United States

Russia's deputy U.N. envoy on Wednesday said military force should not be considered against North Korea and also called for a halt to the deployment of a U.S. missile defense system in South Korea. "The possibility of taking military measures to resolve the problems of the Korean peninsula should be excluded," said Deputy Russian U.N. Ambassador Vladimir Safronkov. "We express our support to the idea of North and South Korea engaging in dialogue and consultations."

The war drums are beating louder, and as US Ambassador to the UN Nicky Haley said moments ago as she speaks live (webcast), the North Korea launch is clear, sharp military escalation and the US will use the full range of its capabilities in North Korea including military force, "if it must." Her key soundbites from Reuters and Bloomberg:

Speaking in an interview with France 24, in which Turkish president Recep Erdogan lashed out at Germany for not allowing him to address the Turkish community there and preventing him from bringing his bodyguards to the upcoming G20 meeting in Hamburg, Erdogan warned that Turkey is ready to intervene militarily in north Syria to repel Syrian Kurdish forces there, forces which recall are armed and supported by the US but are seen as a terrorist organisation by Turkey.

Authored by Whitney Webb via TheAntiMedia.org,

Crucial to the Western narrative of the Syrian conflict is the assertion that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is a brutal dictator who has taken to killing his own people over the course of Syria’s six-year-long conflict. This allegation has been the crux of the “humanitarian” justification for foreign military intervention in Syria that would seek to depose Assad’s government, a justification frequently used by the U.S. and its allies prior to an invasion or the toppling of an extant regime.

As the G-20 meeting in Hamburg between Trump and Xi draws nearer, the US president appears eager to continue antagonizing his Chinese peer.

On his way to Warsaw this morning, where he will stay briefly ahead of the G20 summit in Hamburg which begins on Friday, Trump tweeted his displeasure at US trade deals which had been signed before his tenure: “The United States made some of the worst Trade Deals in world history. Why should we continue these deals with countries that do not help us?”