US President Donald Trump's new strategy on Afghanistan stipulates an increase in the US's military presence in the country so as to force the Taliban, a terrorist group controlling a large part of the country, to negotiate a political settlement.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova blamed the unstable situation in the Middle East and North Africa as well as the increase in international terrorism on "the NATO member states' military gambles."

In response to Washington's earlier claims that Russia was collaborating with the Taliban*, Zakharova noted that it was the Pentagon's way of hidings its own "sponsorship of the Taliban" in Afghanistan, adding that there is evidence of the US supporting the terrorist group.

Donald Trump has touched upon his much-anticipated meeting with Vladimir Putin, saying the Russian president is not an enemy but a competitor who may turn into a friend in due time.

"I hope we'll get along well, I think we get along well," US President Donald Trump told a news conference on Thursday on the sidelines of NATO summit in Brussels. "But, ultimately, he's a competitor, he's representing Russia and I'm representing the United States."

The US president also said that he doesn't believe that Putin's policies are a threat to the US or Europe. "Hey, I don't want him to be [a threat], and I guess, that's why we have NATO, and that's why we have the United States with the largest military budget ever - $700 billion approved next year."

They coordinated steps against ISIS forces shifting with US connivance from Syria to Afghanistan, an apparent response to US efforts

Top security and intelligence officials from Pakistan, Iran, Russia, and China held a meeting in Islamabad, where they stressed the need for more active involvement of regional forces in efforts to resolve the conflict in Afghanistan.This is reported by TASS.

On Tuesday, a meeting of leaders of the intelligence services of Russia, Iran, China and Pakistan was held in Islamabad, at which measures were discussed to combat the threat of the reunification of ISIS fighters in Afghanistan.

Media darling and Democrat Senator Kamala Harris tweeted on Monday about the power of the Supreme Court.

Harris said she was a student in only the second class to integrate at Berkeley public schools.

Kamala Harris: Two decades after Brown v. Board, I was only the second class to integrate at Berkeley public schools. Without that decision, I likely would not have become a lawyer and eventually be elected a Senator from California. That's the power a Supreme Court Justice holds.

There's just one problem - Everything about that tweet is a lie.

On Saturday, June 30, in the British City Amesbury (12 km from Salisbury) there was an incident which initially seemed to be common and insignificant: with a difference of several hours, Salisbury District Hospital admitted a man and a woman: 45-year-old Charlie Rowley and 44-year-old Dawn Sturges. Initial conclusions of doctors indicated that the couple was poisoned by a narcotic substance (heroine or crack cocaine).

However, on July 4, Assistant Commissioner of Specialist Operations Neil Basu announced that Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturges were exposed to the poison agent of the class "Novichok" (the nerve agent Novichok). According to him, this is evidenced by tests, conducted in the laboratory of Porton Down, located nearby. The statement of Neil Basu provoked a series of publications in British and world media, which somehow linked the incident in Amesbury with the case of Skripals and mentioned the possible involvement of Russia. On July 5 British authorities notified the Organization of Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) of this incident.

To date, it is unclear if Novichok was actually used in Amesbury, as well as who was responsible for the incident. Representatives of British authorities did not hasten to openly accuse Russia of a targeted attack on British citizens, but later the Minister of Internal Affairs Sajid Javid, came out with a harsh statement once again accusing Russia of attacking Sergei and Yulia Skripal, while saying that Russia already launched a campaign misinforming the public about the incident in Amesbury.

It is worth noting here that there are many contradictions in the statements of representatives of the British authorities. The Security Minister, Ben Wallace and the south west deputy director of Public Health of England, Debbie Stark claimed a low level of danger to the residents of Amesbury and its surrounding areas. At the same time, the representative of Public Health England recommended that everyone who was out in the streets of Amesbury on Friday June 29 to wash their clothes and personal belongings.

"One who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived," Niccolo Machiavelli wrote.

The famed Renaissance-era philosopher's sage words describe to a tee the allegation that Syrian forces attacked the city of Douma, 10km northeast of Damascus, with nerve gas on April 7, 2018.

Even more seriously, not to mention condemnatory, is the way this lie - fashioned by Salafi-jihadist extremists, who at the time were struggling to hang on in a part of the country they'd been occupying for the best part of seven years in the face of a determined campaign by the Syrian Arab Army with Russian support to liberate it - was allowed to take the West on a collision course with Russia, when the Trump administration, supported by France's Emmanuel Macron and Britain's Theresa May, decided to launch a missile strike against Syria on the back of it.

Not since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 has the world come so close to WWIII as it did then. And it was only down to astute leadership in Moscow, the willingness of the Russian government to accept a temporary loss of face in refusing to respond to what was an act of naked aggression by Washington and its allies, that disaster was averted.

The findings of the OPCW's interim report, produced on the back of its on-site investigation into allegations that a nerve gas attack took place in Douma on April 7, make grim reading for the army of morally bereft Western ideologues and their apologists who've made a career out of defending the indefensible. Or at least, that is, they should make grim reading.

French President Emmanuel Macron has denied that NATO states agreed to increase defense spending beyond previous targets, pushing back on Donald Trump's claim, earlier on Thursday, that the alliance agreed to increase spending.

Macron denied that a new spending agreement had been reached, pointing instead to the 2 percent benchmark set in 2014.

"Everyone agreed to raise spending as they agreed in 2014, and everyone agreed to respect the commitments they made. We reaffirmed a credible budget strategy that meets our needs," the French president said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a similar statement, while leaving the door open to the possibility of a new spending target down the road.

"We'll have to talk about to what extent we can do more on defense. We presented the current situation. But considering the discussion among the European allies, not only the Americans, I think we need to ask ourselves consistently what more we can do," she said.

Earlier, Trump had said that the allies had agreed to dramatically increase spending.

America is a nation obsessed with political approval ratings like no other. But the U.S. media seems ignorant to the fact that President Trump is currently one of the most popular leaders of a major Western nation in the world today.

Guffaw if you like, but those who are both regarded and regard themselves as "better" leaders have lower numbers than the American president - and while his are trending up, some of theirs are in free fall.

When Barack Obama left the world stage, having commanded a mid-40s average approval rating over the course of his presidency, the New York Times declared German Chancellor Angela Merkel to be the liberal West's "last defender."

Less than two years later, after an election upset and an ensuing struggle to form a government, Merkel is horribly bruised and close to being ousted by her coalition partners in Germany. Both for having encouraged mass inward migration to her country, and failing to come up with a solution once the Germans figured out it wasn't working for them.

On Tuesday night Trump-hating FBI lawyer Lisa Page and her legal counsel announced she will not appear before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday despite a Congressional subpoena.

The House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed Lisa Page to appear in a closed-door interview Wednesday.

But just like every other Deep State operative, Lisa Page believes she's above the law.

'We are the schmucks' thundered President Donald Trump. The object of Trump's wrath at his 'Make America Great Again' rally in Great Falls, Montana was the craven, stingy European members of NATO, only 16 of 22 members are on budget for their US-commanded military spending. Trump wants them to spend much more.

Trump and his fellow neocons want NATO to serve as a sort of US foreign legion in Third World wars in Africa and Asia. NATO was formed as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to defend western Europe, not to fight in Afghanistan and who knows where else?

Equally bad, according to Trump, is that the US runs a whopping trade deficit with the European Union which is busy shipping high-end cars and fine wines to the US. The wicked foreigners don't buy enough American bourbon, corn and terribly abused pigs.

Trump is quite right that America's NATO allies, particularly Germany and Canada, don't spend enough on defense. Germany is reported to have less than twenty operational tanks. Canada's armed forces appear to be smaller than the New York City police department.