In series of strong tweets President Trump gives Attorney General Jeff Sessions his strong backing as it turns out that Sessions was about to recuse himself anyway before the Washington Post published its story of his meetings with Russian ambassador Kislyak.

President Trump did today for Attorney General Jeff Sessions what he signally failed to do for his former National Security Adviser General Michael Flynn, which is throw the full weight of his support behind him.

In a series of powerful tweets today (here, here, here and here) he made clear his unequivocal backing for Sessions.

The President also made clear his belief - which I share - that the Democrats and their allies in the US intelligence community and in the media who are pursuing this Russia campaign are overplaying their hand, alleging the existence of a gigantic conspiracy behind the Trump campaign and Russia for which no evidence exists.

Jeff Sessions is an honest man. He did not say anything wrong. He could have stated his response more accurately, but it was clearly not intentional. This whole narrative is a way of saving face for Democrats losing an election that everyone thought they were supposed to win. The Democrats are overplaying their hand. They lost the election, and now they have lost their grip on reality. The real story is all of the illegal leaks of classified and other information. It is a total "witch hunt!

There's a confusion at the heart of every presidential address to Congress. It's supposed to be a grave occasion of solidarity around the principles of our shared republic, but it has the cheesy and disingenuous air of a campaign event. The address combines the solemnity of ceremony with mindless hyperpartisan hoopla — the shouting and booing, the symbolic gimmickry and, above all, the absurd tradition of signifying one's agreement or displeasure by either standing to applaud or remaining seated after every phrase of the speech.

The address is designed for a traditional Democratic or Republican president. He's meant to embolden his party and browbeat the opposition, with a few light gestures at unity and consensus. His allies are supposed to look gleeful and applaud his every gesture; his opponents are supposed to sit glumly on their hands and show the nation that they, at least, aren't engaging in this misguided hysteria.

The address is designed, in other words, for a more or less ideologically coherent speech. But Donald Trump, as everybody knows, doesn't care about ideological coherence. His ideas don't fall along recognizable philosophical lines, with the result that his audience of lawmakers, ready to boo or cheer in the usual ways, often seemed unsure how to respond.

Once again, then, Trump succeeded in a setting where nearly everybody — including me — thought he would fail.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to meet US President Donald Trump at the White House in mid-March, bringing the two leaders together for their first face-to-face meeting amid growing low-key dissent between Berlin and Washington.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said the meeting will take place on March 14 in Washington, AP reported. She did not elaborate on the details of the agenda.

"Such a plan is in the works," a German government source told AFP on Friday. In a separate remark, German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said that "we are not denying" reports of the planned meeting.

Both leaders are expected to meet in Germany at the July G20 summit, but this will be their first encounter after a rocky start to relations earlier this year amid mutual disagreements on trade, immigration, and Donald Trump's bellicose comments about the mainstream media.

In the previous text, dedicated to the investigation of the murder in Kuala Lumpur, we have analyzed the pros and cons of the North Korean track, which, in terms of Pyongyang's enemies, received confirmation after Malaysian authorities finally announced the cause of death. During the autopsy, traces of a poisonous nerve agent such as VX were found on the face and in the eyes of the dead man. The indicated poisonous substance is the most toxic of substances used as chemical weapons: death occurs in 10-15 minutes. Since the times of the Iraq-Kuwait crisis of the 1990's, VX has been banned by relevant conventions and was officially in use only in the Soviet Union and the United States.

As pointed out by experts, familiar to the author, it is possible to synthesize a small amount of this poisonous substance in a laboratory, and, as reported by the Malaysian newspaper The Star, police detained a local resident near whose property chemicals, a lot of gloves and shoes had been discovered, which the suspect apparently tried to remove from the house in a hurry. On February 23, a search was conducted in his house, where samples of the chemicals, overalls for working with chemicals, as well as syringes, gloves and other tools that could be used in the production of toxic substances were found. It is curious that the house was located two kilometers from the home of the North Korean diplomat and the South Korean media immediately stated that "the local media reported that the house had been rented by four North Koreans." However, the author could not find such information in the Malaysian press, nor information that the arrested citizen of North Korea (DPRK) and expert chemist Lee Jong Chol implicated in the manufacture of poison had anything to do with the detainee, whose name is not mentioned. The only information available on Lee is that, although he had a document that Malaysian authorities usually issue to foreign workers, no-one had seen him in the workplace, indicated in the documents.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova jokingly told US Ambassador to Russia John Tefft that he should refrain from meeting with Russian politicians and officials if he does not want to become the next victim of what US President Donald Trump has declared a "witch hunt."

Zakharova made it clear that she believes such meetings may not be safe for US officials, at a time when US media and lawmakers are busy ferreting out representatives of the new administration who may, or may not, have had contacts with Russia prior to Trump's victory in the 2016 presidential elections.

Twelve people, including women and children, are being treated for possible exposure to chemical weapons agents in Mosul, where Islamic State is fighting off an offensive by U.S.-backed Iraqi forces, the United Nations said on Saturday.

The U.N.'s World Health Organization has activated with partners and local health authorities "an emergency response plan to safely treat men, women and children who may be exposed to the highly toxic chemical," the agency said in a statement.

It said all 12 patients had been received since March 1 for treatment which they are undergoing in Erbil, the capital of Iraq's Kurdish region, east of Mosul.

Four of them are showing "severe signs associated with exposure to a blister agent". The patients were exposed to the chemical agents in the eastern side of Mosul.

The Russian military has informed the United States about moving convoys to Syria's Manbij, and US operations in the area remain unaffected, US Department of Defense spokesperson Jeff Davis said in a briefing on Friday.

The Russian General Staff said Friday Russia's center for the reconciliation of the warring parties in Syria has sent the first food and medical supplies convoy to Manbij.

"We were aware of this. The Russian government has informed us of it as well," Davis told reporters. "It has not changed anything we are doing."

Just a matter of days after John McCain's "unusual" trip to Syria and Turkey, the Turkish government has cut off water supplies from the Euphrates River into northern Syria, violating international conventions on water rights.

While some measure of stability has returned to pockets of northern Syria following the Syrian Army's recent liberation of al-Qaeda from Aleppo and elsewhere, external forces seem determined to keep the region volatile, regardless of the cost. In the latest example of aggressive foreign intervention in Syria, Turkey, which has long played an antagonistic role in Syria's nearly six-year-long conflict, has now cut off the flow of the Euphrates River into Syria, depriving the nation of one of its primary sources of water.

According to the Kurdish Hawar News Agency, Turkey cut water supplies to Syria around Feb. 23, which subsequently forced a hydroelectric plant at the Tishrin Dam to shut down while also significantly reducing water levels on its associated reservoir. The dam supplies both water and power to key parts of northern Syria, such as the city of Manbij and other parts of the predominantly Kurdish Kobani Canton.

French right-wing leader and a presidential candidate, Marine Le Pen, has been summoned by judges over the alleged misuse of EU funds, according to her lawyer. It is suspected that Le Pen's staff were fictitiously employed at the European Parliament as assistants.

The National Front leader's lawyer said Le Pen will not attend proceedings before the end of the current election campaign.

"Of course she won't go," Le Pen's lawyer, Marcel Ceccaldi said, Reuters reported.

The Iranian Air Defense has conducted a test of the Russia-supplied S-300 long-range surface-to-air missile system, evaluating its performance in different combat scenarios.

The drill was dubbed Damavand and was attended by senior military commanders and officials, Tasnim news agency reported.

The Russian system was pitted against various aerial targets with small radar cross-section, including a ballistic missile, which the S-300 "smashed," according to Air Defense Commander Brigadier General Farzad Esmaili. The Iranian military also ran a simulation of electronic warfare countermeasures to test the ability of the S-300 to lock on targets in difficult conditions.