Centrist Emmanuel Macron has officially assumed power in an inauguration ceremony at the Elysee Place in Paris, becoming the youngest president in French history.

His predecessor, socialist Francois Hollande, welcomed the 39-year-old at the steps of the presidential place during the red-carpet ceremony.

Macron won France's presidential elections with 66.1 percent of the vote on May 7, while his rival Marine Le Pen received 33.9 percent.

Hollande led Macron to the president's office to discuss state secrets, including nuclear codes, as well as the most sensitive issues facing the Republic, the media reported.

The meeting took more than an hour, Le Parisien newspaper reported, adding that it had lasted longer than the usual 20-30 minutes.

Czech President Milos Zeman refused the services of an interpreter for his meeting with President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, opting instead, to fire off one-liners and in Russian, on the sidelines of a key international conference in Beijing.

"You are smoker just like me, Minister Lavrov - but your President forbids it," 72-year-old Zeman, known for his bon viveur lifestyle, told the Russian Foreign Minister as he shook his hand during Sunday's photo op at the "One Belt, One Road" forum in the Chinese capital.

"I don't recommend it!" Putin replied.

If Trump is smart like he claims he is, he'd use the media bias against him to his advantage. Last week he appears to have done just that, firing FBI Director James Comey on the eve of a surprise meeting with Russian foreign minister Lavrov in the White House. The reaction from most media talking heads was predictable, loudly bleating that this move is proof that Trump is taking orders from the Kremlin. Their reaction was so over-the-top that even Senator Lindsey Graham had to talk them down from their hysteria.

It's easy to produce endless streams of fake news and repeat the same talking points across a global media empire when you control such an empire, but the danger for those interests it serves is that, with every passing week, they are alerting more and more of the hitherto disinterested masses to the increasingly blatant psychopathology of the entrenched elites. The more the media must lie to bridge the reality gap between the elites and the people, the more absurd its narratives become.

A case in point is the French presidential election: how credible is it, to French voters, that the candidate who was the fullest representation of everything they had come to detest in previous governments (for those 'of the right'; the destruction of traditional values and kowtowing before foreign powers - and for those 'of the left'; the destruction of the welfare state and the enrichment of the elites at the expense of the people) won more votes than candidates who spoke to some or all of their concerns?

Join us this Sunday 14 May from 6-8pm CET (4-6pm UTC, 12-2pm EST) as we go Behind the Headlines to find that scarce commodity: the real news!

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Former US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper says the checks and balances in the US system are "eroding" because institutions are facing an internal assault from President Donald Trump.

Speaking on CNN's State of the Union on Sunday, Clapper said that Trump's sacking of FBI director James Comey has caused turmoil in intelligence circles.

"The developments of the past week are very bothersome, very disturbing to me," Clapper said, before repeating claims that Russia interfered in last year's US presidential election - something he has admitted there is no evidence of.

"I think in many ways our institutions are under assault both externally, and that's the big news here; Russian interference in our election system. And, as well, I think our institutions are under assault internally," Clapper explained, prompting host Jake Tapper to ask "internally from the President?"

"Exactly," Clapper responded, saying "the Founding Fathers, in their genius, created a system of three co-equal branches of government and a built-in system of checks and balances and I feel as though that's under assault and is eroding."

Osama Bin Laden's son is set to become the new leader of Al-Qaeda and wants to exact revenge for his father's death, according to an ex-FBI agent, who led the investigation into the terrorist group following the 9/11 attacks.

In an interview to be aired on CBSon Sunday, former agent Ali Soufan claims that letters seized in the raid in which Bin Laden was killed in 2011 indicate that his son will follow in his footsteps.

Hamza Bin Laden allegedly wrote: "I consider myself to be forged in steel. The path of jihad for the sake of God is what we live," according to Soufan.

North Korea has rejected accusations that they're holding 2 US citizens "hostage" as a bargaining chip, but has threatened to "mercilessly punish" them if they are found guilty of plotting to carry out "hostile acts" against the state and the country's leadership.

"The recently-detained Americans are under investigation of a relevant legislative organ for their criminal acts against the DPRK," said North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman. "It is an exercise of the legitimate right of a sovereign state to deal with the criminals according to its law."

"Have you ever been to a demonstration?" a resident of Nabi Saleh asked me, trying to judge my level of experience.

So far I had only attended demonstrations in Canada and Europe, which as I was about to find out, are worlds apart from what a demonstration in the occupied West Bank village of Nabi Saleh looks like- mainly, a war zone.

Little did I know, the robust, energetic, young man who had been walking by my side would be shot dead by a sniper in half an hour, his arms hanging lifelessly as his friends ran, carrying him across the rocky terrain, his face having already changed into a yellow tint in a matter of seconds.

The young man was 23-year-old Saba Obaid, the 21st Palestinian to be killed from Israeli live ammunition in 2017.

Recent reports suggest that the US-Backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Kurdish People's Protection Units or YPG are bracing for what could be one of the defining battles of the war against Daesh terrorists. Turkish diplomat Faruk Logoglu however warned of certain dangers of arming the Kurds.

The US-Backed SDF and the Kurdish Units or YPG are getting ready to embark on an assault on Raqqa, the stronghold of Daesh terrorists, in early summer, Reuters reported, citing Abdul Qader Hevdeli, an SDF commander.

He said that they are awaiting more weapons from the US, including armored vehicles, to be able embark on what can be one of the defining battles of the war against the militants in Iraq and Syria.

On May 13th, important news came from the Lugansk People's Republic. The LPR's People's Militia came into possession of Ukrainian SMS correspondences discussing the blowing up of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission vehicle on LPR territory on April 23rd, as a result an American observer was killed. The correspondence was taken from Ukrainian operator servers.

This development was announced by the official spokesman of the People's Militia, Andrey Marochko. The correspondence evidence shows that several saboteur groups of the Security Service of Ukraine and Ukrainian Armed Forces were involved in the blowing up of the OSCE SMM car. Moreover, the specific names and codenames of the perpetrators of this terrorist attack have been established.

As we recall, the death of the American observer became the pretext for an urgent telephone conversation between President Poroshenko and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, after which the State Department issued a statement that hurled accusations at the Donbass republics.

In 1991 Obama aspired to be like Donald Trump.

An essay co-written by a then student Barack Obama in 1991 has recently been unearthed. The essay called 'Race and Rights Rhetoric' contained the following statement,

"The depth of this commitment may be summarily dismissed as the unfounded optimism of the average American—I may not be Donald Trump now, but just you wait; if I don't make it, my children will".