Politics

The much anticipated meeting between President Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu did not provide significant insight into the new administration's policies vis-a-vis Israel and the middle east. While Trump expressed optimism in a "great peace deal", he urged his Israeli colleague to "hold back on the settlements a little bit", and while reiterating his support for a move of the US embassy to Jerusalem, he was non-committal: "we'll see what happens."

With a Russian ship sailing in very close proximity to the primary east coast submarine base, and tensions between the US - and perhaps the Trump administration - and Russia, once again rising it seems like an odd moment to organize a meeting between the top US military general and his Russian counterpart on Thursday in Azerbaijan, the first such meeting between the two since military cooperation between the two nations was suspended in 2014 following the hostilities in Ukraine.

As previewed yesterday, of the three men mentioned as Michael Flynn's national security advisor replacements, one stood out: the former deputy commander of the US Central Command and current CEO for Lockheed Martin in the UAE, Robard Harward. Moments ago, Reuters confirmed that as expected, Trump has offered the National Security Advisor job to Robert Harward.

The British government has said that the invitation for the US President’s state visit was still in place, despite public and political protest. Prime Minister Theresa May formally rejected an online petition calling for Donald Trump to be barred from making state visit to the UK and said she looks forward to welcoming him to the country later this year after discussing his visit on the phone. More than 1.8 million people had signed the petition urging the government to withdraw the invitation that Theresa May extended to Donald Trump during her visit to Washington in January.

Russia will not be giving Crimea back to Ukraine a Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said in response to White House comments saying that Donald Trump expected Moscow to “return” the peninsular. Maria Zakharova told a weekly news briefing “We don’t return our territories. Crimea is a territory of the Russian Federation” White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters on Tuesday that the US president expects Moscow to “return” Crimea to Ukraine. RT reports: Trump later reiterated his position on Crimea on Twitter. Crimea was TAKEN by Russia during the Obama Administration.