The former boss of the ex-British spy who produced the uncorroborated, salacious dossier on President Donald Trump's alleged Russian collusion says the document is "overrated," and wouldn't comment on the character of the man who wrote it.

Sir John Scarlett, who was the chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) from 2004 to 2009, said after a recent national security panel in Washington, D.C. that the dossier Christopher Steele, who ran MI6's Russia desk from 2006 to 2009, wrote was "overrated" and could never be corroborated.

Scarlett had just finished speaking at the Jamestown Foundation's 12th annual terrorism conference on a panel titled "2018 in Review and the Prospects for Terrorism in 2019." Retired U.S. Marine Corps General John R. Allen was also on the panel moderated by Georgetown University professor Dr. Bruce Hoffman.

The United States is extending a waiver to allow Iraq to continue to buy electricity from Iran, despite sanctions imposed by Washington targeting Tehran's energy sector.

The original waiver, issued in December 2017, expired on March 19.

The State Department issued the second three-month exemption to help prevent a destabilization of Iraq, which has relied on Iranian gas and electricity supplies to help it deal with shortages that have led to anti-government protests in some areas.


Iraq, which receives financial and military support from Washington, has attempted to balance its relations with the United States and Iran, which carries significant influence with members of Iraq's Shi'ite population.

Iranian Maj.-Gen. Mohammad Baqeri met with his Iraqi counterpart and Syrian Defense Minister Ali Abdullah Ayyoub to discuss opposition to the US role in Syria on Monday. In what Iranian media called a "tripartite" meeting, the three held a joint press conference in Damascus. It is the latest visible sign of an Iran-Iraq-Syria entente that will aid Iran's ambitions in the region and comes on the heels of a historic visit by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to Iraq.

Syrian President Bashar Assad hosted the Iranians and Iraqis in Damascus to show off not only Syria's return to the region as a stable country after eight years of civil war, but also to stress that Iraq and Iran were now stronger allies of Syria than in the past. "We have shown our unity in this war and fighting together against enemies," Assad said, according to Iran's Tasnim news.

Disclaimer: if you think that Soros/Russia/America/Illuminati is behind the Yellow Vests or some other batsh*t nonsense, then please stop here. This article isn't for you. Cat videos on YouTube are maybe more appropriate.

While the Yellow Vests (Gilets Jaunes) protests actually began on 17.11.18, I think most are aware that frustration with the government has been building for many, many years. Sarkozy certainly played a big role in this. Deep-rooted contractions have been left unaddressed while offshore accounts were filled up. Without wanting to dedicate a lot of space to the details of each French government since the last massive riots in 1968, I think it is easier to proceed from the fact that France has been essentially occupied by America for decades. For me personally, this helps to explain a lot.

In Russia there is the word "народ". The closest translation of this into English is "nation", but actually it doesn't really convey the sense. We're talking about fraternal relations amongst peoples that are indistinguishable from kindred ones. And it's understandable why this concept doesn't exist in the West. Or at least, I've never seen it. When America landed on Omaha beach in 1944 it sure didn't have the best interests of France at heart. And the quick formation of NATO in 1949 testifies to this. America succeeded to create a loyal bloc in synchronisation with the USSR's withdrawal from Europe (by the way, talk about "Soviet occupation" is vulgar NATO propaganda). Normandy was bombarded by US aviation in an act of national subjugation. This is also psychological warfare.

As controversy rages over the alleged April 2018 Douma "chemical weapon attacks" that signaled the end of Jaish Al Islam's occupation, life in the Syrian city gradually returns to peace and stability.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons' (OPCW) interim report and final report have thrown the Western media community into disarray. Already scrambling to salvage their loss of face after the "no sarin" conclusions were drawn by the OPCW in July 2018, they are now trying to convert an inconclusive OPCW report into a definitive claim regarding chlorine use, in order to reassert their declining narrative supremacy.

A "chemical weapon" narrative that has effectively sustained the criminalization of the Syrian government and thus the continued unlawful aggression, direct and through Takfiri proxies, by the US coalition against Syria.

Since it was exposed by a report in Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper earlier this month, the scandal that's become known as the SNC-Lavalin affair has already led to the firing of several of Trudeau's close advisors and raised serious questions about whether the prime minister was complicit in pressuring the attorney general to offer a deferred prosecution agreement with a large, Quebec-based engineering firm.

And according to the first round of polls released since the affair exploded into public view...

The UK, Germany, India, and the United Arab Emirates are among the countries resisting US pressure to Ban Huawei.

The New York Times reports U.S. Campaign to Ban Huawei Overseas Stumbles as Allies Resist.

Over the past several months, American officials have tried to pressure, scold and, increasingly, threaten other nations that are considering using Huawei in building fifth-generation, or 5G, wireless networks. Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, has pledged to withhold intelligence from nations that continue to use Chinese telecom equipment. The American ambassador to Germany cautioned Berlin this month that the United States would curtail intelligence sharing if that country used Huawei.

But the campaign has run aground. Britain, Germany, India and the United Arab Emirates are among the countries signaling they are unlikely to back the American effort to entirely ban Huawei from building their 5G networks. While some countries like Britain share the United States' concerns, they argue that the security risks can be managed by closely scrutinizing the company and its software.

The United States is not ready to admit defeat, but its campaign has suffered from what foreign officials say is a scolding approach and a lack of concrete evidence that Huawei poses a real risk. It has also been hampered by a perception among European and Asian officials that President Trump may not be fully committed to the fight.

Mr. Trump has repeatedly undercut his own Justice Department, which unveiled sweeping criminal indictments against Huawei and its chief financial officer with accusations of fraud, sanctions evasion and obstruction of justice. Mr. Trump has suggested that the charges could be dropped as part of a trade deal with China. The president previously eased penalties on another Chinese telecom firm accused of violating American sanctions, ZTE, after a personal appeal by President Xi Jinping of China.

One senior European telecommunications executive said that no American officials had presented "actual facts" about China's abuse of Huawei networks.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has called for a global crackdown on social media in the aftermath of the Christchurch mosque shootings, one of which was streamed live on Facebook and viewed thousands of times.

"It is unacceptable to treat the internet as an ungoverned space," Morrison wrote in a letter to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ahead of the upcoming G20 meeting in Osaka, Japan in June.

The Venezuelan opposition's diplomatic envoy to the US has claimed that the arrest of his boss, Juan Guaido, for interfering in the electoral process would only "accelerate" the pace of change in the country.

Carlos Vecchio, appointed by Guaido to head the diplomatic offensive against President Nicolas Maduro in the US, made the comments as he and other representatives took over several Venezuelan diplomatic buildings on Monday.

Access was gained to two defense ministry buildings in Washington DC and one consular building in New York.


The buildings were vacated by diplomatic and consular staff in January after Maduro broke-off relations with Washington for its recognition of Guido as Venezuela's interim president.

California GOP Rep. Devin Nunes filed a major lawsuit seeking $250 million in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive damages against Twitter and a handful of its users on Monday, accusing the social media site of "shadow-banning conservatives" to secretly hide their posts, systematically censoring opposing viewpoints, and totally "ignoring" lawful complaints of repeated abusive behavior.

In a complaint filed in Virginia state court on Monday, obtained by Fox News, Nunes claimed Twitter wanted to derail his work on the House Intelligence Committee, which he chaired until 2019, as he looked into alleged and apparent surveillance abuses by the government. Nunes said Twitter was guilty of "knowingly hosting and monetizing content that is clearly abusive, hateful and defamatory - providing both a voice and financial incentive to the defamers - thereby facilitating defamation on its platform."