The US Commerce Department has proposed a new rule to impose anti-subsidy duties on products from countries that Washington sees as undervaluing their currencies against the dollar to get an advantage in trade.

The rule could put goods from Japan, South Korea, India, Germany, and Switzerland, at risk of higher tariffs. Those countries, along with China, were all listed on the Treasury Department's currency report's "monitoring list." The list tracks currency market interventions, high global current account surpluses and high bilateral trade surpluses.

The commerce department said its proposed rule would amend the normal countervailing duty process to include new criteria for currency undervaluation.

"This change puts foreign exporters on notice that the Department of Commerce can countervail currency subsidies that harm US industries," said Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. He added that "Foreign nations would no longer be able to use currency policies to the disadvantage of American workers and businesses."

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said Democrats should 'find common ground' with President Donald Trump, even as she called for an 'intervention' by his family and staff to save the country from him.

Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill Thursday, Pelosi gave a dizzying series of arguments for why Democrats should both seek closer cooperation with Trump and continue to attack him at every turn, going so far as to claim the president wants to be impeached and is baiting the opposition party into trying.

The presser was meant to address an infrastructure meeting that Trump abruptly scrapped earlier this week, after Pelosi had accused him of engaging in a "coverup" related to the Mueller investigation. Trump had informed reporters of the cancellation at a press conference in the White House's Rose Garden on Wednesday.

The California Democrat told reporters:

"The president stormed out, pounded the table, walked out the door. I pray for the president of the United States. I wish that his family, the administration, and his staff would have an intervention for the good of the country."

In the very next breath, however, Pelosi called for Democrats to cooperate with the White House.

The United States should help Venezuela keep control over U.S. refiner Citgo by preventing its seizure by creditors seeking to collect on unpaid Venezuelan debts, opposition leader Juan Guaido said in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday.

Venezuela's opposition is pushing to remove President Nicolas Maduro amid a catastrophic economic collapse that has created a humanitarian crisis. It also wants to protect overseas assets that it says will be crucial for a future economic recovery after Maduro leaves office.

A group of self-identified 'fake news victims' recently published an open letter in Avaaz.org to social media giants and their CEOs: Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Jack Dorsey (Twitter) and Susan Wojcicki (Youtube). Their plea goes as follows:

"This week victims of disinformation from across the world have come to Silicon Valley to confront social media companies for the first time. The meetings were highly emotional, bringing social media employees to tears, as they came face-to-face with the human cost of the crisis fueled by their platforms. Following their meetings, these victims have issued an open letter calling for urgent action to stop the spread of disinformation and to recognize the deadly damage it can cause."

One of the 'victims' is Finnish mainstream media journalist, Jessikka Aro, who focuses almost exclusively on bashing Russia and Putin, and 'exposing the trolls in our midst'.

Aro became a visible 'Russia-expert' in Finland after writing an article in 2015 filled with wild speculations about the St. Petersburg 'Troll Factory', i.e the Internet Research Agency (IRA). In reality the IRA was revealed to be not much more than a low-level social media marketing (spamming) company with zero impact on the 2016 elections. Just as the whole Russia-collusion story has been proven to be false, the basis of Aro's journalistic career rests on similar outlandish conspiracy theories. Aro has won international awards for her work, and in March this year was set to travel to Washington and claim a $5,000 grant for winning the International Women of Courage Award issued by the US State Department, until it was rescinded because someone there came across her bashing of Trump as 'Russian agent' on Twitter.

In one hilarious episode, Aro's hysterical Russian troll-themed news reports provoked some level-headed ordinary Finns to create a satirical Facebook group called 'Russian Troll Army'. But Aro's fanatical belief that evil Russians are everywhere meant that she missed the point of the group and instead took it as further evidence that 'Russian trolls' are out to get her!

Later, when a Finnish mainstream newspaper published an article critical of her work, she used it as 'evidence' of how ideas made by 'trolls' and 'fake news propagandists' infiltrate into mainstream media (min 31:00 in this video). Aro seems to really enjoy indulging in self-fulfilling prophecies, and she sure loves to play the victim card. Then again, who knows, maybe 'someone' really did send those scary messages she says she keeps receiving, just to watch her descend into further fits of hysteria because she's such an easy mark.

North Korea said on Friday an "arbitrary and dishonest" U.S. position had resulted in the failure to reach a deal during a second North Korea-U.S. summit, warning the nuclear issue would never be resolved without a new approach.

A spokesman for North Korea's foreign ministry accused the United States of trying to shift the blame for the breakdown of the summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump in February by raising a "completely irrelevant issue". He did not elaborate.

"The underlying cause of setback of the DPRK-U.S. summit talks in Hanoi is the arbitrary and dishonest position taken by the United States, insisting on a method which is totally impossible to get through," the unidentified spokesman said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.

"The United States would not be able to move us even an inch with the device it is now weighing in its mind, and the further its mistrust and hostile acts toward the DPRK grow, the fiercer our reaction will be."

The US could use a variety of economic, military and ideological strategies to "overextend and unbalance" Russia, a new report sponsored by the US Army glaringly suggests, offering blueprints to divide and destabilize the country.

The study examines "nonviolent, cost-imposing options" that the US and its allies could employ to weaken Russia's economy, military and government structures - and was conducted by the RAND Arroyo Center - the US Army's federally funded research arm.

While US officials and mainstream media fret constantly about vague and unverified claims of Russian "meddling," "interference" and efforts to "sow discord" in US society, the RAND report openly details a shameless plot to drum up social discontent and societal divisions - in Russia.

The report says Russia suffers from "deep seated" but "exaggerated" anxieties about the possibility of "Western-inspired regime change." Evidently the authors didn't recognize the irony of calling those concerns "exaggerated" in a document dedicated to describing specific ways to do just that.

The morning after the director-general of Reporters Without Borders (RSF in French) received the Dan David Prize at a ceremony in Tel Aviv, he accused Israel of war crimes.

"It is a war crime to target journalists because they are journalists," Christophe Deloire told The Jerusalem Post on Monday. "When Israel shot those journalists, it was intentional... The journalists could be clearly identified as journalists, with cameras and jackets and it could not be just by chance."

Deloire was responding to a request for an explanation as to why his organization last week formally asked the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate what it regards as war crimes by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) against Palestinian journalists covering protests on the Gaza border since the launch of the "March of Return" on March 30, 2018.

RSF submitted its request to the ICC hours before the UN Security Council's May 14 meeting.

Volodymyr Zelensky went from playing the Ukrainian President on TV to taking on the job for real. Now he is bringing his showbiz friends into the government, because why not? The show must go on...

Before Zelensky was sworn in on Monday, he spent years playing a fictitious president of Ukraine in the popular sitcom, 'Servant of the People'. Apparently figuring that what worked well in the world of TV fantasy would work in reality, he's stuffing his new cabinet with familiar faces from his production crew.

Sergey Trofimov, a long-time executive producer at Zelensky's entertainment company 'Kvartal 95,' has been named First Deputy Head of the Administration, which is like a deputy chief of staff. Script writer Yuri Kostyuk - a veteran of the show - is going to try his luck in the real world after also being given a senior position in the administration. And that's just the beginning.

Pakistan on Thursday announced training launch of Shaheen-II surface-to-surface ballistic missile, capable of carrying both conventional and nuclear war-heads up to 1,500 km.

"The training launch was aimed at ensuring (the) operational readiness of (the) Army Strategic Forces Command. (The) Shaheen-II missile is capable of carrying both conventional and nuclear war-heads up to a range of 1,500 km," the Pakistan military's media wing Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) said in a statement.

The test came a day after India conducted second test of air-launch version of Brahmos supersonic cruise missile.

It described Shaheen-II as a "highly capable missile, which fully meets Pakistan's strategic needs towards maintenance of desired deterrence stability in the region". The launch had its impact point in the Arabian Sea, Dawn newspaper reported citing ISPR.

The launch was witnessed by the Director General of the Strategic Plans Division, Commander Army Strategic Forces Command Lt. Gen. Qazi Muhammad Ikram Ahmad and senior officers from the Army Strategic Forces Command, scientists and engineers of the strategic organisations.

President Arif Alvi and Prime Minister Imran Khan extended their congratulations to scientists upon their achievement, the statement said.

Nellie Ohr, wife of former U.S. Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr and an analyst working for the opposition research firm Fusion GPS, deleted messages about Russian influence operations from her husband's government email account, according to documents obtained by Judicial Watch.

"Thanks! I'm deleting these emails now," Nellie Ohr told her husband in an April 20, 2016, email at the end of a thread of exchanges between the Ohrs, Bruce's Department of Justice (DOJ) assistant Lisa Holtyn, and Stefen Bress, a first secretary at the German Embassy in Washington.

The subject line of the emails was "Analyst Russian Organized Crime - April 2016," in which Bress offered to provide two Russia analysts for an "analytical exchange" discussion with Ohr, Holtyn, and other unnamed DOJ officials of multiple topics, including the "Impact of Russian influence operations in Europe ('PsyOps/InfoWar')."