French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Sunday that Germany should ease its strict arms export rules for countries outside the European Union to strengthen the defense industry.

France has complained that joint arms manufacturing projects are being stalled by Berlin's refusal to authorize future arms export licenses to Saudi Arabia, a major buyer.

It has not formally banned previously approved deals but has urged industry to refrain from such shipments for now.

A top FBI official admitted to Congressional investigators last year that the agency had contacts within the Trump campaign as part of operation "Crossfire Hurricane," which sounds a lot like FBI "informant" Stefan Halper - a former Oxford University professor who was paid over $1 million by the Obama Department of Defense between 2012 and 2018, with nearly half of it surrounding the 2016 US election.

According to portions of transcripts published on Tuesday by the Epoch Times of a Aug. 31, 2018 deposition by Trisha Anderson, the FBI relied on sources who "already had campaign contacts" in order to surveil the Trump team.

"To my knowledge, the FBI did not place anybody within a campaign but, rather, relied upon its network of sources, some of whom already had campaign contacts, including the source that has been discussed in the media at some length beyond Christopher Steele," said Anderson - who was the #2 attorney at the FBI's Office of General Counsel, and had extensive involvement with the Trump counterintelligence investigation.

Back in 2015, when the British parliament was deciding on the country's participation in a US-coalition it allowed the use of its air forces in the Arab state, but never authorised boots on the ground.

The UK Ministry of Defence has confirmed that its Special Air Service (SAS) have been participating in operations against Daesh* in Syria, The Sunday Times reported citing results a freedom of information request. The request was made in light of the death of SAS soldier, Sergeant Matt Tonroe in Syria in 2018.

According to the media, the wording "British forces embedded in the armed forces of other nations operate as if they were the host nation's personnel" justified the presence of British special forces in Syria, while officially the UK never sanctioned ground operations.

As a well-known adage holds: "To the victor go the spoils." But it might well add: "Meanwhile, the losers go to the gallows."

This is the logic of victor's justice. It is the logic of the Treaty of Versailles, which demanded unpayable reparations from the vanquished German nation. It is the logic of the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, where perpetrators of war crimes pronounced judgement on the war crimes of the defeated. It is the logic of Abu Ghraib, where the US military tortured and killed its enemy captives.

Throughout human history, victorious nations have gone too far in exacting revenge from their defeated foes. The entire notion of "international law"-from the Geneva Conventions to the International Law Commission to the International Criminal Court-has been sold to the public as a check against this unfortunate tendency to impose victor's justice on the fallen. But just as history is written by the winners, so, too, is justice decided by the victors, and the case of the International Criminal Court is the prime example of that.

Think of international war crimes in the recent era and what comes to mind? America's wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan based on premeditated lies about weapons of mass destruction and 9/11? The indefinite detention of captives at Camp X-ray, Guantanamo, or other military prisons that resulted from those illegal wars? Israel's use of white phosphorous in its 2009 massacre of civilians in Gaza? Saudi Arabia's campaign of genocide in Yemen (made possible by Uncle Sam's unwavering support)?

Well, let's compare that list of violations of international law to the list of "situations" that the International Criminal Court has investigated since its formation in 2003. Notice anything? Like how not a single one of those glaring war crimes we just noted are anywhere on the list? Or how every single one of those investigations (save one) targeted an African conflict?

No justice for Afghanistan. No justice for Iraq. No justice for Palestine. No justice for Yemen. No justice for any victims of any Western-allied aggression. Make no mistake: These "omissions" are not by accident but by design.

The most recent demonstration of this fact-as if another demonstration were needed-came late last month when senior ICC judge Christoph Flügge resigned in disgust over American meddling with the court's activities. Actually, "meddling" is the way many of the headline writers chose to frame America's interference with the ICC, but that word doesn't quite do justice to the situation, if you'll pardon the pun.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has not ruled out that an offensive against terrorists in Syria's Idlib province could be launched because all other options to secure the area have proved fruitless and armed groups have only strengthened their positions in the region.

"We are moving in this direction. We have never wanted a military operation [in Idlib] and we have been working to avoid it because we know that any kind of military action in Idlib would turn into a catastrophe. However, other approaches have failed, while the Nusra Front has come to control even more [of the province's] territory", Zarif said in an interview with the Swiss newspaper Basler Zeitung, published on 22 February.

The statement comes after Bouthaina Shaaban, a political and media adviser to Syrian President Bashar Assad, said earlier the same day that Damascus had decided to regain control over Idlib province and was already discussing the time frame and ways to implement that decision.

An Iranian submarine successfully carried out its first cruise missile deep-sea launch during a naval drill in the nation's southern waters. The maneuvers came as US aircraft carriers returned to the region after a long absence.

A light Ghadir-class submarine fired an anti-ship cruise missile from underwater for the first time on Sunday, the Iranian Navy commander, Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi, told local media, adding that the missile had successfully hit its target.

It happened during the ongoing large-scale naval drill, 'Veleyat-97'. The war games are taking place in the area from the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz to the Sea of Oman and the northern parts of the Indian Ocean. The navy fired numerous cruise missiles from ships and coastal ground-based systems during the exercise. Tehran used the drill to showcase its newest frigate, 'Sahand,' and its Fateh-class submarines that military officials say can also carry cruise missiles.

Venezuela's self-proclaimed interim leader has 'formally' requested that his international partners consider 'all options' necessary to depose Maduro, as he now heads to the Lima Group summit to meet US Vice President Mike Pence.

"The events of today oblige me to take a decision - to propose formally to the international community that we should keep open all options for the liberation of our homeland, which is fighting and will continue to fight," Juan Guaido tweeted Saturday evening.

Following the chaotic and failed attempt by the opposition to forcefully bring convoys of USAID supplies into Venezuela, US-backed "interim president" Guaido vowed to attend the Lima Group summit in Bogota, apparently to discuss a course of further action with the countries that have supported his claim to power.

In a number of previous articles on military cooperation between the USA and South Korea we have tackled the problem of reaching agreement on Seoul's contribution to the expenses involved in maintaining the US military presence in South Korea. These expenses include the salaries of South Korean staff working in US bases, as well as material and technical support for the US's military facilities in the country.

With the previous five-year agreement on the financing of the US's military presence in South Korea due to expire on December 31, 2018, the two countries started discussing the terms of the new agreement on March 7, 2018. By the end of the year there had been 10 rounds of talks, but Donald Trump's repeated demands that the US's ally should pay a greater share of the expenses related to its own security prevented the two sides from reaching a consensus.

Initially the USA had sought to increase South Korea's contribution to $1.6 billion, almost double the existing amount. The demand was then reduced to $1.4 billion, and then again to approximately $1.25 billion a year, which is still almost one and a half times the previous contribution of $860 million, or 960 billion won, which amount was indexed to inflation. The negotiations involved a clash of two different "red lines": 1 trillion won is, for South Korea, something of a psychological threshold, while $1 billion, for the US, is also more than simply a sum of money.

Washington also demanded that Seoul cover the cost of military expansion on the Korean peninsula, in the event that strategic armament became necessary.

In addition, while South Korea was aiming to conclude a new agreement for a term from three to five years, the USA insisted on a one-year term.

Half a century from now historians and social scientists will wrestle with the defining questions at the dawn of the 21st-century. And unless I miss my guess, lucid researchers, philosophers, and professors will discuss what exactly it was that Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened. This should also be the most imperative question for today.

Since the time just before the Sochi Olympics of 2014, Russia and her President Vladimir Putin have been under siege. Make no mistake; the February Ukrainian Revolution was not a coincidence of timing. At that time, the legitimately elected Ukrainian government's decision to suspend the signing of an association agreement with the European Union, and to renew closer ties with Russia and the new Eurasian Economic Union was a well-planned insurgency. Anyone who tells you differently is either a liar or too dumb to be in any geopolitical discourse.

Israel does not consider the people of Iran its enemy, Zvi Magen, diplomat, ex-Israeli ambassador to Russia told Sputnik, sharing his views on Tel Aviv's attitude towards Tehran, the idea of creating an Arab NATO, and Russo-Israeli interaction in Syria.

Tel Aviv does not seek to inflict damage on the Iranian people, said Zvi Magen, diplomat, ex-Israeli ambassador to Russia (1998) and an employee of the intelligence department of the General Staff of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), while speaking with Sputnik on the sidelines of the eighth Middle East conference of the Valdai International Discussion Club.

"First, Israel has never regarded the Iranian people as an adversary", the Israeli scholar stated. "We are bound by a very long history of mutual friendship that ceased to exist because of the interests of the current leadership of Iran. They decided that Israel should be seen as a threat and an enemy and mobilised various resources to pursue their interests in the region. But I believe that for Iran, Israel in fact is not the goal in the region: It is only a handy lever for promoting other domestic and regional issues".