has avoided them ever since,” was written by University of Maryland history professer Jeffrey Herf, who considers Trump’s emergency declaration at the border “absurd.”

Herf admits that “President Trump is not a latter-day Hitler,” though he asserts that the president is “a bundle of authoritarian and illiberal impulses and desires,” and that his actions could lead to tyranny:

In a fitting legacy for my friend Walter Jones, Jr. who passed away last week, the US House made history by voting in favor of H.J.Res. 37, a resolution “Directing the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities in the Republic of Yemen that have not been authorized by Congress.” As George O’Neill wrote in the American Conservative magazine this week, the historic 248-177 victory for a bill demanding the end of the US participation in the nearly five year Saudi war of aggression “reflects how many hearts and minds were influenced by the late Congressman’s tireless efforts.”

Venezuelan Health Minister Carlos Alvarado announced Thursday the arrival of 933 tons of medicines and medical supplies from China, Cuba, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and some direct purchases’ from the Ministry.

The Minister, from the port of La Guaira, in Vargas state, specified that the cargo totals 64 containers, which periodically enter Venezuela with supplies, despite the economic war and the blockade of investments made abroad to the Bolivarian Executive.

Alvarado, stressed that in response to the request of the National Assembly, Parliament in contempt since 2016, to enter the nation ‘humanitarian aid’ for the alleged crisis that Venezuelans are going through in the sector, is paradoxical as the opposition can not recognize and address the sanctions that impede Venezuela’s free development.

There is a problem with measles in Washington State, but it’s not low vaccination rates, it’s actually high vaccination rates with a vaccine product unable to provide lifetime immunity or vigorous passive maternal protection to infants during the first year of life.

When the measles vaccine was first introduced, most people over the age of 15 who had wild measles had lifetime immunity. In developed nations, like other communicable infections, measles was no longer dangerous except in rare circumstances because of inadequate nutrition, poor sanitation, and / or lack of healthcare. Because having the measles was a routine part of childhood, teens, adults, parents, and grandparents were immune. And because of maternal passive immunity, infants were protected.

Who would have thought that, this deep into the Russia collusion probe, we'd be learning about yet another dossier connected to Hillary Clinton? And, as it turns out, it was sort of a family secret.

By his own account, senior Department of Justice (DOJ) official Bruce Ohr played an essential — and unorthodox — role, carrying politically tainted allegations of Donald Trump-Russia collusion to the FBI during the 2016 election.

First, it was unverified intelligence starting in July 2016 from Trump-hating former British spy Christopher Steele, the author of the infamous Russia dossier.

Next, it was sketchy intelligence starting in August 2016 from Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson, an opposition-research contractor who hired Steele and was paid to help Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign develop political dirt on Trump.

Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe acknowledged Tuesday night that the FBI’s decision to open a counterintelligence investigation against President Trump is based on information that is already publicly known rather than previously undisclosed information tying the Republican to Russia.

“Are there other things that haven’t been made public at this point that contributed to the opening of the investigation of the president?” CNN’s Anderson Cooper asked McCabe in an interview.

“I’m not so sure that there are things that haven’t been made public,” replied McCabe, who was fired from the FBI on March 16, 2018.

Did you notice how, during the Andrew McCabe interview with "60 Minutes," the former FBI acting director kept talking about “articulable facts?”

Like ex-CIA boss John Brennan and disgraced former FBI Director James Comey, McCabe was coining his own phrase to explain why the intelligence community started spying the Trump team. But the justification for mounting a probe should not lie in weasel words. It belongs in something known in law enforcement circles as “Paragraph One.”

Paragraph One in federal investigations lays out precisely why the investigation began and how. You can’t skip over it with fanciful phrases or empty verbiage. Yet, in the case of the counter-intelligence probe that targeted Team Trump, it has been two years and we are still waiting for someone to articulate a clear reason why the program began.

I’ve been reading Amos Oz’s books since his death, and one of the feelings he leaves me with is: Self-contempt. Many of Oz’s characters look on American Jews with disdain. “To be without power is, in my eyes, both a sin and a catastrophe. It’s the sin of exile, and Diaspora,” says one. Another says that Diaspora Jews “shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of… life.”

The message is clear. Jews in the west are half-made because they never had to fight. They haven’t served in the Israeli army, at the front line of reborn Jewish sovereignty. But those exiled Jews derive pride and strength from the armed Jewish nation; Israel has given them international prestige. Because once Jews went like sheep to slaughter, we formed lines to get on the cattle cars. Now we are a proud nation.

But those exiled Jews have no skin in the game. They are living comfortable idle existences. Getting up like me this morning and going to my desk.

The latest brouhaha over Ilhan Omar’s supposed flirtation with anti-Semitism was started by Batya Ungar-Sargon of the Forward, who ignited a twitter debate by challenging Omar’s assertion on February 10 that AIPAC used financial pressure on members of Congress on behalf of Israel. Ungar-Sargon then wrote a column accusing Omar of repeated use of anti-Semitic “tropes,” which has become something of a “mot du jour.” The exchange exploded quickly into a firestorm, leading to rebukes from Democratic Congressional leadership and calls from President Trump for Omar to resign from Congress or at least the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Ungar-Sargon, who views herself as politically “on the left,” has perversely become a leading practitioner of the familiar playbook smearing those who stray from the narrow boundaries of acceptable criticism of Israel as anti-Semites who are conjuring some historical anti-Semitic “trope” or “canard.”

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been spending much of his time making sure a racist, xenophobic, Homophobic Ultra-Right wing fringe party which is the Israeli version of David Duke passes the electoral threshold [of four seats] & makes it into the Knesset in the April 9th elections.”

“The name of this party is ‘Jewish Power’ & its members are followers of Meir Kahana – former leader of ‘Kach’ party which was banned from running in the elections in 1988 and was designated as a terror organization in Israel, the U.S., Canada and the EU.”

“The leader of ‘Kach’ Meir Kahana managed to get elected in 1984 and was boycotted by all the other parties in the Knesset. He tried to pass a law for stripping non-Jews from their citizenship, a law for separate beaches for Jews and Arabs and other racist laws.”

This is a big story in Israel. On Saturday, Channel 13 anchorwoman Oshrat Kotler commented on a case of sadistic Israeli soldier beatings of a Palestinian father and son in occupied territory, saying:

They send children to the army, to the territories, and get them back human animals. That’s the result of the occupation.

The response was immediate. Thousands of expressions of rage streamed in from audiences, and many leaders on the right were condemnatory. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted:

Proud of IDF soldiers and love them very much. Oshrat Kotler’s words should be roundly condemned.

The Israeli “Construction and Planning Committee” of the City Council in occupied Jerusalem, has approved the construction on an additional 464 units for illegal colonialist settlers.

The approval was made this past Monday, and it was revealed, Wednesday, that the plan aims at expanding in Gilo illegal colony, southwest of Jerusalem.

Israeli sources said the City Council in Jerusalem has allocated more than $200 Million to build and expand the illegal colonies in the Old City, especially in what is known as the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem, were two Palestinian neighborhoods, Sharaf and al-Magharba, once stood.

Israel’s colonies the occupied West Bank, including in and around occupied East Jerusalem, are illegal under International Law and the Fourth Geneva Convention, to which Israel is a signatory and a constant violator.

The African National Congress Youth League has affirmed its support for the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Speaking to Middle East Monitor on Monday, the Secretary General of South Africa’s ruling party, Njabulo Nzuza, stressed that its National Executive Committee (NEC) even took a decision to work together with BDS South Africa (BDS SA).

Over the weekend, a Youth League member, Thembi Siweya, sparked controversy when she published an article titled “BDS SA, undermining South Africa” wherein she criticised the BDS movement. In particular, Siweya made clear that she is against any opposition to an Israeli company’s intended takeover of South Africa’s largest dairy producer, Clover.

“BDS SA ought to listen to what ordinary Palestinians yearn for,” claimed Siweya. “Its messaging on Palestine is not coherent and fails to benefit the Palestinians living in Palestine.” Nzuza was emphatic that Siweya’s views are “not the position of the Youth League.”

Very moving, well worth a listen.

He correctly points out that the mainstream media are shameless liars, and that Americans should not believe the lies being told about Venezuela, which is being targeted with a disinformation campaign. We couldn't agree more.

Jordanian members of parliament yesterday called on the government to dismiss the Israeli ambassador to Amman and to recall the Jordanian ambassador from Israel in response to Israel’s violations of Al-Aqsa Mosque, Safa news agency reported.

The Chairman of the Palestine Committee in Parliament MP Yahya Al-Saud read the statement of his committee for the parliament, calling on the government to urgently take all the needed measures to stop Israel’s unilateral measures.

According to Safa, the committee hailed the Jordanian official stance regarding Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Islamic sites in Jerusalem, referring to the role of the Jordanian endowment ministry in the holy city.

The government of Poland said it is still waiting for an apology from Israel following “slanderous” remarks made by senior officials regarding the role of Poles in the Nazi Holocaust.

International media widely reported the Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Szymon Szynkowski vel Sek saying yesterday: “We leave it to Israeli leaders to choose what form of reaction they will have and who will react, but it should be a unified and definite one.”

The Polish official described the remarks of the acting Israeli foreign minister Yisrael Katz as “shameful, scandalous and slanderous” and they require an “unequivocal and definite” reaction.

Israeli Professor Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian revealed yesterday that the Israeli occupation authorities issues permits to large pharmaceutical firms to carry out tests on Palestinian and Arab prisoners, Felesteen.ps reported.

The Hebrew University lecturer also revealed that the Israeli military firms are testing weapons on Palestinian children and carry out these tests in the Palestinian neighbourhoods of occupied Jerusalem.

Speaking in Columbia University in New York City, Shalhoub-Kevorkian said that she collected the data while carrying out a research project for the Hebrew University.

“Palestinian spaces are laboratories,” she said. “The invention of products and services of state-sponsored security corporations are fueled by long-term curfews and Palestinian oppression by the Israeli army.”

A US appeals court has reopened a billion-dollar lawsuit against Jewish-American tycoon Sheldon Adelson, which seeks to hold him and more than 30 others liable for war crimes and support of Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt).

Ultra-right Israeli party Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) has agreed to run together with Jewish Home and National Union, reported the Jerusalem Post.

According to reports, the parties said they plan to form a “technical bloc” whereby Jewish Home and National Union will be a joint faction, “as they have been for the past two Knessets”, and Jewish Power will operate independently, taking the fifth and eighth places on the list.

The purpose of the bloc is so that Jewish Power’s votes, “which are worth two to three Knesset seats but don’t reach the 3.25% electoral threshold, expand the right-wing bloc in the elections”.

As reported by the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Power “is led by students of Rabbi Meir Kahane, including former MK Michael Ben-Ari, Hebron activist Baruch Marzel, Benzi Gopstein, who leads an organization opposing Jewish-Muslim marriages, and far-right activist attorney Itamar Ben-Gvir”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told American-Jewish leaders that Israel has “potential” diplomatic relations with Mali and Niger, reported The Times of Israel.

“Israeli officials have long acknowledged their goal to restore formal ties with Mali, though never publicly referred to the status quo of relations in this way,” the report added.

On Monday evening, “Netanyahu addressed the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations’ annual Israel mission in a Jerusalem hotel.”

During his speech, the premier “talked participants through a slide show about Israeli achievements in various fields, including diplomacy.”

Researchers at Duke University and the University of New Hampshire have examined how “Israel’s targeting of agricultural, water and energy infrastructures in the West Bank and Gaza Strip has had dire impacts on human welfare and livelihoods in both locations”.

According to the Duke University press release, the new report “is based on an original database that identifies 982 incidents between 2006 and 2017 in which Israeli forces, agencies or settlers damaged, destroyed, disabled or restricted access to sites and structures that provided food, clean water and other essential services to Palestinians”.

The data from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank comes from a larger database that documents the targeting of infrastructure across the Middle East and North Africa. The analysis was published in the journal International Affairs.

Washington’s first deadline for Turkey to respond to its offer to buy the Patriot missile defence system passed last Friday with no progress made. Only one day after the deadline, US Vice President Mike Pence raised the issue once again with Ankara regarding Turkey’s recent deal to acquire the Russian S-400 missile defence system. In his speech at the Munich Security Conference last Saturday, Pence threatened Turkey, without mentioning it explicitly, when he said, “We’ve also made it clear that we will not stand idly by while NATO Allies purchase weapons from our adversaries. We cannot ensure the defence of the West if our allies grow dependent on the East.”

In light of recent news of UK Labour MPs leaving the party over Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, this October 2018 investigation by Whitney Webb and Vanessa Beeley is more relevant than ever. Beeley and Webb uncover how influential oligarchs and the non-profits they fund pushed many of the very same MPs who have now left Labour to cut ties with the party.

Has anyone else noticed how almost anything you say nowadays – if it’s leftwing – can suddenly be cited as proof of your anti-semitism?

That is if you haven’t already been denounced as a Kremlin stooge.

Oppose the regular neoconservative regime-change operations, such as the latest one targeting Venezuela, and point to the long record of war crimes committed by one of its current architects, Elliott Abrams, and that apparently is probable evidence that you’re an anti-semite.

Throughout recent Latin American history, it is hard to find a country that has been as thoroughly manipulated and plundered by the United States as Haiti has. After over a century of U.S. intervention — from the 19-year-long U.S. military occupation that began in 1915 to the 2010 election rigged by the Hillary Clinton-run State Department — Haiti has become the ultimate neoliberal experiment that has forced its people to live in conditions so horrible that rivers of sewage often run through the city streets.

Even Haiti’s own president, Jovenel Moise — who has presided over the most recent phase of U.S.-backed plunder — recently called the entire country a “latrine.”

After Muslim congresswoman Ilhan Omar made an obvious point about Jewish power influencing American foreign policies, she was forced, by that same Jewish power, to recant, thus confirming, to all those who can still think, the awful influence of Jewish power.

Though Jewish power is quite out in the open, as in AIPAC and the existence of a racist state that’s sustained by terror and endless war, one can’t even say “Jewish power” without being immediately branded an anti-Semite, if not a Nazi.

If it wasn’t for Jewish power, Americans wouldn’t have so much Muslim blood on their hands, or being worse than bankrupt, having fought so many wars for Israel.

If not for Jewish power, questioning the Holocaust wouldn’t be a thought crime in 16 European countries. No other event in human history is so fascistically protected from scrutiny. None but the Holocaust, thanks to Jewish power.

Yet Wayne’s conception of American identity is being buried by demographic change. In 1970, Orange County was 86 percent white. By 2004, the massive growth in non-white population (mostly Asians and Hispanics) pushed whites to just 49 percent of population. This demographic transformation ensured Democrats won all seven congressional house seats in 2018 election, a stinging reminder that demography is destiny even in the land of John Wayne.

Not surprisingly, the new population inhabiting the area has no love for a figure associated with the conquest of the West and traditional American identity. In 2016, a push by white Republicans to have a day celebrating the birthday of John Wayne was overwhelmingly voted down because of Wayne’s “racism.” A resolution in the State Assembly failed by 36-19 votes, with opponents Assemblyman Luis Alejo and Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez citing a 1971 Playboy interview in which Wayne gave his views on race.

According to Russian media, yet to be confirmed, “A False Flag is Brewing” under the Cloak of the so-called “Humanitarian Convoy for Venezuela” (TASS)

The alleged false flag operation is intended to justify “an outside invasion” of Venezuela by one or more foreign powers. The false flag is slated to result in the deaths of civilians.

According to Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova at a press conference last week:

“A provocation, involving victims, is being put together under the guise of a humanitarian convoy,” Zakharova stressed. “They need it just as a pretext to use outside force, and everyone should understand that.”

“The possibility of a military intervention is just a red line for all of Latin America and the entire global community in general, which considers itself to be civilized,” she emphasized.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has signed a constitutional amendment committing the country to becoming a member of NATO and the European Union.

Addressing parliament on February 19, Poroshenko said he saw securing Ukraine's membership in NATO and the EU as his "strategic mission."

Ukraine should "submit a request for EU membership and receive a NATO membership action plan no later than 2023," the president told the Verkhovna Rada.

However, he acknowledged that his country needs to come a "long way" to meet the criteria of joining both institutions.

European Council President Donald Tusk attended the signing of the constitutional amendment in the parliament building.

The Russian-sponsored Palestinian unity talks in Moscow on February 11 were neither a success nor failure. Uniting Palestinian factions was not the main objective of the Moscow conference, in the first place.

Instead, the nature of the event, the host country and the clear messages sent to Washington and Tel Aviv were all meant to communicate something else entirely. And they did.

The head of the Fatah delegation to the conference, Azzam al-Ahmed, apologized to his hosts on behalf of Palestinians for failing to achieve political reconciliation.

But that apology could have been prepared in advance. It would not have been rational to expect that a conference organized in such haste, with few preliminary meetings or intense prior consultations, could have achieved the coveted unity.

Central Command chief Gen. Joseph Votel is increasingly willing to publicly contradict President Trump on foreign policy stances, historically not something active US military leadership has done.

Votel went out of his way to oppose President Trump’s Syria policy during recent testimony to Congress, and is now laying the groundwork for a similar disagreement with comments to reporters on the ‘dangerous threat’ of ISIS in Afghanistan.

President Trump hasn’t announced a withdrawal from Afghanistan yet, but peace talks with the Taliban are heading in that direction, with negotiators hoping to have a deal done in a matter of months. The Taliban wants US troops out, and has offered to keep al-Qaeda and ISIS out of Afghanistan.

Votel presented ISIS in Afghanistan as a “very sophisticated and dangerous threat,” while another, unnamed official was quoted saying they are “closest to having the capacity to attack the homeland from Afghanistan.”

South Korea has untaken one of the most radical left-wing economic systems out there: a steep increase in minimum wage nationwide. But now, the country must face the dire consequences of that decision and the harsh reality that the regulations are destroying their economy.

South Korea is home to one of the world’s boldest left-wing economic programs. President Moon Jae-in’s flagship economic policy, “income-led growth,” has led to dramatic increases in minimum wages since he took office in 2017. Those increases are now driving a terrifying rise in unemployment, just as a slump in global trade is already buffeting Korea. The nation is now staring an economic crisis in the face.

According to the Wall Stree Journal, it isn’t just South Korea, but they seem to be the worst stranglers of their own economy.

Thousands of job cuts have been announced while demand for cars is dropping and debtors are defaulting on their auto loans in record levels. The failing automotive industry could propel the globe toward a worldwide recession in the coming months.

In addition to the trade war killing demand for automobiles, thousands of job cuts have been announced as manufacturers try to stay in business. According to Business Insider, Honda, Nissan, Ford, and General Motors have announced thousands of job cuts in Europe. Jaguar Land Rover has also begun cutting jobs.

A federal judge in Chicago ruled on Tuesday that a lawsuit aimed at scuttling President Obama's $500 million library may proceed, according to the Associated Press.

Dubbed an "ugly waste of taxpayer resources" by angry Chicagoans, the presidential center slated for construction in a park beside Lake Michigan may be in jeopardy after Judge John Robert Blakey denied the city's motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Protect Our Parks.

Supporters of the project had hoped the court would grant a city motion to throw out the lawsuit by Protect Our Parks, some fearing any drawn out litigation might lead Obama to decide to build the Obama Presidential Center somewhere other than his hometown.

In 2003, America (and its lap-dog UK) invaded and destroyed Iraq on the basis of lies to the effect that the U.S. (and UK) regime were certain that Saddam Hussein had and was developing weapons of mass destruction. These U.S. allegations were based on provable falsehoods when they were stated and published, but the regime’s ‘news’-media refused to publish and demonstrate (or “expose”) any of these lies. That’s how bad the regime was - it was virtually a total lock-down against truth, and for international conquest (in that case, of Iraq): it was mass-murder and destruction on the basis of sheer lies.

That’s today’s U.S. Government - that’s its reality, not its ‘pro-democracy’ and ‘human rights’ myth. (After all: its main ally is the Saud regime, which the U.S. regime is now helping to starve and kill by cholera perhaps millions of Houthis to death.)

Russian president Vladimir Putin has vowed to use force against the United States should the U.S. deploy any missile weapons in Europe. Putin says the threat is necessary to protect Russia because U.S. weapons will be much closer to being able to destroy his country.

In what could be called Putin’s toughest remarks yet on a potential new arms race, the Russian president said Moscow was not seeking confrontation and would not take the first step to deploy missiles in response to Washington’s decision this month to quit a landmark Cold War-era arms control treaty. But Putin would take action against the U.S. if the decision is made to deploy weapons in Europe.

President Trump has never hidden his disdain for cyber-retailing giant Amazon Inc., accusing the company of unfair tax practices and antitrust violation. The president probably won’t be too amused by a new report that the company avoided paying any federal income tax in 2018 for the second year in a row despite posting billions of dollars in profits.

The purveyor of two-day delivery of just about everything posted a massive net income of $11.2 billion in fiscal 2018 after doubling it from the previous year’s tab of $5.6 billion. Yet, a report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) shows that the company did not pay a single cent in income tax on both occasions—ironically in large part due to Trump’s tax bonanza of 2017.

Deutsche Bank's PR campaign to get out ahead of whatever "Kerosene Maxine's" subpoenas might uncover led to another not-altogether-unexpected revelation Wednesday morning when Bloomberg reported more details about the German lender's efforts to distance itself from the soon-to-be president.

We reported previously that Deutsche sought to limit its exposure to Trump during the run-up to his 2016 electoral victory for two reasons: it feared the public blowback that any association with Trump's divisive campaign rhetoric might bring, and it also wanted to avoid the eventuality of Trump defaulting on a loan while in office - which would force the bank into the uncomfortable position of needing to seize the assets of the President of the United States.

In a landmark ruling that sent a clear message to other banks battling misconduct investigations in French courts, a Paris court on Wednesday found UBS guilty of having actively helped some of its wealthy French clients hide money from French tax authorities in undeclared Swiss bank accounts, and ordered the bank to pay a $5.1 billion fine. The fine represents a record sum in France, and isn't too far below the $6 billion maximum allotted by French law.

The past five years have been baffling for gold bugs. In an environment of massive central bank money creation, rising government deficits and a populist takeover of many countries’ political systems – all of which should be great for safe haven assets – gold has spiked to around $1,350 four times, only to be smacked back down each time. Very demoralizing.

And now it’s gearing up for another try.

In his first major public address since the US formally pulled out of the INF arms-control treaty, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned on Wednesday that Russia would point its new arsenal of hypersonic missiles - which can purportedly bypass NATO's ABM systems - directly at the US if it dares to reintroduce ground-based intermediate-range missiles to Europe.

According to Fox, Putin threatened to deploy Russia’s new Zircon missiles, which Putin said can fly at nine times the speed of sound and carry a range of 620 miles and are part of the country's drive to upgrade its defensive capabilities against an increasingly aggressive US and NATO.

Chinese state-run newspaper the Global Times warned - or perhaps threatened - late Tuesday that failed trade negotiations would have dire consequences for global stocks.

The threat of a market catastrophe has pigeonholed the US into striking a deal with Beijing, the report suggests although many are confident that the situation is flipped.

"[Trump's] words further stoked the stock markets of the US, which reached the highest in two months and so increased pressure on the Trump administration to close the deal with China," said the Global Times in an Op-Ed, adding that if the Trump team "imposes more tariffs on Chinese products while China responds with fiercer countermeasures," it would "be a catastrophic strike to global stock markets."

Russia will consider tit-for-tat and asymmetric measures if the United States deploys intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles to Europe, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in his annual State of the Nation address to the Federal Assembly on Wednesday.

"I’ve already said and I want to repeat - and this is vital - to repeat this specifically, that Russia is not planning to be the first to deploy these missiles to Europe. If they are indeed manufactured and sent to the European continent, and the US does have these plans, anyway, we haven’t heard other statements, this will sharply deteriorate international security and create serious threats to Russia since it takes up to 10-12 minutes for certain types of these missiles to fly to Moscow. This is a very serious danger to us. In this case, we will be forced, and I want to stress this, we will be forced to envisage tit-for-tat and asymmetric measures," Putin said.

In an address to the Federal Assembly on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin touched upon a spate of pressing international issues related to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

Putin Warns Against US Missiles in Europe

During the address, the Russian president specifically touched upon the possible deployment of US missiles in Europe.

He warned that if Washington deploys its medium-and short-range missiles in Europe, it will “dramatically exacerbate international security situation" and create serious challenges to Russia.

Last Saturday marked the 14th straight weekend of Yellow Vests demonstrations in Paris. The movement emerged in France back in November following the government's fuel tax hikes proposal and while the French government ultimately abandoned its plans to raise fuel taxes, the protests have continued.

Yellow Vests demonstrators gathered in front of the UN headquarters in Geneva on Wednesday to show their indignation with police violence during protests.

The wave of Yellow Vests rallies — named after the garment all drivers are legally required to carry in their vehicles in France — started in mid-November.

The US is likely to retain control over the Kurdish-populated areas in northeastern Syria by keeping its troops in neighbouring Iraqi Kurdistan and reserving the right to intervene if needed, Badran Jiakurd, an adviser to the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (NES), a de facto autonomous region, told Sputnik.

“The US administration seems to have understood the repercussions of a full withdrawal on the region. On this basis, we believe that the withdrawal will take a long time, and there could be a presence of the American military in the Iraqi Kurdistan near the border with northern Syria. This US military presence could be strategic to allow the US air force to intervene when necessary, so that NES would remain under the US control. In our judgment, we think that there is a plan in this direction,” Jiakurd said.

Sweden and Hungary have been embroiled in a bitter quarrel after a Swedish cabinet minister made a controversial comparison between Budapest's pro-family policy and that of Nazi Germany.

The Hungarian ambassador to Sweden has been summoned to a meeting with representatives of the Foreign Ministry as part of the escalating verbal exchange of fire between the two nations.

The war of words broke out when Swedish Social Insurance Minister Annika Strandhäll compared Hungary's new pro-family policy, which includes complete tax exemption for mothers of four children, to Nazi Germany, claiming it "reeked of the 1930s". In turn, Hungarian Vice Prime Minister Zsolt Semjen called the Swedish minister a "poor sick creature" in a talk show on Echo TV.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez vigorously defended her role in sinking Amazon’s move to New York City on Tuesday in the face of bipartisan criticism, claiming the deal would have been "one of the biggest giveaways in state history" and would have priced people out of the local community.

"Frankly, the knee-jerk reaction assuming that I ‘don’t understand’ how tax giveaways to corps work is disappointing," she tweeted. "No, it’s not possible that I could come to a different conclusion. The debate *must* be over my intelligence & understanding, instead of the merits of the deal."

Why is America’s Baghdad Embassy the world’s largest embassy — and the largest by far?

"It's as if the US Embassy is there not only to protect American interests, but to manage the entire world from the heart of the capital, Baghdad.”

— Iraqi Sheikh Qassim Al Ta’ee, as quoted on 27 December 2011 in Al Iraq News and translated by Ibrahim Zaidan from the original Arabic by Nicholas Dagher

Zaidan’s article went on to say:

The world's largest embassy is situated in the Green Zone and fortified by three walls, another barrier of concrete slabs, followed by barbed wire fences and a wall of sandbags. It covers an area of 104 acres, six times larger than UN headquarters in New York and ten times larger than the new embassy Washington is building in Beijing – which is just 10 acres.

A high-profile case broke out in July 2018 after a video emerged capturing Alexandre Benalla in riot police gear tackling a young demonstrator to the ground and punching him repeatedly before fleeing.

The senatorial commission investigating the case of Alexandre Benalla has asked the Senate Bureau to take legal action against President Emmanuel Macron's former security aide for "false testimony".

According to a letter addressed to Senate President Gerard Larcher and seen by AFP, the commission believes that Benalla "assured the function of close protection of the head of state", despite his claims that he had not acted as the president's bodyguard.

The senators suggested there had been "major dysfunction" inside Macron's office and said they believed that Macron's security had been compromised.

Trump’s bid for regime change in Venezuela is starting to look like a fatal overreach. With the South American country’s military remaining firmly loyal to President Maduro, embarrassing questions loom over US’ dubious game plan.

It is not just Washington’s reputation that will take yet another grievous hit. So too will those European states which have shamefully rowed in behind the tawdry attempt at destabilizing a sovereign nation.

US President Donald Trump was asked by reporters at the weekend if he had a “plan B” for Venezuela if President Nicolas Maduro does not stand down soon, as Washington is demanding. With his typical bluster, Trump said he had several backup options.

But, despite his bravado, it looks like Trump’s bet on effecting regime change in Venezuela is a losing venture. The US seems to be increasingly desperate to salvage its plan to topple the government in Caracas.

Having laboured mightily for more than two years Labour’s Blairite wing brought forth a mouse – or a rat – depending on your point of view.

Just seven MPs announced their departure from Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party and though there may be others to come this was their first rank. And there lies the first problem.

Other than Chuka Umunna virtually nobody has ever heard of the new Independent Group of MPs who were quickly dubbed the ‘Seven Dwarfs’. One of the seven had to issue a humiliating public apology for a shocking racist blunder live on TV during an interview discussing...racism! And this was just the first hour. The rest of their first day didn’t go too much better.

Exactly 70 years after George Orwell’s 1984 came out, most fancy themselves smart to totalitarian doublespeak. But perverse lies need no torchlight or mass rallies, just a tailored suit, complacent media and a docile populace.

We know this, yet hear them so often that they become background noise, and even if they come from the mouths of politicians we do not believe, we let the distortions wash over us, unwilling to expend the mental effort to challenge them every time. But when we stop and think, they barely make any sense.

“Peace-loving nations” desire a “peaceful transition” in Venezuela where “peaceful protesters” are being “threatened with violence” by “dictator” Nicolas Maduro, Donald Trump declared recently.

Pink Floyd ex-frontman Roger Waters is slamming Virgin tycoon Richard Branson’s aid concert for Venezuela as a sham, warning fans and performers not to be “led down a garden path that ends in regime change.”

Branson’s “Venezuela Aid Live” concert “has nothing to do with the needs of the Venezuelan people, it has nothing to do with democracy, it has nothing to do with freedom, and it has nothing to do with aid,” Waters declared in a video released on Tuesday.

In the latest indicator of heightened and ratcheting tensions between Moscow and the West, the Russian navy is reportedly shadowing an American warship, the USS Donald Cook, as it transits the Dardanelles Strait on Tuesday.

The US ship is en route to its second Black Sea deployment in only under a month, and fourth since the dangerous Kerch Strait incident.

The House Oversight committee now chaired by Democrat Elijah Cummings issued an interim staff report after several whistleblowers came forward "to warn about efforts inside the White House to rush the transfer of highly sensitive U.S. nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia in potential violation of the Atomic Energy Act," spearheaded by Jared Kushner, according to a press release by the House Oversight Committee.

The press release is in conjunction with the announcement of an investigation into the allegations.

The plan, which reportedly involved former White House National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, Kushner and Trump fundraiser Thomas Barrack, would see the development of "dozens of nuclear power plants" in a "Middle East Marshall Plan" through IP3 - a private US company which has "assembled a consortium of US companies to build nuclear plants in Saudi Arabia."

More than a third of Americans say that government dysfunction and poor leadership is the greatest problem facing United States, the highest percentage ever recorded to say so, according to a new survey.

The 35 percent of Americans that said government was the most important problem is nearly twice as high as the 18 percent recorded in November, the Gallup poll released on Monday found.

The previous high of 33 percent was recorded during the 2013 US government shutdown. Prior to 2001, the highest percentage mentioning government was 26 percent during the Watergate scandal in 1972. Thus, the current measure is the highest in at least 55 years.

Gallup has conducted monthly surveys since 1939 to see what Americans felt was the most important problem facing the country and has regularly compiled mentions of the government since 1964. The latest poll was taken from a February 1-10.

Trump fronts for imperial America; its military, industrial, security complex; Wall Street, and Israeli Zionist ideologues, fascist extremists, and religious fundamentalists.

His one-sided support for the Jewish state is more extreme than any of his predecessors. His so-called/yet to be released Israeli/Palestinian peace plan is so hostile to fundamental Palestinian rights, he’s too embarrassed to release what’s dead before arrival.

His hatemongering bombast and bravado Big Lies, wrapped in the American flag, the national symbol Mark Twain once called for replacing with a “skull and cross-bones,” rages against Iran, Venezuela, and other sovereign states.

His President’s Day address in Miami was a call to arms against peace, equity and justice, focusing on Venezuela, sounding Hitlerian – how he always sounds when raging against independent governments he wants forcefully toppled.

The French people may be renowned for exercising their democratic right to protest, but the Yellow Vest movement has surpassed all expectations. Sputnik spoke to Dr Binoy Kampmark, Senior Lecturer at RMIT University, for his take on what we can expect in future from the Yellow Vests.

The new campaign of the Hungarian government targeting the European Commission's President Jean-Claude Juncker and Brussels' migration policy promotes falsehoods, the European Commission said Tuesday.

"The Juncker commission made the commitment to fight disinformation and fake news. And this case is no exception. The Hungarian government's campaign beggars belief. It is shocking that such a ludicrous conspiracy theory has reached the mainstream to the extent it has… Hungarians deserve facts, not fictions," Chief Spokesperson of the European Commission Margaritis Schinas told a press conference.

The spokesman stressed that the European Union was not undermining national border protection.

There was a story that circulated during the Cold War about a Soviet judge who was seen walking back to his chambers, chuckling heartily. His colleague approached him and asked him what was so funny. Oh, just a hilarious joke I heard, the judge replied. “Well, go ahead and tell me!” his colleague replied. “Oh, I couldn’t do that,” said the Soviet judge. “I just gave someone ten years for it.”

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that there was “no rush” to denuclearize North Korea, whose leader, Kim Jong Un, he’s meeting next week.

“I have no pressing time schedule,” Trump said of removing nuclear weapons from the North, adding he would “like to see, ultimately, denuclearization, of North Korea” and that he thought “we will see that, ultimately.”

Russia’s foreign exchange reserves can now cover all of the debt owed by both the government and domestic businesses, Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced.

“For the first time in history our reserves fully cover foreign debt, including government and commercial sector debt,” Putin said addressing the Federal Assembly in Moscow on Wednesday.

The country’s external debt amounts to $453.7 billion, while its international reserve funds stand at $475 billion as of February 8, 2019, according to infographics presented by the president.

Waters recently went on Chris Hayes’ MSNBC program and not only promised to stop President Trump’s emergency declaration, but she also laid out the path to make it a reality.

Waters began, “I really expect we’re going to have a growing number of Republicans that are going to join with us in this disapproval. Yes, they’re concerned if a Democratic president gets elected then they can use emergency powers to do a lot of the things they don’t like. As you know, they don’t believe in climate change. They don’t want us to talk about Medicare for all or any of those subjects they think we’ll spend too much government money, even though they’ve created the largest debt we’ve seen in government for many many years.”

But then Waters pivoted to her pet project of impeachment.

Waters claimed that Trump declaring a national emergency was just added evidence that the President was acting illegally and Congress needs to remove him from office.

Humanity is awakening to tyranny worldwide

To say Venezuela is in the middle of a political crisis would be an understatement. President Nicolás Maduro is locked in a power struggle with Juan Guaidó, an opposition politician and the self-declared interim leader of the country.

So what better way to make the situation less complicated than to add a spat between one of the world's richest people and the bass player from Pink Floyd?

Yes... it's a pretty weird situation.

Richard Branson, the British billionaire behind the Virgin group of companies, announced last week that he was planning to hold a concert to raise money for aid for Venezuela - inspired by similar benefits like Live Aid.

The concert, Venezuela Aid Live, is due to happen this Friday in the Colombian border town of Cucuta

The war on truth has reached a fever pitch as Google has made it their mission to annihilate the independent media. The ‘New Media’ lead by the likes of Infowars, Breitbart, Natural News and many other great independent sites will have an uphill battle when it comes to getting their content in front of readers. Google has announced they will be doubling down on their ‘Orwellian’ practice of making stories disappear from their monopolistic search engine. Outlined in their Gestapo like 160-page handbook, Google describes exactly how they plan to suppress any information they deem unfit for readers. Highlighted at the bottom of page 108 Google states:
? Pages that directly contradict well established
scientific or medical consensus for queries seeking scientific or
medical information, unless the query indicates the user is seeking an alternative viewpoint.

? Pages that directly contradict well-established
historical facts (e.g., unsubstantiated conspiracy theories), unless

A new study investigating the true security posture of password storage services has uncovered a swathe of vulnerabilities which can lead to the theft of valuable user credentials -- but this does not mean you should abandon your favorite password manager any time soon.

Independent Security Evaluators (ISE) published an assessment on Tuesday which documented the results of tests involving 1Password, Dashlane, KeePass and LastPass, all of which are popular password managers available today.

Attorneys representing the Kentucky high school student involved in a confrontation that went viral on social media last month announced Tuesday that they were suing The Washington Post for $250 million in compensatory and punitive damages.

The lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Kentucky, accused The Post of practicing "a modern-day form of McCarthyism" by targeting Nicholas Sandmann and "using its vast financial resources to enter the bully pulpit by publishing a series of false and defamatory print and online articles ... to smear a young boy who was in its view an acceptable casualty in their war against the president."

Washington Post spokesperson Kris Coratti told Fox News in an email that the paper was "reviewing a copy of the lawsuit, and we plan to mount a vigorous defense."

Twitter users have expressed disbelief after Sky News published a video purporting to show members of the controversial White Helmets “rescuing puppies” in jihadist-controlled Idlib, Syria.

“A team from the Syrian Civil Defence, or White Helmets, were able to rescue two puppies from the rubble following rocket strikes,” Sky News wrote in a tweet promoting the 31-second clip.

The video shows a group of men from the polarizing, foreign-funded “civil defense” group removing rocks lying on top of a puppy, which, even after surviving a rocket attack and being buried under the rubble, shows no visible signs of injury.