On 5th September, the Metropolitan Police released a series of pictures showing two men, named as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, along with a timeline of their movements from 2nd March to 4th March 2018, and claimed that there was enough evidence to prosecute the pair in relation to the Salisbury incident, including conspiracy to murder Sergei Skripal; attempted murder of Sergei Skripal, Yulia Skripal and Nick Bailey; use and possession of Novichok contrary to the Chemical Weapons Act; and causing grievous bodily harm with intent to Yulia Skripal and Nick Bailey.

At first glance, the claims look plausible. The two men do indeed appear to have entered the country from Moscow on 2nd March, and to have then flown back to Moscow on 4th March. And during their stay, they seem to have travelled to Salisbury, on Saturday 3rd and Sunday 4th March.

However, there are a number of general observations that begin to cast doubts on the central claim that these men were in Salisbury on an assassination mission.

• Firstly, there is the fact that they are seen operating in broad daylight.
• Secondly, there is the fact that they are always seen together.
• Thirdly, there is the fact that they make no attempt to hide their identities or cover their tracks.
• Fourthly, there is the fact that they are alleged to have traipsed across town on foot to dispose of the poison, when they could have done so in numerous places between Mr Skripal's house and the train station.
• And fifthly, there is the fact that they seem to have been remarkably casual and spent an awful lot of time hanging around Salisbury - even after their alleged hit.

Needless to say, all of these actions are not what one would normally expect from intelligence officers carrying out an assassination attempt.

Although the White House and Russia have agreed to end the proxy war fought by jihadists in Syria, peace is a long time coming. Why?

Why is there a war against Syria?

Contrary to the idea carefully sown by seven years of propaganda, the war against Syria is not a « revolution which went wrong ». It was decided by the Pentagon in September 2001, then prepared for many years, admittedly with a few difficulties.

A war in preparation for a decade

The preparation of the war is explained in depth in Thierry Meyssan's latest book. It is already available in French, Spanish, Russian and Turkish. It will be published in September in English, Arab and Italian.

Last week, I urged the Secretary of State and National Security Advisor to stop protecting al-Qaeda in Syria by demanding that the Syrian government leave Idlib under al-Qaeda control. While it may seem hard to believe that the US government is helping al-Qaeda in Syria, it's not as strange as it may seem: our interventionist foreign policy increasingly requires Washington to partner up with "bad guys" in pursuit of its dangerous and aggressive foreign policy goals.

Does the Trump Administration actually support al-Qaeda and ISIS? Of course not. But the "experts" who run Trump's foreign policy have determined that a de facto alliance with these two extremist groups is for the time being necessary to facilitate the more long-term goals in the Middle East. And what are those goals? Regime change for Iran.

Let's have a look at the areas where the US is turning a blind eye to al-Qaeda and ISIS.

First, Idlib. As I mentioned last week, President Trump's own Special Envoy to fight ISIS said just last year that "Idlib Province is the largest Al Qaeda safe haven since 9/11." So why do so many US officials - including President Trump himself - keep warning the Syrian government not to re-take its own territory from al-Qaeda control? Wouldn't they be doing us a favor by ridding the area of al-Qaeda? Well, if Idlib is re-taken by Assad, it all but ends the neocon (and Saudi and Israeli) dream of "regime change" for Syria and a black eye to Syria's ally, Iran.

On the 7th of September, the leaders of Russia and Turkey met with their Iranian host in Tehran to discuss a common strategy for Syria prior to the beginning of what is being called "The Battle of Idlib". The meeting itself was notable for being a highly choreographed exhibition of political theatre which ultimately lead to a Tehran Declaration whose content signified the compromises between the Russia, Iranian and Turkish perspectives that were readily predictable long before the conference was even arranged. I previous described the "fake" conference in the following way:

The day's events started out with a public round table meeting between the three presidents who each read prepared statements before entering into a seemingly spontaneous debate during which each side tended to emphasise their disagreements regarding the status of Idlib in what has been described as incredibly frank exchanges that are normally reserved for closed door meetings.

After several hours, the three Presidents emerged and spoke at a press conference after having reached a final agreement which has been enshrined in the Tehran Declaration of 2018.

While the Russian, Turkey and Iran are all close partners in 2018, their disagreements over the penultimate solution to the Syrian conflict have been highlighted by the media outlets of all three nations while perhaps oddly, their areas of agreement tend to be downplayed. The reason for this is simple: the areas where the three leaders disagree play well before each respective domestic electorate as well as to each state's traditional allies within Syria and the wider Middle East.

Below is the full video of the round-table "debate"

Satan, the "Great Accuser," has been unleashed against the bishops of the Church, Pope Francis said Tuesday, in a thinly veiled reference to the former Vatican nuncio to the United States.

The former nuncio, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, recently accused a number of prelates of dereliction of duty in dealing with clerical sex abuse and claimed that the pope had rehabilitated serial abuser Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, elevating him to a position of influence despite knowledge of his misdeeds.

In an 11-page testimony published on August 25, Viganò alleged that he had personally informed Pope Francis in 2013 of the serial homosexual abuse perpetrated by Cardinal McCarrick, along with sanctions imposed on his ministry by Pope Benedict XVI, and yet the pope lifted those sanctions and involved McCarrick in the naming of future bishops.

On the seventeenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough has called US President Donald Trump a "far graver threat to the idea of America" than the 9/11 attackers.

Speaking during his program Morning Joe on Tuesday, Scarborough boldly argued that Trump has the potential to do far more damage to the United States than those behind the attacks on September 11, 2001.

"If you strip America of its ideas, forget about knocking down buildings in the financial district - forget about running planes into the Pentagon. Those are tragedies, but those tragedies bring us closer together," he said. "America is an idea. You gut America of that idea, that's when you do the most harm to America."

Is President Donald Trump about to intervene militarily in the Syrian civil war? For that is what he and his advisers seem to be signaling.

Last week, Trump said of Syrian President Bashar Assad's campaign to recapture the last stronghold of the rebellion, Idlib province: "If it's a slaughter, the world is going to get very, very angry. And the United States is going to get very angry, too."

In a front-page story Monday, "Assad is Planning Chlorine Attack, U.S. Says," The Wall Street Journal reports that, during a recent meeting, "President Trump threatened to conduct a massive attack against Mr. Assad if he carries out a massacre in Idlib."

Idlib contains three million civilians and refugees and 70,000 rebels, 10,000 of whom are al-Qaida.

Friday, The Washington Post reported that Trump is changing U.S. policy. America will not be leaving Syria any time soon.

After 17 years, there is no sign that the War on Terror is ending anytime soon-but there is evidence that Al Qaeda is stronger than ever, thanks to the U.S.

Every year on September 11, Americans remember the horrific attacks that were carried out in 2001, which have been used to shape United States foreign policy, and to act as a symbol for the "War on Terror." The attacks were attributed to 19 hijackers affiliated with the terrorist group Al Qaeda-a group that is arguably stronger than ever on the 17th anniversary of 9/11.

On September 21, 2001, just 10 days after the attacks, former President George W. Bush made a speech addressing the nation, and he placed the blame on Al-Qaeda, claiming that "Al Qaeda is to terror what the mafia is to crime."

Just last week I opined on how troubling it was that the FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) apparently targeted and used media to further, in the court of public opinion, an as-yet-unproven Russia-collusion case against Donald Trump.

Now, belatedly released information from the files of those favorite FBI lovebirds - Peter Strzok and Lisa Page - has created even more concern that the top echelons of America's premier law enforcement were involved in name-smearing media leaks.

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, disclosed in a letter Monday to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein that, in April 2017, Strzok and Page discussed a specific media-leak strategy about Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

US Vice President Mike Pence says he would take a lie detector test "in a heartbeat" to prove that he did not pen the notorious New York Times op-ed that sent Washington, DC into a frenzy.

Pence remained adamant in an interview on Fox News Sunday that he was not the senior government official behind the editorial which claimed there was a "resistance" movement within the Trump administration.

"I would agree to take it in a heartbeat and would submit to any review the administration wanted to do," Pence said of the possibility of being asked to take a lie detector test.