Are Manning and Assange the only ones that have leaked information about the reality of war? Were they the first? Were they the last?

Let's see if anything comes up with a simple search..

On its final flyby of Saturn's largest moon in 2017, NASA's Cassini spacecraft gathered radar data revealing that the small liquid lakes in Titan's northern hemisphere are surprisingly deep, perched atop hills and filled with methane.

The new findings, published April 15 in Nature Astronomy, are the first confirmation of just how deep some of Titan's lakes are (more than 300 feet, or 100 meters) and of their composition. They provide new information about the way liquid methane rains on, evaporates from and seeps into Titan - the only planetary body in our solar system other than Earth known to have stable liquid on its surface.

Rep. Ilhan Omar accused President Trump of fomenting anger and increasing death threats against her by posting a video of her own words diminishing the terrorist attacks on 9/11.

The President tweeted a video of the Minnesota Democrat’s controversial comments noting that 9/11 involved “some people [who] did something,” mixed with clips from the actual terrorist attacks.

Trump added the caption “We will never forget!”

Omar cited the video clip as a reason for an unverified increase in death threats against her and her family.

“Since the President’s tweet Friday evening, I have experienced an increase in direct threats on my life — many directly referencing or replying to the President’s video,” she claimed without evidence.

We’re sure it will only be a matter of hours before Cher returns to her part-time hobby of writing barely-literate screeds against President Trump on Twitter, but for a moment on Sunday the famous songstress appeared to have a minor awakening on the subject of illegal immigration. Apparently even for die-hard liberals who would rather burn the country down than vote Republican, the truth creeps through the bubble every now and again. How can’t it, when the facts are right in front of your face?

“I understanding helping struggling immigrants,” she tweeted. “But MY CITY (Los Angeles) ISNT TAKING CARE OF ITS OWN. WHAT ABOUT THE 50,000+Citizens WHO LIVE ON THE STREETS. PPL WHO LIVE BELOW POVERTY LINE, & HUNGRY? If My State Can’t Take Care of Its Own (Many Are VETS) How Can it Take Care Of More?”

Sunday morning's fresh layer of snow was a stark contrast to last week's sunshine.

I thought it wasn't going to snow," said Maxwell Hickle, Tri-State resident.
I wasn't anticipated on it snowing," said John Shelburne, Tri-State resident.
They talked about it all over Facebook, but I really didn't think it was going to snow," said Jenny Hickle, Tri-State resident.
It caught me off guard," said Kathy Wagenr, Tri-State resident.

Four Medals of Honor. Thirty Service Crosses. Twenty-three Silver Stars. After a three-year review of medals for military heroism in conflicts following Sept. 11, 2001, the Pentagon has upgraded 57 awards for valor -- and so far, sailors are the biggest beneficiaries.

Officials told Military.com that the review, which was launched in 2016 and will formally conclude on Dec. 31, assessed roughly 1,400 awards in all, presented by the four Defense Department services. Some four Army awards have yet to be announced -- officials would not characterize these awards, however, and whether, as some suspect, more Medals of Honor could be forthcoming.

Navy Secretary Richard Spencer defended Wednesday a plan to retire the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman early.

It’s a move officials say could save the sea service $30 billion over 25 years but it’s sparked bipartisan outrage on Capitol Hill.

Spencer’s comments regarding plans to cancel the mid-life refueling for the Nimitz-class carrier scheduled for 2024 came during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on the Navy’s budget request for Fiscal Year 2020.

Focusing on buying two Ford-class carriers and forgoing Truman’s refueling would allow the Navy to focus on next-generation capabilities, Spencer said.

A woman was appointed to serve as the vice head of the Director of Security of the Defense Establishment (D.S.D.E), a press release said on Tuesday. This is the first time a woman was selected to serve in this role.

The D.S.D.E. is in charge of handling weapons security for various arenas, including weapons of mass destruction and those connected to the Ministry of Defense.

More men and boys from a Somali American community in Minneapolis have joined – or attempted to join – a foreign terrorist organization over the last 12 years than any other jurisdiction in the country.

FBI stats show 45 Somalis left to join the ranks of either the Somalia-based Islamic insurgency al-Shabab, or the Iraq- and Syria-based ISIS combined. And as of 2018, a dozen more had been arrested with the intention of leaving to support ISIS. Both numbers are far higher than those of alleged terrorist wannabes who left or attempted to leave the country from other areas in the country where Muslim refugees have been resettled.

In the case of the Somalis, it's no longer just the men. Early last year, a female was apprehended by authorities on charges of supporting providing material support to Al Qaeda and arson.

With Facebook taking a very strong stance against so-called fake news and foreign interference in what passes for democracy in the United States and particularly given its recent association with the Atlantic Council and its Digital Forensic Research Lab. I would be remiss if I didn't thank Matt Agorist at the Free Thought Project, one of the entities that was purged by Facebook in October 2018, for inspiring this posting

In no particular order, let's look at some of Facebook's key personnel and their relationship to Washington:

The Trump administration again named Israelis along with Americans as deserving immunity from International Criminal Court prosecution.

In a statement Friday, President Donald Trump declared victory after the ICC rejected a request to investigate U.S. personnel for actions in Afghanistan.

“Since the creation of the ICC, the United States has consistently declined to join the court because of its broad, unaccountable prosecutorial powers; the threat it poses to American national sovereignty; and other deficiencies that render it illegitimate,” the White House said in a statement it attributed to Trump. “Any attempt to target American, Israeli, or allied personnel for prosecution will be met with a swift and vigorous response.”

In Los Angeles County alone, there are 41,000 transients living on the streets.

And for Rev. Andy Bales of the Union Rescue Mission, he says the homeless crisis has reached a breaking point.

“At this point, I’m very concerned about everyone in L.A. because we’ve really passed the tipping point of danger because we’ve left so many people for so many years to be devastated on the streets,” he said.

The Los Angeles Police Department recently released new body cam video that shows an interaction between police and a transient armed with a knife in downtown Los Angeles.

In the clip, officers are seen reasoning with the transient in an effort to get him to drop his knife. Moments before, a woman inside the café described how the man had threatened to slice her throat.

Police eventually had to fire half a dozen rounds of non-lethal force as the man used a chair to block the bullets.

See, my book wasn’t aimed at cataloging the failures in Iraq per se, but in trying to make sure we didn’t do the same thing in Afghanistan. The initial title wasn’t We Meant Well, but Lessons for Afghanistan from the Reconstruction of Iraq. The early drafts were pretentious scholarly stuff, outlining our mistakes. Harvard Business School-like case studies. Maps. Footnotes. It would have sold maybe five copies, and so my editors encouraged me to add more funny parts. NPR’s Fresh Airactually added a laugh track to my interview. I figured I’d get the lessons across with humor more effectively anyway. In such situations, you have to think that way. You can’t believe that what you went through didn’t matter and keep getting out of bed every morning.

I now know officially that it did not matter. It was pointless. SIGAR shows I accomplished nothing.

As polling gets under way in India - the largest exercise of democratic choice in the world - voters (where a quarter of the population earn less than $2 a day on average) are being lured by politicians offering illegal handouts.

Bloomberg reports that India’s enforcement agencies have so far seized cash, liquor, drugs, gold and other contraband worth 25 billion rupees ($361 million), already double the value of goods seized in the entire 2014 elections.

“It is becoming a menace and assuming alarming proportions -- it is a national malady,’’ said V.S. Sampath, former chief election commissioner.

“It also shows how people are placing more faith on money than policies and programs."

A second ex-Obama admin official has spoken up over the crisis at the southern US border.

Mark Morgan, a career FBI official who served as Border Patrol chief during the last six months of the Obama administration told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo on Monday that the US-Mexico border crisis has reached historic proportions and is the worst in the history of the country.

"this isn’t just a crisis, this is a crisis like we’ve never experienced in the history of this country since we started tracking numbers," said Morgan, who also addressed false statistics floating around comparing the numbers of migrants to those of the 1990s.

For the first time details of an extensive anti-smuggling surveillance operation involving eight United Nations member countries in the East China Sea, in waters near China and North Korea, have been revealed by a new Wall Street Journal investigation.

WSJ reporters accompanied the USS Milius and an allied Japanese warship, cooperating further with military surveillance aircraft, on a mission to thwart sanctions busting illegal oil transfers on the high seas to North Korean tankers.

Widespread drug use and homelessness in plaguing all socialist regions of the country. From San Francisco, where pedestrians have to literally watch the homeless shoot up, to Los Angeles where Medieval diseases have returned thanks to policies which have made it impossible for the everyday American to scrape by anymore.

Seattle is also committing suicide. “It is about the damage they inflict on themselves, to be sure, but also on the fabric of this place where we live. This story is about a beautiful jewel that has been violated. And a crisis of faith among a generation of Seattlites falling out of love with their home,” said KOMO’s Eric Johnson in the intro to the video he helped create about the crisis. Years of authoritarian socialist policies are taking their toll on America’s cities. It’s time to say “enough is enough.”

The Department of Defense is the world’s worst bookkeeper. The books are so atrocious that they are wrong about everything and it’s impossible to detect just how bad the fraud and corruption that runs rampant through the Pentagon has become.

Journalist Matt Taibbi told RT’s Lee Camp that he discovered it’s not possible to make any sense of the books.

Taibbi recently dove headfirst into the insanity that is the Pentagon’s finances to find out how a much-lauded audit of the organization, (which receives half a trillion dollars a year) failed to give the DoD either a pass or fail. What Taibbi found was that the Pentagon operates under a system that is inherently unable to provide financial accountability, he said during an interview on Redacted Tonight.

The US Department of State has approved a half a billion dollar possible sale of F-16 pilot training, spare parts and supply equipment to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States (TECRO), the Defence Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) said in a press release.

"The State Department has made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale to TECRO in the United States for the continuation of a pilot training program and maintenance/logistics support for F-16 aircraft currently at Luke Air Force Base, Arizona for an estimated cost of $500 million," the release said on Monday.

TECR0 is responsible for maintaining bilateral relations between Taiwan and the United States.

Pulitzer Prizes for excellence in US journalism were awarded to several national and local media outlets for stories on mass shootings and alleged scandals involving President Donald Trump.

Three Pulitzer Prizes were given for coverage of gun violence within the US over the past year, the organization said on Monday. The South Florida Sun Sentinel received the prize for public service for covering the murder of 17 students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in February 2018.

Militants shelled a district in Aleppo in the past 24 hours, killing six civilians and five Syrian troops, the Russian Defence Ministry's Center for Syrian Reconciliation said on Monday.

"Over the past day terrorists have attacked Sanjeka in Latakia province and Aleppo. As a result of shelling at al-Hamdaniyah district in Aleppo six civilians and five Syrian servicemen were killed," the centre said.

Amnesty International’s biased and misleading report ignores the suffering of communities under attack from Al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria’s Idlib.
Tensions are being ratcheted up in the north-westerly provinces of Idlib and Northern Hama and Western media prepares itself for the revival of the notorious “last doctor” meme.

In September 2018 Russian and Turkish negotiators agreed to establish a demilitarized zone in Idlib which should have been completed by October 15, 2018. The reality is that the withdrawal of heavy weaponry has only been partially successful and the remaining armed groups dominated by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), effectively a rebrand of Al-Qaeda or Al-Nusra Front, have consistently violated the ceasefire and targeted cities, towns and villages on the borders of the so-called “safe zone.”

Former US President Jimmy Carter says President Donald Trump has spoken with him about China because the current US leader was worried that Beijing overtaking the US economically, saying America’s endless wars may lead to China superseding the US.

Carter, 94, said Trump called him on Saturday as he spoke during his regular Sunday School lesson at Maranatha Baptist Church in his hometown of Plains, Georgia.

He told the congregation that Trump feared China's growing economic strength and suggested the president was right to be concerned.

Some experts say China could overtake the US as the world’s largest economy by 2030 if current growth trends continue.

The former Democratic president said China was getting ahead of the US because Washington has been at war with other countries for most of its history.

European refiners are switching to Russian sour grades as US sanctions have shrunk Venezuela’s similar-grade exports, Reuters reports, adding that the Russian sour crude is getting increasingly expensive.

Citing sources from the trading industry, Reuters says the situation has been made worse by the fact that OPEC members have cut mainly their output of heavier, more sour grades under the OPEC+ agreement aimed at stimulating a price rise.

US crude is not an alternative as it is overwhelmingly light and sweet, while refineries in Europe are equipped to process heavier grades as well as light ones to make refined products.

Judicial Watch announced today that the Supreme Court of the United States has overturned a lower court decision affirming the conviction of Joseph Robertson, a 78-year-old veteran now deceased who was sentenced to prison for digging ditches on his rural Montana property to protect the area surrounding his home from wildfires. Judicial Watch had filed an amicus curiae brief jointly with the Allied Educational Foundation supporting Robertson and urging Supreme Court review and reversal of the lower court decision. Robertson served 18 months in prison and died while serving probation. He was also fined $130,000, a liability inherited by his estate.

The Supreme Court also remanded Robertson’s conviction to the lower court so the indictment can be dismissed and the lien can be cancelled.

If you have any ground beef in your refrigerator or freezer, there are three serious alerts you need to know about.

The first is an expanding E. coli outbreak.

Here’s an overview from Food Safety News:

Ground beef, consumed at home or in restaurants, and possibly purchased in large packages from grocery stores just might be the source of the now six-state E. coli O103 outbreak, according to CDC.

In an update of its last report just three days earlier, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta shared its preliminary epidemiologic information that implicates ground beef for infecting at least 109 people. (source)

So far, seventeen people have been hospitalized, reports the CDC. No cases of hemolytic uremic syndrome (a type of kidney failure) have been reported, and no deaths have been reported.

Officials still don’t know the exact source of the tainted meat.

THE US MILITARY AND CIA LAUNDER COUP PROPAGANDA THROUGH POPULAR FIRST-PERSON SHOOTER VIDEO GAMES LIKE CALL OF DUTY, SIMULATING ASSASSINATIONS OF VENEZEULA’S SOCIALIST LEADER AND SABOTAGE OF ITS ELECTRICAL INFRASTRUCTURE.

The former director of Venezuela’s military spy agency, who is wanted in the United States for facilitating international drug trafficking, has been arrested in Spain and may be extradited to Washington. Hugo Carvajal is a retired general and former diplomat, who was a member of the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez’s inner circle. From 2004 to 2011, under Chávez’s tutelage, Carvajal headed the Directorate General of Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM). But in 2008, the US named Carvajal as a major facilitator of international drugs trafficking and imposed financial sanctions on his assets around the world. Washington accused Carvajal of assisting the paramilitary group known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) transport drugs from Latin America to Mexico and from there to the US.

Joe Knopp, producer of the film Unplanned — a biopic of former Planned Parenthood abortion clinic director Abby Johnson’s philosophical change on abortion — told Breitbart News that supporters of lawful access to abortion are distressed by his film’s message and impact.

Knopp joined Friday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight with host Rebecca Mansour and special guest host Rick Manning to discuss Unplanned.

Mansour invited Knopp’s response to a left-wing film critic at the Cut who wrote a review of Unplanned entitled “Unplanned Is a Movie That Could Get Someone Killed.”

U.S. envoy Brent Christensen, the de facto American ambassador to Taiwan, on Monday pledged continuing U.S. support for Taiwan to join international organizations like Interpol and the World Health Organization (WHO) despite China’s campaign to isolate the island nation.
At a symposium held on the 40th anniversary of the Taiwan Relations Act, Christensen called for Taiwan to be granted “full membership in international organizations that do not require statehood” and “meaningful participation” in those that do. Taiwan exists in an uneasy autonomous relationship with mainland China, which frequently threatens to use military force against the island should it declare full independence.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif issued a “reminder” Monday to European powers that Tehran is allowed to enrich uranium under its nuclear deal, after a senior French diplomat claimed otherwise.

“There is no prohibition on the enrichment of uranium by Iran,” Zarif tweeted.

His comments were addressed to France, Germany and Britain, signatories to the landmark 2015 accord with Tehran under which uranium enrichment is curtailed but not banned.

Zarif’s remark follows France’s ambassador to Washington declaring: “It’s false to say that at the expiration of the JCPOA (nuclear deal), Iran will be allowed to enriching uranium.”

Yesterday in a surprising move, Nancy Pelosi met with three British members of Parliament who have left the Labour Party over its position on Israel, which they say is anti-Semitic. Pelosi tweeted the meeting with the message that we must fight anti-semitism everywhere.

The meeting was another sign that Pelosi is going to lay down the law on support for Israel. Remember, she has said that the Capitol will crumble and fall before the Democratic Party abandons its support for Israel. Remember, that she groveled at AIPAC 3 weeks ago without a word of criticism of Netanyahu, despite appeals by liberal Zionists to do so.

Then last night “60 Minutes” did a glowing profile of Nancy Pelosi as the progressive dragonslayer opposed to Donald Trump, the force that will keep the Democratic Party unified, and Israel was never mentioned. There was brief reference to the new progressive wave in the party. Pelosi got to dismiss those women out of hand and claim the mantle for herself:

Scientists have found that a secluded region in the Pyrenees mountains - previously considered pristine wilderness - is covered with airborne microplastics.

A team from Strathclyde and Toulouse universities spent five months in the area, which straddles France and Spain.

They estimate that each day an average of 365 tiny plastic fragments or fibres settled on every square metre of land.

The nearest major city - Toulouse - is about 75 miles away.

Researchers collected samples from what they considered to be an uncontaminated area in south west France, about four miles from the nearest village.

Samples from monitoring devices were analysed to identify whether the tiny plastic pieces, invisible to the naked eye and less than five millimetres long, were present in the mountain range.

Plans to link the railway networks of Iran, Iraq and Syria have been revealed by a source at the Syrian Ministry of Transport.

“Now, the countries are working on the resumption of the project connecting the railways of Syria, Iran and Iraq,” the source told Al-Watan newspaper yesterday.

“[They] are determining the date of the meeting between the representatives of the countries to develop the points of view.”

The strategic project seeks to link Tehran and Baghdad to the ports in Syria’s north-western city of Latakia. Before the war, 97 per cent of construction of the project on the Syrian side was complete but, large tracts of the railways were bombed during the eight-year conflict.

Arab foreign ministers are to meet on Sunday to discuss the latest developments in Palestine at the request of the Palestinian Authority, Al-Wattan Voice reported on Monday.

During his first meeting with his government on Monday, the recently appointed PA Prime Minister Mohammad Ishteya told his colleagues that President Mahmoud Abbas will attend the meeting to lead the discussion.

In the meantime, added Ishteya, Abbas is to discuss the issue of the financial safety network, which was approved at a previous Arab League meeting. The network was established in order to support the Palestinian Authority budget.

A new Miles of Smiles convoy is set to arrive in the Gaza Strip early next month, the Head of the Popular International Committee to Support Gaza has revealed. The announcement was made yesterday by Dr Essam Youssef, who is also the coordinator of the series of convoys which first entered Gaza back in 2009.

The Egyptian authorities have given permission for the group of humanitarian activists to enter the territory through the Rafah Crossing, reported Quds Press.

“The Gaza Strip,” said Youssef, “is under an Israeli-led siege and economic sanctions, so the people need a lot of humanitarian assistance.” The healthcare sector is in particular need of urgent support, he added.

Responding to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ call for ending the division, Hamas said yesterday that his actions do match his words.

In a press release issued by spokesman Abdel-Latif Al-Qanou, Hamas said: “The continuous sanctions imposed on Gaza by Abbas, as well as his separatist measures do not meet his calls for ending the division.”

Al-Qanou noted that the formation of the ongoing Fatah government was the latest proof that Abbas is reinforcing national division.

Discussions which frame Palestine’s precarious future within the context of US President Donald Trump’s so-called “deal of the century” versus the two-state compromise continue. Apparently with just these two dangerous options on the table, Palestine is being pushed into oblivion.

In anticipation of Trump’s deal, a group of former officials from European countries have sent a letter to EU Foreign Ministers and the EU High Representative for Foreign affairs and Security Policy. They call upon the EU to reject the US deal and affirm “the internationally agreed parameters for a two-state solution.”

For years, law enforcement has been claiming that drones will only be used for natural disasters, crime scene investigations, car accidents and rescue operations.

That is the bill of goods, being sold to the public but it is all a lie.

A perfect example of how law enforcement promises the public one thing and after time passes, uses it for something else is taking place in Texas at the Memorial Villages Police Department (MVPD).

Two years ago, Click2Houston reported how the MVPD claimed that they would only use drones for "better emergency response during disasters." They also used police officer and UAV pilot, Larry Boggus to solidify their claim that drones would only be used for natural disasters saying, "drones are a huge asset for us because very quickly we were able to see the amount of houses that were damaged" during a 2018 storm.

I love it when police department's provide comic relief to prove my point.

Sec. of State Mike Pompeo recently openly admitted that the sanctions are causing pain and suffering and that this would accelerate the process of toppling the Maduro government.

Israel is in the process of plunging America into a war with Iran that could destroy what’s left of the Middle East and ignite a third world war, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, warned in Washington approximately a week ago.

Wilkerson, a retired army colonel who now teaches at Washington-area universities, didn’t hold back in his critique of where the status quo is leading the United States via its client state, Israel.

At the annual Israel lobby conference at the National Press Club, sponsored by the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and Institute for Research: Middle East Policy, Wilkerson explained that Israel is headed toward “a massive confrontation with the various powers arrayed against it, a confrontation that will suck America in and perhaps terminate the experiment that is Israel and do irreparable damage to the empire that America has become.”

By April 16, the Libyan National Army (LNA) advance on Tripoli has appeared to be dragged into a trench war on the approach to the southern gate of the city. Militias loyal to the Government of National Accord (GNA) have stopped the LNA advance in the area of Ain Zara and prevented LNA units from cutting off the Tripoli-Misrata highway heading along the coast. These GNA successes predetermined the tactical posture in the area.

Another important success was achieved by the GNA on April 14 when its forces shot down a MiG-21 jet of the LNA Air Force over Ain Zara with a MANPAD. The pilot ejected, but remains missing. The downed MiG-21 jet became a first confirmed and the second claimed downed jet since the start of the LNA advance on Tripoli on April 4. On April 10, the LNA announced that it had downed a L-39 jet of the GNA Air Force. However, there is sill no comprehensive evidence to confirm this.

One of three women allegedly involved in a foiled plot in 2016 to blow up a car packed with gas canisters near the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris was on Friday sentenced to eight years in prison by a French court for earlier offences.

Ines Madani, 22, was sentenced following a three-day trial during which she was accused of encouraging would-be jihadists to go to Syria and participate in attacks against France between March 2015 and June 2016.

She used Telegram – an encrypted messaging app widely used by jihadists to communicate.

GLENN BECK (HOST): If this was arson, this is going to be bad. If this was arson of any foreign -- kind of -- any foreign entity, any -- anybody with a grudge, I think if -- if, and this is a huge if -- it might have just been started by a cigarette. We don't know. But if this was started by Islamists, I don't think you'll find out about it, because I think it would set the entire country on fire.

...

This is their World Trade Center moment, and if this was done by terrorists, I think that they will keep it quiet, because -- I just don't think Macron and France wants that internal fight.

Bill Weld, the 73-year-old former federal prosecutor, two-term governor of Massachusetts, and 2016 vice presidential nominee for the Libertarian Party, announced Monday afternoon on CNN that he is officially running for president in the Republican primary against incumbent Donald Trump.

“I really think if we have six more years of the same stuff we’ve had out of the White House the last two years, that would be a political tragedy, and I would fear for the republic,” Weld told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “So I would be ashamed of myself if I didn’t raise my hand and run.”

European subsidiaries of Italy’s biggest bank UniCredit have pleaded guilty to US charges of violating sanctions against Iran and other countries. The lender has agreed to pay $1.3 billion to settle the six-year probe.

UniCredit’s units in Germany, Austria and Italy admitted to illegally moving of hundreds millions of dollars via the US financial system on behalf of sanctioned entities, according to the US Treasury Department. The violations reportedly included sanctions programs against weapons of mass destruction proliferation.

The Chinese ambassador to Santiago called US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo “a hypocrite” after he tried to dissuade the South American nation from dealing with Beijing, as the US and China remain locked in a trade war.

“Pompeo has lost his mind and gone too far,” Beijing’s envoy to Chile, Xu Bu, said, slamming the attacks against Chinese economic activities in the region as “malicious” and “absurd.”

Mike Pompeo earlier called Chinese investment projects in the South America “debt deal traps” during a visit to Santiago. Beijing “often injects corrosive capital into the economic bloodstream, giving life to corruption, and eroding good governance,” he said.

Paris public prosecutor Remy Heitz said there was no obvious indication the fire was arson. Fifty people were working on what would be a long and complex investigation. One firefighter was injured but no one else was hurt in the blaze which began after the building was closed to the public for the evening.

From the outside, the imposing bell towers and outer walls, with their vast flying buttresses, still stood firm, but the insides and the upper structure were eviscerated by the blaze.

Its focus is currently on Le Bras Freres (Le Bras Brothers), a company based in Jarny, in the Meurthe-et-Moselle department of north-eastern France.

Some of its 200 specialist employees were working on the wooden and lead spire of Notre Dame Cathedral that collapsed on Monday evening after the fire broke out on the roof just before 7pm.

“Many of these restorers were interviewed overnight,” said a source close to the investigation that has been opened into ‘accidental destruction by fire’.

Notre Dame de Paris wasn't the only beloved house of worship that caught fire Monday. Part of the Haram ash-Sharif, the huge Jerusalem mosque built where a pivotal event in the prophet Muhammad's life is believed to have occurred, also caught fire, damaging a part of the structure dating to Judean King Herod the Great's reign.

On Monday a federal judge in Virginia unsealed the original 2017 affidavit and criminal complaint on which Assange's extradition request to the US is based, offering new details including chat logs between Assange and former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea (then Bradley) Manning, which attempt to support a single count of “conspiracy to commit computer intrusion” which may or may not have succeeded.

The US alleges Assange actively sought for and encouraged Manning to crack a password to access classified information on a Defense Department network; the affidavit claims details related to this charge, for instance chat log discussions between the pair over how to crack a password, though the affidavit notes that "it remains unknown whether Manning and Assange were successful in cracking the password," related to the conspiracy charge.

Robert Sarah, an African cardinal who serves as the head of the Vatican’s liturgy office, is often named in traditionalist circles as their hope to one day succeed Pope Francis.

Those who seek to use the Bible to promote migration are pushing a “false” interpretation of the scriptures, Cardinal Sarah said in a new interview with French publication Valeurs Actuelles.

He also branded mass migration a “new form of slavery”.

The cardinal has frequently made waves with his more conservative stances on liturgical practices, Islam, migration and other issues.

Those positions were on full display in the French article, in which Sarah, from Guinea, blasted priests and bishops who “say fuzzy things, vague, imprecise, to escape criticism, and they marry the stupid evolution of the world”.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksandr Grushko said on Monday that Moscow sees no sign that NATO knows how to get out of the impasse in relations with Russia.

According to the deputy minister, the cooperation between Russia and NATO in the civil and military area has completely ended.

“NATO itself has given up the positive agenda in relations with Russia, which does not exist and for the moment there are no signs that NATO knows how to get out of this impasse,” he said.

However, the deputy minister detailed that Russia continues to maintain military contacts with certain countries of the alliance

According to statistics published by the Federal Criminal Police Office, Germans are significantly more likely to become victims of a crime committed by an immigrant than vice versa.

Its 2018 report “Crime in the Context of Immigration” analysed statistics of murders, homicides, assaults, robberies and offences against sexual self-determination and personal freedom.

The research set out to determine how many crimes involved “asylum seekers and refugees”, as well as people who are awaiting deportation or already have a residence permit.

The glimpse of Julian Assange being dragged from the Ecuadorean embassy in London is an emblem of the times. Might against right. Muscle against the law. Indecency against courage. Six policemen manhandled a sick journalist, his eyes wincing against his first natural light in almost seven years.

That this outrage happened in the heart of London, in the land of Magna Carta, ought to shame and anger all who fear for “democratic” societies. Assange is a political refugee protected by international law, the recipient of asylum under a strict covenant to which Britain is a signatory. The United Nations made this clear in the legal ruling of its Working Party on Arbitrary Detention.

But to hell with that. Let the thugs go in. Directed by the quasi fascists in Trump’s Washington, in league with Ecuador’s Lenin Moreno, a Latin American Judas and liar seeking to disguise his rancid regime, the British elite abandoned its last imperial myth: that of fairness and justice.

Similar reports are coming out of Germany. Four separate churches were vandalized and/or torched in March alone. "In this country," PI-News explained, "there is a creeping war against everything that symbolizes Christianity: attacks on mountain-summit crosses, on sacred statues by the wayside, on churches... and recently also on cemeteries."

Who is primarily behind these ongoing and increasing attacks on churches in Europe? The same German report offers a hint: "Crosses are broken, altars smashed, Bibles set on fire, baptismal fonts overturned, and the church doors smeared with Islamic expressions like 'Allahu Akbar.'"

Another German report from November 11, 2017 noted that in the Alps and Bavaria alone, around 200 churches were attacked and many crosses broken: "Police are currently dealing with church desecrations again and again. The perpetrators are often youthful rioters with a migration background." Elsewhere they are described as "young Islamists."

Is France going to blame the Notra Dame fire on the Yellow Vests to shut them down?

The recently-deceased Prof. Andrew Tallon finished the painstaking work of laser scanning Paris' Notre Dame Cathedral, creating rich raw data that could potentially help in reconstruction efforts.

In a Monday tweet, while sending his condolences to France, Trump expressed his concern about the fire in the French capital that could lead to the destruction of the more than 800-year-old cathedral, encouraging firefighters to use “flying water tankers” while urging them to “act quickly.”

The French Civil Security agency was quick to respond to Trump's suggestion, saying that dropping water from the air onto the building could collapse the entire structure.