The UK Foreign Office has confirmed the content of the reported document with London's "proof" of alleged Russian involvement in the poisoning of Skripal, saying that it fully reflects May's position.

According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, the analysis of the Skripals' case "shows that the UK authorities are not interested in finding out the motives and those responsible for the crime in Salisbury and suggests that the British intelligence services are involved in it."

"The behavior of the British authorities raises many questions. The UK population is itself kept in the dark about the key moments of this announced serious threat of the incident, the total number of victims is unknown," the statements reads.

The ministry has also accused the British lab in Porton Down of "hushing up information" in the wake of the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal.

A Turkish daily strongly supportive of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday portrayed German Chancellor Angela Merkel on its front cover as Adolf Hitler, accusing her of having a "Nazi mentality".

The Yeni Akit daily, known for its hardline views on Turkish foreign policy, printed a photo-shopped picture of Merkel with a Hitler moustache, swastika arm band and belt diagonally across her chest in the style of Nazi militia.

"We are very worried by this mentality," it said.

Its front page came as European Union President Donald Tusk and European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker were to meet Erdogan at the Bulgarian Black Sea resort of Varna in a bid to mend ties with Turkey and the EU.

Ankara has been infuriated by a statement from EU leaders condemning Turkey's "illegal actions" towards Greece and Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea.

In particular, the EU lambasted Turkey over Ankara's arrest of two Greek soldiers who strayed into Turkish territory.

Not all of Russia's game-changing weapons were mentioned in the president's landmark speech that the mainstream media keep writing so much about. The president's address simply could not include all the numerous breakthroughs in military technology Russia has achieved recently. Some cutting-edge systems exist but are not yet operational. A few are already part of the Russian arsenal, although in rather small numbers. But that's just a start. Many achievements have flown under the media's radar and deserve more exposure. The information available from public sources is worth discussing to get an idea of where things seem to be headed.

The military added Kh-32 air-to-surface missiles in 2016 to advance the operational capabilities of the Tu-22M3 Backfire. The weapon was created on the basis of radical updates to the Kh-22. After being launched, the Kh-32 climbs up to the stratosphere, reaching an altitude of 40 km (130,000 ft) for the midcourse phase of its flight. As it nears its target, it goes into a steep dive. The attack is too fast and the missile too maneuverable for the enemy to mount an air defense.

The approach can be flown at an altitude as low as five m, going undetected by a ship's defense systems until a distance of about 10 km. This leaves a reaction window of roughly 10 seconds before this extremely agile target is hit. It doesn't have a chance. This deadly weapon is a threat to any ground target.

The weapon boasts an inertial navigation system and a seeker head. It needs no navigation satellites for guidance and is impossible to jam. Its primary mission is to knock out aircraft carriers and large surface ships, as well as ground-based assets.

The Kh-32 has a range of roughly 1,000 km (620 mi) and a speed of over 5,400 kilometers per hour (1,500 meters per second). Its 500-kilogram (1,102 lb.) warhead can be either nuclear or conventional.

When President Donald Trump signed the "ridiculous" and massive $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill on Friday, he himself decried the "wasteful spending" and "giveaways" to Democrats that had been tucked into the legislation while he also vowed to never sign another bill like it.

Many conservatives were also incensed at the obscene spending bill, most notably due to continued taxpayer funding for abortion provider Planned Parenthood and sanctuary cities, but also because it seemed like Democrats completely blocked Trump's efforts at building a wall to secure the southern border, granting him a paltry $1.6 billion to repair existing border fences.

The lone obvious bright spot of the spending bill was the ample funding - more than had been requested actually - for the military, which Trump repeatedly made note of.

But while many set their hair on fire and appeared to jump off the Trump train in dismay as Democrats cheerfully crowed about how they had stymied a major part of Trump's agenda, others kept a level head and began to dig deep among the 2,200-plus pages - and all referenced statutes mentioned therein - in search of some hidden reason why the president had signed this bloated spending bill into law instead of sending it back with a veto.

That search was bolstered somewhat by a letter sent on Saturday from the White House to both chambers of Congress which cited a specific statute from the funds-governing 1985 Budget Control Act in relation to a specific section of the new spending bill and declared that certain funding had been designated as an "emergency requirement," which some believe grants the president legal authority to shift funds around and prioritize spending - or even not spend at all - certain funds in relation to declared emergencies, in this case specifically as they pertain to national defense.

• Nerve agent found in Salisbury does not conclusively prove Russian complicity
• Russia's denial of a Novichok programme is true but misleading - a secret nerve agent programme to create Novichok-type agents was run under a different name
• Western states have extensively researched and synthesized the Novichok class of agents
• Novichok was most recently synthesized by Iran, details of which were provided to the OPCW
• Russian Novichok stockpiles were destroyed in the 1990s, but it is theoretically possible that some capability still exists, though no evidence for this is available

The US and its European allies have coordinated the largest collective expulsion of Russian diplomats in history. Russia has promised to retaliate in kind. Yet despite the sense of certainty around Russian culpability in the Salisbury incident, questions remain around the state of the available evidence.

As contradictory narratives proliferate amidst conflicting Western and Russian government statements and media reports, a clearer picture of the secret history of the nerve agent used in the Salisbury poisonings is emerging.

In an exclusive interview with INSURGE, a former senior official at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) from 1993 to 2006, Dr Ralf Trapp, said that at this stage there is no conclusive evidence that Russia was the source of the nerve agent used in Salisbury. He pointed to compelling evidence that Russia did run a secret research programme to create Novichok-type nerve agents - and strongly criticised Russia's denials of that programme. While justifying grounds for suspicion, there is as yet no decisive proof that Russia retained such a Novichok programme or capability today, he said.

The man who made Russia great again

In the discussion of the results of the Presidential elections in Russia, Sen. John McCain claimed the result was an insult to all Russians. Israel Shamir on the pages of The Unz Review claimed they were rigged just a little. Some pro-Western Russian critics argued that that the very fact that Putin received over 75 per cent of the vote proved that the election results was not normal, because in normal countries there usually are two candidates who run in close proximity and then follow in a run-off. In the view of this speaker, that in itself is proof of the democratic nature of elections.

The overall reaction of Western media is disbelief, suspicion of foul play or at best reluctant and cold reception of the fact. The smashing victory this landslide shows exactly the opposite. Russia is normal, rallied around its leader, and the West is in a deep domestic crisis. The run-off in France or close results in the USA or Germany or Italy are symptoms of a serious malaise or as one political scientist put it, turbulence in Western Democracy as a system.

By now anyone with an opinion on the Skripal poisoning has already decided if they believe the official narrative or not. Still, the event and the ongoing media coverage around it presents an opportunity to understand more than we might think.

The British government claim is that a "military-grade nerve agent", one of a group of nerve agents supposedly called 'novichok' (which simply means 'newcomer'), was used by Russia on Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury. They reach the conclusion that Russia is to blame because, they claim, the nerve agent used is "of a type developed by Russia."

The smoothly coordinated and broad effort that led to the biggest collective expulsion of Russian diplomats in history was likely premeditated, the Russian ambassador to the US has said. The Salisbury incident was just a trigger.

Russia's ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, has his doubts about Washington's justification behind the expulsion of dozens of the Russian diplomatic staff.

The US alone accounted for over half of all the diplomats that have been forced to leave for Russia. In addition, Washington closed the Russian Consulate in Seattle, citing its proximity to a US naval base and Boeing facilities.

Pointing out that such an explanation leaves no room for the Skripals, Antonov argued that the decision was waiting for a convenient pretext to materialize.

"The scale of inflicted damage and the preceding information campaign speak of the fact that it had been planned beforehand - simply postponed for the right moment," Antonov told media on Tuesday.

On Monday 12th March, the Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Theresa May, stood up in Parliament and made the following claim as part of her 36-hour ultimatum to the Russian Federation:

"Mr Speaker, this morning I chaired a meeting of the National Security Council in which we considered the information so far available. As is normal, the Council was updated on the assessment and intelligence picture, as well as the state of the investigation.

It is now clear that Mr Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia. This is part of a group of nerve agents known as 'Novichok'.

Based on the positive identification of this chemical agent by world-leading experts at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down; our knowledge that Russia has previously produced this agent and would still be capable of doing so; Russia's record of conducting state-sponsored assassinations; and our assessment that Russia views some defectors as legitimate targets for assassinations; the Government has concluded that it is highly likely that Russia was responsible for the act against Sergei and Yulia Skripal [my emphasis]."

In her statement to the House on 14th March, she reiterated the claim, as follows:

"Mr Speaker, on Monday I set out that Mr Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a Novichok: a military grade nerve agent developed by Russia [my emphasis]."

Let's break this down. The three key parts of Mrs May's claim are as follows:

1. That the experts at Porton Down had made a positive identification of the substance used to poison Mr Skripal and his daughter, Yulia.
2. That this positive identification concluded that it was a military-grade nerve agent.
3. That this positive identification was that the substance was part of a group of nerve agents known as 'Novichok'.

In a judgement at the High Court on 22nd March on whether to allow blood samples to be taken from Sergei and Yulia Skripal for examination by the OPCW, the evidence submitted by Porton Down (in section 17 i), stated the following:

"Blood samples from Sergei Skripal and Yulia Skripal were analysed and the findings indicated exposure to a nerve agent or related compound. The samples tested positive for the presence of a Novichok class nerve agent or closely related agent [my emphasis]."

Let's break this down. The three key parts of the evidence given by Porton Down to the High Court are as follows:

1. That the analysis at Porton Down indicated the substance used to poison Mr Skripal and his daughter, Yulia.
2. That this indication was not able to positively identify whether the substance used was actually a nerve agent (much less a military-grade nerve agent), and left open the possibility that it may have been a related compound.
3. That this indication could not positively identify whether the substance was part of a group of nerve agents known as 'Novichok', or whether it was a closely related agent.

Mrs May's statement claims positive identification of a military grade nerve agent of the "Novichok" class of chemical weapons. Porton Down's evidence to the High Court shows that no such positive identification took place.

Two dozen former U.S. intelligence officers urge President Trump to rescind Gina Haspel's nomination to lead the CIA, citing torture that she oversaw while supervising a black site prison, as well as her role in destroying evidence.

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

SUBJECT: Request to Withdraw Nomination of Gina Haspel

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

With respect, we veteran intelligence officers from CIA and other agencies urge you to withdraw the nomination of Gina Haspel for CIA director. From what is already known of her leading role in CIA torture 16 years ago, she has disqualified herself.

In 2002 Haspel supervised the first CIA "black site" for interrogation, where cruel and bizarre forms of torture were applied to suspected terrorists. And when the existence of 92 videotapes of those torture sessions was revealed, Haspel signed a cable ordering their destruction, against the advice of legal counsel at CIA and the White House.