Air and ground attacks on Syria's Idlib Province must stop "immediately" and a cease-fire must be established in the rebel-held area, Turkish television quoted the country's defense minister as saying.

The broadcaster NTV quoted Hulusi Akar as making the comments on September 10, after Russia and Iran rejected Turkey's call for a cease-fire in Idlib, the rebels' remaining major stronghold in Syria.

The email was forwarded by two Google vice presidents to more staff members throughout the company. ... Eliana admitted Google used its power to ensure millions of people saw certain hashtags and social media impressions. The goal was to influence behavior during the election.

Google also supported partners like Voto Latino to offer rides to polling stations.

Google described this as a "silent donation" to the far left group.

"The fund has already studied more than 100 potential projects, of which it is currently considering five in detail - in such areas as new materials, information protection technologies, virtual reality, the development of new generation industrial equipment, innovative oilfield services. The fund plans to announce the first deal by the end of the year," it said.

The RDIF also said that the leading companies of Russia and China will boost bilateral investment.

"Today there are 73 projects with a total worth of over $100 billion in industrial, infrastructural, mining, agricultural and other sectors. Thanks to the work of the committee, seven projects worth $4.6 billion have already been implemented," the RDIF said.

• Russia prepares for its 2nd Eastern Economic Forum
• Russia's Eastern Economic Forum expected to attract over $20bn in foreign investment
• Nearly $44 billion in deals signed at Russia's Eastern Economic Forum
• Positive progress: Russia's Eastern Economic Forum to attract over $15bn in investment
• Putin and Abe want a positive 'New Era' in Russia-Japan relations

I received an unsolicited email from Stephan Halper who I thought was a Cambridge professor inviting me. So he reached out and said I want you to write a paper for me. I joined him about a week later over drinks at the hotel in London where all of the sudden he pulls out his phone. Everyone has phones when they meet with me and he places it in front of him and he begins to tell me, "So George, of course hacking is in the interest of your campaign. Of course, the Russians are helping you." These open-ended questions, and, "Of course, you're probably involved in it too. That's correct right?"

• Joseph Mifsud, who set up Russiagate patsy Papadopoulos has been missing since November 2017 - now presumed dead? - UPDATE
• Mueller's triumph: Papadopoulos sentenced 14 days in jail, $9,500 fine and community service
• Ignored: Israeli spying on Trump

The mysterious "disappearance" of my Asia Times column - titled "'Resistance' runs amok in the US Deep Throat War" - has led me to some more juicy back-and-forth with my own Deep Throats in the Beltway.

The column is languishing in some digital black hole but seems to be found when people enter the title above.

And that brings us back to Trump - and Russia.

Detente with Russia: that is the main reason that Clapper and Brennan are after Trump and why Brennan called him a traitor. For all his cosmic inconsistencies, Trump is right that US intel is behind the "anonymous" NYT Op-Ed.

Some of my own Deep Throats in the Beltway are reliving the time when Nixon acknowledged his - innate? - cowardice as he exited the White House. Nixon famously told a friend that, "I am getting out while the getting is good and I have no intention of ending as Jack." He was referring to Jack Kennedy - who was killed essentially over detente with the then USSR.

And one of the Deep Throats - an insider who, let's say, "saw the light" - has come up with the classiest of quotes:

"They have Trump on nothing - and what was Watergate in comparison to 9-11, Pearl Harbor or the Gulf of Tonkin, just to name a few of our Operation Gladios?"

This is going to get WAY nastier.

• Fake Book Based on Fake News Based on Fake Intel: Bob Woodward Novella 'Fear' Portrays Trump as Impetuous Madman
• Woodward at war with the White House
• Deep State vs Trump: We're Watching an Antidemocratic Coup Unfold in The United States

• Academic tied to Papadopoulos Russiagate hoax goes missing
• Internet sleuths claim to uncover Obama's "top secret spy" in the Trump campaign: Stefan Halper
• All Russiagate roads lead to London: Evidence emerges of Joseph Mifsud's links to UK intelligence
• Chris Blackburn on the contradictions surrounding Joseph Mifsud, his murky intelligence connections and the Trump dossier

[A] Swiss-German lawyer who has been described as a close friend and adviser of Mifsud's calls the allegation "nonsense."

"I'm in a better mood today. I got it from really good sources. They say that he is alive, that he has another identity, and that he is staying somewhere, at a nice place," Stephan Roh told The Daily Caller News Foundation on Sunday.

"I just this morning got a message, indirectly, that he is alive and that they have provided him with another identity," added Roh, who did not describe his sources.

The DCNF was not able to independently confirm whether Mifsud is alive.

Mifsud, a former Maltese diplomat, has not been seen or heard from since November 2017, just after special counsel Robert Mueller revealed that Papadopoulos had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about the timing of his contacts with Mifsud.

[...]

Roh says he was dragged into the government's investigation in October 2017, when he was detained at JFK International Airport in New York and questioned by the FBI about his relationship with Mifsud.

Roh, who co-owns Link Campus University in Rome, where Mifsud once taught, says Mifsud has denied to him directly that he spoke with Papadopoulos about Clinton emails.

In a recent self-published book, Roh claimed that, rather than being a Russian spy, Mifsud is associated with Western intelligence agencies.

Mifsud "had only one master: the Western Political, Diplomatic and Intelligence World, his only home, of which he is still deeply dependent," Roh and his co-author, Thierry Pastor, wrote in The Faking of Russia-gate: The Papadopoulos Case, an Investigative Analysis.

"After careful consideration, yes, we must assume that the Professor was most probably part of the game, that he was in close relation to the Western intelligence world as well as to the Clinton network, and that today he is fully cooperating with and following the orders of easily identifiable intelligence agencies - and that he is certainly not a Russian spy," he wrote.

Roh further described Mifsud's association with Western intelligence agencies Sunday, saying the professor was not directly employed by them.

"Mifsud is not an employee of a specific agency. He is not a member of the MI6. He was working for them. But working for them does not mean he was a member of the team," Roh said.