The leader of the extremist Islamic State (IS) group has appeared in a video for the first time in five years.

The video -- released by the IS's media outlet, Al-Furqan, on April 29 -- shows Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi appearing with an unkempt, bushy gray and red beard while sitting on the floor against a wall. He is wearing a black robe with a light vest over it and has a machine gun near his right arm. Three masked men are seen listening to him speak.

Baghdadi -- speaking slowly and often pausing -- says the IS group will gain revenge for the killing and imprisonment of its fighters. He says his group's operations against the West are a "long battle."

It is unknown where the 18-minute video was taken and both Iraqi and U.S.-backed forces are seeking to capture the extremist leader.

A State Department spokesman said it will review the recording and allow the "intelligence community to confirm its authenticity."

He added that the U.S.-led coalition will "ensure an enduring defeat of these terrorists and that any leaders who remain are delivered the justice that they deserve."

"Intentions are good but we would like to know the details", said the Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov

US President Donald Trump's nuclear disarmament ideas are commendable but the US has not discussed them with Russia yet, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

"Certain initiatives on nuclear reductions are welcome but in this case, it is difficult to judge by general statements," he said. "Intentions are good but we would like to know the details: what does President Trump mean and whether there have been preliminary discussions of the matter,"

The Russian presidential spokesman also said that as far as he knew, the US "has not discussed the matter with Russian experts."

According to Peskov, it would be perfect to free the world from nuclear weapons but if that happened, "we would lose a deterrent mechanism that guarantees no one will take crazy steps and make horrible mistakes."

CNN said earlier, citing White House officials, that Trump "has made clear that he thinks that arms control should include Russia and China and should include all the weapons, all the warheads, all the missiles."

The 'Russian meddling' conspiracy theory was hatched by Democrats in 2016 as a way to defeat Donald Trump. Now the Trump administration is invoking it to justify massive military spending, spying, coups and censorship.

Secretary of State - and former CIA director - Mike Pompeo is the latest Trump administration official to reaffirm what has become an article of faith in the Swamp of Washington, DC.

"Of course the Russians interfered" in the 2016 election, Pompeo told the audience at an event on Monday, hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) )and The Hill.

'We must be vigilant & united': Bolivia's president emerges in support of Maduro

Bolivia's president has come out in support of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro after opposition chief Juan Guaido claimed he had military support in his "final phase" of ousting the country's elected leader.

Maduro retweeted a note of support from President Evo Morales on Tuesday morning. Morales wrote on Twitter: "We strongly condemn the coup attempt in #Venezuela, by the right wing that is submissive to foreign interests. Sure that the courageous Bolivarian Revolution at the head of the brother @NicolasMaduro, will be imposed on this new attack of the empire."

Lawmakers in Moscow are seeking to compile a list of US officials accused of violating the rights of Russian citizens following the sentencing of Maria Butina, a gun-rights activist accused of being a foreign agent.

"Under unprecedented pressure and in inhumane prison conditions... the Russian national was forced to plead guilty to things to avoid a heavy jail term, with which the prosecution openly threatened her," the lawmakers said in a proposal seen by Izvestia daily.

The prospect of being included on the 'Butina List' should "sober up" foreign officials who are "used to harassing Russian citizens abroad with impunity."

Butina, an American university graduate, was sentenced on Friday to 18 months in prison and deportation from the US by a federal judge in Washington DC after pleading guilty to conspiring to act as a foreign agent without government registration. The decision came as a shock to Butina's family and defense, who hoped for a time-served sentence.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on April 30 that an F-35 fighter jet project without Turkey was bound to collapse, adding that Ankara was being treated unfairly over the project.

"An F-35 project from which Turkey is excluded is doomed to completely fail," he said addressing the International Defense Industry Fair (IDEF'19) program.

Turkey's plan to buy Russian S-400 missile defense systems has strained ties with the United States which has said they would compromise the security of the Lockheed Martin F-35 jets. Ankara is both a prospective buyer of F-35s and also a partner in their production.

Erdoğan stated that those trying to exclude Turkey from the F-35 project had not thought it through and added that Ankara was rapidly taking steps to develop its own air defense systems.

"We believe that those, who try to exclude us from a program of which we are project and production partner, still do not see where it will lead to," the president said. "We have started to rapidly take the steps to produce our own national fighter jets. The majority of our air forces' fleets will be comprised of our national fighter jets. In this regard, we also focus on unmanned fighter jets, the technology of the future," Erdoğan stated.

There's no point in knocking Trump out of the White House if a Democratic president has only more endless war to offer, Democratic candidate Tulsi Gabbard has declared in a deleted, then reposted campaign tweet.

"I might get in trouble for saying this, but what does it matter if we beat Donald Trump if we end up with someone who will perpetuate the very same crony capitalist policies, corporate policies, and waging more of these costly wars?" Gabbard asks a room full of supporters in the clip, to thunderous applause.

"The most attacks I get are not from Republicans," the Hawaiian congresswoman continues. "They're from Democrats, they're from people in the mainstream media, they're from people in the foreign policy establishment that you're talking about, people who represent the interest of the military industrial complex."

President Trump says the Deep State tried and failed to remove him from office in a coup. Former CIA Officer and whistleblower Kevin Shipp says the attempted coup on Trump was a global conspiracy. Shipp explains,

"Yes, this is a coup. This is the most shocking violation of the Constitution and criminal activity in the history, not just of America, but of a western government. Much of this rises to the level of treason. People need to understand how shocking this is. It was a clear conspiracy. There will be arrests and indictments without question. . . . This was a coup. It was a conspiracy. It was criminal activity. These people need to be indicted, charged and need to be put in prison, and if they're not, then our Constitution is nothing more than a sham. This was a coup against a duly elected President, and people need to understand how serious this is."

Shipp adds,

"We have a not so covert civil war going on right now that has been brewing over 60 years. We have the 'Dark Left,' and the DNC is fully involved with all their Congressmen and Senators. There is a Marxist movement within the DNC that is in control right now. You can match up the progressive goals with Marxist documents, and you can see they are one in the same. . . . They have to change and eliminate the Constitution. . . . They want to change the First Amendment and the Second Amendment first of all. Second of all, they despise and are targeting Christianity because Christianity . . . underlines the Constitution and is mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. That's their second target they have to destroy. Their third target is the founding principles of America. That's our culture. They have to destroy those three things if they are going to overturn our Constitution and turn this into a global Marxist government. That is not an understatement. . . . It's not the same party of JFK. It's now a Marxist party and an umbrella for every victim, twisted and perverted group that has nowhere else to go. This is a mortal blow to the Democrat Party when these things come out."

On the Limits of Military Management of the International System

Introduction

The celebration of NATO's 70 years of existence provides another opportunity to unearth the real history of the ideas, practices and destruction wrought by this military alliance. Even with the clear exposure of the cooperation between NATO, the CIA and the British MI6 to spread terror and psychological warfare in Europe immediately after the formation of this military alliance, the mainstream media, academics and policy makers remain silent on activities of the 'stay behind armies' and 'false flag' operations that distorted the real causes of insecurity in the world after 1945. The evidence of the manipulations of the peoples of the world to ensure the continued survival of NATO has been well documented in the fraudulent interventions and bombings in the Balkans right up the present multiple wars against the peoples of Iran.

Vijay Prashad had identified NATO as the prime defender of the Atlantic project. This Atlantic project, he noted was, "a fairly straightforward campaign by the propertied classes to maintain or restore their position of dominance." This Atlantic Project was anchored in the military alliance called NATO with its principal work, that of reversing the South Project; the struggles for peace, bread and justice by the poorer citizens of the planet, especially those who had emerged on the world stage after the decolonization of Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean.

The ostensive reason for the founding of NATO was to 'thwart' Soviet aggression, but in practice the organization was a prop for western capital and after the fall of the Berlin Wall, became the core prop for Wall Street. In this year, there will be many commentaries on the fact that the existence of NATO reflects a Cold War relic, that NATO is obsolete and lost its mandate, but very few will link the expansion of NATO to the military management of the international system.

Pakistan and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have begun the final round of negotiations over the $8 billion rescue package for Islamabad amid a deepening economic crisis.

The long-delayed package, which is expected to be signed next month would be Pakistan's 13th bailout since the late 1980s.

"The talks aim to determine the terms and conditions of the three-year program," India's NDTV reported, quoting an unnamed official at the Pakistani Finance Ministry.

The meeting that began in Islamabad on April 29 comes as the IMF issued a report on Mideast and regional economies, saying that Pakistan's economic growth is expected to slow from about 5 percent last year to close to 3 percent this year.