The US military has held preliminary talks with Germany to place its THAAD missile defense system in the country in order to boost European security, sources have told Reuters.

The deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) to Ramstein Air Base, which hosts the US Air Force in Europe headquarters and NATO's Allied Air Command, has been discussed, an unnamed US military official told the agency. "It would be a further political message to the Europeans that we're serious about protecting our allies," the official said.

Berlin was open to the move, which, it said, will help better protect civilian populations, another source added.

Reuters also cited a senior German military official, who underlined the need for more radars across the European continent, to better track and monitor potential threats.

Australia's consumer watchdog has announced that financial institutions ANZ, Deutsche Bank and Citigroup as well as several individuals will be prosecuted for an alleged criminal cartel arrangement.

The allegations concern arrangements for the sale of 2.5 billion of Australian dollars ($1.9 billion) worth of ANZ shares three years ago.

"The charges will involve alleged cartel arrangements relating to trading in ANZ shares following an ANZ institutional share placement in August 2015," chairman Rod Sims said in a statement.

He added: "It will be alleged that ANZ and the individuals were knowingly concerned in some or all of the conduct." ANZ, one of Australia's so-called "big four" banks, said the charges related to a placement of 80.8 million shares. The shares were offered to the institutional investors at a discounted rate of $30.95 per share.

This week marks the 30-year anniversary of the INF treaty between the US and the Soviet Union, a deal that saw thousands of missiles destroyed and sped up the end of the Cold War. Now the US seems to want to torpedo the agreement.

The INF (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces) treaty was signed in December 1987. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev came to Washington to put his signature next to that of US President Ronald Reagan, resulting in an unprecedented scaling down of the two superpowers' arsenals.

The treaty covers missiles of two range classes: short (500 to 1,000km, or 310 to 620 miles) and intermediate (1,000 to 5,000km, or 620 to 3,420 miles), with both nuclear and conventional payloads, but only those with land-based launchers. Further production and use by the two nations of other state missile types has since been banned.

The North Korea nuclear summit is back on.

President Donald Trump announced the decision after a historic and lengthy Oval Office meeting Friday with Kim Yong Chol, who is the top deputy to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

"We'll be meeting on June 12th in Singapore," Trump told reporters at the White House. But he also said that it would be hard to reach a deal from a single summit in less than two weeks.

"I don't see that happening," he said. "I told him I think you could have probably [other meetings]."

The media wants you to believe that the Philippines is headed towards war with China. The truth may in fact be the opposite.

If you followed international headlines this week, you may have been alarmed to see the shocking revelation that, despite wanting a closer relationship with China, Philippines' President Rodrigo Duterte was now ready to risk war with Beijing to 'protect the territorial integrity of his country'.

"Philippines' Duterte threatens war in South China sea if troops are harmed," Newsweek warns. "Philippines draw three hard lines on China," Asia Times outlines. "Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte will go to war with China if it crosses 'red lines' and claims disputed resources, foreign ministry warns," the South China Morning Post (SCMP) explains. "Duterte will 'go to war' over South China Sea resources, minister says," according to CNN.

Those are indeed some shocking headlines as the last thing anyone in their right mind wants is a regional conflict, not least one that involves a rising nuclear power with the capabilities that China has.

So what did President Duterte actually say, and how close to a regional standoff are we at this current juncture?

Lithuania and Romania, which hosted secret CIA prisons for terrorist suspects, are responsible for knowingly allowing the torture of prisoners, a European court ruled. It comes after the appointment of Gina Haspel as CIA head.

The two European nations, which hosted clandestine CIA detention facilities after 9/11, have breached basic tenets of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights by allowing torture of prisoners to happen on their territory, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg ruled on Thursday.

The ECHR ruling refers to the cases of Saudi-born Abu Zabaydah and Saudi Abd Al Rahim Husseyn Muhammad Al Nashiri, both of whom are currently held at the US Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.

Zabaydah, a suspected senior Al-Qaeda member, was held for two months in Lithuania in 2005. Al Nashiri, who is suspected of organizing the attack on the USS Cole, was held in Romania between 2004 and 2005. The case was brought before the court by lawyers, who lodged complaints against the European nations in 2011 and 2012.

America is telling Europe and Asia: "You have to go your own way, you can't depend upon us" because the US is going to do everything to hurt you in order to help itself, according to economic commentator Michael Hudson.

After months of postponing its implementation while simultaneously threatening a trade war, President Donald Trump has slapped tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. The EU, as well as Canada and Mexico, has vowed to retaliate.

Domestic reaction in the US has also been negative with both Democrats and Republicans criticizing the move. Wall Street analyst and economic commentator Michael Hudson believes the US could actually suffer more than Europe from the tariffs.

RT: The EU has vowed to retaliate. What steps do you expect them to take?

Michael Hudson: The irony of all of this is that there is a good logic for protectionism. And the object to protectionism is to import the raw materials as cheap as you can and make all your profit in manufactures in high value added. What Trump has done by putting the tariffs on aluminum and steel is to raise the price of aluminum and steel to Americans. They've already jumped about 25 percent since he announced the tariffs a few weeks ago. And all of a sudden this oversupply is going to be sold to Europeans and Asians. So, their manufacturers can buy aluminum and steel more cheaply to make manufactured goods at much lower costs than American manufacturers can.

So, Trump has given Europe and Asia an opportunity to undersell American manufacturers of tinware, of anything industrial: beer kegs, people have talked about, frying pans, cars, anything made out of aluminum and steel. Now, the foreigners outside of America will have an advantage over the American producers. Trump has shot the American economy in the foot. That seems to be his guiding principle.

Back in 2011, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu instructed the military to get ready to strike Iran with only a two-week preparation period, former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo revealed. Such [a] strike would have resulted in open war.

It's the first time a former Israeli official gave an insight on how long such large-scale military operations would (and should) take IDF to prepare.

Pardo, who was picked for his role earlier that year, was unsure about the idea even wondered if the Prime Minister had the authority to order the action, the former spy chief said in an interview with Keshet TV's Uvda investigative show, broadcast on Thursday evening. The strikes were intended to target Iran's nuclear facilities, but such action would likely have resulted in a full-blown war.

"I made inquiries about everything I could do. I checked with previous Mossad chiefs. I checked with legal advisers. I consulted anyone I could consult in order to understand who is authorized to give instructions about the whole issue of starting a war," Pardo said, as quoted by Israeli media.

"In the end, if I get an order and if I get an instruction from the prime minister, I am supposed to carry it out," he said. "I need to be certain if, God forbid, something goes wrong, even if the operation fails, that it shouldn't be a situation that I carried out an illegal action."

Pardo even contemplated to resign if the situation got too close to the point of no return, but never had to make such choice, as the idea to strike Iranian nuclear facilities was scrapped.

American stock markets reacted negatively after the United States imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Canada, Mexico and the European Union.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped over one percent, S&P500 dropped 0.54 percent, while the Nasdaq was 0.16 percent in the red.

The sell-off was triggered by the announcement from US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who said a 25 percent tariff on steel imports and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum imports from its long-time allies would go into effect at midnight.

Shares of American steel companies Steel Dynamics, AK Steel and US Steel gained between 3.4 percent and 7.4 percent and aluminum producer Alcoa surged 3.4 percent. Boeing and Caterpillar were losing 1.1 and 1.2 percent, respectively.

Fears of a trade war between the US and its allies are buoyed by the fact that US President Donald Trump is also seeking to levy German car makers; the tariffs would be similar to those on steel and aluminum.

"This is another negotiation tactic on the US side because there are other negotiations going on. The US wants to use tariffs as a bargaining tool for other negotiations. I think, it's very important to have a long term view and not to over trade in this kind of environment," said Zhiwei Ren, managing director and portfolio manager, Penn Mutual Asset Management, as quoted by Reuters.

Some member countries of the World Trade Organization (WTO) want to create an appeal mechanism that would prevent the US vetoing decisions it dislikes, according to Russian Economy Minister Maksim Oreshkin.

By September four seats will be vacant at the Appellate Body, the WTO appeals chamber, leaving three judges out of the necessary seven. Washington has blocked appointments to the chamber, thus engineering a crisis in the system of settling global disputes.

According to Oreshkin, without the appointments, the WTO appeals body would stop working next year. On Thursday, Oreshkin met with trade ministers from WTO member countries, and they discussed a mechanism that would allow the appeals chamber to work without getting a green light from the US.

"What we have discussed, have suggested is to create a mechanism without taking into account the US stance, which would allow us to settle cases which are reviewed at this appeal commission. We would work on this," the minister told reporters.

Since 1995, the WTO has expanded to cover around 95 percent of world trade, which has more than tripled to around $18 trillion per year in goods alone. US President Trump has taken a sharp stance on the WTO saying it's a "catastrophe". "We lose the cases, we don't have the judges," he said in February.