Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told NBC News on Monday that Russia would "never trust [the] West again." Amid a historic severing of relations, Peskov is not the only top Russian official ruling out a return to normal.

Telling NBC that the fallout over the Ukraine conflict would "be a long crisis," Peskov predicted that relations would stay icy for good.

During the hour-long interview, of which NBC has only released short excerpts, Peskov also stated that two American citizens captured fighting for Ukraine in Donbass are considered by Moscow to be "soldiers of fortune," and will have their fates decided by "a court decision."

Speech at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum

In the Eurasian Commission, we consider cooperation with Africa as one of the important, promising and priority areas. Two years ago, formal relations were established with the African Union, and we are working on a joint action plan. As often happens in relations between bureaucratic structures, from our large interstate organisations to specific investment projects, to specific business initiatives, there is a huge distance.

Therefore, we fully feel the need to intensify our interaction. To this end, relations with the African Union are complemented by the development of cooperation with individual countries, as well as with sub-regional associations, and the stimulation of more targeted contacts with our African partners.

Indeed, we not only have huge opportunities for cooperation, but it seems that our common problems are quite acute today, which make these opportunities for the convergence of our economies more relevant, more promising and more saturated.

First of all, as is said in business, we have a good credit history. We may not have done much and the trade turnover is not so great, but our relations are not overshadowed by any conflicts. We have extensive experience of cooperation between the Soviet Union and the African continent, during which many enterprises were built, infrastructure was developed, and personnel were trained. Therefore, we easily find a common language with our African partners, and this positive history of credit confidence is worth a lot today.

So, the government of New Normal Germany is contemplating forcing everyone to wear medical-looking masks in public from October to Easter on a permanent basis.

Seriously, the fanatical New Normal fascists currently in charge of Germany's government — mostly the SPD and the Greens — are discussing revising the "Infection Protection Act" in order to grant themselves the authority to continue to rule the country by decree, as they have been doing since the Autumn of 2020, thus instituting a "permanent state of emergency" that overrides the German constitution, indefinitely.

Go ahead, read that paragraph again.

Take a break from the carnage in non-Nazi Ukraine, the show trials in the US congress, monkeypoxmania, Sudden Adult Death Syndrome, Sudden Bovine Death Syndrome, family-oriented drag queens, non-"vaccine"-related facial paralysis, and Biden falling off his bike, and reflect on what this possibly portends, the dominant country of the European Union dispensing with any semblance of democracy and transforming into a fascist biosecurity police state.

OK, let me try to be more precise, as I don't want to be arrested for "spreading disinformation" or "delegitimizing the state."

Germany is not dispensing with the semblance of democracy. No, the German constitution will remain in effect.

It's just that the revised Infection Protection Act — like the "Enabling Act of 1933," which granted the Nazi government the authority to issue any edicts it wanted under the guise of "remedying the distress of the people" — will grant the New Normal German government the authority to continue to supersede the constitution and issue whatever edicts it wants under the guise of "protecting the public health"...for example, forcing the German masses to display their conformity to the new official ideology by wearing medical-looking masks on their faces for six or seven months of every year.

In addition to a ritualized mass-demonstration of mindlessly fascist ideological conformity (a standard feature of all totalitarian systems), this annual October-to-Easter mask-mandate, by simulating the new paranoid "reality" in which humanity is under constant attack by deadly viruses and other "public health threats," will cement the New Normal ideology into place.

If not opposed and stopped here in Germany, it will spread to other European countries, and to Canada, and Australia, and the New Normal US states. If you think what happens in Germany doesn't matter because you live in Florida, or in Sweden, or the UK, you haven't been paying attention recently.

The roll-out of the New Normal is a global project ... a multi-phase, multi-faceted project.

Germany is just the current "tip of the spear."

The Jan. 6 Committee revealed a weird text message during its first hearing Thursday night. A person familiar with negotiations confirmed that it's as weird as you think.

As some of then-President Donald Trump's closest allies hit the exits after the violence of the Jan. 6 insurrection, longtime informal adviser and Fox News host Sean Hannity took a different approach: He tried to convince Trump that he could use his office to help heal some of the wounds from the insurrection.

Trump was a lame duck, facing a second impeachment with only two weeks left in office. He had few friends, a skeleton staff, and was coming out of a public relations nightmare. His powers were limited. But he still had one unlimited power: the presidential pardon.

On Thursday, the Jan. 6 Committee released text messages between Hannity and then-White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. In those text messages, Hannity appears to debrief McEnany on a conversation he had with Trump the day after the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

One item from that conversation: "He was intrigued by the pardon idea!! (Hunter)"

A person familiar with the conversations confirmed to The Daily Beast that the "Hunter" in the text was, in fact, Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden and a longtime target of conservative critics — Hannity foremost among them.

According to the source, Hannity had proposed that Trump issue a last-minute pardon for Hunter Biden, whose business dealings had two years prior been at the center of the ex-president's campaign to extort an investigation out of the Ukrainian government — efforts that led to Trump's first impeachment in 2019.

US occupation forces in Syria led a convoy of 40 trucks, each filled up with stolen Syrian wheat, into Iraq from Syria, according to an 18 June report from Syrian state news agency SANA.

The report indicates that the US military, along with the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), looted large quantities of wheat from the Al-Jazeera region and transported it towards the Al-Waleed border crossing, where it entered Iraq on 18 June.

The report noted that this was not the only convoy filled with stolen goods led by the US military. Another convoy with 36 vehicles, filled with stolen Syrian wheat, crossed Al-Waleed border from the Tal Hamis area.

The US recently deployed military and logistical equipment in nearby Hasakah, Syria.

Damascus considers US presence in northeastern Syria a means of stealing Syrian resources.

Former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said Democrats should be focused on winning elections and suggested they should not treat the transgender debate as a priority.

Clinton made the comments in an extensive interview with the Financial Times published Friday. The reporter pressed Clinton to state her position on some of the issues Democrats have pushed for on the national level that are unpopular among most Americans.

The reporter asked:

"Democrats seem to be going out of their way to lose elections by elevating activist causes, notably the transgender debate, which are relevant only to a small minority. What sense does it make to depict JK Rowling as a fascist?"

Clinton responded:

"We are standing on the precipice of losing our democracy, and everything that everybody else cares about then goes out the window. Look, the most important thing is to win the next election. The alternative is so frightening that whatever does not help you win should not be a priority."

Voters head to the polls in Colombia on Sunday in a historic presidential election that could see the left win for the first time in the conservative South American country.

Gustavo Petro, a former guerrilla and mayor of Bogotá, will face off against Rodolfo Hernández, a populist business tycoon and the former mayor of the city of Bucaramanga, in a contest where both candidates have cast themselves as political outsiders.

Both men are divisive, gaff-prone and high-handed, and the campaign ahead of the election was bitter, with each candidate accusing the other of corruption. Hernández - who is under investigation for graft - refused to debate Petro and briefly relocated to Miami after claiming his life was at risk.

Hernández shocked Colombia when he made it to Sunday's runoff after ousting a number of career politicians from the race in the first round of voting on 29 May.

Pope Francis has fuelled speculation that he could resign after postponing a trip to Africa and announcing an unusual meeting of cardinals.

Hobbled by pain in his knee and forced to use a wheelchair in recent weeks, the 85-year-old pontiff postponed a July trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan last week.

He also announced an unusual decision to hold a consistory to name new cardinals during a Vatican vacation month and arranged meetings to ensure his reforms stay intact.

The extraordinary consistory will be held on August 27, a slow summer month at the Catholic headquarters, to create 21 new cardinals - 16 of whom will be under the age of 80, thereby eligible to elect his successor in a future conclave.

Western sanctions on Russia are preventing deliveries of Russian gas to Germany via the Nord Stream pipeline, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Monday.

Commenting on last week's reduction of gas supplies to the EU, Peskov noted that Russia remains "the most reliable supplier," but the restrictions have made delivery technically impossible.

"From the technological point of view, the mechanical infrastructure of the pipeline is suffering because of the sanctions imposed by the EU. The pumping facilities, namely the turbines, have to undergo maintenance. But the turbines cannot be returned; that is, the Europeans are not returning them," Peskov said.

German Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister Robert Habeck said Sunday that the country will limit the use of natural gas for electricity production amid concerns about possible shortages caused by a cut in supplies from Russia.

As a member of the environmentalist Green Party, Habeck pushed through legislation in April to raise Germany's energy target to 80% renewables. He is also an opponent of nuclear energy.

Habeck said that Germany will try to compensate for the move by increasing the burning of coal, a more polluting fossil fuel.

"That's bitter, but it's simply necessary in this situation to lower gas usage,"