Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to visit Berlin this weekend to meet with Chancellor Angela Merkel, a German government spokesman has confirmed.

"Chancellor Angela Merkel will host Russian President Vladimir Putin on August 18, 2018 at federal government's Schloss Meseberg," according to a statement from government spokesman Steffen Seibert, referring to an 18th-century palace 50 miles northwest of Berlin.

Seibert did not elaborate on the details of the visit, only saying "relevant foreign policy issues" will be discussed.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un are set to hold their third summit in the North Korean capital in September, Yonhap reports citing the results of high-level talks.

"We agreed to hold an inter-Korean summit within September in Pyongyang," the two sides said in a joint press statement issued after their delegations held talks in Panmunjom on Monday, according to Yonhap. The exact date of the meeting has not been announced.

The delegations also agreed to engage in "more active enforcement" of the historic declaration signed by Kim and Moon after their first meeting at the truce village of Panmunjom in April. The two met again in the same place just one month later, when the North Korean leader was already set to hold his first summit with US President Donald Trump.

A number of Arab countries have allocated a total of $137 billion in aid to rebels in Syria in an attempt to ruin the country, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said on Monday.

"Well-known Arab countries have provided aid amounting to $137 billion to illegal armed groups in order to destroy Syria," Mekdad told reporters.

He added that the country had managed to resist its enemies due to Syrians' spirit and courage, as well as Russia's support.

"Now we have to revive the country's economy because this is the key factor which will allow Syrians to come back to their homeland," Mekdad added.

Former White House aide Omarosa Onee Manigault-Newman has unleashed a collective freak-out on Twitter after she revealed she recorded a conversation with chief of staff John Kelly from inside the White House Situation Room.

Omarosa made the shock revelation on NBC's 'Meet the Press' Sunday, where a clip of the covert recording was played. It features Kelly telling Omarosa her departure from the White House could be a friendly one.

Since taking office a year and a half ago, the allegations of 'collusion' between U.S. President Donald Trump's election campaign and the Russian government have buried nearly all other substantive issues in regards to his administration. This hasn't been limited to marginalizing reportage of destructive domestic legislation or the escalation of endless war abroad. It has successfully diverted attention away from other foreign governments shaping U.S. policy and elections. The media has even downplayed Trump's sycophantic behavior towards other heads of state in favor of their pathological obsession with his perceived obsequiousness toward Russian President Vladimir Putin. This is largely because "Russiagate" is not based on facts or evidence, but a psychological operation conducted by the intelligence community through mass media disseminating suggestive and pre-selected disinformation about Trump and Russia. Not only has it enabled the national security state and political establishment to neutralize the anti-Trump "resistance", it has become a smokescreen for the 'collusion' between Trump and the state of Israel, which continues to guide his decision-making.

One month after his shocking victory and before his inauguration, one of the top members of Trump's transition team, National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, directly contacted members of the UN Security Council and urged them to block a draft resolution that condemned illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory. General Flynn corresponded with diplomats from several foreign governments (including Russia) to learn their stance on the resolution and tried to persuade them to vote against it. Flynn would later plead guilty to making false statements to the FBI about his discussions with the Russian Ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak. The Israeli government candidly admitted to seeking help from Trump's transition team and it was his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who put Flynn up to the task. However, it is not unusual for foreign officials to communicate with an incoming administration and Flynn lobbied envoys from other nations in addition to Russia.

Germany's Economy Minister Peter Altmaier says the United States is in no position to tell Berlin with which countries it can do business, vowing support for companies doing business with Iran.

The German minister made the remarks in an interview with Bild am Sonntag newspaper on Sunday, emphasizing that Berlin would not let the Washington dictate its trade rules on it.

He added that Washington's sanctions on Iran clearly showed America's neglect of its partners.

"We won't let Washington dictate us with whom we can do business and we therefore stick to the Vienna Nuclear Agreement," Altmaier said in reference to a landmark nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries in 2015, which is officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Under the deal, Iran undertook to put limits on its nuclear program in exchange for the removal of nuclear-related sanctions imposed against Tehran.

Benjamin Netanyahu defended the contentious Israeli nation-state law, claiming that the flying of Palestinian flags at protests only shows "the urgency" of the new law.

After thousands of Palestinian citizens of Israel led a mass protest on Saturday in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv against the controversial Nation-State Law, which opponents argue will turn non-Jews in the country into second-class citizens, Prime Minister Netanyahu noted the need to defend Israeli identity.

"Last night we received cogent testimony of the opposition to the existence of the State of Israel and the urgency of the Nation-State Law," Netanyahu told his ministers on Sunday, referring to the massive Palestinian rally. "Many of the demonstrators want to abrogate the Law of Return, cancel the national anthem, fold up our flag and cancel Israel as the national state of the Jewish people and turn it -as their spokespersons said- into an Israeli-Palestinian state, and others say: A state of all its citizens," the PM told his ministers on Sunday.

In October 2017 United States African Command confirmed that three Green Berets had been killed and two more had been wounded when their patrol was ambushed in Niger. Reaction to this news from the non-Corbett Report audience was: "What? There's a United States African Command?" followed swiftly by "What are Green Berets doing conducting patrols in Niger, anyway?"

First things first: As my long-time viewers will be aware, there is indeed a United States African Command (AFRICOM). It was established in 2007 and has been the spearhead of Uncle Sam's attempts to gain a military foothold on the African continent. My viewers will likewise be aware that the whole Kony 2012 psyop was similarly used as a cynical ploy to increase American military intervention in Africa.

But the extent of US Special Forces penetration in Africa (also reported on in these pages in recent years) is a reality that is still only gradually being revealed to the public. A recent congressional review of the incident in Niger has again cast a spotlight on the use of Special Forces around the world, with the Pentagon now floating the possibility that they will cut back on commandos in Africa to concentrate on the "real" enemies: Russia and China.

Russian chemical disarmament has been confirmed by the OPCW, while the US asked to postpone the process till early 2020s, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said commenting on the new round of American sanctions over the Skripal case.

"Three years ago, based on the results of all conceivable inspections we we've received confirmation, within the OPCW (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) framework, that the process of chemical disarmament by Russia has been completed," Lavrov told journalists in the Kazakh city of Aktau on Sunday.

"We didn't close our facilities to the inspectors. They visited everything they wanted to visit and came to the conclusion, which I just mentioned," he added.

The US dollar is not a reliable tool for payments in international trade, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told Russian media. Payments in national currencies might be used instead, he said.

In an interview to Rossiya 1 TV, the finance minister expressed doubt that the internationally recognized currency is reliable. Siluanov also said he does not "rule out" the possibility of switching to national currencies in oil trade.

"We have significantly reduced our investment in US assets. In fact, the dollar, which is considered to be the international currency, becomes a risky tool for payments," he said in part of the interview aired on Sunday.