US President Donald Trump has cancelled a meeting with the Danish PM after she unequivocally shot down his dreams of purchasing resource-rich Greenland, a much-memed possibility about which the president was quite serious.

Trump thanked PM Mette Frederiksen for being "so direct" and sparing "a great deal of expense and effort" for both countries, which apparently have few pressing matters to discuss absent the gigantic and seemingly absurd real-estate purchase. The meeting, scheduled for two weeks into the future, would be postponed "for another time," the president tweeted on Monday.

Australia will send a frigate and a spy plane in support of Washington's dubious initiative to boost security in the Straits of Hormuz by filling it with foreign warships, increasing the risk of miscalculations and provocations.

"The government has decided that it is in Australia's national interest to work with our international partners to contribute," Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Wednesday morning. "Our contribution will be limited in scope and it will be time-bound."

Following the US and UK lead, the former British colony will reinforce the sparse coalition with a P-8A Poseidon maritime surveillance plane this year and will dispatch a frigate next January for at least six months' patrol, foreign affairs minister Marise Payne and defense minister Linda Reynolds said in a statement.

Besides this 'limited' contribution, Canberra also agreed to provide intelligence and other assistance, as the US faces an uphill battle trying to muster support for its "maritime policing" initiative. Previously, only the UK and Israel had volunteered to battle the much-hyped Iranian threat, following a series of mysterious attacks on oil tankers that were pinned on Tehran and reciprocal vessel seizures by Iran and the UK.

The Islamic Republic, meanwhile, believes the US is simply trying to enforce its unilateral oil sanctions through military pressure after failing to do it via political extortion.

Elizabeth Warren admitted Monday that she had "made mistakes" regarding her claims of Native American ancestry — which led to President Trump dubbing her "Pocahontas."

"Like anyone who's been honest with themselves, I know that I have made mistakes," the Massachusetts senator and Democratic presidential candidate said at the Frank LaMere Native American Presidential Forum in Sioux City, Iowa, without specifying exactly what she was apologizing for.

"I am sorry for harm I have caused. I have listened and I have learned a lot, and I am grateful for the many conversations we have had together," she said.

Judicial Watch announced today that a federal court ordered a hearing for Thursday, August 22, 2019, on the Clinton email issue. On December 6, 2018, U.S. District Court Judge Lamberth ordered Obama administration senior State Department officials, lawyers and Clinton aides to be deposed or answer written questions under oath. The court ruled that the Clinton email system was "one of the gravest modern offenses to government transparency."

The court ordered discovery into three specific areas: whether Secretary Clinton's email use of a private email server was intended to stymie FOIA; whether the State Department's intent to settle this case in late 2014 and early 2015 amounted to bad faith; and whether the State Department has adequately searched for records responsive to Judicial Watch's request. Judicial Watch deposed nearly a dozen witnesses and will seek addition witnesses and documents from the court, including the deposition of Hillary Clinton and Cheryl Mills, her chief of staff at State and personal lawyer who directed the destruction of 33,000 State Department Clinton emails. Lawyers for Clinton and Mills are expected at the hearing Thursday.

The media has willfully misinterpreted Donald Trump's words to portray the most pro-Israel US president in history as an anti-Semite. It makes more sense to chide him for sacrificing US interests to please Benjamin Netanyahu.

Here is the full Trump quote from Tuesday, in which he rejected Democrat Bernie Sanders' idea that Israel should stop accepting American aid, after its reluctance to let in congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, who have publicly endorsed the BDS campaign.

"The concept of even talking about this - even three years ago - of cutting off aid to Israel because of two people that hate Israel and hate Jewish people - I can't believe we're even having this conversation," Trump said.

As it turns out, Miami Herald reporter Julie K Brown was right about Epstein managing to manipulate MCC staff into letting him off of suicide watch. Because, according to an ABC News report, Epstein's defense attorneys successfully lobbied for him to be taken off suicide watch on July 29, about a week before he was found dead in his cell.

The revelation comes as AG William Barr warned any and all of Epstein's alleged accomplices on Monday that he would look over the "serious irregularities" in the prison's treatment of Epstein, and that Epstein's death doesn't mean his co-conspirators won't be brought to justice.

Before Epstein could be removed from suicide watch, he had to undergo several psychiatric evaluations allowing prison officials to make the move.

As has already been reported, though there are cameras on Epstein's former cell block, they don't show the inside of the cells, meaning there's likely no video of Epstein committing suicide.

The trade war between Japan and South Korea is going on, and the author needs to clarify why Tokyo lost its temper at last.

The South Korean mass media, naturally, see the reasons for the trade war not as Seoul's desire to ignore international law, but rather having to do with the internal political problems in Japan: Shinzo Abe needs internal unity of the country as the Japanese government has faced such problems as instability in connection with the trade dispute between the US and China, concern of the population in connection with the increase in consumer tax and the changes to the pension system. In this situation, South Korea is perfectly suitable as an "external enemy" who will distract and will rally the people. Alas, precisely the same expressions can be applied to Moon Jae-in as well, even in terms of concern about what the democratic president is doing with pensions, minimum wages, nuclear power, etc.

As the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said already on July 22, the main problem in the relations of South Korea and Japan is that of compliance or non-compliance with their bilateral agreements. He mentioned the violation of the 1965 Agreement with Japan by the South Korean party, noting that South Korea was not implementing the international agreements which are the base for improvement in the relations.

In the author's opinion, it would be useful to remind the readers about the nature of this agreement, thankfully, among the range of documents signed at the time, there were several devoted to "resolving the issues connected with property and claims for the compensation of damage." Japan paid South Korea $200 million as a grant, another $300 million in loans with a favorable interest rate and $300 million in private loans on commercial terms. All this money was to go to the economic development of South Korea. In exchange, the parties confirmed that "the issues connected with property, rights and interests of the two High Contracting Parties and their peoples (including legal entities) and claims for the compensation of damage between the High Contracting Parties and between their peoples are hereby settled completely and finally."

US President Donald Trump has lashed out at the US Federal Reserve and its chairman Jerome Powell, saying they are the only thing that is stalling America's economic growth.

"The only problem we have is Jay Powell and the Fed. He's like a golfer who can't putt, has no touch," the US president proclaimed in his tweet on Wednesday. Taking another jab at the Fed chairman, Trump tweeted that "so far he has called it wrong, and only let us down."

Powell, who Trump appointed in February 2018, has been a constant target for the president's angry remarks. While the heads of the US Federal Reserve are appointed by acting presidents, the Fed follows an independent monetary policy. It has raised interest rates seven times during Trump's presidency, repeatedly sparking his indignation. A steadily growing US economy is one of Trump's 2020 re-election campaign focal points.

A court in Kyiv has ordered Ukraine's National Anti-Corruption Bureau to launch a probe against former President Petro Poroshenko and former Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin on charges of abuse of power.

Ukraine's registry for court decisions placed the August 15 ruling of Kyiv's Solomyanka District Court on its website on August 21, saying that the ruling cannot be appealed.

It is not clear what charges Poroshenko and Klimkin are facing.

According to the court ruling, the case was initiated by an unidentified individual.

In recent weeks, Poroshenko was questioned twice as a witness by the State Bureau for Investigations in a tax evasion case.

Poroshenko lost a reelection bid in April to Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

A day after Zelenskiy's inauguration in May, Andriy Portnov, a former deputy head in the administration of ex-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, returned to Ukraine from self-imposed exile abroad and filed several lawsuits against Poroshenko, accusing him of economic crimes and illegal attempts to retain power, among other things.

Italy's flamboyant Deputy PM Matteo Salvini managed to end his own government's term. He hopes for a big win in an early election, but may find himself in the opposition instead, analysts told RT.

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced his resignation on Tuesday, delivering a scathing attack on Salvini and accusing him of being an "opportunist" and putting his political ambitions ahead of the country's needs.

The decision was widely expected, since otherwise the government would have faced a vote of no confidence, in which Salvini's right-wing, anti-immigration League party would have voted to scrap the government. Salvini had earlier called for a snap election, declaring that the coalition between his party and the left-wing Five-Star Movement was no longer workable and that the choice should be given "back to the voters."