One week after the Pentagon announced an escalation of the Afghan War of an unspecified size, anonymous US officials are saying that the deployment will be about 3,500, bringing the total size of the US forces in the country to 14,500.

The Pentagon would officially neither confirm nor deny the figure, saying that they will not comment in any way on the numbers until there is an official announcement. This figure is roughly in line with expectations of the size of the deployment.

This is, however, expected to only be the first deployment in a much broader open escalation announced by President Trump last month. It’s not clear that subsequent deployments will be announced at all, with or without numbers.

About two and a half years ago, Saudi Arabia started bombing Yemen and began an occupation to prop-up the puppet government of Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi. The Saudi’s air strikes deliberately target homes. Tens of thousands have died. Millions are at risk of famine. The siege has triggered a globally-unprecedented cholera epidemic. And people can’t even flee the country because the airport is closed at the behest of Saudi Arabia.

Corporate media barely covers Yemen at all. Not only do they leave many key pieces of information out, they blatantly lie to reinforce their imperialist narrative. Here, Geopolitics Alert will attempt to debunk many of the most common myths and explain the truth.

MEET THE OIL/YUAN/GOLD TRIAD

It’s when President Putin starts talking that the BRICS reveal their true bombshell. Geopolitically and geo-economically, Putin’s emphasis is on a “fair multipolar world”, and “against protectionism and new barriers in global trade.” The message is straight to the point.

The Syria game-changer – where Beijing silently but firmly supported Moscow – had to be evoked; “It was largely thanks to the efforts of Russia and other concerned countries that conditions have been created to improve the situation in Syria.”

On the Korean peninsula, it’s clear how RC think in unison; “The situation is balancing on the brink of a large-scale conflict.”

Putin’s judgment is as scathing as the – RC-proposed – possible solution is sound; “Putting pressure on Pyongyang to stop its nuclear missile program is misguided and futile. The region’s problems should only be settled through a direct dialogue of all the parties concerned without any preconditions.”

If there’s one refrain we hear from politicians more than anything else, it’s “I support the troops.” However, their definition of “support” changes with the political wind, and more often than not is a farce.

One example is the ongoing denial of medical cannabis to war veterans suffering from a range of conditions, from chronic pain to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Despite plenty of evidence—both scientific and real-world—that cannabis effectively treats these conditions, those who purportedly fought for freedom come home only to lose freedom under the War on Drugs.

The Veterans Administration (VA) still prohibits doctors from recommending cannabis or its extracts—including cannabidiol (CBD) which does not produce a high—even though most U.S. states acknowledge the science and have legalized medical cannabis.

EMMANUEL Macron has backed radical new plans which could stop more Eurosceptic politicians joining the European Parliament.

The French president came out in favour of introducing pan-European MEPs to the parliament when Britain leaves.

Brexit in 2019 will leave 73 seats up for grabs in EU elections taking place later that year.

And desperate Mr Macron hopes the proposal will stop the vacant seats being filled by scores of Eurosceptic politicians.

On September 11, the 16th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, thousands of spies, police officers, prosecutors, and surveillance profiteers will gather in Washington D.C. for a spying technology extravaganza known as ISS World Americas. On its website, the event organizers describe ISS World Americas as

the world’s largest gathering of Americas Law Enforcement, Homeland Security, Defense, Public Safety and other members of the Government Intelligence Community as well as Telecom Operators responsible for cyber threat intelligence gathering, DarkNet monitoring, lawful interception and cybercrime investigations.

ISS World Programs present the methodologies and tools for Law Enforcement, Public Safety and Government Intelligence Communities in the fight against drug trafficking, cyber money laundering, human trafficking, terrorism and other criminal activities conducted over today’s Telecommunications networks, the Internet and Social Networks.

As the tally of fake Wells Fargo accounts balloons to 3.5 million, Congress has yet to discipline the executives, while the financial giant has only paid fines. A coalition of 33 groups is now demanding new hearings and for the bank to be held accountable.

Wells Fargo and Company increased its estimate of how many accounts were created by 67 percent Thursday. The mega bank issued shocking new disclosures, showing 1.4 million more bogus customer accounts had been created, a significant increase from previous estimates, the New York Times reported.

In addition, Wells Fargo admitted to yet another impropriety, stating that they enrolled more than a half-million customer accounts into their online bill pay service without notifying them. The embattled bank has since agreed to pay out $910,000 to customers who accrued fees or charges related to the unknown accounts.

Concluding a months-long saga in which central and eastern European nations revolted against Brussels' refugee policies, on Wednesday the European Union’s highest court ruled that EU states must take in a share of refugees who reach Europe, dismissing complaints by Slovakia and Hungary and reigniting an angry row between east and west. The Court upheld the EU’s right to order national governments to take in their "fair share" of asylum seekers, arguing that "the mechanism actually contributes to enabling Greece and Italy to deal with the impact of the 2015 migration crisis and is proportionate."

Students are fighting back against a series of sanctions imposed on them by the University of California, Irvine (UCI) as punishment for chanting and clapping during a campus event with Israeli soldiers in May.

Administrators launched an investigation into Students for Justice in Palestine following the protest, even though members of the group say that they were the ones who endured days of harassment, including sexual slurs and racist intimidation, by the Israeli soldiers who were invited to give a talk about the Israeli army.

The students believe the harassment was an attempt to provoke a reaction.

The New York Post’s John Crudele had an interesting column outlining how the bogus Democrat/Media/Deep State instigated Trump investigation is backfiring on Democrats as the American people grow increasingly weary of repeated allegations without actual proof.
Beyond that fatigue is something even more concerning for Democrats. The investigation is actually shedding light on wrongdoing by figures like Hillary Clinton and James Comey – NOT Donald Trump.

Check it out:

————

There’s a lot going on in the Hillary Clinton/Donald Trump/Russia investigation that all the highfalutin’ newspapers that cover politics are still trying to ignore.

Well, investors had better know this stuff before it bites them in the assets. So here goes.

Numerous reports coming out of the Senate Judiciary Committee last week said that former FBI Director James Comey made the decision not to refer Clinton for prosecution long before he even interviewed key witnesses, including Hillary.

As maintained by Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran is prepared to help adoption of collective strategies by international organizations and Muslim countries in order to solve the ongoing crisis plaguing Myanmar’s Muslim community. This comes as Myanmar’s military has intensified attacks on Rohingya Muslims.

This is while the Muslim community has long been under a military siege in Rakhine since October 2016. The government claimed that its border guards had come under a militant attack and used it as the pretext to enforce the lockdown without substantiating its claim. The Rohingya had already been subject to communal violence by extremist Buddhists for years.

The U.S. Department of Justice is secretly using the Internal Revenue Service to conduct criminal investigations into otherwise legitimate marijuana businesses in Colorado under the guise of tax audits, lawyers for the companies say in an ongoing federal lawsuit.

The IRS called the allegations baseless and illogical, saying inquiries it is making for information from Colorado’s Marijuana Enforcement Division are simply part of its efforts at verifying financial records in determining whether businesses owe more taxes.

The U.S. District Court case, filed by the owners of Rifle Remedies, a medical marijuana business in Silt, is one of several that challenge IRS subpoenas to MED seeking information about how much pot they’ve grown, and to whom and when they sold it. The IRS said it has resorted to the tactic because businesses have refused to offer the information voluntarily.

Buthaina Mansour was the sole survivor of a bombing in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, that killed her entire family. An image of her trying to open her eyes despite her injuries has gone viral on social media as a symbol of solidarity with the people in the war-torn country.

The Trump administration has just announced that it is moving ahead with an Obama-era plan to modernize America’s nuclear arsenal, sprucing up the nuclear Triad with a new fleet of land-based missiles, missile-carrying submarines, and air-delivered nuclear weapons that will cost the American taxpayer well over $1 trillion in the coming years. The ostensible purpose behind this modernization effort is to maintain America’s nuclear deterrence capability for decades to come. The harsh reality, however, is that through this nuclear upgrade, America is simply repeating the mistakes of the past, building weapons whose precision and speed will trigger a new arms race with Russia and China as they seek to match this new American capability with weapons designed to sustain their version of nuclear deterrence.

The U.S.-led aggressions against Iraq and Libya are two war crimes that keep on costing, with their grim examples of what happens to leaders who get rid of WMDs driving the scary showdown with North Korea, writes Robert Parry.

It is a popular meme in the U.S. media to say that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is “crazy” as he undertakes to develop a nuclear bomb and a missile capacity to deliver it, but he is actually working from a cold logic dictated by the U.S. government’s aggressive wars and lack of integrity.

Indeed, the current North Korea crisis, which could end up killing millions of people, can be viewed as a follow-on disaster to President George W. Bush’s Iraq War and President Barack Obama’s Libyan intervention. Those wars came after the leaders of Iraq and Libya had dismantled their dangerous weapons programs, leaving their countries virtually powerless when the U.S. government chose to invade.

South Korea’s defense minister on Monday said it was worth reviewing the redeployment of American tactical nuclear weapons to the Korean Peninsula to guard against the North, a step that analysts warn would sharply increase the risk of an accidental conflict.

As concern over Korea deepened following North Korea’s huge nuclear test Sunday, Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was “begging for war.”

Here in Seoul, the Defense Ministry warned that Pyongyang might be preparing to launch another missile into the Pacific Ocean, perhaps an intercontinental ballistic missile theoretically capable of reaching the mainland United States.

President Trump and his South Korean counterpart, Moon Jae-in, spoke on the phone for 40 minutes Monday night, Korean time — some 34 hours after the nuclear test and more than 24 hours after Trump took to Twitter to criticize Moon’s “talk of appeasement.”

China confirmed on Monday its Foreign Ministry has lodged solemn representations to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) embassy in Beijing over its sixth nuclear test.

"The representations were lodged to the person in charge of the embassy," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said at a regular news briefing.
The DPRK Sunday detonated a hydrogen bomb that can be carried by an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), DPRK's Central Television announced. This was the sixth nuclear test the DPRK has undertaken.

"China's adherence to denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula and opposition to nuclear tests and missile development by the DPRK is well-known," Geng said.
China has proposed realizing denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula while establishing a peace mechanism. China has also expected the DPRK to suspend its nuclear and missile activities in exchange for the suspension of large-scale U.S.-ROK military exercises.

The U.S. and South Korea have agreed to lift limits on South Korea's missile payload capabilities following North Korea's hydrogen bomb test over the weekend, the White House announced Monday.

During a call between President Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-In, Trump "gave his in-principle approval to South Korea’s initiative to lift restrictions on their missile payload capabilities,” the White House said in a readout of the call.

“President Trump also provided his conceptual approval for the purchase of many billions of dollars’ worth of military weapons and equipment from the United States by South Korea," the statement added.

A spokesman for South Korea’s presidential office confirmed the call Monday, describing the move to lift the limit on the payload of South Korean missiles under U.S.-South Korean guidelines as an "effective" countermeasure, the Yonhap News Agency reported.

Over the weekend, Judicial Watch announced that it had filed a lawsuit against the DOJ on behalf of retired special agent Jeffrey Danik seeking records related to roughly $700,000 in political contributions made by groups tied to Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, a long-time Clinton confidant, to the wife of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe...the same Andrew McCabe who was conveniently overseeing multiple Hillary Clinton investigations at the time and even oversaw components of her email investigation.

The far-reaching Brexit agreement that will govern the UK’s exit from the European Union is not only being shaped at the negotiating table, but also by the lobbyists who are trying to influence each side’s position papers and red lines.

New analysis of official statistics on lobby meetings with ministers from the UK’s Department for Exiting the EU (DExEU) and members of the EU’s Brexit Task Force reveals a common willingness to privilege the representatives of corporate interests above all others:

Between October 2016 and March 2017, DExEU staff had six meetings with big business representatives for every one meeting with an NGO, a trade union or a think tank. This figure may even just be the tip of the iceberg, as Brexit lobby meetings are also likely to take place with DExEU officials not required to disclose meetings.

Daesh may be dying – but the world is still encumbered with its walking corpse.

Plan B of Daesh’s masters may have been to indoctrinate repeated waves of misguided youth across the EU and “seduce” them into D.I. Y. jihadi terror, creating fear and insecurity in Europe. I’ve just been to Barcelona — and that’s not happening. No Fear.

Daesh can also manipulate its brand name to stake a claim into what we may call the New War Belt in Southwest Asia. That’s also not happening, because the “4+1” – Russia, Syria, Iran, Iraq, plus Hezbollah – with the addition of Turkey, and with China in a “leading from behind” role, are all working together.

The unfinished war across “Syraq” coupled with spasms of jihadism in Europe could certainly still metastasize into a massive Eurasian cancer, spreading like a plague from Afghanistan to Germany and vice-versa, and from the South China Sea to Brussels via Pakistan and vice-versa.

The EFF and ACLU have achieved a victory in an acronym-heavy public records case. The California Supreme Court has ruled the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and Los Angeles Sheriff's Department (LASD) will have to turn over data acquired by their automatic license plate readers (ALPRs).

Both entities tried to keep these records from the EFF and ACLU by claiming every single one of the millions of plate records were "investigatory records," exempt from disclosure under California's public records law. This apparently included the millions of "non-hit" records never utilized in any LAPD/LASD investigation. With the plate readers collecting 1.5-2 million records per week, they were basically arguing every driver passing by an ALPR was under investigation.

That's not how the state's Supreme Court sees it [PDF]. The "investigatory records" exemption pertains to targeted, ongoing investigations. The public records law cannot be stretched to cover indiscriminate mass surveillance.

Bilderberg has gained a reputation as the world’s most secretive group of billionaires and political leaders who conspire to impact global events—but reports indicate that they don’t hold a candle to another group that includes a host of war criminals responsible for the “War on Terror.”

Former U.S. Defense Secretary and President of the World Bank Paul Wolfowitz, former Iraqi Coalition Provisional Authority Leader Paul Bremer, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and former Chairman of the Defense Department’s Defense Policy Board Richard Perle—some of the most notable neoconservative architects of the Iraq War—are all reportedly members.

Other reported American members of Le Cercle include former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former Directors of Central Intelligence Bill Casey and William Colby, and former President Richard Nixon after he left the White House.

Google wants to be Big Brother’s eyeballs on you. All us Internet gurus knew this since before the NSA was found out spying on everybody. But now the Mountain View boys are more determined than ever to filter your information, and to obliterate any semblance of truth reaching people.

Warning that a dangerous expansion of the “government speech” doctrine by the courts could be used to limit any speech that occurs on government property, The Rutherford Institute has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a lower court ruling that places highway rest areas off limits for First Amendment activities. In asking the Supreme Court to review the case of Vista-Graphics v. Virginia Dept. of Transportation, which allows the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) to restrict the content of privately authored, illustrated, printed and funded travel guides distributed at highway rest areas and welcome centers, attorneys for The Rutherford Institute argue that Virginia’s so-called government interest in censoring this kind of speech is minimal, if it can be said to exist at all.

It was only a matter of time until this happened...

For years now, the politicos of the Left have embraced a perfectly symbiotic relationship with the 'progressive' leaders of Silicon Valley. Tech titans, like Google's Eric Schmidt who got very cozy with the Hillary Clinton campaign, have poured million of dollars of their tech fortunes into Democratic coffers all while colluding with elected officials, "independent" think tanks and "institutions of higher indoctrination" to ram their progressive agenda down the throats of the American public.

It was a great relationship for Democrats because Silicon Valley's elites had all the money of Wall Street without the negative stigma...until now.

After half a century of peace, a “dark shadow looms” over the world, following an announcement of the successful detonation of a hydrogen bomb by North Korea, according to a statement from Chinese President Xi Jinping.
While addressing the annual meeting of the BRICS economic alliance, Chinese President Xi Jinping — while not directly referring to the Sunday morning nuclear explosion — made note of an increasing unease in the region and around the globe.

In a tacit acknowledgement that Pyongyang's continued weapon and missile development was destabilizing hopes for nuclear non-proliferation, Xi spoke of using negotiation and dialog to put out "the flame of war," cited by The Guardian.

Noting that the recent nuclear detonations had "cast a dark shadow over the world," the Chinese president acknowledged that, "People around the world want peace and cooperation, not conflict or confrontation."

Many people involved in politics swear by the notion that “the ends justify the means,” which is typically the sign of a self-serving actor attempting to justify questionable if not downright evil action in order to get what he or she wants. While pursuit of “the greater good” is often put up for public consumption, the driving force behind this sort of action is almost always personal gain of some sort. This is what most politicians do for a living, which is why they are justifiably hated by the general public.

The “disastrous rise of misplaced power” to which President Eisenhower referred when referencing the military industrial complex, has taken a hold of these agencies, which now comprise what’s known as the Deep State. The Deep State is a covert network of powerful and influential people who continue to manipulate, lie, and deceive the public for their own interests.

Oh, by the way, it’s safe to assume that the Deep State also includes, as mentioned above, the agencies we don’t yet know about. We know this from looking at history: The National Security Agency (NSA) was founded in 1952, its existence was hidden until the mid 1960s; Another great example is the National Reconnaissance Office, which was founded in 1960 but remained completely secret for three decades.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping have agreed to “appropriately deal” with the recent nuclear test conducted by North Korea, Chinese Xinhua news reports.

"The two leaders agreed to stick to the goal of denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula and keep close communication and coordination to deal with the new situation," the report says.

The presidents met in the southeastern Chinese city of Xiamen for the ninth BRICS summit, which is scheduled for September 3-5.

Korea tested hydrogen bomb that can be mounted on ICBM – state TV
Earlier in the day, the Russian Foreign Ministry condemned the North Korean test, adding that in a situation like this, it is essential “to keep composure and to restrain from any acts, which may lead to further escalation of tensions.”

The test is “another example of Pyongyang’s outright disregard” of UN Security Council resolutions and international law, the ministry said in a statement.

The US Treasury Department will submit to President Donald Trump a new package of sanctions against North Korea after the latest nuclear test by Pyongyang, the authority's secretary, Steven Mnuchin, said Sunday.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The news about sanctions emerges after US President Donald Trump commented on the reports about the nuclear test, saying Pyongyang's "words and actions continue to be very hostile and dangerous to the United States."

"We have already started with sanctions against North Korea but I am going to draft a sanctions package to send to the president for his strong consideration," Mnuchin told the US Fox News broadcaster.

Mnuchin added that if other countries wanted to do business with North Korea, the United States would not engage in cooperation with them.

The top military officers of the United States and South Korea have discussed “effective military responses” that could show the military might of the allies in the wake of North Korea’s latest nuclear test on Sunday.

Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and South Korea’s Gen. Jeong Kyeong-doo discussed on phone the enhancemnet of military cooperation between Seoul and Washington and joint response to North Korea, the Yonhap news agency reported.

The news came after Pyongyang announced it had conducted a test of a hydrogen bomb, which was successful, as no radiation leakage took place in the process. The Japanese NHK broadcaster confirmed the test was successful, adding that no breaches of nuclear materials to the outside occurred.

Government forces in Myanmar have beheaded and burned alive Rohingya Muslim civilians, including children, witnesses say, as calls grow to stop the “genocide” against the minority Muslims living in the Buddhist-majority country.

Myanmar’s Rakhine State, where the minority Rohingya are concentrated, has been the scene of violence by the army. Before a military siege was imposed on Rakhine late last year, extremist Buddhists would attack the Muslims.

The Independent cited eyewitnesses in a report on Saturday as giving “horrific accounts of violence and destruction” by Myanmarese soldiers and other unidentified armed groups.

The report cited a man named Abdul Rahman as saying that he had survived a five-hour attack on Chut Pyin Village.

He said a group of Rohingya men had been arrested and detained in a bamboo hut, which was then set on fire.

So then, what are the prospects Washington could jump off the hamster wheel and come up with something besides threats and sanctions? The omens are not auspicious. Just before he left the White House, Steve Bannon violated the taboo surrounding Delusion 1: «Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that ten million people in Seoul don't die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don't know what you're talking about, there's no military solution here, they got us.» Then he was gone.

The world’s top oil importer, China, is preparing to launch a crude oil futures contract denominated in Chinese yuan and convertible into gold, potentially creating the most important Asian oil benchmark and allowing oil exporters to bypass U.S.-dollar denominated benchmarks by trading in yuan, Nikkei Asian Review reports.

The crude oil futures will be the first commodity contract in China open to foreign investment funds, trading houses, and oil firms. The circumvention of U.S. dollar trade could allow oil exporters such as Russia and Iran, for example, to bypass U.S. sanctions by trading in yuan, according to Nikkei Asian Review.

To make the yuan-denominated contract more attractive, China plans the yuan to be fully convertible in gold on the Shanghai and Hong Kong exchanges.

The U.S. Geological Survey said it had recorded a M 6.3 earthquake that it described as a “possible explosion” in northeastern North Korea—near the site of Pyongyang’s past nuclear tests—at a depth of zero kilometers at noon Pyongyang time. The agency initially assessed it to be a magnitude-5.1 temblor.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff assumed North Korea conducted its sixth nuclear test, after an artificial earthquake was detected near the site of the North’s previous nuclear tests earlier today. Additionally, the Korea Meteorological Administration said that it had detected a revised magnitude-5.7 earthquake in the same area of North Korea, in what it described as likely being a “man-made” earthquake.

Because earthquakes are measured using a logarithmic scale, a magnitude-6.3 quake would be 10 times as powerful as the one triggered by the North’s September 2016 nuclear test, which triggered a magnitude-5.3 earthquake, according to the USGS.

Following remarks from the leaders of South Korea and Japan, President Donald Trump has responded to North Korea's latest "perfect" nuclear test, emphasizing that South Korea's "talk of appeasement will not work," and that Kim Jong Un and his government "only understand one thing!" He added that the nuclear test is an embarrassment...to China.

Boris Johnson has warned there “no easy military solution” to preventing North Korea escalating its nuclear aggression but said all options were still on the table for retaliation after the regime’s nuclear weapons rest.

The foreign secretary said it was not clear how a military response from the West would be possible, given the proximity of the South Korean capital Seoul to the North Korean border.

Any military challenge to Kim Jong-Un’s regime could come at huge cost to civilian lives in South Korea, Johnson said.

“It’s certainly our view that none of the military options are good,” he told reporters after North Korea announced it had tested a powerful hydrogen bomb that could be loaded on to an intercontinental ballistic missile

Amid mounting military and diplomatic tensions between the US and Russia, the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung reported Friday that the American Congress has taken the first steps toward Washington’s annulling of the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

The INF, or Washington Treaty on Mid-range Nuclear Systems, is a bilateral agreement reached between the United States and the Soviet Union on the decommissioning of short- and mid-range missiles (with a range of between 500 and 5,500 miles), and the banning of their production.

The treaty, signed on 8 December 1987 by US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, led to a significant reduction of US nuclear weapons in Europe. The nuclear-armed mid-range Pershing II missiles, whose stationing in Western Europe five years earlier had triggered the largest peace demonstrations to that point in history, were withdrawn.

The latest Senate Intelligence Authorization Act (SB 1761), which was released by the committee on August 18 when few senators were in town, is in the nature of a routine document. It notably calls for “more” in terms of both probing and revealing Russian spying and alleged aggression, but that was to be expected due to the current panic over Moscow and its intentions. It will nevertheless almost certainly become law even though few members of congress will actually bother to read any part of it. The bill has already been approved by the Senate Intelligence Committee and will likely go immediately to a vote in the full Senate when that body reconvenes after the August recess. It will almost certainly be approved unanimously.

"Fitch Ratings has taken the following rating actions on Venezuela's sovereign ratings: long-term foreign and local currency IDRs downgraded to 'CC' from 'CCC'; senior unsecured debt downgraded to ‘CC’ from ‘CCC’; short-term foreign and local currency IDRs affirmed at 'C'; country ceiling downgraded to 'CC' from 'CCC,'" Fitch said in a statement.
The agency pointed out that the threat of default was caused by the new US sanctions against Venezuela.

"Venezuela's downgrade reflect Fitch's view that a default is probable given the further reduction in financing options for the Government of Venezuela following the imposition of additional sanctions on Venezuela by the US government on Aug. 25, 2017," the statement added.

The sanctions ban US citizens from or entities from a number of financial transactions with the Venezuelan government of the country’s PDVSA oil and gas company.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that the death of hundreds of Rohingya in Myanmar over the past week constituted a genocide aimed at Muslim communities in the region.

Nearly 400 people have died in fighting that has rocked Myanmar's northwest for a week, new official data showed, making it probably the deadliest bout of violence to engulf the country's Rohingya Muslim minority in decades.

"There is a genocide there. They remain silent towards this... All those looking away from this genocide carried out under the veil of democracy are also part of this massacre," Erdogan said at his ruling AK Party's Eid al-adha celebrations in Istanbul.

The army says it is conducting clearance operations against "extremist terrorists" to protect civilians.

Erdogan, with his roots in political Islam, has long striven to take a position of leadership among the world's Muslim community. He said it was Turkey's moral responsibility to take a stand against the events in Myanmar.

Russia wants to promote economic cooperation within the BRICS format. According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, there has been a number of practical achievements in the work of the five-nation bloc.
BRICS is the acronym for an association of five major emerging national economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

Read more
© Bb3015 / WikipediaBRICS New Development Bank considering Russian infrastructure projects
In an open letter published ahead of the 9th BRICS Summit in China, Putin expressed confidence the BRICS countries will continue to act against protectionism and new barriers to global trade.

“We value the BRICS countries’ consensus on this issue, which allows us to more consistently advocate the foundations of an open, equal and mutually beneficial multilateral trade system and to strengthen the role of the WTO as the key regulator in international trade,” wrote Putin.

The Utah police have issued an apology after a video went viral of one of their own assaulting a nurse after she refused to draw blood from a patient who was unconscious at the University Hospital. The incident is alleged to have occurred at the end of July and the video shows the nurse, Alex Wubbels (above in blue), being arrested by officer Jeff Payne.

When watching the video you can see the moment that the officer seemed to have had enough is when the superior of Wubbels tells him that he is making 'a big mistake,' to which Payne responds by making it even worse and illegally detaining the nurse.

The police department claims that an investigation has been launched into the incident and they've issued an apology to the hospital.
Many people have called for Payne to be placed on leave, to be fired, and/or to receive some psychological evaluation. Someone who appears to be that mentally unstable is probably not well suited to be in such a position of authority.

Flood-prone Houston was woefully unprepared for days of torrential rainfall. Its drainage system can’t handle it.

Its regulatory policy is lax. Its overdevelopment eliminated green space. Its damaged oil refining, fuel and chemical facilities exacerbated the disaster, turning much of the area into a toxic swamp, land, air and water affected – certain to gravely harm public health.

The International Business Times (IBT) said “Texas Republicans helped chemical (company Arkema) lobby against safety rules” – likely contributing to two August 31 explosions at its Crosby plant, 25 miles from Houston, releasing toxic smoke and chemicals into the air and water.

“The effort to stop the chemical plant safety rules was backed by top Texas Republican lawmakers, who have received big campaign donations from chemical industry donors,” IBT explained.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has urged Washington not to use force against North Korea, as tensions surged after the latest missile test by Pyongyang.

In a phone call late Wednesday with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Lavrov "underscored... the need to refrain from any military steps that could have unpredictable consequences," the foreign ministry in Moscow said.

Russia´s lead diplomat said any attempts to toughen sanctions against North Korea would be "counterproductive and dangerous" while condemning Pyongyang´s firing of a missile over Japan as a "gross violation" of United Nations resolutions.

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova at a briefing on Thursday warned that "the contest of force that is now being demonstrated, will only lead the region to the brink of a military conflict."

She pushed for holding peace talks to cool down the situation, saying that "at the moment only Russia and China have put forward a realistic initiative."

A coalition of Saudi Arabia, the United States, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates, with minor support from several other Middle Eastern nations, has relentlessly bombed Yemen since March 2015. This August, the coalition ramped up the ferocity of its airstrikes, killing dozens of civilians.

On August 23, the US/Saudi coalition bombed a hotel near Yemen’s capital Sanaa, killing 41 people, 33 of whom—80 percent—were civilians, according to the United Nations.

Then on August 25, the coalition bombed homes in Sanaa, massacring a dozen civilians, including eight members of the same family.

Major Western media outlets have, however, obscured the responsibility Saudi Arabia, and its US and European supporters, bear for launching these airstrikes.

n their latest monthly statement on the P5+1 nuclear deal, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has once again confirmed that Iran is in total compliance with the deal, and that its low-enriched uranium stockpile is well within limits.

This is the statement they’ve issued every time since the deal was implemented, but comes at an increasingly important time, as President Trump has repeatedly claimed he considers Iran to be in violation is some non-specific way.

It also comes amid calls from US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley for the IAEA to inspect all of Iran’s conventional military facilities, to try to look for some violations. The IAEA, however, has insisted that there is no need for this.

The US recently spurned a call by the UN to temporarily halt airstrikes on the Syrian city of Raqqa to allow civilians to flee. That call had come after multiple instances of US strikes killing civilians in and around the city.

Today, UN officials are warning that the city’s population is paying an “unacceptable price” from the US airstrikes, and that continued US bombardment may be in violation of international law as a result. The US has been trying to back an invasion of Raqqa against ISIS.

US officials have insisted they are taking utmost care to avoid civilian deaths. In reality, however, the Pentagon’s main effort in keeping the official death toll down has been to deliver preposterously low undercounts of how many they’ve killed in reports.

Less than a day after Pentagon officials quoted Defense Secretary James Mattis as insisting the US military would do a better job with transparency on troop levels, they’ve thrown that plan entirely out the window. Mattis has now signed orders on a planned escalation of the Afghan War.

The US had falsely claimed 8,400 troops were in Afghanistan, and corrected that yesterday to “about 11,000.” These new orders make that corrected figure obsolete, as the US is offering no details on the size of this new force being deployed.

The lack of figures should be unsurprising, as just last week President Trump insisted that the troop levels would not be made public, claiming the “enemy must never know.” Still, it makes Mattis’ comments just yesterday all the more bizarre, as he surely would’ve known the escalation was coming.

North Korea's Foreign Ministry said Friday the recent missile launch marked the beginning of a military operation in the Pacific, according to state media.

In a message carried by the KCNA news agency, the Foreign Ministry hit back at the United Nations for saying Tuesday’s launch of a ballistic missile over northern Japan undermined regional security.
Pyongyang said it rejected UN criticism as a violation of its right as a sovereign nation to defend itself against the United States and South Korea and promised to launch more projectiles into the Pacific.

The two allies have been engaged in a string of military exercises, called Ulchi — Freedom Guardian, allegedly to improve the South’s defenses. The annual drills on land, air and sea have been routinely slammed by the North as a preparation for invasion.

The situation on the Korean peninsula has escalated and is now on the edge of the full-scale military conflict, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, adding that the problem must be solved through dialogue.

"I have to say a few words about the situation on the Korean Peninsula, where tensions have grown recently and the situation is balancing on the brink of a large-scale conflict. Russia believes that the policy of putting pressure on Pyongyang to stop its nuclear missile programme is misguided and futile," Putin said in an article published by leading media of BRICS states on the threshold of the BRICS summit that will be held in the southeastern Chinese city of Xiamen on September 3-5.
The president pointed out that the problem must be solved through a dialogue without provocations and pressure.

Windows machines are targeted by the CIA under ‘Angelfire,’ according to the latest release from WikiLeaks’ ‘Vault7’ series. The documents detail an implant that can allow Windows machines to create undetectable libraries.

‘Angelfire’ consists of five components – ‘Solartime,’‘Wolfcreek,’ ‘Keystone,’ ‘BadMFS,’ and the ‘Windows Transitory File system,’ according to a statement from WikiLeaks released on Thursday.

‘Solartime’ modifies the partition boot sector of Windows XP or Windows 7 machines when installed, allowing the ‘Wolfcreek’ implant to load and execute. ‘Wolfcreek’ can then load and execute other ‘Angelfire’ implants.

Previously known as ‘MagicWand,’ ‘Keystone’ loads malicious user applications on the machine which never touch the file system, leaving “very little forensic evidence that the process ever ran” according to WikiLeaks.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a liberal, Alabama-based 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charitable organization that has gained prominence on the left for its "hate group" designations, pushes millions of dollars to offshore entities as part of its business dealings, records show.

Additionally, the nonprofit pays lucrative six-figure salaries to its top directors and key employees while spending little on legal services despite its stated intent of "fighting hate and bigotry" using litigation, education, and other forms of advocacy.

The Southern Poverty Law Center is perhaps best known for its "hate map," a collection of organizations the nonprofit deems "domestic hate groups" that lists mainstream conservative organizations alongside racist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and is often referenced in the media. A gunman opened fire at the Washington, D.C., offices of the conservative Family Research Council in 2012 after seeing it listed as an "anti-gay" group on SPLC's website.

It is reported the assailant snuck up behind the officer and cut his neck. The attack has been called completely unprovoked in Swedish media.

While the officer was conscious and able to sit up on his own as the ambulance arrived. He was discharged from the hospital Thursday afternoon having sustained only minor injuries.

The attack comes just hours after Swedish police were the subject of another potentially deadly attack Thursday morning, again in Stockholm. Officers were called to a bogus burglar alarm in a suburb to the south of the city, and upon arriving instead of finding a householder in distress, their car was pelted with heavy stones from a 10th floor flat in a tower block.

One of the officers, a police dog handler came close to being killed when his vehicle was struck, reports Expressen. Police were able to raid the apartment and arrested one for attempted murder, but a second suspect remains on the run.

While Americans squabble over irrelevant political diversions, a revolutionary breakthrough in human healthcare has yielded its first FDA approval - a therapy that literally cures otherwise incurable leukemia.

It is the first of many therapies that re-engineer human cells in living patients to reprogram more resilient immune systems and even repair damaged or aging organs.

Literally on her deathbed in 2012, Emily Whitehead has been cancer free after receiving treatment in clinical trials funded by charity. The media is now rewriting history, attributing the breakthrough and thriving patients like Emily Whitehead to Novartis.

MIT's Technology Review, in an article titled, "FDA Approves Groundbreaking Gene Therapy for Cancer: The treatment will be sold by Novartis for $475,000," would report:

Disobedient Media previously reported that Florida Democrat Evan Ross had offered to personally kill Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, as well as Edward Snowden. Ross responded to our coverage by redoubling his threats. The report at the time indicated that Ross was a member of the Democratic Party, and had at one time served as the leader of the young Democrats. However, at that time there was no evidence of contact between Ross and Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

The initial statements offering to personally execute Wikileaks founder Julian Assange were posted by Ross via Twitter. In our previous coverage, Disobedient Media noted that Ross appeared to have been very well connected within the Democratic party establishment, having posted pictures to social media posing with Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton and her running mate Tim Kaine.

Back in May, comedian and Youtuber Jimmy Dore released a video titled “Washington Post Caught Blatantly Lying To Their Readers Yet Again” about one of the many, many deceptions that WaPo has been caught inflicting upon their unsuspecting audience. Dore pointed out that while corporate media reporters have long served as guard dogs for the establishment, in today’s environment where plutocratic CIA contractors can openly buy up media to advance blatant propaganda, those reporters have now become attack dogs for the establishment. As an example of this new breed of establishment attack dogs who go out of their way to smear and discredit all dissenting voices, Dore named amoral Bezos android Dave Weigel, who then spent months attacking both Dore and his writers.

President Trump was crucified by the mainstream media a few weeks back after hosting an improvised press conference and saying there was "blame on both sides" for the violence in Charlottesville that resulted in the death of a counterprotester. The comments resulted in most of Trump's advisory councils being disbanded, as CEO's around the country pounced on the opportunity to distance themselves from the administration, and heightened calls from CNN for impeachment proceedings.

The problem is that while Trump's delivery probably could have been a bit more artful, the underlying message seems to be proving more accurate with each passing day and each new outbreak of Antifa violence.

As Politico points out today, previously unreported FBI and Department of Homeland Security studies found that "anarchist extremist" group like Antifa have been the "primary instigators of violence at public rallies" going back to at least April 2016 when the reports were first published.

Even though the court recognize it might be creating a situation where plaintiffs have zero legal options (beyond the useless TSA complaint form) when rights appear to be violated by TSA staffers, the court decides it's worth it because safety and security are more important than individual rights and remedies.

As a matter of fact, the Internet has become something of a hot zone for political censorship in recent times, as companies like Facebook, Google, Twitter, YouTube, PayPal, and several more have begun engaging in selective suppression. Below is a comprehensive list of “tech tyrants” who are censoring websites and infringing on the First Amendment.

Concern is rising for the safety of a biological lab containing deadly diseases on Galveston island, which has been hit by the massive storm devastating southeast Texas.

The Galveston National Laboratory on the campus of the University of Texas Medical Branch contains samples of hundreds of viruses, insects and microbes, which could spread extreme danger if they were to escape. There are several Bio-safety Level 4 labs at Galveston. BSL-4 is the highest level precaution taken for work with agents that can be transmitted through the air and cause fatal diseases in humans for which there are no known cures.

According to its website, the high security national bio-containment lab’s mission is to develop “therapies, vaccines, and diagnostic tests for naturally occurring emerging diseases such as SARS, West Nile encephalitis and avian influenza – as well as for microbes that might be employed by terrorists.”

High exposure to pesticides as a result of living near farmers’ fields appears to increase the risk of giving birth to a baby with “abnormalities” by about 9 per cent, according to new research.

Researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara, compared 500,000 birth records for people born in the San Joaquin Valley between 1997 and 2011 and levels of pesticides used in the area.

The average use of pesticides over that period was about 975kg for each 2.6sq km area per year.

But, for pregnant women in areas where 4,000kg of pesticides was used, the chance of giving birth prematurely rose by about 8 per cent and the chance of having a birth abnormality by about 9 per cent.

Writing in the journal Nature Communications, the researchers compared this to the 5 to 10 per cent increase adverse birth outcomes that can result from air pollution or extreme heat events.

When Google was founded in 1998, it famously committed itself to the motto: “Don’t be evil.” It appears that Google may have lost sight of what being evil means, in the way that most monarchs do: Once you reach a pinnacle of power, you start to believe that any threats to your authority are themselves villainous and that you are entitled to shut down dissent. As Lord Acton famously said, “Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.” Those with too much power cannot help but be evil. Google, the company dedicated to free expression, has chosen to silence opposition, apparently without any sense of irony.

Make no mistake that America has been quietly arming its police for battle with its own citizens, under the guise of the drug war, since the early 1990s.

As part of its misguided “war on drugs,” policy makers decided that if police were to act like drug warriors, they needed to be equipped like warriors. Since that time, almost $5 billion in military hardware was transferred from the military to law enforcement, according to a report by the ACLU. By giving military hardware to law enforcement for free, the NDAA and 1033 program encourages police to employ military-like tactics and weaponry.

14 out of 15 members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, including possible Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, have voted to declare WikiLeaks a “non-state hostile intelligence service.”

If implemented in Congress, the bill would open Julian Assange and the pro-transparency organisation to heightened state surveillance and potentially allow the US intelligence community to prosecute Americans who donate to or associate themselves with Wikileaks.

The bill does not offer any evidence to back up claims against the publisher, who themselves do not actively hack classified documents.

Assange still asserts that Wikileaks is a ‘multi-national media organisation’ and the decision of the Senate Intelligence Committee threatens the First Amendment rights of the free press. Wikileaks have never been charged with the crime of cyber espionage, which would be the obvious qualifier for implicating an organisation as a ‘hostile intelligence service’.

An F-15E from Nellis Air Force Base dropped an inert version of the B61-12 over the Nevada desert earlier this month after its first test in March

B61-12 gravity bombs, without a nuclear warhead, were dropped from F-15E fighter jets at Tonopah Test Range in Nevada on August 8

The mock bomb landed in a dry lake bed at the Tonopah Test Range

Scientists will spend months analyzing the data gathered from the test
B61-12 consolidates and replaces older versions in the nation's nuclear arsenal

The bomb is described as the most dangerous nuclear device ever produced because its yeild can be adjusted between the equivalent of 50,000 tons and 300 tons of TNT. It is also more accurate than ever.

It is important to note that TYT has reported on some hard-hitting stories and exposed serious problems within the state, and Uygur was unafraid of calling out corruption—so much so that he quit his job at MSNBC to work on the media project. However, once we start following the recent money, we can see a telling revelation begin to unfold.

The funding comes from a number of sources, so let’s take a look at these entities and the people behind them to better understand the agenda at play.

The main conduit for the funding is a newly created growth equity fund called 3L Capital, with additional financial backing from venture capital groups Greycroft Partners, E.ventures, and WndrCo. — which was recently launched by Hollywood mogul Jefferey Katzenberg.

“News is red hot right now and being positioned on the progressive side of the coin has put us in a very good place,” Uygur said, according to Bloomberg.

Two explosions shook a flooded chemical plant near Houston early Thursday, sending a plume of black smoke into the air and triggering an intense fire that continues to burn.

Authorities warned that further blasts were likely to occur on site since chemicals weren't being stored at the appropriate temperatures after the facility lost power following Hurricane Harvey.

Residents in a 1.5-mile radius of the Arkema Inc. plant were first evacuated Tuesday, and the water levels there remain too dangerous for workers to assess the situation from the ground, officials added.

"That's why we want people to respect [the] radius. It's not over. This is very serious and we know that," Richard Rennard, of Arkema Group, said at a news conference.

He added that the explosions were not massive, and that the pressure building up inside the containers where the chemicals are located eventually produces a "popping sound."

WITH THE RUSSIAN MEDDLING NARRATIVE SERVING AS A PRETEXT, THE U.S. SENATE, EMBRACING THE “POMPEO DOCTRINE,” IS MOVING TO STIFLE AND CRIMINALIZE WIKILEAKS AND, BY EXTENSION, ANY SUCH “DANGEROUS,” TRANSPARENCY-PROVIDING ENTITIES THAT THREATEN TO CAST DOUBT UPON WASHINGTON’S “OFFICIAL STORIES.”

Just when it seemed that a full day may pass without some diplomatic fiasco between North Korea and the US sending stocks surging on rising risks of World War III, moments ago North Korea's state-run news agency KCNA issued a statement quoting Kim Jong Un, who said that "the current ballistic rocket launching drill like a real war is the first step of the military operation of the KPA in the Pacific and a meaningful prelude to containing Guam" and added the necessity to "positively push forward the work for putting the strategic force on a modern basis by conducting more ballistic rocket launching drills with the Pacific as a target in the future."

You don't need an army to achieve World Domination; all you need is enough cheap credit to buy up everything that generates the highest value and/or income.

WITH THE RUSSIAN MEDDLING NARRATIVE SERVING AS A PRETEXT, THE U.S. SENATE, EMBRACING THE “POMPEO DOCTRINE,” IS MOVING TO STIFLE AND CRIMINALIZE WIKILEAKS AND, BY EXTENSION, ANY SUCH “DANGEROUS,” TRANSPARENCY-PROVIDING ENTITIES THAT THREATEN TO CAST DOUBT UPON WASHINGTON’S “OFFICIAL STORIES.”

The Senate Intelligence Committee is pushing Congress to label WikiLeaks a “non-state hostile intelligence service,” having adopted that very position in the Intelligence Authorization Act (IAA) it approved last month. The terminology used in the bill originates from a speech given in April by CIA director Mike Pompeo, who called the pro-transparency media organization a “non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted” by “hostile” nations.

WikiLeaks’ editor-in-chief, Julian Assange, has slammed the Senate bill as an attempt to legislate what he termed the “Pompeo doctrine.”

US troops in SyriaAmerican troops deployed in Syria have exchanged fire with rebels that were until recently supported by the United States Central Intelligence Agency. In 2013, soon after the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War, the then-US President Barack Obama instructed the Central Intelligence Agency to provide covert support to fighters in Syria. Acting on the president’s directive, the CIA promptly joined forces with spy agencies from Britain, France, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, to assist fighters affiliated with the Free Syrian Army. At that time, Washington saw the Free Syrian Army and forces affiliated with it as ideologically moderate. It also agreed with the group’s main aim, which was to topple the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

In late 2011, the Red Cross launched a multimillion-dollar project to transform the desperately poor area, which was hit hard by the earthquake that struck Haiti the year before. The main focus of the project — called LAMIKA, an acronym in Creole for “A Better Life in My Neighborhood” — was building hundreds of permanent homes.

Today, not one home has been built in Campeche. Many residents live in shacks made of rusty sheet metal, without access to drinkable water, electricity or basic sanitation. When it rains, their homes flood and residents bail out mud and water.

The Red Cross received an outpouring of donations after the quake, nearly half a billion dollars.

In this episode of The Debate, Press TV has conducted an interview with Dr. Maung Zarni, a non-resident research fellow at Genocide Documentation Center of Cambodia, and Denis Halliday, a former assistant of the UN secretary general, to discuss Myanmar’s continued military crackdown against Rohingya Muslims.