European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker has said it's time for the EU to reconnect with Russia and stop "bashing" it, in surprising contrast to those in the West who have been piling blame and sanctions on Moscow.

Juncker spoke to an audience at a Brussels think tank event on EU reform. Though his statement had a few catches, the overall message was conciliatory.

"So we have to come back to, I wouldn't say normal relations with Russia, but there are so many areas, so many domains, where we can cooperate in a better way with research and innovation and others. Not forgetting what our differences and divergences are. But this Russia-bashing has to be brought to an end," he said.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller's ongoing investigation into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia has cost the US taxpayer a whopping $17 million to date and returned no evidence of collusion.

The investigation spent approximately $10 million between October 2017 and March this year, according to a Department of Justice report released Thursday. The department had previously spent $6.7 million between May 2017 and September 2017.

Of the latest $10 million reported, Mueller's office spent $2.7 million on salaries and benefits, just over $500,000 on travel expenses, and just under $30,000 on office supplies.

Hungary is a sovereign nation and will not allow the EU or George Soros to dictate who is allowed to come to the country, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told RT's Sophie Shevardnadze.

Speaking on RT's SophieCo program, Szijjarto said that billionaire philanthropist George Soros "and his network" are "totally against" the idea that "it is only us Hungarians who can make a decision whom we allow to come to Hungary." The Hungarian foreign minister said that Soros "wants to get rid of the phenomenon of nation-states."

Szijjarto told the program's host that Hungary is committed to building a "Christian democracy"and that it is Budapest's belief that "only strong member states can form a strong European Union."

Watch the full interview:

US neighbors Canada and Mexico have pledged to retaliate against new tariffs imposed by the White House on steel and aluminum. Officials from both countries accuse the US of protectionism.

Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said Ottawa would take reprisals against the measure by imposing its own tariffs on US exports of steel, aluminum and other products.

According to the FM, the Canadian authorities are planning to slap dollar-for-dollar tariffs on the US with import taxes on steel, aluminum and such goods as whiskey, orange juice and other food products expected to be imposed.

Freeland added that the measures will cover some $13 billion in imports with the goods targeted being subject to tariffs of between 10 and 25 percent.

Julian Assange's right to asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London will only be honored if the WikiLeaks founder "respects the conditions" of political silence, President Lenin Moreno announced.

Ever since Lenin Moreno became the president of Ecuador last year, the liberties enjoyed by Julian Assange have been reduced due to the whistleblower's controversial "political activity." Over the last few months, Assange has seen bans on using the phone, the internet, and having visitors, after the 46-year-old spoke out against Britain's response to the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury, and following his repeated comments about Spain's dispute with Catalonia.

The Australian journalist, who has been holed up in the embassy since 2012, "continues being a problem," Moreno told DW Spanish. "But Ecuador will respect his right to asylum if Assange respects the margins."

Five votes from the minor Basque Nationalist Party are expected to swing a tightly-balanced no-confidence motion against Spain's center-right prime minister Mariano Rajoy, whose party has been caught up in a kickback scandal.

"Resign, Mr Rajoy. Your time is up," Pedro Sanchez, the leader of the opposition socialists PSOE, which initiated the motion, told Spain's parliament during a specially-scheduled debate on Thursday morning, before calling for "democratic renewal".

As Rajoy's People's Party (PP) holds only 134 out of 350 seats in the Congress of Deputies, the lower chamber of the Spanish parliament, the prime minister needs the support of others to survive Friday's vote, which requires a simple majority.

With the socialists, Catalan parties and upstart leftists Podemos on one side, and liberal Ciudadanos abstaining, the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) is left as the kingmaker with its handful of representatives.

In part because my father was murdered by an Arab, I've made an effort to understand the impact of U.S. policy in the Mideast and particularly the factors that sometimes motivate bloodthirsty responses from the Islamic world against our country. As we focus on the rise of the Islamic State and search for the source of the savagery that took so many innocent lives in Paris and San Bernardino, we might want to look beyond the convenient explanations of religion and ideology. Instead we should examine the more complex rationales of history and oil - and how they often point the finger of blame back at our own shores.

America's unsavory record of violent interventions in Syria - little-known to the American people yet well-known to Syrians - sowed fertile ground for the violent Islamic jihadism that now complicates any effective response by our government to address the challenge of ISIL. So long as the American public and policymakers are unaware of this past, further interventions are likely only to compound the crisis. Secretary of State John Kerry this week announced a "provisional" ceasefire in Syria. But since U.S. leverage and prestige within Syria is minimal - and the ceasefire doesn't include key combatants such as Islamic State and al Nusra - it's bound to be a shaky truce at best. Similarly President Obama's stepped-up military intervention in Libya - U.S. airstrikes targeted an Islamic State training camp last week - is likely to strengthen rather than weaken the radicals. As the New York Times reported in a December 8, 2015, front-page story, Islamic State political leaders and strategic planners are working to provoke an American military intervention. They know from experience this will flood their ranks with volunteer fighters, drown the voices of moderation and unify the Islamic world against America.

To understand this dynamic, we need to look at history from the Syrians' perspective and particularly the seeds of the current conflict. Long before our 2003 occupation of Iraq triggered the Sunni uprising that has now morphed into the Islamic State, the CIA had nurtured violent jihadism as a Cold War weapon and freighted U.S./Syrian relationships with toxic baggage.

Kim Jong-un has reaffirmed his commitment to a complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula during talks with Russian FM Sergey Lavrov, who passed the North Korean leader a personal letter from President Vladimir Putin.

"We will continue to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula in a new era, in a new way, in a new way to find solutions to their respective problems, step by step," Kim Jong-un was quoted as saying by KCNA following Thursday talks. The North Korean leader added that he hopes to "solve problems with efficient and constructive dialogue and negotiation."

Pyongyang's commitment to denuclearization of the peninsula remains "unchanged, consistent and fixed," Kim underscored.

Israel is to launch an urgent investigation in to a decision by China not to allow its citizens to work in Jerusalem and illegal Israeli settlements because they are occupied.

Chinese labourers have taken over construction jobs traditionally taken by Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and besieged Gaza Strip. Israel has blockaded Gaza and bans Palestinians there from leaving and limited work permits issued to Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

Government forces, particularly elite units of the Syrian Army, have been redeploying from Damascus and other parts of Syria to the southern front, where a major anti-terrorist offensive is expected to get underway in the coming days or weeks.

Another convoy of government soldiers and military assets arrived in southern Syria, Al Masdar News reported on Thursday.

"Scores" of troops, in addition to numerous technicals (pick-up trucks armed with anti-aircraft guns), arrived in the Daraa province, ahead of the Syrian Army's looming largescale offensive in the province.