President Donald Trump has asked Congress to investigate the leaks of classified government information, the White House said. He has also asked them to probe whether the Obama administration ordered the wiretapping of his campaign.

Trump is specifically asking lawmakers on the House and Senate intelligence committees to look into "pervasive leaks of national security classified information," White House press secretary Sean Spicer said during an off-camera press gaggle on Monday. "He believes it undermines our national security."

The request to Congress is only the latest attempt by the Trump administration to stem the tide of leaks coming out of the executive branch. Towards the end of February, Spicer ordered White House communications staffers to hand over personal and work cell phones for a "check," and admonished them not to use encryption apps. The meeting was promptly leaked to the press. Around the same time, an internal State Department memo explaining the rationale for clamping down on government agency leaks was also leaked.

Trump previously blamed the leaks coming out of his administration, as well as protests against his presidency, on President Barack Obama.

Israel risks a "crisis" with the new US administration if it moves to annex the West Bank, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman has cautioned in response to radical proposals related to Palestinian territories, citing a "direct" warning from Washington.

Calls to annex several settlements in the occupied West Bank, or even its whole territory, have been lately voiced by some members of the ruling coalition in the Israeli Knesset. The proposals have sparked an international outcry.

Speaking to the Israeli Parliament's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday, Lieberman, however, implied that even the staunchly pro-Israel administration of Donald Trump has warned against annexing the West Bank.

"We received a message directly — not indirectly, not a hint — from the US, that Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank means an immediate crisis with the new administration," Lieberman said, as cited by The Times of Israel.

US and Russian troops patrol Kurdish controlled Manbij preventing an attack by the Turkish army.

In an extraordinary twist illustrating the fantastic complexity of the Syria conflict, news agency reports confirm the presence of both US and Russian troops in the Kurdish controlled Syrian town of Manbij.

These reports come just months after the US and Russian militaries faced off against each other in Syria, as previously reported by The Duran (see here and here), and as again recently confirmed in an extraordinary interview given a few weeks ago by Lieutenant General Leonid Reshetnikov, former head of Russia's chief centre of foreign intelligence analysis, a complete transcript of which can be found in The Saker:

Savvy people likely noticed that there was a period in October-November of last year when we were a step away from a military conflict with the United States.

The US military has, somewhat provocatively, published pictures of its Special Forces in Manbij.

If US President Donald Trump starts a trade war with China, his country would be the worse for it, according to the chairman of China's biggest beverage maker Wahaha.

"The new American administration has threatened to launch a trade war, but in my view, they will suffer more from the war," Wahaha Chairman Zong Qinghou told reporters on the sidelines of China's annual parliament meeting on Tuesday.

"People will grumble about the US government as domestic prices rise," he said, referring to a possible loss of access to cheap Chinese goods.

Zong, who is worth from $7-$16 billion according to various estimates, added that if Washington keeps "stupid" restrictions on high-tech exports to China, its trade deficit with Beijing will persist. The deficit was $347 billion last year.

"Western countries, especially the United States, sometimes are stupid, as they ban companies from selling advanced technology products in China," said Zong.

These disintegrative forces are easy to see but elusive to pin down. Nobody defines themselves as self-serving, greedy and lacking in virtue. Everyone feels trapped in the system.

With the media's hyperactive three-ring circus blasting 24/7, it's easy to forget that everything consequential is happening beneath the surface, out of sight and largely out of mind.

What's going on beneath the surface is structural and systemic--for example, the 4th Industrial Revolution that is transforming the global economy and social order, regardless of political ideologies or our wishes.

Centralization--the "solution" to every problem since 1940--is now the problem. Centralization generates corruption, privilege, rentier skims, institutionalized rackets and pushes one-size-fits all failure down the chain of command.

Fragmentation and the De-Optimization of Centralization (January 2, 2017)

The role of the United States in the breakup of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is often overlooked by people who are critical of Washington's intervention in the internal affairs of independent, sovereign countries.

For it was in the former Yugoslavia that the precedent was set for future American intervention in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo provided the launch pad for the West's concept of humanitarian intervention, which, in reality, is a pretext for safeguarding and enhancing US global hegemony.

However, intervention by Washington in the Balkans in the 1990s served a more immediate objective for the Americans. While Otto von Bismarck, the legendary first Chancellor of Germany, scoffed at the notion of intervening in the Balkans, having said that the region is "not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier," the US took a decidedly different view on the matter.

"Take notice, That England is not a a Free People, till the Poor that have no Land, have a free allowance to dig and labour the Commons, and so live as Comfortably as the Landlords that live in their Inclosures."

- Gerrard Winstanley, 1652

"Since the beginning, the US presidents (all of European stock, of course), had been promoting slavery, extermination campaigns against the native population of North America, barbaric wars of aggression against Mexico, and other Latin American countries, the Philippines, etc. Has anything changed now? I highly doubt it. Donald Trump is horrendous, but he is also honest. Both Presidents Clinton and Obama were great speakers, but unrepentant mass murderers."

- Andre Vltchek

"The solutions put forth by imperialism are the quintessence of simplicity...When they speak of the problems of population and birth, they are in no way moved by concepts related to the interests of the family or of society...Just when science and technology are making incredible advances in all fields, they resort to technology to suppress revolutions and ask the help of science to prevent population growth. In short, the peoples are not to make revolutions, and women are not to give birth. This sums up the philosophy of imperialism."

- Fidel Castro

The strange sight of liberal America participating in a neo-McCarthyite assault on Trump appointees, not on the grounds of their inherent racism and stupidity, but because they have contacts with Russia, is among the more surreal spectacles of modern political history. At what point did Russia become the official enemy of the U.S.? Wasn't it just yesterday that Bush Jr looked into Putin's eyes and declared him a honorable man? The truth is, of course, that Russia never stopped being the enemy. The internalized ethos of the cold war, the anti communist hysteria of post WW2 has always been there. The resentful flinty heart of America tolerates no disobedience. No country exhibiting the slightest autonomy is allowed to escape punishment and censure. The shining light on the hill symbolism is one that demands nobody else dare to exhibit anything that resembles their own leadership role globally.

The White House statement on "DeepStateGate" — President Donald Trump's allegations that former President Barack Obama ordered surveillance on him during his 2016 presidential campaign — has the feel of cards and chips thumping down on the table:

The White House is placing a substantial bet on what Congress will uncover. Don't expect those cards to be dealt swiftly because such investigations take time. The Obama administration was highly adept at stalling investigations until the Democratic media could pronounce them "old news" and ignore the outcome.

The Trump administration can distinguish itself by cooperating energetically with this one and helping it move forward quickly. Rest assured that no matter how long it takes, the media will never consider it "old news" as long as there remains any chance for anyone connected with the Trump 2016 campaign to get in trouble over contacts with the Russians.

The occupation of Iraq's Mosul is under American guidance, so naturally they don't want to reveal the sort of atrocities that are happening against innocent civilians there, Paul Antonopoulos, Deputy Editor, Al-Masdar News, told RT.

Thousands of civilians are fleeing the city of Mosul on a daily basis, according to the UN. The intensified fighting between US-backed Iraqi forces and ISIS led to an increasing number of civilian casualties.

The Pentagon confirmed coalition warplanes had killed 21 locals both in Iraq and Syria in the month of January. It also said 220 civilians were unintentionally killed since 2014.

RT: The battle against ISIS in Mosul has moved to urban areas now. How likely is the number of casualties to increase as Iraqi forces push deeper into the city?

Paul Antonopoulos: As the battle intensified it is only inevitable that there will be greater casualties. Now, we know only yesterday ISIS attempted a counter-attack against Iraqi forces and they preempted their attack with nine suicide bombers - nine bombers using vehicles to blow themselves up. So with this sort of indiscriminate bombing from ISIS it is only inevitable that there will be many more casualties. Also the airstrikes don't make any sort of distinction between where civilians are and ISIS frontlines. So we'll only see more civilians being killed in the pursuit of wiping out ISIS.

RT: It's estimated that over 45 thousand people have been displaced in just the last nine days alone as they flee the fighting. Why are there still no humanitarian corridors set up for them?

PA: If we use Aleppo as a sort of comparison, Syrian largest city, we saw humanitarian corridors opened up. But this was with very careful negotiations between the Syrian government and the Russian government with the terrorist forces. When we're talking about Mosul, however, we know that ISIS is always unwilling to negotiate with the government, whether it be in Syria or in Iraq. This makes it almost impossible to open up these humanitarian corridors. However, we must question: has the Iraqi government or the US made any sort of attempts to negotiate with ISIS to allow civilians to flee?

RT: We heard from people on the ground that they are fleeing both terrorists and US-backed forces' airstrikes. However, the mainstream media seem to ignore the strikes. Why so?

PA: ... The occupation of Iraq's Mosul is under the guidance of the US so naturally they don't want to reveal the sort of atrocities that are happening against innocent civilians. It goes against all sort of narratives that the US are more humanitarian focus, as if compared to the Russians, who in Aleppo just indiscriminately bombed several last hospitals. It goes against all sorts of reports that keep coming out.

RT: Russia has been accused of committing war crimes in the Syrian city of Aleppo, but the situation in Mosul is quite similar to that in Aleppo. Why isn't the coalition being blamed for civilian deaths from the airstrikes?

PA: It is almost an identical situation between Aleppo and Mosul. Of course there are some differences. However, the most important part is that Russia is the big bad part of the world right now that the US cannot contain. They are supporting the Syrian government, which again the US is trying to remove. What is happening in Mosul right now, as I said, is under the guidance of the US. So they'll always lay accusations against Russia and what they are doing in Aleppo. However, if we just speak to the people of Aleppo, they'll always praise the Russian involvement in the liberation of that city. However, as your correspondent in Mosul - just speaking to the people - he revealed that they are equally terrified of the US airstrikes. So why this isn't covered by the mainstream media, it only questions the motives.

Part I

Part II

The Afro-Eurasian blueprint for Neo-Ottomanism was revealed in the previous two parts of this research, so now the work will take a turn towards examining the opportunities and challenges that could realistically impact on Turkey's forthcoming Great Power expansion and strategic plans. In order to make this as easy as possible for the reader to go through, the following information will be organized in any given order according to bullet points that summarize each main concept and then briefly elaborate a bit more about them: