President Vladimir Putin has signed a law extending the embargo against countries that have imposed sanctions against Russia. Restrictions will be in force until the end of next year.

The government is instructed to take all measures necessary to implement the decree. The document came into force on the day of signing, on July 12.

In August 2014, Russia banned imports of certain agricultural products, raw materials and foodstuffs from countries that target Russia with sanctions. They include the United States, the European Union, Canada, Australia and Norway. The ban includes meat products, fish, seafood, fruits and vegetables, and dairy products.

The US and its allies imposed sanctions against Russia after accusing the country of annexing Crimea and supporting rebels in Eastern Ukraine.

US President Donald Trump has reportedly told NATO allies that the US would do their "own thing" if members didn't up defense spending to 2% of GDP despite reaffirming Washington's commitment to the bloc.

The not-so-veiled threat was reported by NATO officials and diplomats inside an unscheduled crisis meeting of the alliance on Thursday morning, according to Politico. Further sources tweeted by The Times defense editor Deborah Hynes said Trump told allies: "2% is a joke. 4% is what people should be spending. We are being played for fools."

He reportedly continued by warning that if the alliance's wealthiest economies weren't paying 2% by January, then the United States "are going to do our own thing."

As US President Donald Trump uses his time in Brussels to lambast European leaders for their various failings, as he sees them, a photograph now making the rounds on Twitter has captured the mood perfectly.

When NATO leaders stood to have their group photo taken ahead of the summit's opening ceremony, they all seemed to be looking at something to their left. Trump's attention, however, was caught by something to the right - and the perfect meme was born.

One Twitter user suggested that the photograph was the "perfect metaphor" and that Trump "sees the world the wrong way" in comparison with his NATO allies.

Athens has taken measures against Russian diplomats over "illegal activities" and "meddling" that undermine "national security," according to Kathimerini newspaper, which cited diplomatic sources.

Russia will give a mirror response to the expulsion of Russian diplomats from Greece, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday. Russia to respond to expelling of Russian diplomats from Greece, Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

According to the ministry, "a mirror response will follow as per established practice for such cases."

Two Russian diplomats were expelled from Greece and another two were banned from entering the country, according to the newspaper.

US President Donald Trump's new strategy on Afghanistan stipulates an increase in the US's military presence in the country so as to force the Taliban, a terrorist group controlling a large part of the country, to negotiate a political settlement.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova blamed the unstable situation in the Middle East and North Africa as well as the increase in international terrorism on "the NATO member states' military gambles."

In response to Washington's earlier claims that Russia was collaborating with the Taliban*, Zakharova noted that it was the Pentagon's way of hidings its own "sponsorship of the Taliban" in Afghanistan, adding that there is evidence of the US supporting the terrorist group.

Donald Trump has touched upon his much-anticipated meeting with Vladimir Putin, saying the Russian president is not an enemy but a competitor who may turn into a friend in due time.

"I hope we'll get along well, I think we get along well," US President Donald Trump told a news conference on Thursday on the sidelines of NATO summit in Brussels. "But, ultimately, he's a competitor, he's representing Russia and I'm representing the United States."

The US president also said that he doesn't believe that Putin's policies are a threat to the US or Europe. "Hey, I don't want him to be [a threat], and I guess, that's why we have NATO, and that's why we have the United States with the largest military budget ever - $700 billion approved next year."

They coordinated steps against ISIS forces shifting with US connivance from Syria to Afghanistan, an apparent response to US efforts

Top security and intelligence officials from Pakistan, Iran, Russia, and China held a meeting in Islamabad, where they stressed the need for more active involvement of regional forces in efforts to resolve the conflict in Afghanistan.This is reported by TASS.

On Tuesday, a meeting of leaders of the intelligence services of Russia, Iran, China and Pakistan was held in Islamabad, at which measures were discussed to combat the threat of the reunification of ISIS fighters in Afghanistan.

Media darling and Democrat Senator Kamala Harris tweeted on Monday about the power of the Supreme Court.

Harris said she was a student in only the second class to integrate at Berkeley public schools.

Kamala Harris: Two decades after Brown v. Board, I was only the second class to integrate at Berkeley public schools. Without that decision, I likely would not have become a lawyer and eventually be elected a Senator from California. That's the power a Supreme Court Justice holds.

There's just one problem - Everything about that tweet is a lie.

On Saturday, June 30, in the British City Amesbury (12 km from Salisbury) there was an incident which initially seemed to be common and insignificant: with a difference of several hours, Salisbury District Hospital admitted a man and a woman: 45-year-old Charlie Rowley and 44-year-old Dawn Sturges. Initial conclusions of doctors indicated that the couple was poisoned by a narcotic substance (heroine or crack cocaine).

However, on July 4, Assistant Commissioner of Specialist Operations Neil Basu announced that Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturges were exposed to the poison agent of the class "Novichok" (the nerve agent Novichok). According to him, this is evidenced by tests, conducted in the laboratory of Porton Down, located nearby. The statement of Neil Basu provoked a series of publications in British and world media, which somehow linked the incident in Amesbury with the case of Skripals and mentioned the possible involvement of Russia. On July 5 British authorities notified the Organization of Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) of this incident.

To date, it is unclear if Novichok was actually used in Amesbury, as well as who was responsible for the incident. Representatives of British authorities did not hasten to openly accuse Russia of a targeted attack on British citizens, but later the Minister of Internal Affairs Sajid Javid, came out with a harsh statement once again accusing Russia of attacking Sergei and Yulia Skripal, while saying that Russia already launched a campaign misinforming the public about the incident in Amesbury.

It is worth noting here that there are many contradictions in the statements of representatives of the British authorities. The Security Minister, Ben Wallace and the south west deputy director of Public Health of England, Debbie Stark claimed a low level of danger to the residents of Amesbury and its surrounding areas. At the same time, the representative of Public Health England recommended that everyone who was out in the streets of Amesbury on Friday June 29 to wash their clothes and personal belongings.

"One who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived," Niccolo Machiavelli wrote.

The famed Renaissance-era philosopher's sage words describe to a tee the allegation that Syrian forces attacked the city of Douma, 10km northeast of Damascus, with nerve gas on April 7, 2018.

Even more seriously, not to mention condemnatory, is the way this lie - fashioned by Salafi-jihadist extremists, who at the time were struggling to hang on in a part of the country they'd been occupying for the best part of seven years in the face of a determined campaign by the Syrian Arab Army with Russian support to liberate it - was allowed to take the West on a collision course with Russia, when the Trump administration, supported by France's Emmanuel Macron and Britain's Theresa May, decided to launch a missile strike against Syria on the back of it.

Not since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 has the world come so close to WWIII as it did then. And it was only down to astute leadership in Moscow, the willingness of the Russian government to accept a temporary loss of face in refusing to respond to what was an act of naked aggression by Washington and its allies, that disaster was averted.

The findings of the OPCW's interim report, produced on the back of its on-site investigation into allegations that a nerve gas attack took place in Douma on April 7, make grim reading for the army of morally bereft Western ideologues and their apologists who've made a career out of defending the indefensible. Or at least, that is, they should make grim reading.