Last month, a U.S. Africa Command spokesperson confirmed in a Task & Purpose report that Marine Corps Raiders were involved in a fierce battle in 2017 in an unnamed North African country, where they fought beside partner forces against militants of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). AFRICOM acknowledged that two Marines received citations for valor but withheld certain details, such as the location - undisclosed due to "classification considerations, force protection, and diplomatic sensitivities." The command also said the Marine Special Operations unit was engaged while on a three-day train, advise and assist operation. However, subsequent research and analysis strongly suggest U.S. involvement runs much deeper. In fact, the dramatic events described in the award citations obtained by Task & Purpose align with those that took place in Tunisia, which has been combating a low-level insurgency in its western borderlands for the past seven years. Evidence indicates the battle occurred at Mount Semmama, a mountain range in the Kasserine governorate, near the Algerian border. There, the United States sustained its first casualty in action in Tunisia since World War II.

While not of the same magnitude, the events that AFRICOM confirmed took place on Feb. 28, 2017, echo a disastrous ambush less than seven months later in the village of Tongo Tongo , Niger. In that battle, members of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara killed four Army Special Forces soldiers and four Nigerien partners. U.S. partner forces engaged militants of AQIM's Tunisian branch, the Uqba ibn Nafaa Battalion (KUBN) in a firefight, which resulted in the killing of one militant. The engagement also necessitated a request for air support to rout the militants. The jihadis then attempted to flank the joint U.S.-Tunisian force from the rear, forcing the Marines to return fire. While engaged on the ground, U.S. forces were also part of the air-support component. When a Tunisian soldier manning an M60 machine gun aboard a helicopter sustained wounds after being shot twice by militants returning accurate fire, a U.S. Marine Raider took control of the machine gun to maintain suppressive fire against the militants and simultaneously treated the wounded Tunisian soldier. The Marine Raider unit and their Tunisian partner force each sustained one casualty in the battle, both of whom recovered from their wounds. At the time, local media reported the incident without alluding to any U.S. participation.

President Donald Trump has promised to rid the US Justice Department of "lingering stench" and clean it of really "bad people," following claims that DAG Rod Rosenstein wanted to secretly record him and had discussed impeachment.

"Just look at what is being exposed in our Justice Department... We have great people in the Department of Justice. ... But you've got some real bad ones. You've seen what's happened at the FBI. They're all gone," Trump told a packed rally for Republican Senate candidate Josh Hawley in Missouri. "But there's a lingering stench and we're going to get rid of that, too."

Trump's comments apparently came in response to an explosive New York Times report, which claimed that Deputy Attorney-General Rod Rosenstein had suggested secretly recording the president to potentially invoke the 25th Amendment and remove him from office.

One of the world's longest gas pipelines - the Power of Siberia - which is being created to deliver natural gas from Russia to China, is almost complete. The sides are now getting ready to ink a contract on another major pipeline.

Agreement on the Power of Siberia 2 or the 'Western Route' for the supply of Russian gas from the Far East to China might be signed in the first half of 2019, according to Nur Bekri, director of the National Energy Administration of China. The new pipeline will deliver 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year.

"We continue consultations... If we agree on the 'Western Route', then it will be more than 80 billion cubic meters [for all supply routes, including LNG - Ed.] a year. This means that Russia will take the first place among gas suppliers to China," Bekri told TASS.

Russian energy giant Gazprom's CEO, Alexey Miller, said earlier that Russia and China have agreed to get approval for gas supplies via the 'Western Route' in the shortest possible time.

China will soon operate the Israeli port of Haifa if everything goes according to plan.

Haaretz reported on a conference late last month in Israel where the former navy chief of staff and chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission Shaul Horev warned about China's forthcoming management of the strategic port of Haifa. The deal was agreed to three and a half years ago by the Transportation Ministry and Port Authority without what the outlet claimed was the input of either the National Security Council or the navy itself, the latter of which is supposedly concerned because Israel's submarine fleet is based next to the port. The impending implementation of the agreement has led to the usual fear mongering about "debt traps", military implications, and oddly enough, even whether Israel is pivoting away from the US.

What's clearly happening is that a faction of Israel's permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies - or "deep state" - wants to join China's One Belt One Road (OBOR) global vision of New Silk Road connectivity while the other wants to retain Tel Aviv's stalwart pro-American foreign policy by preventing this, hence the public friction over this issue. Unlike what many in the Alt-Media Community might imagine, Israel and China have become increasingly close over the past couple of years as Beijing has developed an interest in the so-called "Red-Med Railway" proposal of connecting the two bodies of water via a high-speed railway that could eventually complement the Suez Canal or possibly one day even become an alternative to it.

India has canceled a meeting with Pakistan over what it calls the "brutal" killing of three of its policemen on Friday morning. A Pakistani senator took a swipe at India for "running from talks."

India had on Thursday confirmed a meeting between the two countries' foreign ministers in New York after Pakistani PM Imran Khan wrote to his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi calling for the two countries to resume dialogue.

But on Friday, three Indian officers were shot dead by Hizbul Mujahideen militants in south Kashmir.

The new punitive measures the US imposed on buyers of Russian weapons - China in particular - is just a sign of unfair competition, aiming to get rid of "hyper-competitive" Russian-made arms, the Kremlin says.

Moscow is already "tired" of reacting to every single hostile move from Washington, but will not let the latest batch of restrictions go unpunished, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the media on Friday.

The statement came after the Trump administration added 33 Russian defense and intelligence officials and entities to the sanctions list and also targeted the Equipment Development Department, China's leading arms acquisition body, for buying Russian arms.

The Turkish Antimonopoly Committee decided to make Google pay a 93-million-lira fine (some $15 million) over breaches of competition legislation in the sphere of software for mobile phones, the committee said on Thursday in a statement.

"It was decided to fine the companies of Google, Google International and Google Reklamcilik that will have to pay 93 million Turkish liras over the violation of the legislation on competition in the sphere of sales of software for mobile phones. These companies must remove the violations within six months and restore the effective competition on the market," the statement said.

Washington has promised to increase pressure on Venezuela in the coming days, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo vowing to take a "series of actions" against the government of Nicolas Maduro in the "best interest" of Venezuelans.

Refusing to specify the details of Washington's plan, Pompeo noted that the US is "determined to ensure that the Venezuelan people get their say."

"I think you'll see in the coming days a series of actions that continue to increase the pressure level against the Venezuelan leadership folks who are working directly against the best interest of the Venezuelan people," Pompeo told Fox News.

In a massive victory for independent science, it was announced Sunday that the U.S. Senate and Congress appropriations committees have deleted text from a controversial Bill, which would have cut all the U.S. funding to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), after they challenged the chemical industry by classifying the world's most used herbicide, glyphosate, as a probable human carcinogen in 2015.

The 'IARC rider' text on page 110 (sec.229) of the draft Labor Health and Human Services FY19 Appropriations Bill was removed after negotiations.

Currently, 25 Nations contribute to IARC's total budget of about USD $50 million (about EUR 44 million), with 7.5% (USD $3.8 million) coming from the U.S..

Following IARC's classification of glyphosate as a probable human carcinogen in 2015, Monsanto and the American Chemistry Council launched a full-throttle attack on the international scientific body.

Speaking during yet another rally, this time in Missouri, the US president warned about the spiraling tariff war with China and questioned whether the latter dared to challenge the US with retaliatory measures in response to the latest US tariffs affecting $200 billion of Chinese goods.

Donald Trump, who had come to Springfield, Missouri, to advocate for Josh Hawley, a Republican candidate at the upcoming elections, promised "to come back" with "a lot more" to China, if it retaliates against US tariffs targeting $200 billion of Chinese goods.

"We are cracking down on the unfair trade practices of China. ... We have rebuilt China. We have given them such wealth. And we are changing it. So we charged 25 percent on $50 billion worth of merchandise tariffs coming in. And then they said, 'We're going to do the same thing.' And I've said: 'That is okay. We have far more bullets,' he told a cheering crowd, as he discussed different points on the country's agenda.

This threat came shortly after China added tariffs on $60 billion of the US products as a countermeasure for the US implied 10% tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods starting from September, 24. On January 1, 2019, the tariffs are expected to grow up to 25%.