The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) has searched the offices of Russian IT company Yandex in Kiev and Odessa, the company's press service and the SBU confirmed. Yandex, which was banned in Ukraine earlier in May, was searched amid a "treason" investigation.

"Representatives of the Ukrainian Security Service are currently in our offices in Kiev and Odessa. We don't have any information on the reasons for the SBU's actions," Asya Melkumova, head of Yandex's press service, told RT in a written statement.

According to Melkumova, the company's lawyers are already on their way to both Yandex offices. She stressed that the company is open to cooperation with law enforcement.

"We are ready to provide [Ukrainian] authorities with the necessary information," the statement added.

SBU spokeswoman Olena Gitlyanska confirmed the respective searches in a statement on Facebook.

Top Republicans and Democrats in Congress have called for the $110-billion arms deal Donald Trump signed with Saudi Arabia last week to be reversed. Their primary concern is that the kingdom may use the newest weapons in the Yemen war, they say.

Washington should reconsider the delivery of precision-guided munitions (PGMs) and other sophisticated weapons to the Saudi kingdom, Congressmen Ted Lieu and Ted Yoho, representing the Democratic and Republican camps respectively, said in a letter to the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

They argued that it was crucial to understand if the Saudi Air Force, which spearheads the kingdom's invasion of neighboring Yemen, would be able to use the cutting-edge armaments in their strikes against Shia Houthi militias.

Less than three months before Dennis Hastert's scheduled release from prison, a new accuser has come forward with allegations saying he was sodomized by Hastert decades ago, according to a lawsuit filed in Kendall County on Friday.

The lawsuit comes nearly two years after an explosive indictment into secret hush-money payments brought down Hastert, a local coaching legend who became one of the country's most powerful politicians. Federal prosecutors said the former U.S. House speaker touched at least five male students when he was a Yorkville High School coach from 1965 to 1981.

Hastert, 75, did not face sex-related charges because prosecutors said the statute of limitations had long expired. He instead admitted to committing a financial crime — withdrawing more than $950,000 from banks in a way that would avoid detection, in an effort to keep the victim quiet.

There is an ongoing reality that is destroying hundreds of thousands of lives in the Middle East. And though most Americans are ignorant of the fact, and many of those who should be in the know would deny it, the suffering flows directly from decisions taken by Washington over the last 27 years. Some of the facts of the matter have just been presented by the first Global Conflict Medicine Congress held at the American University of Beirut (AUB) earlier this month (11-14 May 2017). It has drawn attention to two dire consequences of the war policies Americans have carried on in the region: cancer-causing munition material and drug-resistant bacteria.

Cancer-causing munition material: Materials such as tungsten and mercury are found in the casing of penetrating bombs used in the first and second Gulf wars. These have had long-term effects on survivors, especially those who have been wounded by these munitions. Iraqi-trained and Harvard-educated Dr. Omar Dewachi, a medical anthropologist at AUB fears that "the base line of cancers [appearing in those exposed to these materials] has become very aggressive. ... When a young woman of 30, with no family history of cancer, has two different primary cancers - in the breast and in the oesophagus - you have to ask what is happening." To this can be added that doctors are now "overwhelmed by the sheer number of [war] wounded patients in the Middle East."

Drug-resistant bacteria: According to Glasgow-trained Professor Ghassan Abu-Sittah, head of plastic and reconstructive surgery at AUB Medical Center, drug resistance was not a problem during the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988. However, after the fiasco of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, things began to change. In the period after 1990, Iraq suffered under a vicious sanctions regime imposed by the United Nations at U.S. insistence. During the next 12 years "Iraqis were allowed to use only three antibiotics" and bacterial resistance quickly evolved. Those resistant bacteria spread throughout the region, particularly after the American invasion of the country in 2003. Today, according to a Medecins Sans Frontieres analysis, "multidrug resistant [MDR] bacteria now accounts for most war wound infections across the Middle East, yet most medical facilities in the region do not even have the laboratory capacity to diagnose MDR, leading to significant delays and clinical mismanagement of festering wounds."

[...] let's move on to what I see as an equally positive development; given that fiat currency, a root cause of a significant amount of the world's evils, past and present, is in the early stages of a vast, crippling attack that will destroy its rapidly weakening grip on humanity further; and eventually, totally and permanently.

In yesterday's "historic market manipulation setting the stage for catastrophe," I summarized how global market rigging is getting so egregious, everyone is starting to talk about it. Tuesday, legendary investor Asher Edelman, whom Gordon Gekko himself was modeled after, said "I don't want to be in the market because I don't know when the plug is going to get pulled...(as) the government's 'plunge protection team' is the only thing propping up the current market rally." Whilst yesterday, Bloomberg analyst Richard Breslow espoused that "people love the Plunge Protection Team conspiracy theory when looking at equities. Well that's exactly what is happening in bonds, right out in the open."

Perhaps someone should tell him that by definition, suppressing interest rates is fixed income "plunge protection." However, what he is clearly suggesting - as I have, since October 2014's "end of QE - LOL," is that the Fed engages in as much covert bond monetization as it does overt; in the same manner that said equity PPT - i.e., the President's Working Group on Capital Markets - is as active covertly as the Chinese, Japanese, and Swiss "national teams" are overtly. I mean geez, look at the past two days of Shanghai Equity trading. Wednesday, after China was downgraded by Moody's, to just two notches above junk status; and Thursday, after Chinese commodity prices crashed, the Yuan surged, and the potentially horrific ramifications of said downgrade - on the nation's unparalleled, parabolically-rising debt - came to light. Yes, the "dead ringer" that has become as ubiquitous in China since its own "point of no return" two years ago, as it has been in the U.S. for at least five years.

The Israeli media reported last week that the US government demands Israel will transfer some territory from Area C to Area B. These reports have not been confirmed yet, but they are already causing some trouble in the Israeli political system. What may be hiding behind this opaque formula may be the greatest breakthrough in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in 20 years.

Some background is required. The Oslo Accords, signed in September 1993, were an interim agreement. They had an expiration date, May 1999. As part of this temporary agreement, the West Bank was divided into three parts: Area A, a relatively small part of the WB which mostly included Palestinian cities (with the exception of Hebron/Al Khkalil), was under Palestinian security and civil control; Area B was defined as an area in which Israel had security control but Palestinians had civil control; and Area C, some 60%+ of the WB, containing both all of the settlements (again, with the exception of Hebron) and most of the Palestinian agricultural land, were designated as intended for a future negotiation and under full Israeli control until an agreement is reached.

The last few months in Libya have been marked by increasing violence. Not that there has been any peace in Libya since 2011 when Clinton and Obama sent NATO and 250,000 mercenaries to destroy all security in the country and leave it a failed state run by puppet extremist governments and criminal terrorists who have robbed, raped and pillaged the country for over 6 years. But the last few months have shown a marked difference in their criminals tactics. The reason is, they see their hold on Libya weakening and they are desperate to maintain control of their fated calf.

Before I get into the internals in Libya, I would like to point out something about the UK bomber, Suleman Abedi. Mr Abedi, his brother and father are all part of the radical Islamic terrorist organization LIFG (Libyan Islamic Fighting Group). This terrorist group was founded in the East of Libya years ago by Abdulhakem Belhaj, probably the most hated man in Libya. Belhaj was fighting with the Taliban against the US before he was arrested and jailed in Libya under the old regime. Ghadafi was against radical Islam and these terrorists were not allowed in Libya, so they either lived in exile or in prison in Libya. Big point here, John McCain joined hands with Belhaj to overthrow the legitimate government in Libya. (see photo below of McCain receiving an award from Belhaj for helping destroy Libya). The terrorist attack in the UK is a direct result of the destruction of Libya. These terrorists would not have money or freedom to commit these crimes if the Libyan country was still intact. Belhaj has stolen more than 1 billion dollars from Libya, consider how much terror he can create with that kind of money.

While Britain and America remain friends, European nations must rely more on themselves, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told a rally of voters in Munich. She said she got this feeling after meeting world leaders at the recently concluded G7 summit in Italy.

"The times in which we could completely depend on others are on the way out. I've experienced that in the last few days," she told the crowd Sunday, a day after attending the G7 summit.

At the summit, G7 leaders failed to secure a pledge from US President Donald Trump to keep America in a key climate change accord, the Paris Agreement. The chancellor described the talks on the issue as "very difficult, not to say very unsatisfactory" afterwards.

Trump and Macron meet for first time in Brussels.

During their first meeting in Brussels, US President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron engaged in a power struggle handshake that mainstream media hailed as a victory for the globalist beta male Macron over Alpha dog Trump.

When Trump tried to disengaged from the handshake first and Macron continued to hold onto Trump's hand, the media was taken aback by what they saw as the young French President's resolve and confidence.


Relishing in his beta male victory over Trump, establishment puppet Macron told France's Le Journal du Dimanche, that his handshake showdown with Trump was "a moment of truth", designed to show that he's no pushover.

North Korea has launched an unidentified projectile which appears to be a ballistic missile, Yonhap news reports, citing South Korea's military.

Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said Pyongyang launched a projectile in the eastern direction from Wonsan, Gangwon Province at dawn.

"It is estimated to be a Scud type [missile]," JCS said, adding, that the projectile flew about 450 kilometers.

"The president was immediately notified of the situation, and the president ordered the NSC Standing Committee at 7:30 am," the military statement said.

The missile was tracked for six minutes, US Pacific Command said, confirming that the projectile landed in the Sea of Japan. The US military said the missile did not pose a threat to North America.

US President Donald Trump has also been briefed about the launch, according to a White House official.