The populist Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has pledged to open up the economy to foreign businesses to tackle graft and protectionism.

"The only way for the deliverance of this country is to remove it from the clutches of the few people who hold the power and money," Duterte told a news conference.

"I do not owe you anything, that's precisely why I was avoiding you during the last election. I am not trying to destroy you. You have the advantage, you're here already, be content with that. But let us open everything."

Foreign businesses have complained they can't get access to some sectors like telecoms and utilities in the 100 million Filipino market due to red tape or obstruction from local monopolies.

Former Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky is a potential suspect in an ongoing money-laundering investigation over €100 million, frozen in Irish-domiciled funds for over five years, the Irish Times reports citing the Dublin District Court.

The investigation is being conducted by the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation (GBFI), a specialized division of Ireland's national police force, the Garda Síochána, which investigates "fraud-related crime involving complex issues of criminal law or procedure."

The district court is being asked to unfreeze over €100 million (US$106 million) under the Criminal Justice (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) Act 2010, the newspaper reports.

A leading Mexican cement manufacturer has offered to help President-elect Donald Trump build his more than 1,000 mile long "big, beautiful, powerful' wall along the US-Mexican southern border.

"We can't be choosy," Enrique Escalante, Chief Executive Officer of Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua (GCC) said in an interview with Reuters. "We're an important producer in that area and we have to respect our clients on both sides of the border."

Trump spent over a year telling voters he wanted to build a wall as protection against illegal immigrants from Mexico which he accused of not "sending their best" but rapists and drug traffickers.

A wall along the southern border between Mexico and the United States, would have to be 2,000 miles long, according to projections by the Government Accountability Office.

Israel's attorney-general has opened a probe into an alleged scandal involving the purchase of German submarines, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's personal friend and lawyer suspected of conflict of interest.

Attorney David Shimron is facing allegations that he used his close relationship with Netanyahu to push Israel to purchase several submarines from another of his clients, German arms manufacturer Thyssenkrupp, while Netanyahu was also pushing for the purchase.

Shimron is also accused of pushing Israel to award the company a contract for naval vessels to defend Israel's gas fields, and to allow the company to build a shipyard in Israel, the Times of Israel reported.

Both Netanyahu and Shimron have denied speaking about the latter's business relationship in the submarine deal, noting that their actions regarding the contract were independent of each other.

Democratic US Senator Ben Cardin is working on a "comprehensive" bill aimed at 'responding' to Russia in Ukraine and Syria, and to alleged Russian interference in the US presidential election. Observers say the effort looks like an attempt by Hillary Clinton surrogates to perpetuate anti-Russian policy despite her loss to Trump earlier this month.

"Russia presents a very serious challenge for America," Cardin, the top-ranking Democrat in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters Wednesday. "They're not our partner. They're a bully."

"Whether you attack us by MiG (fighter) or by mouse, it's an attack. It requires a response. It's clear that they were responsible for the cyber-attack on our country in this past election," the senator added, referring to the hacking and leak of Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign emails during the campaign.

Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party immediately blamed Russia for the hack, but has yet to provide any evidence to substantiate their claims.

An Israeli military intelligence website is claiming that US President-elect Donald Trump, prior to being sworn in to the White House, is already managing America's military, and that he is secretly preparing for a joint assault on Daesh with Russia and Turkey.

According to Jerusalem-based DEBKAfile sources in Washington, Trump's National Security Adviser, Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, is "secretly in close touch with the Head of the Russian Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, as well as President Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and Jordan's King Abdullah."

The website claims that the group has been engaged in covert discussions to prepare for a combined assault on Daesh bastions in Iraq and Syria, shortly after Trump is sworn in as president in January 2017. "Their plan of operation would also involve the regular armies of Turkey, Jordan, Iraq and Persian Gulf nations," DEBKAfile reported. The outlet also noted that another hint of the potential cooperation came from Syrian President Bashar Assad himself, in an interview with Portuguese radio on November 16. Assad stated, "[If Trump] fights the terrorists, it is clear that we will be a natural ally, together with the Russians, Iranians and many other countries who want to defeat the terrorists."

So why did the US Secretary of State John Kerry go to the South Pole, as US presidential elections were being held on November 8, 2016, and why was the news provided late in the game and as an unexpected surprise? One needs to keep in mind that many US states allowed early voting, so millions of Americans had already cast their ballots beforehand; they and perhaps Kerry too did not have to be in their home districts on polling day, or perhaps he did not want to wait in long lines like in places like Ohio where the number of polling stations were reduced to keep some categories from voting.

Presumably John Kerry is not one of these and his vote would have been counted. It will be remembered that Kerry stood for president himself, against George W. Bush, and would have beaten him if he had won Ohio, which he failed to do by only a few thousand votes. So you would imagine a man of such experience and seniority would be out on the campaign trail for Hillary Clinton right until the polls close in the East of the country, which is when candidates traditionally claim victory or concede defeat.

But Kerry wasn't even in the country in November 8th. He was considered so important that he had been sent to - of all places - the South Pole. While the rest of his party was hard campaigning for Clinton he was chilling it at the US military-scientific facilities there, apparently looking into something to do with "environmental policy" which wasn't part of his job description last time anyone looked. However, perhaps now, in retrospect, he knew the election results that many are now claiming was a total surprise—how all the poll results were wrong and the American people had spoken in rejecting the status quo, and all what Clinton and those who stand behind her stand for.

The Russian Foreign Ministry's plenipotentiary for human rights has told RT that he and his colleagues hope that Donald Trump will end the "illegal" detention of Russian citizens in third nations - a practice that has reached a new peak under Barack Obama.

Asked about the point at which extraterritorial detention of a foreign citizen becomes illegal under international law, Konstantin Dolgov said that it was obvious that any extraterritorial application of national legislation is against the norms and principles of international legal practice. He noted that about 20 incidents with Russian citizens detained in third countries on US warrants were no exception to this.

The Russian diplomat also pointed out that the Russian Human Rights group IGCP (International Group on Crimes against Persons) had recently presented a report detailing various cases of extraterritorial application of national laws by the US, including the arrests of Russian citizens in third countries.

In modern-day conflicts, civilians have become the "foremost victims," said the president of the Red Cross, commenting on the situation in the Middle East. While in Iraq's Mosul a number of sides are involved in a 'hybrid war,' organizations like his cannot provide much-needed aid.

"The more actors we find in the battlefield, the more armed groups we are confronted with - the more difficult it is to negotiate the humanitarian space," President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Peter Maurer told RT.

The operation to retake Mosul, the Iraqi stronghold of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), was launched over a month ago. An offensive alliance of 100,000 comprises Iraqi Army troops, Kurdish Peshmerga militias, Iraq-backed Shiite militias, Turkish expeditionary forces and western special operations troops providing targeting for US-led coalition airstrikes and advice to local forces.

The parties involved in the operation are diverse and not necessarily friendly to one another.

Maurer said that if the actors are "unstructured," it is more complicated to deliver aid to suffering people in the region. "It's hindering the security for our staff, it's making our lives more complicated, but it's the reality with which we are confronted today."

Even if you have to wait over 50 years, eventually the truth will out...

Suspicions that the CIA covered up JFK's murder have finally been confirmed, according to an explosive Politico report out this week. Fifty-two years after the President's death, declassified documents show that the CIA were in communication with alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald before JFK's murder in 1963, and they were monitoring his mail since 1959.

Not only that but John McCone, who was Chief of the CIA at the time, allegedly hid evidence from the Warren commission, set up by Lyndon Johnson to investigate JFK's assassination. The spymaster and other senior CIA officials are accused of withholding 'incendiary' information from the commission and therefore perverting the course of justice. The CIA has admitted this.