The four Arab countries leading the boycott against Qatar say that Doha's refusal to accept their demands proves it has links to terrorist groups. They have vowed to take fresh "political, economic, and legal measures" against the country.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt and Bahrain issued their remarks in a joint statement carried by UAE state news agency WAM.

"The obstinacy of the Qatari Government and their rejection of the demands submitted by the four countries, reflect Qatar's connections to the terrorist group and that it continuous [sic] its quest to undermine security and stability in the Gulf and the region and to intentionally harm the interests of the peoples of the region, including the Qatari people," the statement reads.

A range of strategic pacts envisaging investments worth $4.3 billion were agreed between Indian and Israeli companies on Thursday as part of Narendra Modi's historic three-day visit to Israel.

Modi became the first Indian prime minister to visit Israel in the last 70 years.

The sides decided to create a joint technology innovation fund worth $40 million for research in industrial development. The Indian Ministry of External Affairs has announced several agreements with Israel on science, agriculture and technology.

If your enemy is waging economic war on you, it's prudent to camouflage how well your farms and factories are doing. Better the attacker thinks you're on your last legs, and are too exhausted to fight back. A new report on the Russian economy, published by Jon Hellevig, reveals the folly in the enemy's calculation.

Who is the audience for this message? US and NATO warfighters against Russia can summon up more will if they think Russia is in retreat than if they must calculate the cost in their own blood and treasure if the Russians strike back. That's Russian policy on the Syrian front, where professional soldiers are in charge. On the home front, where the civilians call the shots, Hellevig's message looks like an encouragement for fight-back - the economic policymaker's equivalent of a no-fly zone for the US and European Union. It's also a challenge to the Kremlin policy of appeasement.

If you didn't already know, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) was sued by Bernie Sanders supporters last year for fraud, negligent misrepresentation, deceptive conduct, unjust enrichment, breach of fiduciary duty, and negligence.

Evidence in support of the class action suit included the leaked DNC documents and emails, in which former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz aimed to dismantle the Sanders campaign, and other DNC officials spread lies, often remarkably petty ones, about both his campaign and character.

More recently, former U.S. Ambassador Christopher Steven's fiancée, Lydie Denier, was interviewed by Rick Amato alongside Will Craddick, founder of DisobedientMedia.com, to discuss the lawsuit against the DNC, in which "one witness has died and another potential witness was murdered."

A day before the Russian and US presidents are due to meet, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has called on Moscow and Washington to make up for lost time and restore trust in order to de-escalate global tensions.

"First of all, it's good that this meeting will finally take place, but it's a pity that this is happening only now," Gorbachev told RIA Novosti on the eve of the first meeting between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.

"Much time is lost. We have to restore trust."

"At one time, people in President [Ronald] Reagan's own administration would literally not let him go to [our] meeting in Geneva. But he did not succumb to pressure, and we, for our part, came forward with serious constructive proposals."

"We now need an impulse from the leaders, as happened in Reykjavik in 1986. We must put everything on the negotiating table and establish a mechanism for interaction, not on any single points, even important ones, but on all issues," Gorbachev emphasized.

The massive cyberattack on British MPs' emails last week was likely masterminded by amateur hackers rather than a state entity, according to anonymous European government sources.

The cyberattack, which targeted the private email accounts of up to 90 members of the UK Parliament, was organized by private cyber criminals, the sources told Reuters.

This contradicts earlier statements that suggested a foreign government was behind the hack, as many Western political commentators immediately pointed the finger at Russia.

Cybersecurity experts familiar with the investigation said the hackers were only able to break into the accounts of MPs who used simple and easily deducible passwords.

Reports of Moscow "blocking" the US-drafted condemnation of the recent North Korean missile launch are false, Russia's United Nations mission has clarified in a statement, while condemning the leak and media misinterpretation of internal UN conversations.

The claim that Russia allegedly "blocked" the draft Security Council statement was reported earlier on Thursday by Reuters, which cited unnamed diplomats who leaked an internal email conversation between Russian representatives to the UN and their "Security Council colleagues."

"The rationale is that based on our (Ministry of Defense's) assessment [that] we cannot confirm that the missile can be classified as an ICBM," the email reads as cited by Reuters. "Therefore we are not in a position to agree to this classification on behalf of the whole council since there is no consensus on this issue."

At the negotiation talks in Minsk, the Ukraine has disrupted the plan for a large exchange of prisoners. The vice-speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, Iryna Gerashchenko, made such a statement that the delegations of Russia and the Republics of Donbass had to leave the meeting.

"Irina Gerashchenko said that Kiev will hold talks on the exchange of prisoners only with the OSCE and not the 'Russian occupier'. In response, representatives of the Republic left the talks with the representative of the Russian Federation", - said the Lugansk head of the working group on the exchange of prisoners of war, Olga Kobtseva.

US foreign policy is so detached from reality that it has become literally insane to a worrying degree.

The United States is starting to live up to the ancient Greek stereotypes about the Achaemenid Persian Empire, namely that in spite of its strength, its rulers are brash, unrefined, thirsty for blood and tactically unsophisticated.

This stereotype, largely taken from the words of the historian Herodotus was never fully true, but from a philosophical standpoint, the idea that the Greeks and the Athenians in particular were a more refined society than their Persian enemy can readily be applied to the dichotomy between Russia and China on one hand and America on the other. This is in no way meant to be an insult to modern Iran which is clearly on the side of civilization against the forces of western barbarism.

In foreign relations the United States has largely invented its own gods and shibboleths, it adheres to its own mythical conception of reality as though it was divine truth and operates on the principle that can increasingly be defined as "War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength".

In this sense, modern America is one part Herodotus's conception of the ancient Achaemenid Persians and one part George Orwell's bleak view of a distopian future.

The borrower is the servant of the lender, and through the mechanism of government debt virtually the entire planet has become the servants of the global money changers. Politicians love to borrow money, but over time government debt slowly but surely impoverishes a nation. As the elite get governments around the globe in increasing amounts of debt, those governments must raise taxes in order to keep servicing those debts. In the end, it is all about taking money from us and transferring it into government pockets, and then taking money from government pockets and transferring it into the hands of the elite. It is a game that has been going on for generations, and it is time for humanity to say that enough is enough.

According to the Institute of International Finance, global debt has now reached a new all-time record high of 217 trillion dollars...

Global debt levels have surged to a record $217 trillion in the first quarter of the year. This is 327 percent of the world's annual economic output (GDP), reports the Institute of International Finance (IIF).

The surging debt was driven by emerging economies, which have increased borrowing by $3 trillion to $56 trillion. This amounts to 218 percent of their combined economic output, five percentage points greater year on year.