The head of Qatar's sovereign wealth fund has told US officials it will invest $10 billion in the country's infrastructure projects, Reuters reported. The move is a boost to the economic plans of incoming American President Donald Trump.

According to sources, the chief executive of the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) Sheikh Abdullah bin Mohamed bin Saud al-Thani talked about the investment with the officials on Monday in Doha. Among those involved was Charles Rivkin, US assistant secretary of state for economic and business affairs.

The details on the timing of the investment have not been disclosed.

One of the world's largest sovereign funds the QIA has already said it intends to invest $35 billion in the US over the next five years. Reuters' sources said it was not clear if the $10 billion investment was part of that.

According to Scientific American, The US Department of Energy has refused a request from President-elect Trump's Energy Department Transition Team for information about what their people do on their work time.
Read more here.

In my opinion this outrageous response is the very epitome of a government department which is out of control. Refusing to provide information to the new administration about what staff do with their work time, to me suggests the US Department of Energy believes they are a law unto themselves - they think they are above politicians and political cycles, and intend to continue wasting money on climate programmes, regardless of what the new Trump administration wants.

While residents of Aleppo are celebrating the liberation of their city, the mainstream media has been painting the opposite picture with sensational headlines decrying alleged atrocities and a "meltdown of humanity" they claim is happening there.

But what are their sources? Well, "someone told them." Most of their reports are unverified because MSM has no one on the ground in Aleppo.

RT's Murad Gazdiev looks into how MSM lies and misinformation.

Independent humanitarian organizations do not confirm reports about atrocities committed in eastern Aleppo by the Syrian government troops, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Wednesday.

"Actually, I do not know any firsthand assessments of independent humanitarian organizations, which have their representatives in eastern Aleppo. None of them confirms reports about committed atrocities, kidnapping of service-aged people, who are escaping from eastern Aleppo," Lavrov said.

On Tuesday, Rupert Colville, spokesman for UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that the Syrian government forces had allegedly killed at least 82 civilians in their offensive on the militants-held districts of the city of Aleppo.

The situation in eastern Aleppo may be resolved in two to three days, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said. The Russian Reconciliation Center reported earlier that about 6,000 civilians have been evacuated from militant-controlled areas in the last 24 hours.

"I hope that the situation in Aleppo will be resolved in two to three days. [Russia] has created humanitarian corridors [in Aleppo] that have been and are being used by tens of thousands of civilians," Lavrov said, adding that guarantees of safety have been given to militants who voluntarily lay down their arms, and corridors have also been organized for them to safely leave the city.

At the same time, Lavrov stressed that the crisis can only be solved by political means.

"This concerns Syria, this concerns Libya, Yemen, Iraq," he said, adding "what is happening in these countries, especially in Iraq - the attempt to take the city of Mosul - is no less dramatic."

"[At least] 5,992 civilians, including 2,210 children, have been evacuated from areas of Aleppo under the control of militants with the assistance of the Russian Reconciliation Center," the Center's statement said earlier.

In an interview to RT, the Syrian President warned against taking statements by western governments at face value, as in Aleppo, they seemed to care more about saving terrorists than civilians. He also slammed the lackluster reaction to ISIS's onslaught on Palmyra.

President Bashar Assad sat down for an interview with RT's Maria Finoshina as the war in Syria has hit a new critical point with the Syrian Army's liberation of Aleppo and Islamic State's (IS, ISIS/ISIL) return to Palmyra. Here's a fragment of the interview, which is to be exclusively aired on RT on Wednesday.

RT: Palmyra is another troubled region now, and it's now [being] taken by ISIS, but we don't hear a lot of condemnation about it.

President Assad: Exactly, because if it was captured by the government they would be worrying about the heritage. If we liberate Aleppo from the terrorists, the western officials and the mainstream media, they are going to be worrying about the civilians. They do not worry when the opposite happens, when the terrorists are killing those civilians or attacking Palmyra and destroying the human heritage, not only the Syrian heritage.


[The Palmyra offensive of] ISIS, if you look at the timing of their attack is related to what is happening in Aleppo. This is the response to what is happening in Aleppo - the advancement of the Syrian Arab Army - and they wanted to undermine the victory in Aleppo and at the same time to distract the Syrian Army from Aleppo to make it more toward Palmyra and stop the advancement. But, of course, it did not work.

RT: Western countries have been repeatedly asking Russia and Iran to put pressure on you to, as they put it, stop the violence. Just recently, six western nations asked Russia and Iran again to put pressure on you, asking for a ceasefire in Aleppo. At the time when your army was progressing, they were asking for a ceasefire.

Assad: It's always important in politics to read between the lines, not to be literal. It doesn't matter what they ask. The translation of their statement is for Russia [to] "please, stop the advancement of the Syrian Army against the terrorists." That is the meaning of their statement, forget about the rest: "You went too far in defeating the terrorists, that shouldn't happen. You should tell the Syrians to stop this. We have to keep the terrorists and to save them."

TUNE IN TO RT ON WEDNESDAY TO WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW

Russia is weary of the Obama administration's ever-shifting approach towards the situation Aleppo, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. He added that the hostilities in the Syrian city would have stopped long ago if the US didn't just sit idle.

"We are tired of hearing the lamentations of our American colleagues from the current administration that the hostilities [in Aleppo] should stop and that Russians are willing to do so only after having an agreement on corridors [for opposition fighters to leave]," Lavrov told a news conference in Serbia.

He said the US had had plenty of time since September, when a ceasefire deal for Aleppo was agreed, to prepare the evacuation of armed opposition groups from the eastern part of the city.

"Instead of doing this work, they call on us every day to stop combat action, call on the Syrian Army to do the same, and do nothing themselves. They didn't lift a finger to separate 'their moderates' from terrorists," the Russian minister said.

In late November 2016, Norwegian police made public the arrests of a number of individuals involved in an international pedophile ring, including law enforcement officials, politicians and businesspeople. Major Western media outlets quickly published stories on the arrests - but they have since been removed.

The police operation, dubbed 'Dark Room', is thought to be one of the largest child sexual abuse cases in Norway's history. In all, 150 terabytes of data, including photos, videos and online chat records, were seized. Norwegian news site The Local reports that Hilde Reikras, the head of the operation, said the material depicted "abuse of children of all ages, including infants," and that some of the accused livestreamed their abuse online and performed atrocities with their own children.

All of the men arrested reside in Norway, but police confirmed they were investigating one individual living abroad.

Sounds of fighting had ceased in Aleppo by late Tuesday, casting a rare silent night on the embattled Syrian city, RT's Lizzie Phelan reports from the scene. An anticipated peaceful withdrawal of those militants left in the city's east remains to be confirmed.

"First hours in weeks here in #Aleppo without the sound of shelling and gunfire," Phelan tweeted late on Tuesday.

For months as terrorists backed by the United States, Turkey, and their Persian Gulf allies lost significant ground to the Syrian Arab Army in Syria's northern city of Aleppo, the battle was characterized by the Western media and Western politicians as a brutal assault on the city's residents - the extinguishing of a 6-year-long uprising.

However, in reality, that was never the case. And this reality is something careful readers will note even if they read the latest from one of the most prominent sources of pro-terrorist propaganda, the Washington Post.

In their article, "Endgame in Aleppo, the most decisive battle yet in Syria's war," they admit (emphasis added):

When Syrian rebels surged into Aleppo in the summer of 2012, it was the high point of their still young, still idealistic revolution against President Bashar al-Assad.

Four and a half years and hundreds of thousands of deaths later, troops loyal to his government were poised on Tuesday to take the city back, heralding the end of an era for the rebellion.

The Washington Post also demolishes another widely repeated lie regarding Aleppo - claims that a quarter of a million people remained in "rebel-held" eastern Aleppo. The Washington Post now claims (emphasis added):

Last-minute diplomacy to rescue the tens of thousands of people trapped by the fighting or because they fear being detained by loyalist forces generated a deal brokered by Russia and Turkey on Tuesday to evacuate the last rebel-controlled enclave.

"Tens of thousand" is a far cry from "the quarter of a million" lie repeatedly told by the Western media, including by the Washington Post itself in articles like, "More than 250,000 in Eastern Aleppo could die after the next 20 days."