This week, in a stunning turn of events, U.S. congressman Dana Rohrabacher became the first congressman to meet with Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. During the private three-hour meeting Assange told Rohrabacher that he will prove that leaked DNC documents, published by WikiLeaks during the 2016 presidential election, did not come from Russia. Then on Thursday, Rohrabacher made a promise to pardon him.

On Thursday, Rohrabacher gave an interview with the Daily Caller in which he noted that Assange couldn't come to Washington given his current status as a wanted criminal. So, he brought up the notion of pardoning the political prisoner.

Rohrabacher told The Daily Caller in an exclusive interview Thursday that Assange is hoping to leave the Ecuadorian embassy in London where he is currently in asylum, and that during the meeting they explored "what might be necessary to get him out."

The congressman told TheDC that "if [Assange] is going to give us a big favor, he would obviously have to be pardoned to leave the Ecuadorian embassy." Assange took asylum in the embassy in August 2012 after facing sexual assault charges in Sweden. The Justice Department also reportedly wants to charge Assange for helping Edward Snowden, a former NSA analyst, leak thousands of classified documents.

"He has information that will be of dramatic importance to the United States and the people of our country as well as to our government," Rohrabacher said. "Thus if he comes up with that, you know he's going to expect something in return. He can't even leave the embassy to get out to Washington to talk to anybody if he doesn't have a pardon. Obviously there is an issue there that needs to be dealt with, but we haven't come to any conclusion yet."

The potential for a pardon based on smashing the Russian hacking narrative is nothing short of bombshell. And, according to Rohrabacher, Assange has the proof to back it up.

On July 3, 2017, while Americans were preparing for the 241st celebration of the Declaration of Independence, a lone rocket rose from North Korea on a near-vertical trajectory. After five to six minutes of powered flight, the second stage of the missile shut down and coasted to an altitude of about 2,720 kilometers. It then fell back to Earth, reentering the atmosphere above the Sea of Japan some 900 kilometers to the east of where it had launched. The rocket's upper stage coasted in freefall for about 32 minutes, and the overall time-of-flight, from launch to atmospheric reentry, was about 37 minutes. The launch occurred at 8:39 p.m., United States' Eastern time. Within hours, the news of the launch was trumpeted by the US mainstream press: North Korea had flown an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), a missile that could carry nuclear warheads to Anchorage, Alaska, and to the continental United States as well!

But the Western press apparently did not know one crucial fact: The rocket carried a reduced payload and, therefore, was able to reach a much higher altitude than would have been possible if it had instead carried the weight associated with the type of first-generation atomic bomb North Korea might possess. Experts quoted by the press apparently assumed that the rocket had carried a payload large enough to simulate the weight of such an atomic bomb, in the process incorrectly assigning a near-ICBM status to a rocket that was in reality far less capable.

DESPITE winning a landslide victory against in the presidential elections just over 100 days ago, the Emmanuel Macron's popularity has dropped to a new low.

Former Socialist MP Eduardo Rihan Cypel said the French President did not understand parliament's role in politics, before accusing the young head of state of exerting total control over his centrist party's newly elected MPs.

He said: "I feel like Emmanuel Macron's government is trying to stifle debate in parliament. That it does not want MPs to meddle too much in French politics, and does not want the opposition to do its job. Mr Macron claims he wants there to be no hostility between MPs, which is perfectly understandable. But stifling debate? It's almost unheard of.

"It's silly of him because MPs - even when they are part of the president's majority - amend, repeal and improve the laws as they see fit.

"What Mr Macron doesn't seem to understand is that MPs are not the government's enemies. But at the moment, it feels as though the president has put a lid on his own majority and is attempting to prevent his Republic on the Move MPs from doing their job."

In spite of his low approval ratings - a recent Ifop poll showed that just 36 per cent of French people approve of their president - Mr Macron still has the support of his base.

Yemen has been battered with more airstrikes in the first half of 2017 than the whole of 2016 according to a report compiled by several humanitarian agencies, leading to an ever-growing number of civilian casualties and refugees.

The war-torn country has been hit by a total of 5,676 airstrikes this year already, according to a report from the Protection Cluster in Yemen group released Wednesday, compared to 3,936 for all of 2016. The group is led by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and collates information from both UN as well as open sources.

The escalating violence is worsening an already serious refugee crisis which has already displaced around two million people, or over ten percent of the population. Since the start of 2017, 104,658 more people have been driven from their homes, mostly from the embattled Taizz and Sa'ada regions.

The report did not specify who was behind the airstrikes. However, the Saudi-led coalition has blockaded and dominated Yemeni airspace since it launched its air offensive in March 2015 and there have also been intermittent air and drone strikes by the United States against alleged al-Qaeda targets.

Terror group's top bomb maker outlines plan for attacks in America

The al Qaeda terror group's chief bomb maker has published a blueprint for new attacks on U.S. transportation systems, including planes, trains, and boats, which the terror group views as "prime targets," according to a copy of a lengthy manifesto that provides a guide for would-be terrorists to launch attacks.

Ibrahim al-Asiri, a top al Qaeda leader known as the terror group's chief bomb maker, detailed the extremist organization's plans to target U.S. passenger and shipping transportation services, which the terror organization views as weak links ripe for attack.

While al Qaeda's operations have been weakened by years of U.S. attacks on its key locations and apparatus, it has increasingly relied on promulgating its radical ideology to so-called "lone wolfs" who are not officially affiliated with the group but who are capable of carrying out terror attacks without detection by American authorities.


The shift to lone-wolf attacks highlights al Qaeda's continued influence and brand strength among jihadists following the rise of splinter groups such as ISIS. Al Qaeda is still a primary source of concern for the U.S. intelligence community, which continues to see the group as a central threat against American safety.

Japan wants to bolster its missile defense with the US Aegis Ashore system in light of North Korean threats, local media reported. Tokyo also plans to increase its number of Aegis-equipped destroyers.

The Japanese Defense Ministry will include costs related to the Aegis Ashore system when drafting a budgetary request for the 2018 fiscal year, NHK reported.

The Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System (ABMD) is aimed at providing defense from short to intermediate-range missiles. It consists of BMD-capable ships as well as a ground-based configuration.

Japan is already using a land-based version of the Aegis advanced radar system. It is thought that two or three Aegis Ashore batteries would be needed to defend the whole of Japan, at a cost of 70 to 80 billion yen (US$638.5 million to $726.6 million) per battery, according to the Mainichi.

Two psychologists who helped design the CIA's post-9/11 interrogation program settled a lawsuit Thursday by detainees alleging they were illegally tortured.

The secret settlement in the suit, brought on behalf of two living ex-detainees and one who died of hypothermia after brutal questioning in US custody, avoided what would have been the first public trial of the Central Intelligence Agency's use of torture on suspected Al-Qaeda members.

The American Civil Liberties Union brought the suit in 2015 against psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, who were recruited by the CIA in 2002 to design and help conduct interrogations of war-on-terror suspects captured in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

The two were paid around $80 million for their work, which included helping interrogate Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks by Al-Qaeda, and Abu Zubaydah, another top Qaeda suspect.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has stressed that Latin American countries must be safeguarded from foreign intervention after US President Donald Trump threatened military action in Venezuela.

On Friday, Trump said his administration was considering many measures, "including a possible military option if necessary," to repair what he referred to as a "dangerous mess" in Venezuela in the wake of the formation of the country's Constituent Assembly.

Apart from being rejected by the government in Caracas and Venezuela's opposition coalition, the statement was also rejected by all Latin American countries - not only allies to President Nicolas Maduro such as Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua, but even those strongly opposed to Maduro, including Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Peru and Chile.

As the nation's left attempts to out-virtue-signal one another, Democratic Party leader Nancy Pelosi just one-upped New York Governor Cuomo's street-name-removal demands, by calling for all Confederate statues to be removed from The Capitol.

Pelosi Calls for Removal of Confederate Statues From Capitol

Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi released the following statement calling on Speaker Ryan to join Democrats in supporting legislation to remove Confederate statues from the Capitol:

"The halls of Congress are the very heart of our democracy. The statues in the Capitol should embody our highest ideals as Americans, expressing who we are and who we aspire to be as a nation.

"The Confederate statues in the halls of Congress have always been reprehensible. If Republicans are serious about rejecting white supremacy, I call upon Speaker Ryan to join Democrats to remove the Confederate statues from the Capitol immediately.

"Under the leadership of Democrats in Congress, we have recognized more women and people of color in Congress's collection of statues, including Rosa Parks, Sojourner Truth and Helen Keller. As Speaker, we relocated Robert E. Lee out of a place of honor in National Statuary Hall - a place now occupied by the statue of Rosa Parks.

"There is no room for celebrating the violent bigotry of the men of the Confederacy in the hallowed halls of the United States Capitol or in places of honor across the country."

The Economist is making a strong statement on the president with its most recent cover, showing him speaking through a megaphone that resembles a Ku Klux Klan hood.

The latest cover of the magazine has no headline mentioning Trump or words describing the president's recent actions.

Trump has taken heat and faced widespread condemnation from Democrats and Republicans for his comments on a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend, after he said twice that more than one side was to blame for violence that erupted.

White supremacists, neo-Nazis and KKK leaders gathered in Charlottesville last weekend for a "Unite the Right" rally to protest the planned removal of a Confederate statue, leading counterprotestors to arrive and oppose them.