While South Korea has welcomed Kim Jong-un's announcement of the suspension of nuclear and ballistic tests, Tokyo, which strongly supports Washington's "maximum pressure" approach, voiced an extremely cautious optimism.

Japan, the United States and South Korea have been relentlessly striving for a complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, meaning of course only Pyongyang's nukes and not the US strategic bombers and aircraft carriers. Following months of productive talks with Seoul, Kim Jong-un announced a halt to any further nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests, saying that North Korea's strategic deterrence program has reached its goal.

Senior UK MPs are forming a 'brains trust' to make sure they are fully prepared for perceived threats coming from Moscow. The chairs of six other committees looking at issues such as foreign affairs and fake news will be included.

The head of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Tom Tugendhat, who said the Skripal poisoning was "if not an act of war ... certainly a warlike act by the Russian Federation," will lead the 'Russia Co-ordinating Group'. He's been a prominent hawk in debates about Russia.

"The idea is to coordinate our inquiries so we work together and do things that overlap and make sure we don't miss anything out," Tugendhat said. "We want to produce a system of work that answers the malign influence we are seeing in a collective way from Russia."

The Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman recalled that British colonists exterminated up to 90%-95% of the aborigines in the process of colonizing Australia
Britain may well be described as the holder of the world's genocide record, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a news briefing on Thursday in response to claims by UK ambassador in Moscow Laurie Bristow to the effect Russia was allegedly behind a number of contract killings.

"Britain is the world's worst genocider," she said. "The thought of how many millions of innocent people were put to death in the British colonies is terrifying."

Recent statements, provocations and conditions indicate the Ukrainian Army will make a major offensive against the Lugansk and Donetsk People's Republics in May. Unless we stop it.

The ongoing provocations and false-flags against Russia - in England and in Syria - have not produced the results hoped for by France, UK and US (FUKUS) nazis, and are widely seen by world public opinion as the false narratives that they are. After these epic failures, it is 'highly likely' that FUKUS will again turn their attention to Ukraine and Donbass.

The World Cup is scheduled to start in Russia on 14 June, and it is clear that the FUKUS powers are also intent upon sabotaging its successful completion. This prestigious event is worth about US$15 Billion to the Russian economy, and Russia has invested heavily in preparation for it. Should it be cancelled or substantially compromised, it would be a major economic and political blow to Russia.

A military conflict between Russia and Ukraine before the games begin would result in greatly diminishing, if not cancelling, the event. Putin himself has confirmed that if the Ukrainian Army attacks the Donbass Republics with a major offensive, Russia will be compelled to intervene on humanitarian grounds. So, if the war starts before the World Cup, a major objective of the Western nazis will be achieved.

The Israeli army's wanton slaughter of unarmed Palestinians trapped behind the security barriers in Gaza evokes little outrage and condemnation within the United States because we have been indoctrinated into dehumanizing Muslims. Islam is condemned as barbaric and equated with terrorism. The resistance struggle against foreign occupation, whether in Afghanistan, Iraq or Gaza, sees Muslims demonized as the enemy. Muslims are branded as irrational and inclined to violence and terrorism by their religious beliefs. We attack them not for what they do but because we see them as being different from us. We must eradicate them to save ourselves. And thus we perpetuate the very hatred and counterviolence, or terrorism, that we fear.

Muslims in this age of racialized authoritarianism have been stripped of due process in our courts and are subject-as Abid Naseer and Haroon Aswat were in Britain before being extradited to the United States - to pretrial incarceration for years. They endure police brutality and secret trials, are convicted on secret evidence they cannot see and suffer long-term detention in solitary confinement, often in clandestine prisons known as black sites. They are kidnapped anywhere in the world and taken, hooded, drugged and shackled, to the secret sites. They are tortured through savage methods such as beatings, "walling," sexual humiliation, close confinement, prolonged isolation, water dousing, electric shocks, waterboarding and so-called rectal rehydration. Their citizenships are revoked. Their communities and mosques are harassed, infiltrated and monitored by law enforcement. Muslim children are viewed as future terrorists. Muslim women as breeders of terrorists. Muslim men as dangerous. We are the maniacal Kurtz in Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness," keeping the heads of "savages" on stakes outside our fortress and crying out "Exterminate all the brutes!"

Ukraine has made new moves towards joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which would cross a Russian "red line" and further deteriorate U.S.-Russia relations.

It's been four years since the hectic "Euromaidan" protest movement culminated in a coup that deposed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. Though civil war grinds on in the eastern half of the country, Ukraine has wandered in and out of American news cycles since the dramatic change of government in Kiev.

But a more recent development has implications that are rarely explored in American media, despite what it could mean for broader U.S. international relations. Ukraine is vying to take its place as NATO's newest member state, a move that could seriously escalate tensions between Washington and Moscow beyond their current high point.

"It's safe to say that Russia would be, and has been, opposed to NATO membership for Ukraine," James Carden, former advisor to the State Department's U.S.-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission, said in an email exchange.

Neighboring states such as Ukraine and Georgia, Carden added, "are red lines for Russia and we should take them at their word."

Isn't it fascinating how western journalists are suddenly rallying to attack the dangerous awful and horrifying epidemic of "Assad apologists" just as the western empire ramps up its longstanding regime change agenda against the Syrian government? Kinda sorta exactly the same way they began spontaneously warning the world about "Saddam apologists" around the time of the Iraq invasion?

The increasingly pro-establishment Intercept has published an article titled "Dear Bashar al-Assad Apologists: Your Hero Is a War Criminal Even If He Didn't Gas Syrians," condemning unnamed opponents of western interventionism in Syria for not being sufficiently condemnatory of Bashar al-Assad in their antiwar discourse.

Last week The Times published an article titled "Apologists for Assad working in British universities," frantically informing the public that "top academics" are circulating information that runs counter to the official Syria narrative, followed this week by a Huffington Post article attacking those same academics in the same way. Yesterday, the BBC ran an article titled "Syria war: the online activists pushing conspiracy theories," warning its readers about "pro-Syrian government" internet posts.

Trump boasted on Twitter that the US-led strikes on Syria last weekend were a "mission accomplished", which drew criticism from many who likened it to Bush's infamously premature statement about Iraq.

There were differing reports about how many missiles were shot down by Syria's Soviet-era air defense systems and the scale of damage that was wrought by the ones that did get through the country's anti-missile shield, but the general consensus is that Trump's mission didn't accomplish much and may have even been more militarily ineffective than last year's strike in reaction to the Khan Sheikhoun false flag chemical weapons attack from that time. Furthermore, a bold statement such as "mission accomplished" implies a victory much broader than just launching some missiles, most of which are regarded as having never even made it to their targets.

Pyongyang's move to halt nuclear and missile tests is more the result of collective efforts, including that of Russia and China, than US threats to "wipe off the map" North Korea, a top Russian senator says.

On Friday, the North Korean leadership announced it is freezing the nuclear and ballistic missile programs and scrapping a major test site. The development could be the "news of the year," head of Russia's Foreign Affairs Committee of the Federation Council, Konstantin Kosachev, believes.

Yet, it is not the end of the long-running crisis in the region which was once "at the threshold of a nuclear conflict". Much more lies ahead - from North Korea returning to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog, to Washington abandoning its aggressive rhetoric.

However, progress in the Korean Peninsula crisis was made possible thanks to the efforts of "five countries" - members of the six-party talks - that, apart from the US, include North and South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia.

Why was it that the Deep State was so eager to tie Donald Trump to an alliance with Vladimir Putin during the 2016 election and more so afterward - actually even making the case that they colluded to defraud the American electorate? Have you ever thought about that question?

Was it just that they were desperate to come up with an excuse for Hillary Clinton's loss? Did they just need to rationalize how a populist, nationalist candidate could defy conventional wisdom and win? Or, was it something else entirely?

I don't know if I'm right. I'll let you decide. But let me hypothesize.

I believe the biggest distinction between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in the 2016 race, and there were many, was, without question, their positions on nationalism.