Relations between Iraq and the United States have been strained throughout the beginning of this year following the assassination of top Iranian General Qasem Soleimani near Baghdad. The extrajudicial killing led to the Iraqi parliament voting in a bill which will see a total withdrawal of US troops from the country.

An Iraqi politician has stated that Baghdad will reject any attempt by the Trump administration to prolong the US military presence in the country during negotiations, pushing that talks between the two countries can only lead to a total withdrawal of American troops.

"The negotiations between Washington and Baghdad, which are to start in the middle of this month, would fail to produce any tangible results if they do not discuss the withdrawal of US forces from the country", said Karim al-Muhammadawi, a member of the Iraqi parliament's committee on security and defense, in an exclusive interview with the al-Maalomah news agency.

The Trudeau government has been campaigning aggressively for a seat on the Security Council, but its bid to win a place on the United Nations' most powerful decision-making body later this month will be hampered by Canada's decidedly anti-Palestinian voting record.

Despite claiming to support the "international rules based order," the Trudeau government has voted against more than 50 resolutions upholding Palestinian rights. The extent to which the Liberals have mimicked the Stephen Harper Conservative's position regarding General Assembly resolutions, which are little more than symbolic acts of solidarity with the long-beleaguered Palestinians, highlights the power of the Israeli lobby in Canada.

The French foreign ministry on Friday denied reports that Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido was at the French Embassy in Caracas, as claimed by the South American country's Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza on Thursday.

The allegations came three days after President Nicolas Maduro hinted that his rival was "in hiding" at a diplomatic location.

"We cannot enter the premises of any country's embassy whatsoever, in this case Spain or France," Arreaza said, adding that that meant an arrest by force "is not possible."

He made the comments when asked about the presence of Leopoldo Lopez, another leading opposition figure, at the Spanish ambassador's residence, and about Guaido at the French Embassy.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

A court in Kyiv has ruled that former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko can be brought by force to the offices of the State Bureau of Investigations (DBR) after he twice ignored a summons last month.

Announcing its decision on June 4, the Pechera District Court said that investigators want to question Poroshenko on June 10 about the alleged illegal transfer of valuable paintings across the border.

Poroshenko failed to show up at the DBR on May 26 and May 29, as investigators wanted to question him as a witness about "the circumstances of moving across the Ukrainian border, without presenting to customs services, a collection of cultural objects, consisting of 43 paintings by world-famous artists."

On May 29, DBR investigators also wanted to question Poroshenko in an investigation into an audio recording of individuals who are thought to possibly be Poroshenko and former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden.

One could be forgiven amid the protests and continuing coronavirus crisis for forgetting that in Washington, DC, this week, Congress is looking into serious allegations that Barack Obama's Department of Justice was spying on the Trump campaign. In normal times, it would be the biggest news story in America, and Wednesday's shocking admissions by former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein would be an absolute bombshell.

The key moment came in questioning from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who asked, "If you knew then what you know now, would you have signed the warrant application?," referring to a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant renewal concerning Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

"No," testified Rosenstein, "I would not."

And just like that, it became clear that the national torture of three years of the Russian collusion investigation simply should not have occurred. The problems were myriad. In Rosenstein's words, the FBI "was not following the written protocols, and that significant errors appeared in applications." What has emerged from the recent inspector general's report and this testimony is that the Obama administration's efforts to investigate and prosecute Trump administration officials wasn't based on facts, but negligence or malice.

What we are witnessing in these riots is the destruction of the Democrat Party. Staging these protests was their Hail Mary, their half-court three point shot as the clock hits zero. These events are only meant to divide the people, create a breakdown of order, and create chaos.

From that chaos we would find a public reaction to the state's actions that is blamed on the Oval Office, when it was local police chiefs appointed by Democrat mayors or National Guards under the orders of Democrat mayors who provoked the public the most.

Of course the policemen in the big cities, and guards are not themselves liberal. They aren't particularly conservative either, at least not in their propensity to resort to violence first; here they are liberal with violence.

They are neither left nor right, the big city cops love big public spending when its on their toys and weapons of public terrorism. They loved the militarization of the force that Obama backed with all his power.

Just set them loose against the public, and the Democrats play good cop bad cop. Allow corruption and institutional misanthropy to fester while departments pretend to conduct 'sensitivity training', and then set them loose on the people after order is allowed to break-down on purpose. Then try to channel all those frustrations against 'right wing things' to support more Democrats who make 'left wing promises'. Rinse, and repeat.

The Department of Justice on Monday unloaded on the antics of the rogue federal judge overseeing the Michael Flynn trial, accusing him of usurping the constitutional authority of the executive branch to make prosecutorial decisions and ignoring both statutory law and federal court precedent requiring him to dismiss the case against Flynn.

After Judge Emmet G. Sullivan refused to grant the unopposed DOJ motion to dismiss the charges against Flynn after the government unearthed and relevant reams of evidence that the government had abused its power and unlawfully targeted Flynn, Flynn's attorney Sidney Powell filed a writ of mandamus with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia asking it to order the trial court to dismiss the charges against Flynn. The appellate court ordered Sullivan to respond by close of business on June 1 and invited DOJ to file its own response as well.

In a sign of how important DOJ views the underlying constitutional issues in the case, the formal brief to the appellate court wasn't just signed by the line attorney managing the government's case. Instead, it was signed by Noel J. Francisco, the Solicitor General of the United States who is tasked with representing the U.S. government in the most important appellate cases across the country; Brian A. Benczkowski, the Assistant Attorney General and head of DOJ's entire criminal division; Deputy Solicitors General Jeffrey B. Wall and Eric J. Feigin; assistants to the Solicitor General Frederick Liu and Vivek Suri; Michael R. Sherwin, the acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia; Kenneth C. Kohl, the acting Principal Assistant United States Attorney for D.C.; and Jocelyn S. Ballantine, the line prosecutor handling the Flynn case at trial.

"The Constitution vests in the Executive Branch the power to decide when — and when not — to prosecute potential crimes," DOJ argued in its brief. Rules of federal criminal procedure, cited by Sullivan in support of his gambit to appoint himself both judge and prosecutor in the inquisition against Flynn, "do[] not authorize a court to stand in the way of a dismissal the defendant does not oppose, and any other reading of [those rules] would violate both Article II and Article III" of the constitution, DOJ wrote.

The media ignored only the second joint US-Russia statement in four years, to talk about silly hair and small hands.

"April 25, 2020, marks the 75th Anniversary of the historic meeting between American and Soviet troops, who shook hands on the damaged bridge over the Elbe River. This event heralded the decisive defeat of the Nazi Regime."

Thus reads the first paragraph of a joint statement by President Donald J. Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

This statement correctly is called "rare" by two of the very few mainstream media articles addressing it. Props to Reuters and the New York Post for this one.

The only other time the US and Russia issued a joint statement or declaration was when Putin and Trump met in Helsinki back in July 2018.

MI6's shadowy role in four separate Russia-related fake news scandals in recent years strongly suggests that it's being groomed to be the CIA's proxy for stopping Europe from moving towards Russia once Nord Stream II is completed.

The Looming EU-Russian "New Detente"

The impending completion of the Nord Stream II pipeline between Russia and the EU's de-facto German leader is one of the most important geopolitical developments in the continent today, leading to credible speculation that the bloc will inevitably enter into a "New Detente" with Moscow with or without Washington's support sometime after the project is finished. Should Trump win re-election, then the US might very well "approve" of this considering his recently reinvigorated relations with President Putin as of late, but even in that scenario, his "deep state" (permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies) might still try to foil his peacemaking plans. If Biden wins, however, then it's almost a sure bet that the US will do everything it can to undermine Europe's rapprochement with Russia. In any case, the "deep state" is still interested in retaining direct or indirect leverage over EU affairs so as to influence this process to the best of its ability.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper told reporters at the Pentagon on Wednesday that he does not support invoking the Insurrection Act, a law from 1807 that would allow President Donald Trump to deploy active-duty U.S. troops to respond to civil unrest in cities across the country.

"I say this not only as Secretary of Defense, but also as a former soldier and a former member of the National Guard, the option to use active-duty forces in a law enforcement role should only be used as a matter of last resort, and only in the most urgent and dire situations. We are not in one of those situations now. I do not support invoking the Insurrection Act."

Meanwhile, NBC News, citing two White House officials, reported that Trump is backing off the idea of invoking the act, at least for now.