The United States is hatching a plan for war against Venezuela, Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro said at a meeting with governors and mayors in Caracas on Friday. Maduro, at the meeting telecast on government-run TV, said:

"They (the US authorities - TASS) have decided to make a plan to bring war and terrorism to Venezuela, to destabilize it, to fill it with violence, to trigger an armed conflict and to excuse military intervention in our country."

Maduro said that the United States had chosen Brazil as its supporter in this scheme.

"We are asking the democratic and humanitarian circles, the people of Brazil and the armed forces [of that country] to stop any adventures against Venezuela by [US President] Donald Trump-backed [Brazilian President] Jair Bolsonaro."

On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, agreed on a ceasefire in Idlib, which started at midnight. The sides also agreed to create a security corridor six kilometres (3.7 miles) north and south of the M4 highway in Syria, which connects the provinces of Latakia and Aleppo.

Turkey has not registered ceasefire violations in the Idlib de-escalation zone after a new ceasefire took effect on Friday, Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said on Saturday.

"From the moment the ceasefire agreement in Idlib entered into force, there have been no cases of violation thereof until now. We are closely monitoring the situation and in case of attacks on our observation posts will immediately respond."

Akar added that Russian delegation will visit Ankara next week to discuss joint patrols in Syria's Idlib de-escalation zone:

"Within the framework of the agreement reached in Moscow, starting 15 March, we will begin joint patrolling in Idlib. We started discussing the conditions for creating a security corridor along the M4 highway. For that, the Russian delegation will come to Ankara next week."

China's Defense Ministry says a report one of its navy ships fired a laser last month at a U.S. Navy surveillance plane circling overhead does not "accord with reality."

The report last month was the latest accusation that Chinese forces have used lasers to harass and potentially damage U.S. and other nations' military aircraft and personnel.

However, ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang was quoted as saying Friday that the ministry "refuted" the report and said a Chinese squadron was conducting routine exercises in international waters on Feb. 17 when the incident allegedly happened.

While navigating through today's propaganda-heavy world of misinformation, spin and outright creative writing which appears to have replaced conventional journalism, it is most important that two qualities are active in the mind of any truth-seeker. The first quality is the adherence to a strong top down perspective, both historic and global. This is vital in order to guide us as a sort of compass or North Star used by sailors navigating across the ocean. The second quality is a strong power of logic, memory and discernment of wheat vs. chaff to process the mountains of data that slaps us in the face from all directions like sand in a desert storm.

As the second anniversary of the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal has arrived, it is a useful time to take these qualities and revisit this bizarre moment of modern history which took place on a park bench in Salisbury UK and which led to one of the greatest frauds of the modern era derailing all attempts to repair relations between Russia and the west.

To do this, I decided to plunge myself into a new book called Skripal in Prison written by Moscow-based journalist John Helmer and published in February 2020.

This incredible little book, which features 26 chapters written between March 2018 to February 2020 originally published on the author's site Dances with Bears, unveils an arsenal of intellectual bullets which Helmer skillfully uses to shoot holes into every inconsistency, contradiction and outright lie holding up the structure of the narrative that "there is no alternative conclusion other than that the Russian State was culpable for the attempted murder of Mr. Skripal and his daughter". This line was asserted without a shred of actual evidence by Theresa May in the House of Commons on March 16, 2018 and in the months that followed, western nations were pressured to expel Russian diplomats (23 in Britain, 60 in the US, 33 across the EU), close down consulates (one Russian consulate in San Francisco and one American consulate in St Petersburg) and impose waves of sanctions against Russia.

The situation on the border between Turkey and Greece remains tense, with numerous refugees trying to reach Europe even after a ceasefire was announced in northern Syria, suspending a conflict that had caused a major influx earlier this month.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has ordered the Turkish Coast Guard to stop migrants that are attempting to enter Greece via sea routes.

"On the orders of the president... permission will not be given for migrants to cross the Aegean Sea because it is dangerous", the Coast Guard said. "The approach of not intervening against migrants wishing to leave Turkey remains in practice but this (new) approach covers sea crossings because of the dangers".

​In a series of tweets, the Turkish authorities also accused Greece of violating human rights, claiming that the Greek Coast Guard leaves refugees in the middle of the sea "in a desperate position".

President Trump made a surprise announcement on Friday night that Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., would become his new White House chief of staff, replacing acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney.

"I am pleased to announce that Congressman Mark Meadows will become White House Chief of Staff. I have long known and worked with Mark, and the relationship is a very good one," Trump tweeted.

Meadows has become one of Trump's most loyal defenders on Capitol Hill, particularly during the monthslong impeachment battle that ultimately ended with an acquittal in February.

Mulvaney became the acting White House chief of staff in January 2019, replacing Gen. John Kelly. Mulvaney was also serving as the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director.

Trump also announced that Mulvaney would become the U.S. special envoy for Northern Ireland.

"I want to thank Acting Chief Mick Mulvaney for having served the Administration so well. He will become the United States Special Envoy for Northern Ireland. Thank you!" Trump said in a second tweet.

Defense Minister Naftali Bennett's Twitter account was hacked early Saturday, posting an image of a Palestinian flag and the lyrics to Turkey's national anthem.

The tweets were swiftly deleted after being sent out at around 2 a.m.

"The hack lasted a number of minutes. The content was immediately erased and the account password was replaced," Bennett's office said in a statement. "The matter was brought to the authorized cyber elements in the security forces to be dealt with."

According to Channel 13 news, Israeli intelligence and cyber investigators were probing whether the hack also compromised Bennett's cellphone.

The defense establishment was working to determine if there was any security damage linked to the hacked, the report said.

The first tweet in the series posted on Bennett's account said "freedom for palestine..." with the Palestinian flag, and was followed by the entirety of Turkey's anthem in English, with images of the Turkish flag.

The last post credited the anthem's author, Turkish poet Mehmet Akif Ersoy.

Wikipedia is generally thought of as an open, transparent, and mostly reliable online encyclopedia. Yet upon closer inspection, this turns out not to be the case.

In fact, the English Wikipedia with its 9 billion worldwide page views per month is governed by just 500 active administrators, whose real identity in many cases remains unknown.

Moreover, studies have shown that 80% of all Wikipedia content is written by just 1% of all Wikipedia editors, which again amounts to just a few hundred mostly unknown people.

Obviously, such a non-transparent and hierarchical structure is susceptible to corruption and manipulation, the notorious "paid editors" hired by corporations being just one example.

Cooperation between Russia and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has got to an abrupt stop after Moscow refused to back new deeper cuts on oil output. The move has sent oil prices into a downward spiral.

The OPEC and non-OPEC countries held the consultations on oil cuts consultations in Vienna on Friday, yet failed to agree on them.

The talks followed the OPEC decision to cut the output by an extra 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) in the second quarter of this year — but only if Russia joins in. The new cuts were expected to come on top of the already existing cuts of 2.1 million bpd, becoming the largest ones since the 2008 financial crisis.

Saudi Arabia's powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) has detained three senior members of the kingdom's royal family in an attempt to remove any potential rivals in his pursuit of the throne, people familiar with the matter have said.

The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times reported that Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz, King Salman's younger brother, and Prince Mohammed bin Nayef (MBN), the king's nephew, were arrested early on Friday.

The details of the charges could not be learned, but the two Saudi royals were accused of treason, the reports said.

The two men, who had once been in line for the throne, are now under threat of lifetime imprisonment or execution, people familiar with the matter said.