Michael Isikoff and David Corn lie so many times in their new book, so that the motive would be puzzling, except that it's really not, because they lie in accord with the U.S. Government's own demonstrable lies, which happen also to be basic to today's CIA - so, Isikoff-Corn's propagandistic agenda, at least, is clear and consistent - they lie for a clearly identifiable propagandistic purpose, the U.S. Government's purpose, as will be documented here.

Their book is titled RUSSIAN ROULETTE: The Inside Story of Putin's War on America and the Election of Donald Trump. It was published on March 13th, and already (as of this writing) has 541 customer reviews at Amazon, with the average customer-review rating being 4.8 out of 5 stars - almost as favorable as can possibly be. This book will be reviewed here. There is lots of precedent for the CIA controlling the press in America, starting with the establishment of the CIA's operation Mockingbird in 1948, which continues to this day. One illustrative example (Udo Ulfkotte) of the CIA's control over the media will be briefly cited, before getting to the main topic, the Isikoff-Corn book.

Udo Ulfkotte was a prominent German journalist who reported, and finally became an editor, for the Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung, during the 17 years from 1986 through 2003, and who then seems to have become increasingly alienated from the journalistic profession, and consumed by moral pangs about his having been secretly a German propaganda-agent of the U.S. CIA, as he subsequently reported in his confessional book, which is banned in the U.S., and which was titled Journalists for Hire: How the CIA Buys the News. (Russian TV interviewed him about it in English.) The Isikoff-Corn book might as well have been written for the CIA, like Ulfkotte used to do, but at least Isikoff-Corn have done it (if they did - there could be other reasons why they lie consistently in accord with the U.S. Government's lies) for their own nation's 'intelligence' service, and they seem (unlike Ulfkotte) to be quite shameless in the lies that they indubitably tell.

The Council of Europe's Committee on Organ Transplantation has rejected a US-backed organ-swapping plan as "human organ trafficking" over concerns that donors will be abused.

According to the committee, organ-swapping, as proposed by the Global Kidney Exchange (GKE), goes against the fundamental rule of organ donation - that "the human body and its parts shall not give rise to financial gain or comparable advantage."

Endorsed by a Nobel laureate for Economics, Alvin Roth, the GKE is designed to make it easier for citizens of "high income countries" find a match for a kidney transplant. So far, the list of high income countries has come down to only one - the US.

In standard organ transplants, there are two people involved: a donor and a recipient. Normally they come from equal economic backgrounds (in the EU). However, in order to make the GKE work, they decided to involve pairs from third world countries. Unable to afford the costly procedure at home, donors and recipients from developing countries are defined as "financially incompatible."

What we (do not) talk about when we talk about 'terrorism '

"With Sharon's backing, terrible things were done. I am no vegetarian, and I supported and even participated in some of the assassination operations Israel carried out. But we are speaking here about mass killing for killing's sake, to sow chaos and alarm, among civilians, too. Since when do we send donkeys carrying bombs to blow up in marketplaces?"

~ Mossad officer, quoted in Ronen Bergman's Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations

On August 29, 1982, Ariel Sharon took to the opinion pages of the New York Times to argue that Israel's "most immediate achievement" following its invasion of Lebanon had been the "crushing defeat" of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). As a result, the Israeli Defense Minister explained, Katyusha rockets had stopped raining down on Israeli villages "from terrorist sanctuaries in Lebanon." The "kingdom of terror" established by Yasser Arafat's organization on Lebanese soil was "no more," and Israeli troops had been "greeted as liberators for driving out the terrorists who had raped and pillaged and plundered." This had been the case, Sharon insisted, "despite the casualties that were the inevitable result of fighting against PLO terrorists who used civilians as human shields and who deliberately placed their weapons and ammunition in the midst of apartment houses, schools, refugee camps and hospitals."

The Russian Federal Security Service has reported the detention of five Daesh members in the city of Yaroslavl on May 3-4. As the law enforcement agency specified, they were plotting terrorist acts in several Russian cities.

"The Russian Federal Security Service detained five members of the Daesh terrorist cell, who had been plotting terrorist acts on the territory of a number of Russian regions," the FSB's public relations center said.

The FSB went on to say that the communications between terrorists were maintained via the Telegram messenger, including from abroad.

The European Union has moved to protect the interests of its companies that do business in Iran, following the United States decision to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal.

President Donald Trump's announcement that the US was withdrawing from the landmark pact unleashed a wave of criticism from the international community. Now the EU has threatened to take the US to the World Trade Organization (WTO) if it takes any steps that will negatively impact European business in the Middle Eastern country.

A spokesman for the French government said EU partners will confer to discuss the economic fallout from the US decision.

"The European Union is ready to challenge at the WTO any unilateral measure that would hurt the interests of European companies and respond in a proportionate manner, in accordance of course with the rules of that international organisation," Benjamin Griveaux said.

The West-Russia relations have reached a new low since the Cold War amid the spy poisoning scandal in the UK, allegations of Russian meddling in elections, and fresh U.S. sanctions on Russia.

Yet European countries continue to buy increased amounts of Russian gas, and Russia's state-held gas giant Gazprom is boosting production and exports, and is obtaining approvals in individual countries for its Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline that has divided the EU over fears of a tightening Russian grip on gas supplies.

In recent months and weeks, Gazprom has taken advantage of high demand in Europe and of decreased gas supplies to Europe from Russia's competitors, Maxim Rubchenko writes for Russian news agency RIA Novosti.

When Putin first became president in 2000, he inherited a basket case. Since then, he has restored much of Russia's former greatness. Now he faces his toughest challenge: ensuring those gains are consolidated after his departure.

Since his first presidential election victory, there have been three Putin epochs. And to partially borrow from Donald Trump's successful US election pitch, they have been: 'make Russia stable again' (2000-03), 'make Russia rich' (2004-07), and 'make Russia respected again' (2012-17).

Now, in his presumed final term, Putin has to achieve something which eluded long-serving Kremlin bosses in the 20th century. And that is to manage a successful transition. Because, in the Soviet era, Josef Stalin (28 years in power) and Leonid Brezhnev (18 years) both failed to plan for the future. With the former leaving behind a vicious power struggle and the latter's mismanagement creating the conditions for the complete collapse of the state, less than a decade after his own demise.

Of course, the USSR was a multi-national superpower (incidentally, Stalin was Georgian and Brezhnev Ukrainian) but running the slimmed-down Russian Federation is no cakewalk either. The system remains unwieldy, with many outdated practices stunting growth and an overgrown bureaucracy which stifles innovation. Not to mention a culture of dependency and a legal system crying out for an overhaul, with very few court acquittals and often poor implementation of property rights.

Moscow is "deeply disappointed" by Washington's decision to pull out from the Iranian nuclear deal, the Russian Foreign Ministry said. The step taken by the US is a "flagrant violation" of the international law, it added.

"The US once again acts contrary to the position of most countries while pursuing solely its own narrow selfish and momentary interests," the Russian ministry said in a statement, following the announcement by Donald Trump that the US is pulling out the deal and imposing sanctions on Iran. Washington "flagrantly violates the international law," the statement adds while drawing attention to the fact that "there are no reasons for disrupting" the deal.

What the US' actions really show is that Washington is, in fact, incapable of conducting negotiations, the statement says. The latest move taken by Trump only proves that the grievances the US has had against the "absolutely legal Iranian nuclear activity" have always been just a "pretext for settling political scores" with Tehran, it added.

Russian lawmakers also slammed Trump's decision. "This is an egregious violation of the UN Security Council's resolution as well as a disruption of years-long diplomatic efforts in this field that creates a threat to international security," the head of the Russian State Duma's International Affairs Committee, Leonid Slutsky, told journalists, referring to the US withdrawal from the deal.

As yet another news cycle was dominated by the latest chapter of the President Donald Trump-Stormy Daniels controversy on Thursday, the New York Times quietly published an alarming report detailing a secret U.S. Green Beret operation along Saudi Arabia's border with Yemen that was launched by the Trump White House late last year with no debate, discussion, or congressional authorization.

Responding to the Times report on Thursday - which indicates the U.S. has significantly escalated its involvement in Saudi Arabia's war on Yemen - Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) expressed alarm at the covert activities of American special forces and said he will be demanding answers about "these activities."

"I have strong concerns that the Trump administration is getting the U.S. more involved in a war in Yemen without congressional authorization," Sanders - who in March helped lead a failed effort to halt U.S. support for Saudi Arabia's relentless and illegal assault on Yemen - wrote on Twitter. "We must prevent the U.S. from getting dragged into another never-ending war."

US President Donald Trump has announced that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is jetting in to meet Kim Jong-un after announcing the withdrawal from Iran nuclear agreement.

The decision to withdraw the US from a framework designed in 2015 to limit Iran's nuclear enrichment capabilities will now see the Islamic nation hit with the highest level of sanctions, Trump stated on Tuesday.

However, in announcing an end to what he described as a "decaying and rotten structure," the US president also surprised reporters by revealing that Mike Pompeo was on a plane to North Korea.