After Wayne Madsen's comprehensive catalog of imperialist interventions, executed without the slightest hint of subtlety, to undermine and "change" displeasing regimes in every corner of the world, going back decades, the topic seemed all but exhausted. But that turned out not to be correct. A very important piece of that mosaic needs to be added. As this is being written, the provocatively and insolently misnamed and foreign sponsored Free Russia Forum is gearing up to leave its mark on Russia's forthcoming presidential election.

As alert readers are probably guessing by now, contrary to its deceptive billing the Free Russia Forum is anything but an "independent" discussion group. It is, rather, a political project, a creature one could say, of the State Department. It was created in 2014 and meets twice a year in the Lithuanian capital, just across from the Russian border, to serve as a tool for interference in Russia's internal affairs.

But good guys do not interfere in the internal affairs of other sovereign countries, just as gentlemen do not read each other's mail, right? Yeah, right.

The Vilnius gatherings (which have been going on for several years) are a biennial convention of the most militant specimens of Russia's "non-system" opposition, under the chairmanship of the former chess champion Garry Kasparov. Officially, participants include "representatives of think tanks, academia, writers, politicians, civil society activists, philosophers and artists, for thought-provoking and off-the-record discussions on Russia". That, however, is just the façade.

U.S. President Donald Trump has predicted his upcoming talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will be a "tremendous success."

The U.S. leader said on March 10 that Pyongyang had promised not to test-launch any missiles until the talks take place, possibly in May.

"I think North Korea is going to go very well, I think we will have tremendous success. I think this is going to be something very successful. We have a lot of support," Trump told reporters.

"So, I think North Korea is going to go very well. The promise is they wouldn't be shooting off missiles in the meantime, and they're looking to de-nuke. So that'd be great."

One of the reasons for Western dismay at the decision by the Chinese parliament earlier today to abolish the terms limits of the Chinese Presidency - paving the way for President Xi Jinping to remain Chinese President when his present term limit expires - is that it guarantees that the partnership between Xi Jinping and Russia's President Vladimir Putin which has been making the international political weather ever since Xi Jinping emerged as China's President in 2013 is set to continue.

President Putin is due to be re-elected on 18th March 2018 for what it is widely assumed will be his last term as Russia's President, which will end in 2024. President Xi Jinping's second term as Chinese President is due to end in 2023.

Even if the Chinese parliament had not just decided to change the Chinese President's term limits, Xi Jinping would therefore continue to be China's leader throughout President Putin's next term.

Moreover, as many people have pointed out, the office of the Chinese President (more correctly, of the 'State Chairman') has only nominal power, with the actual power held by the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, who has no term limits, and who is of course Xi Jinping himself.

Events in the US since President Trump agreed to South Korean President Moon's proposal that he meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un show (1) the extent to which the US elite including large sections of the US government's bureaucracy are willing President Trump to lose despite the huge damage this threatens the US; and (2) how President Trump's foreign policy instincts are often superior to those of the foreign policy veterans or "adults" which whom he has become surrounded.

Firstly, it is now clear that President Trump's decision to agree to President Moon's proposal for a summit meeting with Kim Jong-un was his own.

Apparently when he was told of the proposal by the South Korean delegation which came to brief him about the talks the South Koreans had just had with Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang, he immediately and enthusiastically agreed to it without first consulting any of his advisers.

Rodrigo Duterte has once again harshly lashed out at UN human rights officials planning to probe alleged extrajudicial killings in his war on drugs, and claimed full responsibility for the "lawful" actions of law enforcers.

This latest vulgar outburst against the international human rights officials comes a day after UN High Commissioner Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein called for a "psychiatric evaluation" of the Philippines' leader. On Saturday, Duterte again defended his and law enforcers' rights not to cooperate with the UN-led probe into alleged abuses and extrajudicial killings in the country.

Calling Zeid a "stupid... son of a b**ch", Duterte reiterated his authorization for law enforcement agencies not to answer questions from human rights investigators, currently being led by Agnes Callamard, the UN special rapporteur.

France's National Front party is planning a makeover, to counter public misconceptions about it. The move, leader Marine Le Pen hopes, will ensure the nationalist faction a firm position in power for decades to come.

The leader of the National Front, Marine le Pen, formally proposed changing the name of the party to 'National Rally' on Sunday, in a speech at the national conference of France's right in the northern city of Lille.

"The name of Front National is for many French, even in good faith, a psychological brake, to join us or to vote," she noted, calling for a change to the party name to appeal to French voters.

The Pentagon and the CIA see "no change" in Russia's strategic military capability following new strategic weapons systems presentation, saying they believe that President Putin "says lots of things that are without foundation."

The five new Russian systems unveiled by Vladimir Putin "are still years away" from threatening the US, Defense Secretary James Mattis noted Sunday, stressing that Russian military capabilities are unable to change the military balance in the world.

"They do no impact any need on our side for a change in our deterrent posture," Mattis said Sunday aboard a plane to Oman, noting that Putin's remarks were "disappointing, but unsurprising."

Russia's new weaponry allegedly came as no surprise to the US intelligence community either, CIA Director Mike Pompeo said on Sunday, echoing the widely accepted American reaction to the news. Pompeo instead used the opportunity to tell the American public not to worry about the unprecedented potential of the Russian strategic systems.

After NATO finally took note of Ukraine's "aspiration" to get into the military alliance, ten years after its first application, Kiev praised the gesture and stated that its ambitions extend far beyond the symbolic status upgrade.

The military alliance mentioned in a Friday press release that, among others, it recognizes Kiev's interest in entering the bloc, inviting it "to engage in an Intensified Dialogue" about its "membership aspirations and related reforms."

Although the gesture is rather symbolic and doesn't provide any guarantees, Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko has praised this "important long-awaited and logical decision by NATO to raise Ukraine's ambitions" regarding the alliance. "Our next ambition is a Membership Action Plan (MAP)," the president declared in a Facebook post, referring to the bloc's program on preparations, specifically tailored for nations wishing to join NATO.


Ukrainian representative to NATO, Vadim Pristayko, also stressed that Kiev is "not going to stop on the status of an aspirant country, we're continuing to work." "The only formal mechanism [to get accepted in the bloc] is the MAP. We will be asking for it separately," the diplomat told Interfax-Ukraine.

Presented as a great humanitarian effort, the Saudi-led coalition's new aid plan for Yemen essentially aims to tighten the blockade and monopolize access to aid in the hands of the aggressors

On 22 January, the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen unveiled a new plan to deliver "unprecedented relief to the people of Yemen".

The Yemen Comprehensive Humanitarian Operations (YCHO) is a new "aid" programme with the ostensible aim of "addressing immediate aid shortfalls while simultaneously building capacity for long-term improvement of humanitarian aid and commercial goods imports to Yemen".

This will primarily be done through increasing the "capacities of Yemeni ports to receive humanitarian as well as commercial imports" - and all sealed with a whopping $1.5bn in aid contributions. What could possibly be wrong with that?

Knowledgeable reporters on the left and right are frightened by the spread of an elite conspiracy theory among American media

Half the country hates Donald Trump, and even the half that thinks he's doing a good job often flinch from his boorishness, his nasty public attacks, sometimes even on his own aides. For all the top talent he says he's surrounded himself with, the president repeatedly attracts among the worst that Washington - and New York - have to offer. No doubt that's one reason why whatever is thrown at him seems to stick.

At the same time, there is a growing consensus among reporters and thinkers on the left and right-especially those who know anything about Russia, the surveillance apparatus, and intelligence bureaucracy - that the Russiagate-collusion theory that was supposed to end Trump's presidency within six months has sprung more than a few holes. Worse, it has proved to be a cover for U.S. intelligence and law-enforcement bureaucracies to break the law, with what's left of the press gleefully going along for the ride. Where Watergate was a story about a crime that came to define an entire generation's oppositional attitude toward politicians and the country's elite, Russiagate, they argue, has proved itself to be the reverse: It is a device that the American elite is using to define itself against its enemies - the rest of the country.

Yet for its advocates, the questionable veracity of the Russiagate story seems much less important than what has become its real purpose - elite virtue-signaling. Buy into a storyline that turns FBI and CIA bureaucrats and their hand-puppets in the press into heroes while legitimizing the use of a vast surveillance apparatus for partisan purposes, and you're in. Dissent, and you're out, or worse-you're defending Trump.