At least 16 people, including seven children, have been killed in an airstrike launched by the US-led coalition in a rural region south east of the Syrian city of Deir-ez Zor, Syrian news agency SANA reports.

The air raid targeted a residential area on the outskirts of the town of Al-Baghuz in the south-eastern part of Syria, the state news agency said, citing local sources.

The town is located in the Euphrates River valley, close to the Syrian border with Iraq, some 128 km from Deir-ez Zor.

War with Iran has long been a possibility for the US, but only as a last resort. Previous administrations have recognized that this is not a war the US can win, but will Trump do the same?

The Trump administration's aggressive rhetoric and actions have alarmed the world. The protests in response to his visa ban that have targeted mostly Muslims from seven nations the United States has targeted in its wars of aggression have overshadowed and distracted from an even darker threat: a looming U.S. war with Iran.

Is the fear of the threat greater than the threat itself? The answer is not clear.

Certainly, there must be a moment of hesitation among Americans and non-Americans who believed that we would be living in a more peaceful world because "Trump would not start a nuclear war with Russia." The sad and stark reality is that U.S. foreign policy is continuous. An important part of this continuity is a war that has been waged against Iran for the past 38 years unabated.

The head of one of the world's oldest elite foreign policy institutions in London is calling for the world's pro-globalist think tanks to unite like never before, lest their neo-liberal world order dissolve in the populist tide that appears to be rising.

Chatham House Director Dr. Robin Niblett wrote an 11,000-word article entitled "Rediscovering a Sense of Purpose: The Challenge for Western Think Tanks" in Vol. 94, Issue 6 of Chatham House's journal, International Affairs. In it, he declared: "To devise a common work [program], do think-tanks from across the world also need to possess a common sense of purpose? . . . . After something like a hundred years of think-tank experience, the answer is yes."

Chatham House, also known as the Royal Institute of International Affairs, is a member of the original array of gilded private institutes that arose and revolutionized the world of geo-politics in the early 20^th century. Other major members include the Carnegie Endowment for International Affairs (shown to have been involved in apparently treasonous activities by the Reece Committee in the 1950s), along with the Brookings Institution, and, of course, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

Sarah Leah Whitson, the head of Human Rights Watch's Middle East division, was fiercely attacked by anti-Palestinian groups and pundits this weekend.

She had shared a manufactured "Labour anti-Semitism crisis" posting of mine on the story.

My tweet included an article from last year in which I reported a clear example of Israeli interference in British politics.

The "Act.IL" organization, which is coordinated and backed by Israel's so-called Ministry of Strategic Affairs, had used a troll army to spread false information about Jeremy Corbyn - the leader of the UK's official opposition party.

Whitson commented, "Why is this #Israel interference in domestic UK politics acceptable? Is it only a problem when Russia does this?"

The U.S. government went looking for someone to blame for Russia's interference in the 2016 election-and found Maria Butina, the perfect scapegoat.
On a steamy Sunday last July, at about half-past noon, a caravan of unmarked SUVs exited the FBI's Washington, D.C., field office, an eight-story concrete building that exudes all the charm of a supermax prison. The cars moved swiftly across the city; speed was critical. There were indications that the target, who had canceled the lease on her apartment and packed her belongings, was about to take flight.

Just before one o'clock, the SUVs turned off Wisconsin Avenue and into a parking lot at 3617 38th Street NW, a low, red-brick apartment building near American University. Armed agents in bulletproof vests filled a narrow corridor outside apartment 208. Inside, Maria Butina was watching the Wimbledon men's final on TV and preparing for a long drive in a U-Haul truck to South Dakota. Having just graduated from American University with a master's degree in international affairs, she was about to start working as a consultant in the cryptocurrency industry. Her boyfriend of five years, a 57-year-old Republican activist named Paul Erickson, would be traveling with her to his home in Sioux Falls.

"Everything was boxed up," Erickson told me. "The last thing to do was to pack the electronics, to unplug the TV and the internet. And then pound! Pound! Pound! I answered the door, and there was a team of six agents in the hallway." Three of the agents surrounded Erickson while the other three went after Butina. "The team went in, dragged her out, spun her around, cuffed her in the hallway, and announced her arrest," Erickson said.

According to federal prosecutors, Butina's graduate studies, and her relationship with Erickson, were just a cover; in reality she was a clandestine Russian agent sent to the United States to use sex and seduction to infiltrate conservative political circles and influence the White House's policies toward Russia. Denied bail out of fear she might run to the Russian Embassy, or jump into an embassy car, she was charged with violating Section 951 of the U.S. Code: acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign power, as well as with a conspiracy charge associated with it. She is the only Russian arrested to date in the government's ongoing investigation into the Kremlin's efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.

After pledging full support for the embattled regime of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Russia is starting to show signs of doubt about his ability to survive an opposition challenge.

While Moscow hasn't given up its public backing of Maduro, it increasingly recognizes that the disastrous state of Venezuela's economy is inexorably draining what remains of his public support, said two people close to the Kremlin. At the same time, the army's reluctance to crack down on its own citizens limits his ability to use force to crush the challenge to his rule, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the issue is sensitive.

"Unfortunately, time isn't on Maduro's side,'' said Vladimir Dzhabarov, first deputy chairman of the international affairs committee in the upper house of Russia's parliament. "In a situation of worsening economic crisis, the mood in society can quickly turn against him.''

Tehran's revenue from oil exports in the first nine months of the current Iranian year - which runs from 21 March 2018 to 20 March 2019 - have increased by 48.9 percent year-on-year despite the reimposition of US sanctions, the IRNA news agency reported on Monday.

According to the IRNA, the main reason for the increase in revenue was the oil price hike in the global markets.

Iran's oil revenues from the said period amounted to over $17 billion, according to the agency.

However, the demand for oil has recently dropped from $80 per barrel to $50 against the background of the trade war between the United States and China as well as oversupply on the oil market.

Western governments and media have reached a "magical thinking" stage in their fantasies about alleged Russian propaganda and influence. The magical thinking is such that there is no longer even a need to prove claims. It is simply "fact" by assertion.

Take the US Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats. He testified before the Senate last week that Russian meddling in US politics will be a lot greater and in the near future much more sophisticated than was done allegedly during the 2016 presidential campaign. He warned that the 2020 presidential election will be targeted by Russian malfeasance in a way that won't be even detectable.

In other words what the top intelligence official is saying is:

Despite not providing any credible evidence of Russian meddling in 2016, henceforth the Kremlin's influence campaigns on the American public will be so slick and so devious, we won't be able to even quantify it.

This is subjectivity and Russophobia on steroids. Here, the logic goes from unproven assertion to imaginary assertion. This is "magical thinking", or put another way, delusional paranoia. And from the supposed top US intelligence official too. How is a country meant to formulate effective policies when it is guided by such deluded people?

The Pentagon commander in charge of U.S. forces in the Middle East says the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria will likely begin within "weeks."

General Joseph Votel, chief of the U.S. Central Command, tempered his comments on February 10 by saying the exact timing would depend on the situation in the country, where some 2,000 U.S. troops have been assisting a Syrian Arab and Kurdish alliance fighting against the remnants of Islamic State (IS) insurgents.

When asked if the pullout would occur within days or weeks, Votel said, "Probably weeks. But again, it will all be driven by the situation on the ground."

There has been conflicting information regarding the pullout, with some reports stating that the withdrawal has already begun.

Votel, speaking to reporters aboard a U.S. military aircraft during a trip to the Middle East, said that "in terms of the withdrawal...I think we're right on track with where we wanted to be."

"Moving people is easier than moving equipment, and so what we're trying to do right now is again [to] kind of clear out those materials, that equipment, that we do not need."

Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar is under fierce attack from Chelsea Clinton and other Republican and Democratic establishment figures for voicing a fundamental truth: much of Congress is muzzled when it comes to Israel by the powerful lobby group AIPAC.

On Sunday, journalist Glenn Greenwald highlighted a news story about how Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy wants to punish Omar, and fellow Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, for their criticisms of Israel.

In a perverse move, McCarthy tried to equate the two women's support for Palestinian rights with notorious Republican Congressman Steve King's white supremacism.

"It's stunning how much time US political leaders spend defending a foreign nation even if it means attacking free speech rights of Americans," Greenwald tweeted.

Omar then retweeted Greenwald, adding the comment, "It's all about the Benjamins baby" - a slang term for $100 bills.