The FBI was so desperate to topple Donald Trump that it secretly dangled an exorbitant reward of $1 million to disgraced ex-British spy Christopher Steele if he would corroborate his dossier that the bureau already knew was phony. It was the equivalent of a bounty on the head of Trump — an outrageous financial incentive to a notorious fabulist to spin even more lies.

That is just one of shocking revelations in the federal trial of Igor Danchenko — Steele's primary source — who is charged with lying to the FBI about the dossier. In the grand scheme of the elaborate and despicable Russia Hoax, it matters little whether the defendant is convicted by special counsel John Durham. Danchenko is merely the facade. Behind it, the FBI is on trial for its corruption, malfeasance, and malevolence.

Steele, who was already on the FBI payroll to target Trump, was double-dipping. He was also being paid by the Hillary Clinton Campaign to create the dossier, which was nothing more than a collection of rumors, innuendo, multiple hearsay, and outright lies. The FBI knew this. By early October of 2016 it had largely debunked the specious document. But then-FBI Director James Comey and his cronies were frantic to falsely incriminate Trump as a supposed Russian asset or, at the very least, convict him in the court of public opinion. They exploited the fictive dossier in an attempt to frame the Republican candidate and eventual president for unidentified crimes he did not commit.

The new "EU Political Community", an invention of French President Emmanuel Macron consisting of the 27-nation bloc and 17 other countries, most of which aspire to join the EU, recently wrapped up its inaugural PR exercise in Prague. The whole point of this event at Prague Castle seemed to be to convince onlookers of European unity, particularly in favor of Ukraine and against Russia, while papering over any other cracks in the solidarity façade.

All eyes have been on the newest addition to the class: Italian prime minister-elect Georgia Meloni. Her right-wing populist coalition had just been elected and already the knives were out. Actually, they were out even before the election, as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned, in response to a query about the far right being on the cusp of power in Italy, that the bloc had "tools" to deal with member states whose governments drifted away from Brussels' agenda. So despite von der Leyen and other EU leaders' ridiculous claims of fighting for democracy in notoriously corrupt Ukraine, apparently by flooding it with endless Western weapons, von der Leyen can't even bother to pay lip service to the most basic respect of the democratic will of the citizens of Italy.

Former Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has told Germany's Bild am Sontag newspaper that EU leaders must pursue a "peaceful solution" to the conflict in Ukraine, as "losing is not an option" for Russia.

Kurz, who resigned last year amid corruption charges that he insisted were politically motivated, argued:

"Everyone rightly wants a victory for Ukraine, but losing is not an option for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin. In the face of the nuclear threat, the EU must press ahead with the path of negotiation. At the moment, the most important thing is to end the bloodshed and achieve a peaceful solution at the negotiating table in order to prevent a total escalation on our continent."

Kurz is far from the only public figure to cite Russia's supposed "nuclear threat." US President Joe Biden warned earlier this month of a "direct threat" of nuclear "Armageddon" from Russia, while his secretary of state, Antony Blinken, threatened Russia with "dire consequences" should it use an atomic weapon in Ukraine. As Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky called for pre-emptive strikes on Russia, EU chief diplomat Josep Borrell declared on Thursday that Moscow's forces would be "annihilated" if Russia struck first.

Saudi Arabia has expressed its interest in joining the Brics bloc.

This was revealed by President Cyril Ramaphosa during his two-day state visit to the kingdom on Sunday.

"The Crown Prince (prime minister Mohammad bin Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud) did express Saudi Arabia's desire to be part of Brics and they are not the only country," said Ramaphosa.

He confirmed this on Sunday during an engagement with the media.

President Xi Jinping's 1h45min speech at the opening of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing was an absorbing exercise of recent past informing near future. All of Asia and all of the Global South should carefully examine it.

The Great Hall was lavishly adorned with bright red banners. A giant slogan hanging in the back of the hall read, "Long Live our great, glorious and correct party".

Another one, below, functioned like a summary of the whole report:

Hold high the great flag of socialism with Chinese characteristics, fully implement Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, carry forward the great founding spirit of the party, and unite and struggle to fully build a modern socialist country and to fully promote the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

True to tradition, the report outlined the CPC's achievements over the past 5 years and China's strategy for the next 5 - and beyond. Xi foresees "fierce storms" ahead, domestic and foreign. The report was equally significant for what was not spelled out, or left subtly implied.

Every member of the CPC's Central Committee had already been briefed about the report - and approved it. They will spend this week in Beijing studying the fine print and will vote to adopt it on Saturday. Then a new CPC Central Committee will be announced, and a new Politburo Standing Committee - the 7 that really rule - will be formally endorsed.

This new leadership line-up will clarify the new generation faces that will be working very close to Xi, as well as who will succeed Li Keqiang as the new Prime Minister: he has finished his two terms and, according to the constitution, must step down.

There are also 2,296 delegates present at the Great Hall representing the CPC's over 96 million members. They are not mere spectators: at the plenary session that ended last week, they analyzed in-depth every major issue, and prepared for the National Congress. They do vote on party resolutions - even as those resolutions are decided by the top leadership, and behind closed doors.

Austria does not plan to take part in an EU military training mission for Ukrainian troops, the country's Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg said on Monday. His remarks came as the bloc's Foreign Council agreed to drill about 15,000 Ukrainian troops over two years and to allocate an additional €500 million for arms supplies to Kiev.

"We support this mission, we will also vote for it, but participation is currently not planned," Schallenberg said upon his arrival to the summit in Luxembourg.

According to the European Commission, a Military Assistance Mission in support of Ukraine (EUMAM Ukraine) "will provide individual, collective and specialized training to Ukraine's Armed Forces, including to their Territorial Defense Forces." The Brussels-based project under the command of a French naval officer, Vice Admiral Herve Blejean, has a budget of nearly €107 million.

The US must be the nation that sets global rules to make sure that American interests and values are supported, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said.

Speaking to the press at Stanford University in California on Monday, the top US diplomat explained how technology was the key to political power, impacting the economy and the military.

Americans "have to be the ones who are at the table who are helping to shape the rules, the norms, the standards by which technology is used," he said.

"If we're not, if the United States isn't there, then someone else will be, and these rules are going to get shaped in ways that don't reflect our values and don't reflect our interests," Blinken explained.

The other option is that there is nobody setting the rules, and "we're going to have chaos before we have a world that's actually organized to try to take advantage of all of the progress that we're making."

If Tel Aviv sends arms to Kiev, the move would send bilateral relations into a tailspin, Dmitry Medvedev said

If Israel were to support Ukraine with weapons, it would be detrimental to relations with Moscow, Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's former president, warned on Monday, after Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs Nachman Shai stated it was time the country provided Ukraine with arms as NATO members do.

Writing on his Telegram channel, Medvedev, who now serves as the deputy head of Russia's Security Council, denounced Israel's potential decision to deliver arms to Ukraine as "extremely reckless," adding that "it would destroy all interstate relations between our countries."

"That's not to mention that Bandera scum were and remain Nazis," he stressed, referring to Ukrainians who have a soft spot for Stepan Bandera - a controversial Ukrainian national hero who collaborated with the Nazi regime during World War II.

The Turkish-made UAVs are more about PR and corruption than combat effectiveness, Sergey Pashinsky "privately" admits

Turkish-made Bayraktar drones have no combat effectiveness due to their extreme vulnerability to air defense systems, Ukrainian official Sergey Pashinsky said in a mock interview with Russian pranksters Vovan and Lexus.

Pashinsky thought he was speaking to former US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul. During the call he apparently admitted that "there is more PR and corruption in Bayraktar than combat use," according to a video published by the duo on their Telegram channel which appears to have been recorded sometime earlier this month.

The Ukrainian government is not the judge of American interests and maybe not even of its own, Jack Matlock argued

The Ukraine crisis was preventable but now seems doomed to further escalation, the last US ambassador to the Soviet Union has warned. Washington is making the mistake of delegating to Kiev many of the decisions about American involvement, he added.

Kiev does "not know best what is in the security interests of the American people, and that should be the primary concern of any American government," Jack Matlock wrote in an article published on Monday by the website Responsible Statecraft. The Ukrainians, "under the stress of war, may not be the best judges of their own ultimate security interests," he argued.