What Donald Trump has proclaimed the worst deal ever made, may just have become worst-er. The shocking truth behind the US-Iran nuclear deal, as WSJ reports, is that John Kerry and the Obama Administration airlifted $1.7bn of cash in 'compromise' payments (read - bribe) to Tehran to ensure the release of 4 captured sailors coincidentally the same weekend as the signing of the nuclear deal.

With all the chatter of helicopter money as solution to the western world's economic ills,The Wall Street Journal's Jay Solomon and Carol Lee expose, it appears The Obama Administration is already busily dropping cash where ever it needs things done in a hurry...

Wooden pallets stacked with euros, Swiss francs and other currencies were flown into Iran on an unmarked cargo plane, according to these officials. The U.S. procured the money from the central banks of the Netherlands and Switzerland, they said.

The money represented the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement the Obama administration reached with Iran to resolve a decades-old dispute over a failed arms deal signed just before the 1979 fall of Iran's last monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

The settlement, which resolved claims before an international tribunal in The Hague, also coincided with the formal implementation that same weekend of the landmark nuclear agreement reached between Tehran, the U.S. and other global powers the summer before.

"With the nuclear deal done, prisoners released, the time was right to resolve this dispute as well," President Barack Obama said at the White House on Jan. 17—without disclosing the $400 million cash payment.

Topwar.ru

The net continues to buzz about yesterday's press conference of the members of the French parliament visiting Crimea. In the beginning of the press conference, the head of French delegation Thierry Mariani said that it is imperative to inform the Western community that the life of Crimeans is not those horror stories, painted by numerous European and American publications, and that the vast majority of Crimeans are happy, having made a choice in favor of Russia.

When talking about the situation of Crimean Tatars in Crimea, which the Western press, referring to some anti-Russian ideologues, calls "disappointing," a member of the French delegation said the following:

The situation of Crimean Tatars in Crimea is much better than, for example, the situation of Russians in the Baltic States.

At the same time Thierry Mariani noted that the Baltic countries are part of the European Union, where human rights should be a priority.

Official documents on Britain's relationship with Israel, including papers on "military and nuclear collaboration" in the 1970s, have disappeared from the National Archives in the last four years.

More than 400 records have gone missing from the repository in Kew, southwest London, including a 1947 letter from Winston Churchill and a Home Office document on the 1910 Suffragettes "disturbances."

The Archives reassured the public it is following a "robust" plan to find the lost files.

The loss of the documents was uncovered following a BBC freedom of information (FoI) request, which found the last recorded knowledge of the 402 historical dossiers was January 2012.

Donald Trump hits the media, particularly CNN, 'the Clinton News Network,' at a campaign rally in Harrisburg, Penn. Monday night.

"We have a media that is so dishonest," Trump said. "These are among the most dishonest people you will ever, ever meet."

"We are going to punch through the media," he said. "We have to."

Trump tonight:

TRUMP: These are among the most dishonest people you will ever, ever meet. These people -- you know, I've had days where I have said, 'Boy, this was a great day. I'll look forward to seeing it tonight or tomorrow and it's brutal.' And I say, 'What happened?'

We are going to punch through the media. We have to! The New York Times is totally dishonest. Totally dishonest. The Washington Post has been a little bit better lately but not good. By the way The New York Times, which is failing badly. I call it 'The Failing New York Times.' Every story that they write is a hit job. I could do the greatest thing in the history of the world. I could come up with a cure for the most horrible disease in the world and they give me a front-page horrible, horrible story. The New York Times is very dishonest but it will be out of business soon. I hope. It will be out of business. It will. Really dishonest reporters. Not all of them, but most of them.

And CNN. CNN is like all Trump all the time. All Trump all the time. You walk out of an interview and you say, 'that was a good interview' and then you get killed for the rest of the weekend. So they are so biased toward Crooked Hillary. You know they call it: CNN, Clinton News Network. CNN. Clinton News Network. Totally dishonest. But hopefully a lot of people aren't watching it.

Sudan decided to close educational institutions associated with Turkish opposition cleric Fethullah Gulen, accused by Ankara of being the mastermind behind a recent military coup, Turkey's Ambassador to Sudan Cemalettin Aydin said Tuesday.

Khartoum - On July 15, the Turkish authorities said that an attempted coup was taking place in the country. Over 13,000 people have been detained in connection with the coup, while about 250 people died during the coup attempt. The Turkish government said that Gulen who, Ankara believes, is seeking to overthrow the current government was allegedly linked to a coup attempt.

"Sudanese President [Omar Bashir] issued an order to close all the schools associated with Gulen's organization in Sudan," the ambassador said at a forum in Khartoum devoted to the recent developments in Turkey.

Problems with WADA's McLaren Report are too big to be ignored whilst the whole chain of events points to a set up

With the Rio Summer Olympics starting on August 5, there is huge controversy about Russian participation. On the basis of the report of the so called Independent Person (IP) headed by a Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren (further called McLaren Report), the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has recommended to impose a blanket ban on all Russian athletes, barring them from the Rio Games.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC), however, did not go with this recommendation 100 percent, delegating the final decision on individual athletes to sports federations and to a panel of three people appointed by the IOC. Dozens of athletes out of the 387 strong Russian Olympic team, however, are already barred from the competitions. The heaviest losses were inflicted by the International Association of Athletic Federations (IAAF), which banned all Russian track and field athletes, including those who never failed any doping tests, in Russia or outside it.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has been under heavy pressure to ban all Russian athletes from the Rio Olympics. The New York Times has carried many reports and editorials. The Daily Mail in London went so far as to publish a front page story falsely claiming the "entire Russian team banned from Olympics" two days before the IOC's decision to the contrary.

Some Canadian and American athletes and sports associations launched campaigns to exclude all Russian athletes. This was condemned by the President of the European Olympic Committees. Here is what he said:

I have to question on what authority the US and Canadian anti-doping agencies prepared their letter and what mandate they have to lead an international call for a ban of another nation in the Olympic family.

The Chinese navy held a large-scale "live ammunition" drill in the East China Sea, which involved hundreds of ships and submarines from all three fleets of the People's Liberation Army.

The exercise involving China's East Sea, North Sea and South Sea fleets practiced both offensive and defensive capabilities of the Chinese naval power. The exercise mobilized some 300 ships, dozens of fighter planes, and involved troops that are responsible for coastal defense radars, communications, and electronic warfare defense, daily newspaper The China Times reported.

"The drill is aimed at honing the assault intensity, precision, stability and speed of troops amid heavy electromagnetic influences," said a navy statement released Monday. "An information technology-based war at sea is sudden, cruel and short, which requires a fast transition to combat status, quick preparation and high assault efficiency."

The participating troops and vessels were divided into red and blue teams. The red side joint-assault group perfected skills in attacking the blue side, while the blue team had to use missiles and torpedoes to counterattack their enemy. The drills overall covered a wide range of combat scenarios including reconnaissance, early warning, long-range precision strikes and air and missile defense capabilities of the navy.

According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Great Recession (that was brought on by the implosion of Wall Street) ended in June 2009. What we've been in since that time is supposed to be the "recovery" part of the cycle. But for tens of millions of Americans, it has been hard to tell the recovery from the crisis in terms wealth accumulation, wage growth, or ability to earn a decent rate of interest on savings.

On Friday the Commerce Department released second quarter Gross Domestic Product data, showing that the U.S. economy grew at a 1.2 percent annual rate. That tepid number came on the heels of an anemic 0.8 percent rate of GDP growth for the first quarter. It has now been more than a decade since the U.S. economy grew at an annualized rate of 3 percent or better - the longest subpar growth stretch since the end of World War II.

Long stretches of anemic performance suggest that a "cyclical" situation may have given way to a "secular" or long-term trend. As a result, we are seeing the words "secular stagnation" used increasingly to describe the U.S. economy.

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The Italian foreign ministry says the country's government would "consider" opening up its Sigonella military air base in Sicily in order to allow US jets to hit Islamic State militants in Libya, should Washington approach the government.

"Should there be requests, we will consider them," Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni told journalists on Tuesday. The Italian government won't need any backing from parliament on the issue, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters. However, Rome has reportedly not yet received such a request.

Since Monday, US fighter jets have been targeting Islamic State targets around the group's key stronghold in Libya, the coastal city of Sirte. The bombardment, approved by US President Barack Obama, followed an earlier request for US support from the Libyan UN-backed Unity government.

We are finally able to distinguish Washington's plans from behind the disinformation smokescreen that the corporate media has set around the creation of the so-called Turkish "Information Troops." There's no doubt that American special services are planning to use them to their full extent now against Russia, since Turkey is widely regarded in NATO as a bridgehead for conflict against Russia.

The primary working tool of Turkey's new "information special forces" has become the so-called Onion Router, that was developed by the Center for High Assurance Computer Systems (CHACS) of the Office of Naval Research (ONR) within the Free Haven framework. The project was brought into life with the extensive assistance provided by theDefense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), in accordance with the demand of the federal government.

This project was developed with an extensive amount of financial assistance provided by the US Department of Defense and the Department of State. The thinking behind it is that it must serve as an alternative to the official "controlled Internet" to ensure anonymity for users, including those who are engaged in disinformation campaigns in specific states that NATO considers non-friendly.