The decision made by the Council of the European Union to sanction another five Crimean officials over the organization of Russian presidential election in Crimea takes effect on May 14, the Council said in a statement.

"The Council added five persons to the list of those subject to restrictive measures over actions undermining or threatening the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine. They are listed because of their involvement in the organization of the Russian presidential elections of March 18, 2018, in the illegally annexed Crimea and Sevastopol, thereby actively supporting and implementing policies that undermine the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine," the statement reads.

Earlier this week President Trump withdrew from the sham Iranian nuclear deal. President Trump knew the deal with the Iranian mullahs was not working.

This was despite former Secretary of State John Kerry working against the Trump administration to salvage the weak deal with the Iranian regime.

On Saturday John Kerry was spotted at a meeting with Iranian officials in Paris, France.

"Whether the mask is labeled fascism, democracy, or dictatorship of the proletariat, our great adversary remains the apparatus-the bureaucracy, the police, the military. Not the one facing us across the frontier of the battle lines, which is not so much our enemy as our brothers' enemy, but the one that calls itself our protector and makes us its slaves. No matter what the circumstances, the worst betrayal will always be to subordinate ourselves to this apparatus and to trample underfoot, in its service, all human values in ourselves and in others."-Simone Weil, French philosopher and political activist

We labor today under the weight of countless tyrannies, large and small, carried out in the name of the national good by an elite class of government officials who are largely insulated from the ill effects of their actions.

We, the middling classes, are not so fortunate.

We find ourselves badgered, bullied and browbeaten into bearing the brunt of their arrogance, paying the price for their greed, suffering the backlash for their militarism, agonizing as a result of their inaction, feigning ignorance about their backroom dealings, overlooking their incompetence, turning a blind eye to their misdeeds, cowering from their heavy-handed tactics, and blindly hoping for change that never comes.

The overt signs of the despotism exercised by the increasingly authoritarian regime that passes itself off as the United States government are all around us: warrantless surveillance of Americans' private phone and email conversations by the NSA; SWAT team raids of Americans' homes; shootings of unarmed citizens by police; harsh punishments meted out to schoolchildren in the name of zero tolerance; drones taking to the skies domestically; endless wars; out-of-control spending; militarized police; roadside strip searches; roving TSA sweeps; privatized prisons with a profit incentive for jailing Americans; fusion centers that collect and disseminate data on Americans' private transactions; and militarized agencies with stockpiles of ammunition, to name some of the most appalling.

Yet as egregious as these incursions on our rights may be, it's the endless, petty tyrannies inflicted on an overtaxed, overregulated, and underrepresented populace that occasionally nudge a weary public out of their numb indifference and into a state of outrage.

Consider, for example, that federal and state governments now require on penalty of a fine that individuals apply for permission before they can grow exotic orchids, host elaborate dinner parties, gather friends in one's home for Bible studies, give coffee to the homeless, let their kids manage a lemonade stand, keep chickens as pets, or braid someone's hair, as ludicrous as that may seem.

Andrew Parker's visit to Berlin on Monday is being held up as historic, the first public speech outside Britain by a serving head of MI5. However, rather than a spy, Germany got a politician with a Brexit begging letter.

The basic message was that Russia and Muslim terrorists are coming to get you, and you need Britain to help, so please don't hold Brexit against us. The structure of the speech from Parker to other intelligence agencies was classic political theory. Introduce an enemy (Russians and Islamic terrorists), create fear (the Reds are in your Twitter feed), offer a solution (just be our friend after Brexit).

Some of the initial lessons we learned: Being the head of MI5 does not rely on charisma. Being Britain's chief domestic spy is very much a political position. Spies and politicians are being given the same talking points.

An MP comments on threats by US administration representatives to impose sanctions against European companies for cooperation with Iran

Threats by US administration representatives to impose sanctions against European companies for cooperation with Iran are nothing more than flagrant and unabashed blackmail, Chairman of the State Duma Committee for Foreign Affairs Leonid Slutsky said on Monday.

Earlier, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused European countries of rejecting the US demand to revise the Iran nuclear deal. He said the United Kingdom, Germany and France had 90 more days to reach an agreement on Iran's nuclear program. Trump's new national security adviser John Bolton did not rule out that sanctions might be slapped on EU firms for cooperating with Tehran.

White House national security adviser John Bolton says "regime change" in Iran is not currently part of the administration's policy, despite his past suggestions that the United States should push for a new government in Tehran.

"That's not the policy of the administration. The policy of the administration is to make sure that Iran never gets close to deliverable nuclear weapons," Bolton told ABC television's This Week program on May 13.

On CNN's State of the Union program, Bolton played down his previous remarks, made before he joined the administration.

"I've written and said a lot of things over the years when I was a complete free agent," Bolton told CNN.

Bolton was tapped by President Donald Trump in March to replace H.R. McMaster and is considered a hard-liner on many international matters, including Iran.

He emphasized on CNN that his job now was to advise Trump and that the president would make the policy decisions.

"The circumstances I'm in now is that I'm the national security adviser to the president. I'm not the national security decision-maker. He [Trump] makes the decisions, and the advice I give him is between us," Bolton said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif to discuss the Iranian nuclear deal after Washington's withdrawal from the multilateral agreement.

Lavrov said at a meeting with the Iranian foreign minister that it is necessary to prevent any new threats to the nuclear non-proliferation regime.

Russia and a number of other countries have legitimate interests in the Iranian nuclear deal and they must be jointly defended, Lavrov said.

"We have planned contacts with all parties to this deal, except for the United States which announced the withdrawal from the agreement, in the coming days," Lavrov said.

If a chemical weapons "attack" comes to pass in the place it has been predicted, it would be the first such provocation blamed on Assad to take place in territory occupied by a foreign power, likely triggering an intensified military response from the U.S.

Though last month's unilateral bombing of Syria by the U.S., U.K. and France came and went, the threat of foreign military intervention targeting the Syrian government remains, particularly given Syria's success in defeating the foreign-funded terrorist proxies that have prolonged the Syrian conflict for seven long years. While Israel seems to have taken it upon itself to militarily intervene in Syria to prevent the Syrian government from continuing to reclaim its lost territory, the other major powers that have long sought the end of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have seemed to step back from intervening in Syria, unless another chemical weapons attack were to take place and be blamed on Assad.

For that reason, a recent article, published in early May by Russian news agency RIA Novosti, should raise concern, as it exposes alleged plans for another gas-attack provocation in Syria. According to the report, preparations for a staged chemical weapons attack began late last month as civilians were relocated to a territory near Jafra oil field in Eastern Syria, where they will participate in a staged filming of a chemical-weapons attack scene. According to South Front, a U.S. military garrison was recently established in this area. The report, based on the testimony of an anonymous member of the Syrian security services, claimed that an attack was being planned by U.S. security services and would employ "prohibited substances" against a group of civilians.

The Russian Commission for State Sovereignty Protection has found that Western nations already sought to oust Vladimir Putin from power in 2011, long before the beginning of the ongoing political crisis.

"People in Washington and other capitals understood very well that in accordance with the Russian Constitution and tradition, the main battle for control over Russia always takes place in the period when the leader of our state is being elected. Moreover, starting at least from 2011, they have put before themselves the concrete task of preventing Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin himself from assuming the presidential post," the head of the commission, Senator Andrey Klimov, was quoted as saying by TASS at a recent session of the State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee.

"This means that attempts to influence the will of the majority of Russian citizens to keep Vladimir Putin the head of the state were made well before the international political crisis of 2014, Donald Trump's election as president of the United States, and making Russia an official enemy of the collective West in a US federal law."

Iraqi warplanes carried out an airstrike on an Islamic State (IS) command center inside Syria, the Joint Operations Command was quoted as saying Monday.

"Acting on intelligence reports, the Iraqi F-16 warplanes destroyed a building used by the IS group as a command and logistics support center in southern al-Deshisha area in Syria," the command said in a statement.

The air raid was launched upon directives by Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, the statement read. No further details were given, but the center said more information about the result of the airstrike will be released later.