Earlier, the US president criticised his French counterpart for allegedly trying to speak for the United States in talks with Iran, although without specifying when Macron tried to do so. Trump's tweet comes amid reports that France has tried to arrange a meeting between the US and Iranian presidents at the G7 summit.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has replied to recent statements by US President Donald Trump by saying that France doesn't require a green light from the US to hold negotiations with other states, including Iran.

"On Iran, France speaks with complete sovereignty. It is working hard for peace and security in the region, it is working to facilitate a de-escalation in tensions and it needs no permission to do so", he said.

The lawmakers talks about the environment, war, nuclear safety, the media, pay-for-play politics, and the 2020 presidential race in a new Rolling Stone podcast

"It just shows," says Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, "that launching a smear campaign is the only response to the truth."

Gabbard, 38, burst into headlines after a July 31 Democratic Party presidential debate, when she went after California Senator Kamala Harris's record as Attorney General of the State of California. The "smear campaign" refers to the bizarre avalanche of negative press that ensued, as reporters seemed to circle wagons around a Harris, a party favorite.

The Gabbard-Harris exchange was brief but revealing, as a window into a schism in the Democratic Party. Harris was elected Attorney General of California in 2010. She frequently sought moderate or even conservative positions on issues like criminal sentencing, drug enforcement, and prison labor. These stances were standard among Democrats back when being "tough on crime" was considered an essential component of the "electability" argument.

Joe Biden told a group of mostly Asian and Hispanic voters in Iowa on Thursday that "poor kids are just as bright" as white children.

The former vice president, known for his verbal gaffes, made the remarks to the Asian & Latino Coalition in Des Moines, Iowa, where he's on a four-day campaign swing for the Democratic presidential nomination.

"We should challenge students in these schools and have advanced placement programs in these schools," Biden said. "We have this notion that somehow if you're poor, you cannot do it. Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented, as white kids." He quickly added, "Wealthy kids, black kids, Asian kids, no I really mean it, but think how we think about it."

Beijing has told Washington to stop meddling in its domestic affairs and make a State Department spokesperson revise her language, after the top official tacitly referred to China as "a thuggish regime" amid protests in Hong Kong.

US Department of State spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus should "first of all reflect on her words rather than criticize and smear the Chinese government using the media reports as an excuse," her Beijing counterpart Hua Chunying said on Friday.

"We urge the US to abide by international law and basic norms governing international relations, and immediately stop interfering in China's internal affairs."

Recently unsealed court documents from the sex trafficking trial of American financier Jeffrey Epstein have revealed that the UK's Prince Andrew was named in a 2015 lawsuit against an accused Epstein accomplice. The plaintiff alleged Andrew groped her when she was a minor at Epstein's New York estate.

In 2015, Virginia Roberts Giuffre sued Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite and media heiress accused of being the "madame" for Epstein's supposed underage girl sex trafficking circuit, accusing Maxwell and Esptein and using her as a "sex slave" and claiming she was directed to perform sex acts with numerous famous men, one of them being Prince Andrew, the Duke of York and eighth in line to the British throne.

"Any suggestion of impropriety with underage minors is categorically untrue," Buckingham Palace said in a 2015 statement on the lawsuit. "It is emphatically denied that the Duke of York had any form of sexual contact or relationship with [Giuffre]. The allegations made are false and without any foundation."

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden forcefully grabbed a young woman's arm on Thursday after she pressed him about how many genders exist and Biden seemed unable to provide an adequate response.

The incident happened while Biden was campaigning at the "Political Soapbox" at the Iowa State Fair when a girl named Katie, who is a student in the state, approached Biden with questions.

"How many genders are there?" Katie asked.

"There are at least three," Biden responded.

"What are they?" Katie asked.

Biden becoming visibly angry, responded: "Don't play games with me, kid."

Just one short week ago, you could have been forgiven for thinking that the False Flags Over Kashmir that I wrote about in this very column in March had blown over, and that everything in the highly contentious Kashmir region connecting India, Pakistan and China was back to normal. Maybe it had all been political posturing in preparation for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's reelection bid in this year's national elections, you may have thought.

But if that's what you were thinking last week, I bet you're not thinking that anymore. For you see, this past Monday all hell broke loose.

Specifically, the residents of the formerly semi-autonomous state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) in the northern tip of India now find themselves living in a state that has no special status. No constitutional provision for the region to pass its own laws. No more laws preventing Indians from outside the region to buy real estate or invest in J&K. In fact, Kashmiris no longer even reside in the state of Jammu and Kashmir; they now reside in one of two newly-created Union Territories, one called Jammu and Kashmir, and the other called Ladakh.

So what exactly happened this week? And what does it mean for the future of one of the most heavily-militarized and volatile geopolitical fault lines in the world?

Well, as I outlined in this week's edition of New World Next Week, there are three ways to examine what just took place in India this week.

There are a number of updates from the LNA for the past few days. I will consolidate these reports below: AND understand this, the LNA is moving ahead slowly and carefully to avoid civilian casualties. They warn in areas they are fighting and work to preserve infrastructure as much as possible. All the civilian attacks are done by the terrorist militias of the Sarraj GNA regime. Any reports to the opposite are propaganda by the terrorists. The LNA is winning, slowly but surely. As the tribes say to me so many times: "one by one my sister, one by one".

1. LNA Air Force hit Turkish aircraft transporting weapons in Misurata Airbase - 6 August، 2019

Air Force of the Libyan National Army said they targeted with airstrikes early Tuesday against an airbase in Misurata controlled by Islamist armed groups allied with Fayez al-Sarraj government. "Our air force carried out several raids against the Misurata airbase, targeting anti-air defenses as well as a Turkish aircraft transporting ammunition, drones, and missiles," the Libyan National Army information office said in a statement on its Facebook page. "A Turkish Ilyushin aircraft was destroyed as it landed at the Misrata base," the media office added.

2. Italian military aircraft heading to misrata returns home after news of LNA air strikes in the city - 6 August، 2019

An Italian military aircraft heading to Misrata returned home before entering the Libyan airspace after news of air strikes by the Libyan National Army (LNA) targeting Misrata air base." Around 2 PM today an Italian Air Force Lockheed Martin C-130J (MM62181) operating, as usual, the Pisa S. Giusto AB - Misurata flight. It was an usual flight with supplies for the Italian military field hospital in Misrata," reported flight Itamilradar website. Before the entry into Libyan airspace the Hercules remained in holding for some minutes near Lampedusa island, the website said.

Editors Note: Italy has not authority or right to be on Libyan soil, the fact that they state they have a field hospital in Misurata is all propaganda since they supposedly have no fighting troops on the ground. Misurata is the home of terrorism in Libya and this is the big question as to why would Italy base its military in Misurata (they are not fighting terrorism, they have been supporting the terrorists in Libya for years now)

The "rules-based international system" is under increasing threat, with laws flouted and "norms" violated at every turn by disobedient members of the world community, warns a preachy Sky News op-ed.

The dire warning, authored by Sky's foreign affairs editor Deborah Haynes, defines this rules-based order as the "network of accords and institutions" which make up the"framework that helps to ensure security, rights, freedoms and justice" around the world.

Haynes hails the United Nations, the NATO alliance and various international treaties as examples within that framework, but, curiously, the central bogeymen of the piece allegedly eroding this so-called system are all Western adversaries.

The US says it might pull out some troops from Germany amid rifts over a naval mission in the Persian Gulf and defense spending. The remarks from the US ambassador come ahead of two presidential trips to Europe.

The United States is considering withdrawing some of the US troops stationed in Germany, with Poland mooted as a possible new deployment, the US ambassador to Germany has said.

The threat of withdrawal comes amid ongoing differences between Berlin and Washington over Germany's contribution to NATO and a current spat caused by the German refusal to take part in a US-led naval mission in the Persian Gulf.

"It is actually offensive to assume that the US taxpayer must continue to pay to have 50,000-plus Americans in Germany, but the Germans get to spend their surplus on domestic programs," US Ambassador Richard Grenell told the DPA news agency, in comments carried widely by German media on Friday.