The defiant Yellow Vests, though in dwindling numbers, have marched across France for the 26th straight weekend. In Nantes and Lyon the rallies ended up in clashes between the demonstrators and police.

A week after the lowest turnout since the movement began as a protest against a planned fuel tax hike in November, the Yellow Vests, who are now protesting President Emmanuel Macron’s broader reform agenda and supposed indifference towards the fate of the ordinary French people, once again took to the streets of the French cities.

Nantes and Lyon saw some major demonstrations on Saturday, as thousands of people joined the rallies organized by the protest movement in both cities.

In Lyon, 2,500 people hit the streets while in Nantes the police put the turnout at 2,200, according to the French media.

While the processions were largely peaceful, some clashes between the protesters and the police did erupt as some black-hooded demonstrators hurled bottles at the officers and smashed shop windows in Nantes. Police responded with tear gas and also used water cannons to disperse the crowd.

The angry demonstrators were particularly dissatisfied with the concessions the French government made under pressure from the protest movement following the so-called national debate launched by Macron.

“The ‘grand debate’ was a smokescreen. Today they’re smoking us out with tear gas,” a 43-year-old protester, who identified himself as Mickael, told Reuters. “But we won’t cave in. Yes, we’re fewer than at the start, but when the others come back, we’ll still be here and we’ll still be angry.”

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In Lyon, the atmosphere at the rallies was tense as well. At some point, the protesters started pelting the officers with bottles, stones, and firecrackers. The police retaliated with the massive use of tear gas.

The situation spiraled into clashes between the Yellow Vests and the police, which left one officer and one protester injured.

In Paris, which has seen some of the worst street violence in its modern history during the Yellow Vest protests, the situation remained largely peaceful this time.

Hundreds of people marched in the rain through the streets of the French capital starting from the Jussieu University in solidarity with the teachers, who went on strike earlier this week in protest against an education reform project.

“It’s going to be a day in support of parents, families and everyone in the education system,” Jean-Christophe Valentin, a city hall worker at the rally, told AFP.

Some Yellow Vest movement activists also used the occasion to make some political statements ahead of the forthcoming European Parliament elections. Jerome Rodrigues, a well-known figure within the movement, who lost his eye after it was hit by a rubber bullet fired by police, urged the French to use the vote as a way to show their dissatisfaction with Macron’s policies.

“I’m calling on Europeans to make an anti-Macron vote, even if he just finishes in second place, it would take him down a notch, bring him back down to earth so he can serve us instead of the rich,” he said in Lyon.

Demonstrations were also held Montpellier, where some 1,300 people took to the streets, and Bordeaux, which saw some 700 people joining the Yellow Vests march.

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The French president should step down if his party does not prevail in the upcoming European Parliament election, National Rally chief Marine Le Pen says, as both political forces are tied ahead of the vote.

The election should be viewed as a referendum which may well seal Macron’s fate, Marine Le Pen said this week as she spoke on national TV. The opposition politician also expressed hope that the president would have the “honor and dignity” to step down if faced with a defeat – just like General Charles de Gaulle, who resigned in 1946 after his Popular Republican Movement party lost the parliamentary election to the communists.

Le Pen’s strongly worded statement came hours after Macron lashed out at her right-wing National Rally party, saying he will use “all his energy” to prevent it from winning.

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“I’m a French patriot and a European. They are nationalists,” he said, adding that Le Pen is looking for “the deconstruction of Europe.”

Polls have Macron’s centrist La République En Marche party neck-and-neck with Le Pen’s right-wing National Rally. The president’s party currently has 23 percent of the vote, with Le Pen’s side just one percent behind. A recent study by the Bertelsmann Foundation has claimed that one in 10 Europeans will back right-wing and anti-establishment parties in the upcoming EU elections, pointing to growing support for Euroskeptic movements across the bloc.

Party ratings aside, Macron himself has seen his popularity plunge, with his approval rating now standing at 29 percent. When elected president in 2017, Macron garnered the support of 66 percent of the voters.

Macron’s popularity took a big hit amid weeks of protests staged by the Yellow Vests movement, which saw tens of thousands rallying in Paris and across the country. The protests initially targeted government fuel price hikes but, despite the plans being dropped by Macron, ended up with demands for broader social changes and even the resignation of the president.

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Islamabad has approached New Delhi suggesting that both arch-rivals stop using artillery in the contested Kashmir region, according to a media report. Pakistan has also vowed to remove special forces from the area.

The Pakistani army had made the peace offer using existing military-to-military channels, according to Hindustan Times. The offer included “moratorium on the artillery fire from both sides,” says a report sent to the Indian prime minister’s office and seen by the paper.

An Indian defense official said there were over 100 instances when shelling was recorded in the troubled state of Kashmir, but now the use of artillery “has considerably reduced.” Moratorium aside, Pakistan’s military ordered its Special Service Group (SSG) – an analogue of the American Green Berets – to withdraw from the Indian border.

Islamabad seems to be willing to defuse tensions around Kashmir, Indian officials believe. “These are clear on-ground signals from Pakistan for de-escalation,” one such official told the newspaper.

Tensions between India and Pakistan in the Kashmir region have been running high in late February and March. It came after a high-profile terror attack on Indian forces, followed by an encounter between the country’s air forces pushed the nuclear-armed neighbors to the brink of war.

Last week, a number of civilians and military personnel were killed as both sides exchanged heavy artillery fire, interrupting several weeks of relative calm along Kashmir’s Line of Control (LoC). Mortar shelling and small arms fire has also been taking place in the area.

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For some in the West, any death of a prominent journalist in Russia seems to be only a fortunate opportunity to speculate that he or she must have been an enemy of the Kremlin and died because of it.

The latest person to fall victim to this trend is Sergey Dorenko, who suddenly died on Thursday while out on a motorcycle ride.

“Anti-Putin journalist dies in mysterious motorbike accident days after criticizing Russian authorities over fatal plane crash,” the Daily Mail chose to headline its report on Dorenko’s death.

The usual Russiagaters were quick to chip in with anger and disbelief. Bill Browder, the internationally famous anti-Putin crusader, called Dorenko “one of Russia’s most outspoken independent journalists and critics of the Putin regime.”

“Putin will be Putin,” Bild editor Julian Ropcke declared as he retweeted the story. He added a translation of an angry rant posted by Dorenko in the wake of last weekend’s Superjet crash.

“One of Dorenko’s last posts. Deadly? Rest in peace.”

Good for Ropcke that the message he quoted didn’t carry a date stamp. Otherwise his readers might have learned that it was posted right on the day of the tragedy, when the high death toll was suspected but not yet confirmed. Dorenko had posted no less than 59 messages on his channels after that “last post.”

As for the Daily Mail’s insinuation that Putin’s hitmen assassinated “Kremlin critic” for saying bad things about the Russian government, the autopsy has since shown that Dorenko suffered a ruptured aortic aneurysm. This was reported by the very radio station that he headed. It’s a relatively rare and usually lethal condition.

For the sake of argument, let’s say the autopsy report can be falsified and the Kremlin did go after the journalist. The problem with that conspiracy theory is that Dorenko was not as critical of government policies as his colleagues at the Daily Mail and the “blame Russia” crowd want to believe.

The Mail paints a story of a brave no-nonsense reporter, who had spent years criticizing the Russian government. Dorenko was fired in 2000, after accusing the government and Vladimir Putin of lying about the causes of the Kursk nuclear submarine disaster. In 2007, he released footage of his 1998 interview with Alexander Litvinenko, who died in Britain from Polonium-210 poisoning. Days before his death he “attacked an effort to blame the crew for a disaster that many suspect is the fault of technical problems with the Sukhoi plane.”

Conveniently omitted were some of Dorenko’s other statements and ideas that didn’t fit the narrative. For instance, he was a vocal supporter of the decision to reintegrate Crimea after it broke away from Ukraine in 2014, prompting the Ukrainian press to call Dorenko a “top Russian propagandist.”

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“Those who don’t support Russia’s position on Crimea lack both heart and intelligence,” Dorenko had said on the issue. On another occasion he literally threatened to violate any American with a fire iron if challenged in his opinion that the cities of Donetsk, Lugansk and Kharkov in eastern Ukraine were “our land.” As for the tensions between Russia and Ukraine, he wrote: “We can inflict pain indefinitely until people say they have realized that there will be no Ukraine that stands against Russia. If we have to keep proving it for ten more years, we will.”

Good luck printing those opinions in the Western press!

The actual Dorenko – not the Daily Mail-Browder-Roepcke construct – was a controversial figure on the Russian media scene. In the 1990s he was famous as a reputation hitman for oligarch, media mogul and shady power broker Boris Berezovsky. One of his jobs was to conduct relentless attacks at ex-PM Evgeny Primakov on behalf of a presidential candidate by the name of Vladimir Putin.

In one report he was explaining to viewers at length that Primakov’s recent surgery at a private Swiss clinic must have cost hundreds of thousands of euros or maybe more, considering how old and frail the politician was.

Yes, there was his famous report on the Kursk disaster, in which he accused Putin of mishandling the crisis. “The authorities disrespect us all. That’s why they lie. And more importantly, they treat us like that solely because we allow them,” was how he wrapped up the report, and was indeed sacked after that.

Yet despite his often abrasive personal style and strong opinions, he remained part of the media establishment in Russia, not some fringe voice delivering online rants about “evil Putin.” He headed one of Moscow’s biggest radio stations. What could possibly make him a target?

Dorenko was many things. What he was not is a stock character for anti-Putin conspiracy theory peddlers and outlets that never let the facts interfere with a good a clickbait headline.

Alexandre Antonov, RT
@alantonov

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US President Donald Trump says he does not view recent short-range missile launches by Pyongyang as a violation of his trust, telling Politico that he and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un are still on good terms.

In an extensive interview on Friday, Trump briefly gave his take on North Korea’s increased missile activity. 

In stark contrast to his saber-rattling of two years ago, Trump seemed to be pretty laid-back when speaking about Pyongyang’s recent series of short-range missile tests, the latest of which took place just a day earlier. Early Thursday morning, the DPRK test-fired two short-range projectiles from its Sino-ri launch site, which flew 260 and 170 miles.

“They’re short-range and I don’t consider that a breach of trust at all,” the president said.

Possibly leaving a loophole for himself in case of a sudden change of heart, Trump said that “at some point” he may start considering the launches inappropriate.

“But at this point no,” he said, calling the tests “very standard stuff.”

Trump sounded equally ambiguous when talking about his supposedly “excellent” relationship with Kim. He said that for the moment, the two remain on friendly terms, adding that this too might change “at some point.”

Following their summit in Hanoi in February, the thaw between the two nations appeared all but over after the talks ended with no deal and were followed by strong rhetoric from Pyongyang questioning Washington’s willingness to mend ties with the North.

North Korea accused the US of using a strong-arm approach to the negotiations, urging it to drop “its current calculation method” and vowing to increase its own defensive posture in the meantime, including resuming missile tests.

The talks in Vietnam ended abruptly after the US reportedly refused to relieve North Korea of sanctions in exchange for it halting nuclear and ballistic missiles tests, while insisting on full and irreversible denuclearization.

In the wake of the short-range missile launches by Pyongyang, the US test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile and conducted a submarine missile test. The US military insisted that the timing of the tests is in no way connected to the North Korean launches.

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Gunshots were heard as a group of armed gunmen stormed a private five-star hotel in the southwestern Pakistani port-city of Gwadar, officials confirmed. At least one person has been killed in the incident.

At least three assailants entered the Pearl Continental, which reportedly hosted dozens of tourists, predominantly from China. The gunmen were said to be heavily armed, have a rocket launcher and are possibly wearing suicide vests.

Security forces have been deployed to the area, which was cordoned off.

The information minister of Balochistan (where Gwadar is located) told local Dunya News that all hotel visitors and staff were safely evacuated in the mayhem. However, the military said that a security guard, who challenged the attackers as they sought to force their way into the building, was killed in the ordeal.

The Army’s statement also said that the gunmen were surrounded by the security forces at the stairs leading to the top floor. Officials later confirmed that all the attackers were killed by security forces, according to local media. The Pearl Continental is said to be frequented by foreign delegations, businessmen, and tourists visiting the port city.

A local terrorist group, the Balochistan Liberation Army, has claimed responsibility for the attack on the hotel, according to some media reports, citing a statement from the militants. The incident comes less than a month after 14 people, including 11 military servicemen, were killed in another attack in Gwadar.

Just days ago, a suicide bombing attack rocked Pakistan’s second-largest city of Lahore, killing 10 people and injuring more than 20 others. The attacker targeted a police checkpoint near the major Sufi shrine. A Pakistan-based branch of the Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.

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Gwadar is one of the major hubs involved in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project development and is often visited by Chinese nationals, local TV says.

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The USCGC James, one of the US Navy’s most technologically advanced ships, was sailing towards Venezuela’s territorial waters when a patrol boat was sent to warn it off. The US vessel backed off after radio communication.

The Venezuelan Navy released a statement on Friday, saying the incident took place on Thursday and involved a US Coast Guard vessel heading towards the Latin American country’s main port of La Guaira.

The USCGC James was 14 nautical miles (16 miles) off Venezuela’s coast when Caracas sent a patrol vessel to intercept it. In the course of subsequent radio communications, the USCGC James agreed to turn away.

“The USCGC James was encouraged to change its course and leave our jurisdictional waters. The instruction was obeyed,” the Venezuelan Navy said in a statement.

The Navy had already spotted the vessel a day before when it was transiting through Venezuela’s exclusive economic zone, and sent a patrol vessel to start monitoring its maneuvers.

A state’s territorial waters reaches up to 12 nautical miles, while a “contiguous zone” in which a state can enforce limited control for the purpose of preventing “infringement of its customs, fiscal, immigration or sanitary laws and regulations” can be set to up to 24 nautical miles. An exclusive economic zone extends up to 200 nautical miles.

Venezuela’s UN envoy, Samuel Moncada, slammed the US ship’s actions as a clear provocation aimed at inciting unrest.

“War traffickers get excited because they see a US Coast Guard very close to Venezuelan territorial waters. It’s a typical provocation to ramp up tensions,” Moncada tweeted.

The USCGC James, described as the most technologically advanced ship in the US Coast Guard fleet, is fitted with modern surveillance and reconnaissance equipment.

According to the US Navy, it can also serve as command post for “complex law enforcement and national security missions involving the Coast Guard and numerous partner agencies.”

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The ship’s voyage follows an attempt by US-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido to remove Maduro from power. Before and after the failed coup attempt, Washington issued a flurry of unambiguous threats against Venezuela, including refusing to rule out the military option for the crisis-hit country.

Just last week, Washington reiterated that “any action we took in Venezuela would be lawful,” also urging Venezuelan service members to defect. Maduro has ordered forces loyal to him to brace for a possible US intervention, saying earlier that if it happens, it would be a new ‘Vietnam’ for the US.

Debate over a controversial extradition law turned violent in Hong Kong after wound-up legislators fought each other amid a crowd of reporters. At least one lawmaker received medical treatment as a result of the fracas.

The Saturday skirmish started after lawmakers in Hong Kong’s Legislative Council faced off over a series of laws that would allow suspects to be sent to mainland China to face trial.

Video of the incident shows rival lawmakers pushing, shoving and jumping over one another as they tried to wrest control of the microphone. The chaos erupted around a swarm of reporters – making for some memorable videos and photographs.

Pro-democracy legislator Gary Fan reportedly fainted and was carried out of the chamber in a stretcher and hospitalized, while one pro-Beijing lawmaker was seen with his arm in a sling.

The proposed amendments have been criticized as an assault on territory’s semi-autonomous status within China, but supporters of the move argue that Hong Kong needs to update its extradition rules in order to cooperate with its neighbors.

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Man’s future missions to Mars may see humans housed in incredible 3D-printed pod-like structures, according to a futuristic design project that scooped a $500,000 NASA prize.

Proposed by New York-based company AI SpaceFactory, the strange structure is designed to be printed from recycled substances and materials found on-site during deep space explorations to the moon, Mars or beyond, to build sustainable housing for adventuring humans.

AI SpaceFactory emerged the victor after a scaled-down model of their project came out on top after several rounds of vigorous NASA testing earlier this month, including undergoing extreme compression checks. The winning team says they recognized that such “structures must be resilient and interior layouts must function around mission demands” while also supporting sustainability and providing a habitat with “an element of humanity.”

The competitors are helping NASA “advance the technologies we need for a sustainable human presence on the moon, and then on Mars,”said Monsi Roman, program manager for the space agency’s Centennial Challenges.

As well as supporting the space agency’s exploration goals, such projects “also provide viable housing solutions right here on Earth,” she added.

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A couple having sex inside a moving Tesla on autopilot inspired a massive surge in Tesla-related searches on Pornhub, especially after Elon Musk joked about the video on Twitter.

Footage of a couple having sex in the Model X as it motored along started circulating on the popular porn website at the end of April, inspiring many Pornhub users to seek out similar self-driving sex videos.

Pornhub shared a screenshot from the video in question on Instagram, writing, “Reporting you to Elon for not having two hands on the wheel with autopilot enabled.”

Tesla founder Musk later responded by tweeting about the video.

His contribution caused the search volume to skyrocket. Pornhub reports over 3 million people searched for Tesla-related content in 10 days, with a huge spike occurring after the car company’s CEO got involved. The video itself has racked up 7.2 million views.

Musk continued to crack jokes under his original tweet about the x-rated road trip, much to the delight of his followers.

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