Over 2,000 Israeli Yemenite Jews and supporting activists gathered in Jerusalem last Wednesday to mark an annual day of awareness for what families say was a state-sponsored program to abduct Yemenite Jewish infants and other Israeli children born to parents who were recent immigrants from Arab countries.

Known as the Yemenite Children Affair, in the first decade after the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, there was a systematic kidnapping of newborn Yemenite children, carried out by Israeli hospitals and government institutions. Mothers, who often were in Israel for a short time and did not speak Hebrew, would enter hospitals or other state facilities to give birth. Once the child was born medical staff told the parents the child died unexpectedly. Yet none of the families were shown bodies or burial documents. Many of the families did not practice any mourning ceremonies because they believed their missing children were still alive.

The babies who went missing, parents claim, were given away to childless Ashkenazi families (Jews of European descent - the dominant ethnic group in Israel at the time), leaving the Yemenite families with no answers regarding their children's fate. In most cases, the families were told the children died unexpectedly.

Local sources disclosed on Sunday that several terrorists, who had been wounded in the battle with the Syrian government forces in Quneitra province, have been taken to an Israeli hospital.

The sources reported that a number of injured members of Al-Nusra Front (also known as Fatah al-Sham Front or the Levant Liberation Board) have been transferred to the Israeli hospitals via al-Hamidiyeh region in Quneitra countryside.

The army troops repelled Al-Nusra Front's offensives in the Southwestern province of Quneitra, leaving tens of terrorists dead and many more wounded. Later, the Israeli aircraft attacked the Syrian government forces' tanks and artillery positions South-West of the war-hit country.

This is not the first time that Al-Nusra terrorists have been transferred to Israeli hospital after sustaining injuries in clashes with the army soldiers.

For decades, the Nordic countries' collaboration with Saudi Arabia has triggered fierce criticism from an ethical standpoint. The recent nomination of 31-year-old Muhammad bin Salman, who is known for his hawkish behavior, as Saudi Crown Prince and potential heir to the throne, has once again stirred fears of the Saudis sponsoring hardline Islam.

Peaceful Nordic countries have for years had no qualms about cooperating with (or even selling weapons to) the Gulf states, which they themselves view as dictatorships. However, the Saudi sponsorship of hardline Islam has recently triggered concern across Scandinavia.

In fierce competition with its regional archenemy, Shia-dominated Iran, the Saudis have used enormous resources to spread their influence across the globe. Not least through generous contributions to the building of mosques around the world, the education of imams and the spread of the only form of Islam the Arab country allows, namely the ultra-conservative Wahhabism, the Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet wrote.

The exact amount of money the Saudi kingdom and their allies have used to promote Wahhabism is a subject of debate. In 2012, the official Saudi magazine Ain al-Yaqeen wrote that King Fahd (1921-2005) had built no fewer than 210 Islamic centers financed entirely or partly by Saudi Arabia, 1,500 mosques and 202 schools to offer Muslim education in Europe, the Americas, Australia and Asia.

Most media outlets and politicians often ignore the deadly consequences of US regime change policy, including the rise of Islamic State, according to Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii).

"I think that there has been a concerted effort both on the part of some in the media, as well as many in politics, and many in our foreign policy establishment seem to have been advocating for a continuance of these regime change wars, really ignoring the fact of what has been the consequence of these wars in countries like Iraq and Libya and Syria, where each time we have waged these wars, [it] has resulted in the strengthening of terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda or the creation of ISIS [Islamic State, IS, formerly ISIL], and it has resulted in a tremendous amount of suffering and death for the people of these countries," said Gabbard at a press conference, answering a question from RT's Caleb Maupin.

You read that correctly. Four days ago Poland's lower House of Parliament passed amendments to a law already on the books dealing with "repealing remnants of communism". In this case, that means the demolition of almost 500 monuments, many of which are dedicated to Poles and Russians who died in WWII. The decision was made on June 22, the Day of Memory and Sorrow, which honors those deceased during World War II in Russia.

Keep in mind this is the same country - Poland - that embarrassingly put its entire government on the same plane. It looks like they are doing the same thing on a larger scale, so to say. This is also the same country that has supported the Ukrainian movements who collaborated with the Nazis against Poland, fought against the Polish people, and said nothing when some of the million+ Ukrainian immigrants continued to spread the Bandera cult, and doing nothing against the Bandera monuments. But we digress.

The chairman of the upper house of the Russian parliament's international affairs committee, Konstantin Kosachev had this to say about the decision:

"The decision of the Polish Sejm, under which nearly 500 monuments, 'glorifying the totalitarian system,' will be demolished, including memorials in honor of the Red Army, is in itself absolutely in line with totalitarian practices. This is practiced either by modern barbarians like the Taliban [terrorist group, outlawed in Russia] and Ukrainian Nazis, or by the countries that turned anti-Russian hysteria into a permanent element of their domestic policy,".

In contrast, Kosachev added that he had visited the Yad Vashem memorial to the victims of the Holocaust in Jerusalem and the the Soviet War Memorial Tiergarten in Berlin, noting that Germany and Israel respect and honor the heroism and memory of the Red Army servicemen.

Poland has managed to effectively blank out the simple and unquestionable fact that if it wasn't for the Russian army Poland wouldn't occupy much space (if any) on the European map today. To the average Polish person, Russia = Communism, but if you ask someone how we ended up with communism in the first place you get a blank stare at best. The propaganda has done its job.

The Trump team is obsessing over Thucydides, the ancient historian who wrote a seminal tract on war.

The Trump White House isn't known as a hot spot for Ivy League intellectuals. But last month, a Harvard academic slipped into the White House complex for an unusual meeting. Graham Allison, an avuncular foreign policy thinker who served under Reagan and Clinton, was paying a visit to the National Security Council, where he briefed a group of staffers on one of history's most studied conflicts—a brutal war waged nearly 2,500 years ago, one whose lessons still resonate, even in the administration of a president who doesn't like to read.

The subject was America's rivalry with China, cast through the lens of ancient Greece. The 77-year-old Allison is the author of a recent book based on the writings of Thucydides, the ancient historian famous for his epic chronicle of the Peloponnesian War between the Greek states of Athens and Sparta. Allison cites the Greek scholar's summation of why the two powers fought: "What made war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta." He warns that the same dynamic could drive this century's rising empire, China, and the United States into a war neither wants. Allison calls this the "Thucydides Trap," and it's a question haunting some very important people in the Trump administration, particularly as Chinese officials arrive Wednesday for "diplomatic and security dialogue" talks between Washington and Beijing designed, in large part, to avoid conflict between the world's two strongest nations.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov expressed hope that the next round of Astana talks on settlement of the Syrian crisis will succeed in clarifying the joint vision as regards de-escalation zones, while also noting that some of the players on the Syrian geostrategic chessboard are playing a dishonest and dangerous type of game.

"A significant decline in military activities and terrorist violence has been recorded in particular areas of Syria, thanks to our new memorandum on establishing de-escalation zones within Syrian territory. I hope that the next round of the Astana talks will positively affect our common efforts, aimed at resolving the Syrian crisis and initiating the UN-sponsored talks that are planned to be held in Geneva, following the Astana meeting, in the first half of July," Lavrov was heard saying during a joint press conference with his Ethiopian counterpart Workneh Gebeyehu in Moscow, on Monday.

Any further US weapons sales to Saudi Arabia or other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states will be on hold until the current dispute with Qatar is resolved, said the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Corker (R-Tennessee).

In a letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Monday, Corker said he

"could not have been more pleased" by President Donald Trump's recent trip to Saudi Arabia and the summit meeting with heads of other Gulf Arab states.

However, the GCC "did not take advantage of the summit and instead chose to devolve into conflict," Corker wrote, referring to the Saudi-led blockade of Qatar initiated three weeks ago.

"Before we provide any further clearances during the informal review period on sales of lethal military equipment to the GCC states, we need a better understanding of the path to resolve the current dispute and reunify the GCC," Corker wrote.

A secretive Washington firm that commissioned the dubious intelligence dossier on Donald Trump is stonewalling congressional investigators trying to learn more about its connections to the Democratic Party.

The Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this month threatened to subpoena the firm, Fusion GPS, after it refused to answer questions and provide records to the panel identifying who financed the error-ridden dossier, which was circulated during the election and has sparked much of the Russia scandal now engulfing the White House.

What is the company hiding? Fusion GPS describes itself as a "research and strategic intelligence firm" founded by "three former Wall Street Journal investigative reporters." But congressional sources say it's actually an opposition-research group for Democrats, and the founders, who are more political activists than journalists, have a pro-Hillary Clinton, anti-Trump agenda.

"These weren't mercenaries or hired guns," a congressional source familiar with the dossier probe said. "These guys had a vested personal and ideological interest in smearing Trump and boosting Hillary's chances of winning the White House."

Russia says Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has told his American counterpart to "take measures to prevent provocations" against Syrian government forces.

The Foreign Ministry said that during a June 26 telephone call Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson agreed on the need to reinforce the fraying cease-fire in Syria, "to step up the fight against terrorist groups, and prevent attempts to use toxic agents."

"Lavrov urged Washington to take measures to prevent provocations against Syrian government troops conducting operations against terrorists," the ministry said in a statement.

There was no immediate comment from the State Department.