U.S. President Donald Trump has urged leaders from the 27 other NATO member states to do more to fight terrorism and to put immigration and threats from Russia at the top of their agenda.

"The NATO of the future must include a great focus on terrorism and immigration as well as threats from Russia and NATO's eastern and southern borders," Trump told fellow leaders at NATO headquarters on May 25.

Trump, who once characterized the security alliance as "obsolete," also reiterated his demand that member nations make "their full and complete contributions" to the Western alliance by increasing their defense spending.

"This is not fair to the people and taxpayers of the United States," Trump said. "If NATO countries made their full and complete contributions, then NATO would be even stronger than it is today, especially from the threat of terrorism."

A statement purportedly authored by Seth Rich's parents has been published in the CIA-funded Washington Post titled "We're Seth Rich's parents. Stop politicizing our son's murder." I don't really know what is meant by this slogan about "politicizing" Seth Rich's murder which mainstream outlets keep repeating and which Rich's parents have oddly begun parroting, but speaking for myself I am not pushing any political agenda at all by reporting on the Seth Rich case. I'm pushing the prevention of a world-ending nuclear holocaust.

This is unsurprisingly getting zero mainstream attention, but all the Russia hysteria that has engulfed American discourse has actually placed all terrestrial life in grave danger. Dr. Stephen Cohen, easily the foremost American authority on US-Russia relations, said in an interview with RT last week that this may be the most dangerous that tensions between the two nations have ever been in his lifetime. Cohen was born in 1938.

Aircraft Carriers, specifically American aircraft carriers, seem to be taking quite a thrashing these days in the press. Some claim they are old and obsolete—no better than all of those expensive Battleships at the end of World War II—destined for the scrapper. Others argue they are undefendable, thanks to the proliferation of ballistic and cruise missiles all over the globe—heck, even non-state actors can get their hands on such weapons these days. Some say they are just too expensive, in fact, the most costly weapon of war serving in not only the U.S. military arsenal but in any armed forces on the planet today—ripe for cutting in an era of lean defense budgets.

But is the era of the flattop really over?

Looking at the headlines, and with no context provided, one could easily argue U.S. carriers are actually more vital than ever. They have been a critical component of almost every major combat operation going back to World War II and form of a big part of today's kinetic actions against the Islamic State as well as provide important deterrent value—just recently Washington sent two carriers in a show of resolve to the South China Sea. America's Presidents don't ask where the carriers are when a crisis is brewing for nothing.

Donald Trump's next foreign stop is Brussels, where he is to take part in a NATO meeting. Members are aiming to impress the new US president, who used to call the military alliance "obsolete," while demanding more contributions to it from European allies.

During the two-day visit to the Belgian capital, the American leader is to take part in unveiling NATO's new headquarters after almost two decades of construction. He will also present a piece of wreckage from the Twin Towers as part of a memorial to the victims of the September 2001 terrorist attacks.

The allies hope the ceremony will remind Trump that 9/11 was the only event that has prompted an Article 5 response from NATO, which is the military block's core provision for collective defense. Unlike senior members of his administration, Trump has never publicly endorsed Article 5, while some of his remarks have given the impression that the US' willingness to help in a crisis could depend on how much the Europeans invest in the alliance.

The news from Manchester continues to horrify as each individual tragedy gets confirmed in all its heart-rending detail.

In my two posts in the immediate aftermath of the Manchester bombing, I concluded:

If it was a home made bomb, it was a remarkably powerful one. It would be very unusual for a lone terrorist to be able to make a bomb this powerful. It is hard to think of any incident where an individual acting entirely alone has successfully done that.

It has become plain that the reason the critical warning has been declared (which is British for State of Emergency) is that the security services believe such a powerful portable bomb almost certainly requires organizational support to build it. I was subject to accusations that I was secretly suggesting that this attack was perpetrated by the British state, in order to influence the election. It is undoubtedly true that the timing of the attack is remarkable - it came as Tory poll ratings were plummeting, Theresa May had just made the screeching U-turn or pretended U-turn on social care, and then appeared totally out of her depth in the Andrew Neil interview, destroying her "who do you trust" narrative.

A few weeks ago, shortly after US President Trump met with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov in the Oval Office of the White House, the Washington Post ran a story about how Trump supposedly leaked classified intelligence about an ISIS plot to use laptops to bring down civilian airplanes during this meeting to Lavrov.

Supposedly the leak compromised intelligence information provided to the US by a third country, potentially damaging the US's intelligence relationship with that country.

In response to that story I pointed out that Trump had actually compromised nothing, and that the intelligence information was not compromised by Trump during his private meeting with Lavrov but by the Washington Post and the intelligence sources which had provided it with the story, which by publicising the incident informed the Russians, the third country, ISIS and the whole world of it.

Russia accuses the US and NATO of "covering up their own support for terrorists, primarily ISIS militants" in Afghanistan

The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) has quietly admitted to Congress that there is "no physical evidence" to back up the claim that Russia is arming the Taliban—but it appears that Moscow still has a few bones to pick with its wrongful accusers.

The Russian Foreign Ministry's Information and Press Department released a statement on Tuesday which accuses the of US of supporting terrorists in Afghanistan:

One gets the impression that to distract world public opinion from numerous mistakes made during the more than 15 year-long stay of the US and NATO contingent in Afghanistan, some people are trying to slander Russia, both on their own and with the help of their henchmen in Afghanistan, while covering up their own support for terrorists, primarily ISIS militants.

The statement cites a string of "strange" events in Afghanistan:

• Reports of three US servicemen "with a consignment of arms" caught trying to sell weapons to ISIS fighters in the northern province of Sar-e Pol last January.
• The US detained but then released the son of the head of the terrorist Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU); he is now an ISIS commander in Afghanistan.
• The night landing of two helicopters without identification marks in extremist-controlled territory in the Sayyad District; the helicopters then flew back to a NATO base.

The full statement is below:

Despite the assurances of the Afghan authorities that they will curb groundless accusations of Russia for allegedly supporting the Taliban, some Afghan MPs and heads of provincial Afghan security agencies continue to repeat these insinuations. This time, police chief of Kandahar Province Abdul Raziq alleged that Russia is helping the Taliban with money and arms supplies in cooperation with other countries. In addition, Fox News Channel in the US resorted to a well-known trick of manipulating public opinion by presenting in the same context reports about the appearance of unidentified helicopters in Kunduz Province bordering on Tajikistan and the smuggling of goods across the Tajik-Afghan border with the latest fantasies of Afghan pseudo analysts on the possible arrival of Russian military advisors to organise financial and logistics support for the Taliban.

The facts we have at our disposal show that the reality is completely different. Earlier the Afghan website Payam Aftab carried an article about the detention of three US servicemen with a consignment of arms in the Kokistanat District of the northern province of Sar-e Pol last January. ISIS commandos who were going to buy these arms from the Americans were caught at the same time with a huge sum of money. However, later on the US servicemen were released from custody and transferred to their command, while all documents, including interrogation records, money and arms mysteriously disappeared.

Even stranger is the release of Azizullah from the US Bagram Prison near Kabul in the autumn of 2016. He is the son of Tahir Yuldashev, head of the terrorist Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). Later on Azizullah was moved to the Darzab District of the Jowzjan Province in the north of Afghanistan, where he headed a unit of 25 militants that left the IMU for ISIS. As a result, Azizullah's unit subjugated armed formations of the Taliban in some districts of the provinces of Jowzjan, Faryab and Sar-e Pol, compelled the local population to swear loyalty to ISIS and established a second open bridgehead of ISIS in the north of Afghanistan (after the first one in Nangarhar).

Finally, Sar-e Pol Governor Mohammad Zahir Wahdat confirmed on the record information about the night landing of two helicopters without identification marks in extremist-controlled territory in the Sayyad District. They went to the government air force base in Mazar-e-Sharif that also accommodates the NATO military base Camp Marmal.

One gets the impression that to distract world public opinion from numerous mistakes made during the more than 15 year-long stay of the US and NATO contingent in Afghanistan, some people are trying to slander Russia, both on their own and with the help of their henchmen in Afghanistan, while covering up their own support for terrorists, primarily ISIS militants.

Moscow has never shied away from speaking openly about what's really happening in Afghanistan. Back in March, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused NATO of indirectly supporting the Afghan drug trade.

Corbyn opposed the ill-fated regime changes in Iraq and Libya. He questioned the justifications when it was unpopular to do so. He was right. He warned of the repercussions. He was right

Tragic terror attacks like that in Manchester, inspiring fear and anger, often drive voters to back the incumbent. It is ironic then that one of the essential long-term solutions to the terror threat lies within the foreign policy agenda articulated by leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn. In articulating his international vision at Chatham House, Corbyn went on the front foot, laying out a comprehensive vision for Britain's place in an insecure world. Seeking to throw off the caricature-like branding of him as an ageing hippy, Corbyn's approach evinced the rational thinking of a seasoned observer of global politics.

Corbyn has been on the right side of history since he began his long political career, and his response to terrorism inspired by events in the Middle East is no different. Corbyn has been astute enough to realise the link between Western interventions in the Middle East and the terror threat emanating from the region. This is a link which is rarely discussed except in dismissive terms due to a form of right wing political correctness. As such, his approach targets some of the root factors driving terror ideology and facilitating the conditions under which terror spreads. It is also the most cost-effective method, important given the apparent lack of funds available for other policy areas like the NHS and the elderly.

Corbyn opposed the ill-fated regime changes in Iraq and Libya. He questioned the justifications when it was unpopular to do so. He was right. He warned of the repercussions. He was right. There is no longer any debate that both of these helped provide the space, motivation and chaos for extremist groups to thrive. Isis of course would not even exist if not for the Iraq War, and Al Qaeda would have less recruits. With regard to Libya, a 2016 report by the UK House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee stated that the intervention was based on "erroneous assumptions", not on accurate intelligence.

U.S. President Donald Trump has met with Pope Francis and said the encounter deepened his resolve to seek peace in the world.

Trump tweeted the remark after the pope urged him to be a peacemaker during their meeting on May 24, which followed a trip to the Middle East that included efforts to advance the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

"Honor of a lifetime to meet His Holiness Pope Francis. I leave the Vatican more determined than ever to pursue PEACE in our world," Trump wrote on Twitter.

Trump's meeting with Francis began with a handshake. Trump could be heard thanking the pope and saying it was "a great honor" to be there before sitting down with Francis for their private 30-minute meeting.

Iran has built its third underground ballistic missile production factory, the head of the elite Revolutionary Guards airspace division said, adding that the Islamic Republic will continue to "forcefully" develop its missile capabilities.

"Iran's third underground factory has been built by the Guards in recent years... We will continue to further develop our missile capabilities forcefully," Amirali Hajizadeh said, as quoted by Fars News Agency.

He went on to state that "the next missile to be produced is a surface-to-surface missile."