Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly has initiated enhanced security screenings for all global commercial flights inbound for the US. They include "seen and unseen" measures meant to avoid a total ban on laptops and other electronic devices.

Kelly confirmed the anticipated tightening of air travel security measures at the Council for New American Security conference in Washington, DC on Wednesday. A fact sheet issued by the Department of Homeland Security referenced a "'spider web' of threats to commercial aviation as terrorist [sic] pursue new attack methods." To meet those challenges, DHS said plans were underway to "raise the baseline of global aviation security."

Kelly said the "first step" of implementation was being taken Wednesday, while the DHS fact sheet said that more action would be taken gradually "over the next several weeks and months." Measures could also be "dialed up or down in a risk-based, intelligence-driven manner."

Approximately 280 airports in 105 countries will be affected, according to the fact sheet. That also includes 180 airlines, as well as a daily tally of about 2,100 flights and 325,000 passengers.

Airlines that do not go along with the US requirements will face a "ban on electronic devices on their airplanes, or even a suspension of their flights to the United States," Kelly said.

Among the security enhancements are "better use" of bomb-sniffing K-9 dogs and adopting more advanced technology in checkpoint screening. Kelly specified that personal electronic devices, such as cell phones, laptops or tablets, would be subject to "heightened screening."

In March, DHS announced a carry-on ban of any electronic devices larger than a cell phone for 10 airports in the Middle East and North Africa.

Donald Trump has only been in office for five months, but he already has his eyes on the 2020 election. The president managed to rake in more than $10 million at a re-election fundraiser, while protesters gathered outside to shout "Shame! Shame!"

The price tag to get into the event at Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC was a big one, at $35,000 per plate. The costly dinner, however, did not seem to be a problem for some of US President Donald Trump's biggest and richest supporters, with Republican National Committee (RNC) spokeswoman Lindsay Jancek telling AP ahead of the event that 300 people were expected.

Among the dinner's most famous guests were Las Vegas casino mogul Steve Wynn, along with television commentator Mica Mosbacher and Florida lobbyist and general election fundraiser Brian Ballard. Nevada Senator Dean Heller was also present, despite being part of a small group of Republicans who spoke out against the Senate's effort to repeal and replace Obamacare just one day before.

The event, which is taking place 40 months ahead of the 2020 election, seems to have paid off, with Trump managing to rake in $10 million. While the fundraiser may seem incredibly early for a president who was only inaugurated in January, Jancek said she doesn't think it's out of the ordinary.

"He's raising money for the party," she said. "I don't think that's abnormal for any president."

However, a sizable amount will go solely to Trump's re-election campaign, according to AP. The rest will be spread among RNC and other Republican entities.

President Vladimir Putin has accused foreign intelligence agencies of intensifying their efforts against Russia, including through supporting terrorist groups and trying to interfere with internal politics.

"In general, it's obvious that there's growing activity by foreign intelligence agencies against Russia and our allies," Putin said, speaking at a meeting at the headquarters of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service, where he had come to congratulate officers on the 95th anniversary of the founding of the service.

"This includes new ways of collecting and stove-piping information, cyberattacks and attempts to recruit new agents in order to get access to data on Russia's economic, defense and resource capabilities," the Russian leader explained.

The president added that some of these intelligence agencies were supporting terrorist groups and extremist elements on Russia's frontiers in a bid to destabilize the country.

"You know perfectly the kind of challenges Russia has to grapple with," Putin said. "Those are attempts to contain our development, to impose dividing lines, destabilize regions close to Russia's frontiers. One of the tools used for that purpose are terrorist and extremist groups. It's no secret that some of them are carefully patronized or even directly supported by intelligence agencies of a number of countries."

A top aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the lack of progress in mending ties between Russia and the US is damaging not only for the two countries themselves but also for the wider international community.

"One may state that the two largest nuclear powers still have not started normal joint efforts aimed at mending their bilateral interaction, which is currently in a deep crisis," Yury Ushakov said in a speech at the Primakov Readings conference in Moscow. He added that the same also applies to other urgent international political issues.

"As far as the Russian side is concerned, of course we can continue to wait for the internal American rows to wear off, but we consider such stalling inadmissible, because we are risking not only the relations between Moscow and Washington, but the solution of certain tasks on the global scale, tasks that are important for global security and stability," RIA Novosti quoted Ushakov as saying.

At the same conference, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said that Russia was applying "significant effort" to restarting the strategic dialogue with the US concerning a vast spectrum of issues.

A study released by the Russian state-run public opinion research center VTSIOM in early June this year showed that the majority of Russians still see the United States and Ukraine as the most hostile nations towards them. Just over half - 54 percent - of Russians see no sign of improvement in Russia-US relations. An additional 17 percent think that relations between the two have deteriorated over the past year, while just 21 percent told researchers that relations had improved.

The Tories are facing a barrage of social media criticism for blocking a modest pay rise for emergency service workers but somehow finding £1 billion to hand over to the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to keep their enfeebled minority government in power.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn tabled an amendment on Wednesday calling for an end to the public sector pay cap and for more police and firefighters to be recruited in the wake of the Grenfell Tower disaster.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will have a brief meeting with former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger on Thursday.

"Kissinger is in Moscow on the occasion of his participation in the Primakov Readings (forum), which kicked off today," Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. "His visit is used for a brief conversation (between Putin and Kissinger)."

Peskov added that the Russian leader will also receive German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel later in the day.

China and Russia have already ditched the US dollar in their vast energy trade. Now China is leveraging Saudi Arabia to also abandon the greenback for oil sales. No wonder, it seems, that US policies are increasingly lashing out.

US global power depends on its presumed economic prowess and military force. With its economy in long-term decline, precipitated by the teetering dollar, the US rulers are relying increasingly on militarism to project power. That tendency is pushing the world to war.

The challenge is to somehow steer the American military monster into a safe berth without eliciting a world war.

The US decline is of historic proportions - on par with the demise of other past empires - and it stems from the looming collapse of the petrodollar system, which has given the US unprecedented privileges over the past decades since the Second World War

It is no coincidence that a surge in global tensions over recent years comes at a time when the American economy is staring into an abyss. The key to the survival of the US economy as we know it is the status of the American dollar as the world's top reserve currency.

The so-called petrodollar system, in which the world's most traded commodity oil and gas are conducted primarily through American currency, appears to be coming to an end. That decades-old system is being challenged by the rise of China, Russia, India, Iran and others. If the petrodollar and its global privileges are displaced then the United States is facing an economic apocalypse.

Kremlin leaders believe the United States wants regime change in Russia, a worry that is feeding rising tensions between the two former Cold War foes, a U.S. defense intelligence report says.

The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report, which was released on June 28, says Moscow has a "deep and abiding distrust of U.S. efforts to promote democracy around the world and what it perceives as a U.S. campaign to impose a single set of global values."


Despite Russia's largely successful military modernization since the Cold War, the report says

"Moscow worries that U.S. attempts to dictate a set of acceptable international norms threatens the foundations of Kremlin power by giving license for foreign meddling in Russia's internal affairs."

"The Kremlin is convinced the United States is laying the groundwork for regime change in Russia, a conviction further reinforced by the events in Ukraine," the report says, noting that President Vladimir Putin's government has accused the United States of engineering the popular uprising that ousted Ukraine's Russia-friendly president, Viktor Yanukovich, in February 2014.

The Presidents of Bulgaria and Romania, Rumen Radev and Klaus Iohannis, after a meeting in Bucharest spoke about friendly relations with Russia, despite both countries being members of the European Union and NATO, Associated Press reports.

On Wednesday, the European Council officially confirmed the extension of economic sanctions against Russia until January 21, 2018.

"Channels with Russia should be left open so as to allow a sincere and open dialogue that will help reduce the tension and risks", Radev said. The Bulgarian President also highligthed the importance of Russia in creating an alternative energy network that guarantees security and low energy consumption prices.

A Moscow court jury has ruled that five Chechen men were guilty of killing prominent Russian politician Boris Nemtsov in early 2015.

The jury members voted that investigators had proved that in late September 2014, the five suspects agreed to kill Nemtsov in exchange for 15 million rubles (now $US253,000). The person who hired them is still unidentified and at large.

Russian law allows suspects to ask for a jury trial in especially serious cases, such as murder. The sentence must still be made by a judge, but it cannot be stronger than the one agreed upon by the jury.