North Korea is depicted across US and European media as a backward nation run by a despotic, delusional leader encircled by advisers suffering from irrational, militant paranoia. The nation is also depicted as a prominent security threat in Asia-Pacific despite North Korea waging no wars in the region since an armistice in 1953 effectively ended the Korean War.

A despotic, delusional leadership, however, most likely would not possess nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles and a large conventional army and yet restrain its use regardless of decades of provocations engineered along its borders by the United States and its allies within the South Korean government. Likewise, a nation governed by the entirely irrational would be incapable of maintaining, even expanding ties with neighboring states like China.

Yet in reality, North Korea has done all of this.

Much of the US and Europe's accusations are predicated on the continued development of North Korea's defense programs including advances in nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles. Strategically omitted from US and European rhetoric are the provocations the West itself is guilty of, spurring along North Korea's expanding militarization.

What if, then, North Korea's allegedly irrational paranoia was well-founded?

Chancellor Angela Merkel was the last witness questioned by the parliamentary commission investigating US surveillance in Germany and cooperation with local intelligence. She denied knowing the program's scale when declaring "friends don't spy on friends."


The now-infamous statement was given by Merkel in 2013 after NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden made public the global program of electronic surveillance conducted by American intelligence. She was speaking after it was revealed that German citizens, and she personally, were subject to this collection of data.

The words came back to haunt her when it was revealed two years later that the German intelligence service BND was closely engaged with America's NSA to survey on various targets, including allies of Berlin.

At the questioning session on Thursday, Merkel said she was not aware of this in 2013 when she delivered the "friends don't spy on friends" rebuke to Washington.

"I assumed that the BND does not engage in such activities," Merkel told the enquiry as cited by the Local.

No matter where you think Trump stands — a puppet controlled by the Deep State or a victim of Deep State sabotage — what has become crystal clear this week is that the Deep State has zero regard for the will of the people and will keep control over this nation by whatever means necessary.

Newsbud presents major new revelations by former FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds. Edmonds, known as the most classified and gagged person in US history, takes on the US Congress and the culprit media in one of the most significant and longest ongoing political/criminal cover-ups involving the FBI, a notorious political mob in Chicago, a well-known elected official and her convicted criminal spouse. Further, she renews her public call for joint testimony under oath before the US Congress. Do not miss this in-depth exposé shedding light on just how notoriously corrupt criminals are given immunity and untouchable status, not only by the US government, but also by the Deep-State collaborators- the US media.

A cross-party bill in the Italian Senate proposes heavy fines and even jail time for individuals or media outlets who "undermine" democracy and publish "false, exaggerated or biased" news online and refuse to amend copy within 24 hours.

"There have always been 'fake news' or hoaxes, but they have never been spread at the rate we see today. Because of this, it is no longer possible to put off the debate," said a statement prefacing the legislation, submitted by Adele Gambaro, a member of the small centrist Liberal Popular Alliance, whose initiative has the support of the bigger parties.

Ordinary 'fake news' reporting would merit a fine of €5,000 ($5,300), while "hate campaigns against individuals" or stories "aimed at undermining the democratic process" could result in €10,000 ($10,614) penalties. News items that would "cause alarm to the public" or "damage the public interest" will be punishable by up to one year in jail.

Traditional media outlets - newspapers and TV - would be exempt from the legislation.

"The internet has certainly expanded the boundaries of our freedom by giving us the opportunity to express ourselves on a global scale," wrote Gambaro. "But freedom of expression cannot turn into a synonym for lack of control where control, in the information era, means correct news, for the protection of users."

New details of a January raid by US forces against al-Qaeda in Yemen that left 26 people dead are raising new questions about the mission. A tribal leader enlisted by the US-supported Yemeni government to fight Shiite rebel factions was among those killed in the raid, according to local authorities.

The US raid on the village of Yakla led to the death of one Navy Seal and at least 25 Yemenis, at least 7 of whom were al-Qaeda members, but also 10 children and nine women. US Central Command claims that 14 of the 25 killed were al-Qaeda militants, including the tribal leader Sheikh Abdel-Raouf al-Dhahab.

The raid centered on al-Dhahab's property, as well as the nearby estate of the locally prominent al-Ameri family. The US also reported that six of their soldiers were wounded in the firefight. The raid's high death toll outraged the public and prompted the Yemeni government to ask the US to review their soldiers' conduct.

In all fairness, at least McCain spoke about an actual country (Ukraine), as opposed to a fairy tale land from a Russian children's book (Limpopo)
Maxine Waters isn't quite as "special" as we previously thought.

As it turns out, the famous duo of Russian phone pranksters who convinced Waters that Putin was meddling in the internal affairs of "Limpopo" have also targeted some of Washington's most distinguished warmongers:

The Flynn fiasco is not about national security advisor Michael Flynn's conversations with the Russian ambassador. It's much deeper than that. It's about Russia. It's about Putin. It's about the explosive rise of China and the world's biggest free trade zone that will eventually stretch from Lisbon to Vladivostok. It's about the one country in the world that is obstructing Washington's plan for global domination. (Russia) And, it's about the future; which country will be the key player in the world's most prosperous and populous region, Asia.

That's what's at stake, and that's what the Flynn controversy is really all about.

Many readers are familiar with the expression "pivot to Asia", but do they know what it means?

It means the United States has embarked on an ambitious plan to extend its military grip and market power over the Eurasian landmass thus securing its position as the world's only superpower into the next century. The pivot is Washington's top strategic priority. As Hillary Clinton said in 2011:

"Harnessing Asia's growth and dynamism is central to American economic and strategic interests... Open markets in Asia provide the United States with unprecedented opportunities for investment, trade, and access to cutting-edge technology... American firms (need) to tap into the vast and growing consumer base of Asia...

The region already generates more than half of global output and nearly half of global trade... we are looking for opportunities to do even more business in Asia... and our investment opportunities in Asia's dynamic markets."("America's Pacific Century", Secretary of State Hillary Clinton", Foreign Policy Magazine, 2011)

In other words, it's pivot or bust. Those are the only two options. Naturally, ruling elites in the US have chosen the former over the latter, which means they are committed to a strategy that will inevitably pit the US against a nuclear-armed adversary, Russia.

Former liberal congressman and presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich said Tuesday:

What's at the core of this is an effort by some in the intelligence community to upend any positive relationship between the U.S. and Russia. And I tell you there's a marching band and Chowder Society out there. There's gold in them there hills. There are people trying to separate the U.S. and Russia so that this military industrial intel axis can cash in.

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The American people have to know that there's a game going on inside the intelligence community... at the bottom of all this is the fact that there are those that seek to separate US from Russia to reignite the cold war... that's what's at the bottom of all this .... Wake up America!!

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What's going on in the intelligence community with this new president is unprecedented. They're making every effort trying to upend him.

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It's not just this administration. I want to remind the views and all those who are on the panel that in the closing months of the Obama administration, they put together a deal with Russia to create peace in Syria. A few days later, a military strike in Syria killed a hundred Syrian soldiers and that ended the agreement. What happened is inside the intelligence and the Pentagon there was a deliberate effort to sabotage an agreement the White House made.

Juan Pablo Escobar Henao, son of notorious Medellín cartel drug kingpin, Pablo Escobar, now says his father "worked for the CIA."

In a new book, Pablo Escobar In Fraganti, Escobar, who lives under the pseudonym, Juan Sebastián Marroquín, explains his "father worked for the CIA selling cocaine to finance the fight against Communism in Central America."

"The drug business is very different than what we dreamed," he continues. "What the CIA was doing was buying the controls to get the drug into their country and getting a wonderful deal."

"He did not make the money alone," Marroquín elaborated in an interview, "but with US agencies that allowed him access to this money. He had direct relations with the CIA."

Notably, Marroquín added, "the person who sold the most drugs to the CIA was Pablo Escobar."