Internal border checks must stay in place in Germany for as long as the EU fails to protect its external borders, newly-appointed German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said, slamming the Schengen Agreement.

"As things stand now, there are not too many border points in Germany that are permanently occupied," Seehofer told German weekly newspaper Die Welt am Sonntag.

"We will discuss whether that needs to change. After all, it is not just about preventing people from crossing borders illegally. Border controls also serve other protective functions."

Seehofer lambasted the landmark Schengen Agreement, which allows border control-free travel within the passport-free Schengen zone, made up of 26 European nations.

The campaign against RT in Britain amounts to McCarthyism and is part of a "carefully constructed drama" of trying to discredit the news organization, journalist and documentary filmmaker John Pilger told RT.

"I have done work for RT, the former head of the Scottish Parliament Alex Salmond has a program on RT," Pilger said, adding that the channel has some "very distinguished" people working for it.

"The campaign against RT, against people working on RT, is McCarthyite," he added. "It is a part of this propaganda, of this carefully constructed drama, of trying to discredit RT."

He spoke specifically of RT London, "which I know very well, as I'm often there." Pilger said RT is run by "highly experienced, respected people" who previously worked for other major outlets, including the BBC.

He called the campaign against RT by British media a "disgrace," and said part of the reason for the "drama in Salisbury" is to block a critical view - a move that he said is reminiscent of what happened during the Cold War.

Pilger's comments about Salisbury were made in reference to the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter on March 4. The UK has blamed the poisoning on Russia without providing any evidence.


In a separate interview with RT, Pilger said that most people in the UK and the US don't understand the "dangers of this propaganda."

Moscow says it is "miffed" at the European Union's "hasty, speculative, and evidence-free" judgment on the Sergei Skripal incident, and maintains that it has no stocks of Novichok, the nerve agent purportedly used to poison him.

On Monday, the European Council, which represents the heads of governments of the EU states, issued a statement that it "takes extremely seriously the UK Government's assessment that it is highly likely that the Russian Federation is responsible" for the March 4 attack.

The Council went on to say that it was "shocked at the offensive use of any military-grade nerve agent, of a type developed by Russia, for the first time on European soil in over 70 years" and it called on Moscow "to address urgently the questions raised by the UK and the international community and to provide immediate, full and complete disclosure of its Novichok programme to the OPCW."

Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad has once again shown why he has the full confidence of the people he governs over.

Yesterday he made a surprise visit to the frontlines of East Ghouta where the Syrian Army are currently smashing terrorist forces. This was in an effort to thank the brave soldiers for their duties on behalf of all Syrian people and to motivate the troops to continue their successful struggle against terrorist formations.

After meeting soldiers, he then met civilians who fled the war zone in East Ghouta, to the east of Damascus city center, he was widely praised and held by the people.

For months, The Gateway Pundit has been reporting on Special Counsel Robert Mueller's flaws exhibited in both the investigation into alleged Trump-Russia collusion during the 2016 presidential election and his personal track record as an attorney.

On Saturday evening, media icon Matt Drudge reminded us all why Mueller is "hardly a saint."

Mueller is hardly a saint. Wrongfully accused Hatfill of anthrax attack back in the day. Cost taxpayers millions in damages. https://t.co/zyalxF6ji3 https://t.co/zgjDz2hiXO

- MATT DRUDGE (@DRUDGE) March 18, 2018

Sen. Lindsey Graham warned Sunday "it would be the beginning of the end" of President's Trump's presidency if he fired special counsel Robert Mueller.

"As I said before, if he tried to do that, that would be the beginning of the end of his presidency," Graham, R-S.C., said on CNN's "State of the Union."

"Because we're a rule of law nation. When it comes to Mr. Mueller, he is following the evidence where it takes him and it's very important he be allowed to do his job, without interference. And there are many Republicans who share my view."

More than three-quarters of people who answered a poll on the conservative Drudge Report site said that President Trump should fire special counsel Robert Mueller.

Mueller is currently investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Moscow.

The online poll, which was posted on the site on Saturday, had surveyed fewer than 500,000 people on Sunday.

The poll comes after Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe over the findings of an internal review that said he provided unauthorized information to the press and was not forthcoming with investigators during the investigation. McCabe said he was fired as an attempt to undermine Mueller's investigation.

It's just too much of a coincidence. The dramatic ramping up of Cold War-like hostility towards Russia by Britain and its NATO allies dovetails with major military setback for these same powers in Syria.

The plausible connection is this: the attempted smearing of Russia over the apparent poison-assassination plot in Britain is being used by Britain and the United States to push their desired military intervention in Syria to topple the Assad government.

Both scenarios involve staged provocations employing chemical weapons. Less coincidence; more synchronicity.

In Britain, the apparent poisoning of a former Russian spy living in exile with a nerve agent is being sensationally blamed on Moscow. Moscow has rejected official British allegations that its state agents were responsible for the attempted murder of Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the southern English town of Salisbury on March 4.

The whole affair smacks of a psychological operation orchestrated by British state agencies with the premeditated objective of incriminating Russia. Suspicion stems from the whirlwind speed with which the British authorities have formulated their charges against Russia through a saturated media campaign.

Contain Russia in all spheres, squeeze it out everywhere you can, and ramp up pressure to make it kneel. It's not a big thing to find a pretext to justify the orchestrated campaign launched by the West to put the relations with Moscow on confrontational footing. It stubbornly keeps on reviving the Cold War. This is a holistic policy with some actions hitting media headlines to focus world public attention on, while some moves are camouflaged and kept out of spotlight.

With so many doubts expressed about Moscow's complicity in the Salisbury spy poisoning, the leaders of the UK, the US, Germany and France - the big four - made an unprecedented joint statement putting the blame on Russia. They did not find it necessary to wait for investigation results to say Moscow had violated the international law and threatened their security. The statement says Russia did not cooperate with Britain. It does not mention the fact that Moscow was ready to meet London halfway but received no requests in line with the provisions of the Chemical Weapons Convention. The only thing Russia can be blamed for is its policy of refusing to communicate in the language of ultimatums.

Everything has suddenly become clear. Russia's guilt is evident despite the fact that nothing new has been revealed since French President Macron's spokesman warned the UK on March 14 against "fantasy politics". The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapon had not investigated the case but the verdict was handed down. UK PM Theresa May was quiet happy about the statement as it showed that the allies "are standing alongside us".

On March 15, the US introduced new sanctions against Russia to punish it for alleged election meddling and cyberattacks. The announcement came together with the statement of the Big Four. As usual, the move is the result of allegations and claims not based on solid proof and established facts. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer believes it's still "not enough". He demands that President Trump introduce more sanctions and publicly denounce Russian President Putin. It's just the first step, chimed in Senator Mark Warner of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He wondered why it had taken so long.

Overseas, the United States is engaged in real wars in which bombs are dropped, missiles are launched, and people (generally not Americans) are killed, wounded, uprooted, and displaced. Yet here at home, there's nothing real about those wars. Here, it's phony war all the way. In the last 17 years of "forever war," this nation hasn't for one second been mobilized. Taxes are being cut instead of raised. Wartime rationing is a faint memory from the World War II era. No one is being required to sacrifice a thing.

Now, ask yourself a simple question: What sort of war requires no sacrifice? What sort of war requires that almost no one in the country waging it takes the slightest notice of it?

America's conflicts in distant lands rumble on, even as individual attacks flash like lightning in our news feeds. "Shock and awe" campaigns in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, initially celebrated as decisive and game changing, ultimately led nowhere. Various "surges" produced much sound and fury, but missions were left decidedly unaccomplished. More recent strikes by the Trump administration against a Syrian air base or the first use of the most powerful non-nuclear weapon in the U.S. arsenal, the MOAB super-bomb, in Afghanistan flared brightly, only to fizzle even more quickly. These versions of the German blitzkrieg-style attacks of World War II have been lightning assaults that promised much but in the end delivered little. As these flashes of violence send America's enemies of the moment (and nearby civilians) to early graves, the homeland (that's us) slumbers. Sounds of war, if heard at all, come from TV or video screens or Hollywood films in local multiplexes.