Last week I compared the US – and by extension all economies based on the same model – to Semtex. My exploration of this analogy both ruffled feathers and raised questions. This week, I want to address five of the most common criticisms the article generated.   Have not read part one yet? CLICK HERE  to read it first.   Or CLICK HERE to proceed to the current article! [...]

By holding military exercises NATO is sending a message to Russia and preparing public opinion in the West that Russia constitutes an existential threat to the US and, therefore, there must be a new arms race, says Brian Becker from the anti-war ANSWER Coalition. [...]

Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner has agreed to look into a complaint filed by an Austrian law student claiming that Facebook has made his personal data available to US intelligent services and doesn’t guarantee a sufficient level of security. [...]

US-led airstrikes have killed 52 Syrian civilians in one day, a monitoring group reports. There was fighting in the vicinity, but the strike allegedly failed to kill even a single Islamist fighter. The US military, however, denies the report.   [...]

Russia and the US have signed an agreement regulating the operations of the two countries' air forces in Syria. The deal is aimed at preventing incidents and providing for the smooth operation of the two nations' aircraft, and for mutual aid in critical situations. [...]

The United States is in decline. While not all major shocks to the system will be devastating, when the right one comes along, the outcome may be dramatic. Not all explosives are the same. We all know you have to be careful with dynamite. Best to handle it gently and not smoke while you’re around it. [...]

Guilt-ridden American drone pilots continue to quit in unprecedented numbers. One former secret mission operator, Brandon Bryant, who’s received a whistle-blower award, spoke to RT of the horrors of indiscriminate killing from a safe distance. “The people that are giving the order to kill – they don’t care who gets killed as long as their target gets attacked… they’ll take out howev [...]

Polls have revealed the Russian military operation in Syria, which has been skeptically covered by the Western media, is supported by ordinary people in the US and Britain. Do these surveys reflect a general opinion, and why does it appear the public and media disagree? While the Russian operation in Syria is met by a great deal of scepticism in the Western media the results of polls by the US� [...]

US has been getting ready for a possible war involving Russia in Europe’s Baltic States, German media reports. The report says all the NATO war games organized in the region by Washington have been intended to prepare various military response scenarios. The Pentagon has shifted its military thinking when it comes to Moscow, selecting Russia’s direct neighbors in the Baltic region as the ba [...]

The longest US occupation has done nothing for the Afghans; there’s no security in the country and President Obama is passing the problem on to the next administration, Sara Flounders, of the International Action Centre told RT. President Obama said Thursday the military presence in Afghanistan will be extended beyond 2016. [...]

Russia’s Defense Ministry said that it will soon sign an agreement on flight safety over Syria with Pentagon after the sides agreed on all the necessary technical issues. "All technical matters have already been agreed upon, with Russian and US lawyers now cross checking the text of the document," Colonel-General Andrey Kartapolov told a media briefing on Friday. [...]

Over 70 percent of Russians have a negative view of the role played by the US in international politics, while only a mere 4 percent view Washington’s current course positively. According to the results of the latest research conducted by the independent polling organization the Levada Center, 71 percent of the Russian public think that the United States currently plays a negative role in the [...]

More than half of Americans think that Russian President Vladimir Putin has outdone his US counterpart Barack Obama in Syria. They blame Obama for a lack of a clear strategy, a poll by Fox News has revealed. Fifty-three percent of the respondents said that they consider Putin to have the upper hand in Syria, with only 22 percent suggesting that it’s Obama who is in control. [...]

Falling commodity prices have sowed the seeds of destruction for 2,600 employees of agricultural giant Monsanto. The world’s top seed supplier is cutting 12 percent of its workforce to save money in the face of profit losses. Monsanto Co.’s job cuts will coincide with a reorganization of its research and development activities. [...]

In between Russia's military intervention in Syria and Iran's challenging of Saudi Arabia's hegemonic power in the Middle East, the region is witnessing unprecedented political frictions. Those growing pains will ultimately see manifest a new order - which one remains to be determined.   [...]

Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) is calling for an independent investigation into the deadly US airstrike on a hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz to determine whether the attack can be regarded as a war crime. According to Doctors without Borders, such an investigation should gather evidence from the US, NATO and Afghanistan, as well as testimonies of the Kunduz hospital staff and patients. [...]

As if to underscore Russia’s decision to initiate airstrikes against Islamic State on the territory of Syria as Western forces don’t appear up to the task, NATO jets unleashed a deadly barrage on a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders in Afghanistan. No sooner had Vladimir Putin wrapped up his speech at the United Nations, where he roundly criticized the manner in which US-led forces hav [...]

One need do nothing more than take a look around to see that the situation in the world is dire. A dire situation, however, does not mean there is no possibility of change; a dire situation means that the timing is ripe for change. Exactly the transformational change that is the subject for contemplation today. [...]

Seeing their colleagues and patients die was a horrifying shock, according to survivors of the deadly air raid on a hospital in Afghanistan. The tragedy, medical staff said, simply cannot be dismissed as “collateral damage” from a botched airstrike. Recalling the tense minutes of continuous airstrikes which hit the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, NGO staff said that the d [...]