A tumultuous week in British politics has concluded with rumors of civil war among the Conservative party, contradictory statements from Downing St. and the DUP about their alliance, and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn making bold predictions.

DUP leader Arlene Foster has been in contact with British Prime Minister Theresa May ahead of their Tuesday meeting in London to hash out the finer points of their proposed alliance.

The DUP are also scheduled to restart talks with Irish nationalists Sinn Fein to establish a power-sharing government in Northern Ireland by the June 29 deadline.

As George Orwell famously put in his book Animal Farm, "all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others" which perfectly describes the American political elite.

Just take a look at former vice president Joe Biden's niece who managed to avoid doing jail time for grand larceny over credit card theft. This would have landed anybody else without the right political connections in the iron bar hotel for a very long time.

Caroline Biden cut a plea deal with a Manhattan judge to repay $110,810.04 and do community service.

Last week's UK general election result has apparently taken the establishment there by complete surprise, with Theresa May's Conservative Party losing the small majority it held before the election. The only surprise for us was that Corbyn didn't 'do a Trump' and become the next PM. As that country continues its lurch from political crisis to political crisis, we'll look at some of the many emergent contradictions thrown up by this and other recent elections and referenda in the UK and beyond.

The bombshell news last week was the apparently sudden decision of Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries to cut diplomatic relations with their erstwhile ally Qatar, and impose what effectively amounts to an economic blockade on the small Persian Gulf country. Next thing we know, 'ISIS' has massacred people in Iran's parliament. Where the heck did this come from?! Hint: funding of Islamist terrorism has - in a sense - nothing to do with it.

Meanwhile terrorists are on the run in Syria, where Syrian state forces are making advances across the desert (in spite of US airstrikes against them from across Syria's borders). But just as one head of the Islamist terror hydra is beaten, another rears its heads in the Philippines, where 'ISIS' is apparently expanding its control beyond the southern city of Marawi.

Running through all these threads is 'ISIS', that ragtag bunch of jet-setting headchoppers that somehow always manages to intervene in and influence world events of major importance.

Join us today on Behind the Headlines from 4-6pm UTC (6-8pm CET, 12-2pm EST) for more of the real story behind the 'War on Terror'.

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The Pink Revolution of 2017, better known as Russiagate, is now more or less a fait accompli. Whether the corporatist ruling classes and their servants in Congress formally impeach him or force him to resign in disgrace, Donald J. Trump is being regime-changed, or at the very least effectively neutralized until he can be replaced with a grown-up, i.e., someone who will serve their interests without getting the masses all riled up about "taking the government back from the elites," putting "America first," and, well, just generally making an ass of himself.

At this point, not even a war will save him. Even if he could somehow manage to convince the boys in the Pentagon to back an invasion of Iran, or Syria, or wherever, the corporate-owned press would crucify him, and you can't arbitrarily invade other countries without the support of the corporate media. No, the simple fact is, the Corporatocracy has decided to make an example of Trump, to remind folks who is really running things, and what happens when you attempt to defy them, and there's nothing Trump can do about it, other than rant and rave on Twitter.

On 6 June 2017 at Paris, the Saudi Minister for Foreign Affairs, Adel al-Joubeir, laid down the conditions for re-establishing diplomatic relations with Qatar. These include expelling Hamas whose political leadership was brutally displaced from Damascus to Doha, in 2012, just before it declared itself to be "The Palestinian Branch of the Muslim Brotherhood" (a title that it subsequently abandoned).

The President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, supported the saudi pre-condition.

Qatar has at last asked some, but not all, of Hamas's leaders, present on its territory to leave.

A ploy that appears to have been intended to isolate Iran has instead brought Turkey, Iran and Kuwait together in defence of Qatar.

A week into the crisis Saudi Arabia instigated when it broke diplomatic relations with Qatar and imposed a land and air blockade of the tiny Gulf state, it is becoming clear that it is failing to bring Qatar to heel.

Instead Qatar has successfully secured pledges of support from Turkey and Iran - the two military giants in this region - appears to have the tacit support of Kuwait, and is gaining diplomatic traction with Russia.

N. Korea hinted it may test-fire an ICBM in the near future, state media says, adding that the missile will help Pyongyang tackle the US' "hostile policy," as Washington never "dared to go to war with a country that possesses nuclear weapons or ICBMs."

"The series of recent strategic weapons tests show that we are not too far away from test-firing an intercontinental ballistic missile," North Korean Rodong Sinmun official newspaper said, according to South Korean media.

According to the Pyongyang paper, the great success of test-firing an ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) "will mark a historic watershed moment in the failure of the US hostile policy."

"Historically speaking, the US has never dared to go to war with a country that possesses nuclear weapons or ICBMs," it added.

US and Somali forces have conducted a joint operation against the Islamist group al-Shabaab, destroying a major training camp and command outpost days after a deadly attack on a military base in northern Somalia.

The compound was located near Sakow, in the Middle Juba region in southern Somalia where al-Shabaab is known to operate.

"On June 11, at approximately 2 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, the Department of Defense conducted a strike operation against al-Shabaab in Somalia," Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White said in a statement on Sunday. "The operation occurred approximately 185 miles southwest of Mogadishu. The US conducted this operation in coordination with its regional partners as a direct response to al-Shabaab actions, including recent attacks on Somali forces."

Eight militants are said to have been killed in the strike, which was carried out by a drone, an American official told Reuters.

Iranian Armed Forces' Depity Chief of Staff Mostafa Izadi claimed that Tehran allegedly has evidence proving US' "direct support to Daesh," Fars news agency reported.

The Iranian Major General was cited by Fars as saying that Iran allegedly "possesses documents and information" proving the accusations.

"As the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution (Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei) said, we possess documents and information showing the direct supports by the US imperialism for this highly disgusting stream (the ISIL) [Daesh] in the region which has destroyed the Islamic countries and created a wave of massacres and clashes," Fars cited Mostafa Izadi as saying.

Speaking at the Atlantic Council in Washington on June 5, second in command of nonsense, trickery and other assorted dimwittedness, Vice President Mike Pence weighed in with his imaginings of Russia's map-making abilities:

"From Russia's efforts to redraw international borders by force, to Iran's attempts to destabilize the Middle East, to the global menace of terrorism that can strike anywhere at any time, it seems that the world is more dangerous today than at any point since the fall of communism a quarter century ago."

Evidently, Pence couldn't even manage a cursory check with Pentagon and military industrial complex hooligans and their efforts during the last quarter of a century and more to redraw borders, initiate regime change and decimate countries in the Middle East before casting fish tales about Russia.