Combat vessels from the Second Standing NATO Maritime Group (NATO Maritime Group 2) moved closer to Syria’s borders on the 16th of September, according to monitoring data from Western naval forces. In retrospect, we can see this sudden buildup as related to the French/US/Israeli strike on Lattakia and the downing of the Russian il-20 aircraft carrying 14 Russian soldiers

In particular, the eastern Mediterranean is now being patrolled by the Canadian Navy frigate HMCS Ville de Quebe?, by the Greek navy ship Elli and by the Dutch Navy frigate HNLMS De Ruyter, the latter being the group’s flagship.

A Russian military Ilyushin-20 aircraft was shot down by Syria’s air defense over the Mediterranean Sea because Israel’s F-16 fighters used it as cover, Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Igor Konashenkov told the media on Tuesday.

"By using the Russian plane as cover the Israeli air pilots made it vulnerable to Syrian air defense fire. As a result, the Ilyushin-20, its reflective surface being far greater than that of the F-16, was downed by a missile launched with the S-200 system," Konashenkov said.

Konashenkov said four F-16s from the Israeli Air Force carried out a strike with guided air missles against Syrian facilities in the area of Latakia at about 22:00 on September 17. The fighters approached the target from the Mediterranean at a low altitude.

The Israeli planes deliberately created a dangerous situation for surface ships and aircraft in that area, he stated.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has just publicly declared that Turkey and Russia have agreed to establish a demilitarized zone in Idlib which will have a depth of 15 km, to be ready and in place by October 15th. This is effectively a ceasefire, with Turkish forces and Russian military police that will conduct joint patrols towards the de-escalation in Idlib.

Russia’s Defence Minister Shoigu has just publicly stated: there will be no military operation in Idlib.

FRN previously raised the possibility of Turkey securing Idlib on its own, then working towards using this possibly to acquire territory or make a better deal with Russia. It appears the second has happened, as we forecasted. Our general operating thesis that ‘things are never as they appear’ was confirmed as well.

Missiles targeted several locations in the Syrian coastal city of Latakia on Monday but were intercepted and downed by air defenses, Syrian state media said.

The official SANA news agency said state technical industry institutions in Latakia had been targeted, adding they are likely the result of Israeli strikes on a state technical company.

Former Vice President Joe Biden said “virulent … dregs of society” have an “ally” in President Donald Trump during a speech in front of America’s largest LGBTQ equality organization.

Among other topics, Biden spoke to those gathered Saturday at the annual Human Rights Campaign dinner about “forces of intolerance.”

“Despite losing in the courts and in the court of public opinion, these forces of intolerance remain determined to undermine and roll back the progress you all have made,” the Democrat said. “This time they — not you — have an ally in the White House.”

Biden added that “they’re a small percentage of the American people, virulent people. Some of them the dregs of society.”

Repeated cross-border incursions by Turkish forces into northern Iraq, generally under the pretext of attacking Kurds, have sparked a reaction from Iraq’s Abadi government, which has issued multiple orders for more troops to be deployed into the border area to stop such incursions.

The goal of these orders appears to be to prevent ground incursions, though most Turkish raids into Iraqi Kurdistan involve warplanes.Prime Minister Abadi has ordered the foreign ministry to document such incidents and forward them to the UN.

This has been a recurring problem since the 2003 US invasion and occupation of Iraq. The Turkish government has felt itself totally justified to cross into northern Iraq to “fight terror,” and willing to label most any Kurdish group as a terrorist organization.

A Russian IL-20 military aircraft heading to the Hmeymim airbase went off radar late on September 17 during an attack by four Israeli F-16 jets on Syrian targets in the province of Latakia.

The Russian Defense Ministry had said earlier that Russia's Hmeymim Airbase had lost contact with the crew of the Russian Il-20 military aircraft with 14 servicemen on board late on Monday. The ministry has shared a map of the area of the accident.

Germany has unveiled the world’s first hydrogen-powered train, thereby marking a historic step to challenge the leadership of the highly polluting diesel trains with a more eco-friendly transport option.

A 100-kilometer (62-mile) rail stretch connecting the cities of Cuxhaven, Bremerhaven, Bremervoerde and Buxtehude in northern Germany saw on Monday two cutting edge blue Coradia iLint trains, built by French TGV-maker Alstom.

In this Aug. 21, 2017 photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, a Fuxing bullet train, China's latest high-speed train, arrives at a train station in northern China's Tianjin Municipality

According to Alstom CEO Henri Poupart-Lafarge’s statement at the ribbon-cutting ceremony in Bremervoerde, the world’s first hydrogen train is “entering commercial service” and is ready for mass production.

The 30th anniversary of the Sabra and Chatila massacre in Lebanon has passed with hardly any notice. Several hundred Palestinians were butchered by Israeli proxies in Lebanon on Sept. 16, 1982. Throughout July and August of that year, the Israeli air force, under the command of Ariel Sharon, carpet-bombed clearly marked civilian centers in the city of Beirut, including nursing homes, hospitals and apartment blocks. In August of 1982 the attacks escalated to terror bombing of downtown Beirut in a true holocaust (death by fire).

The Israelis commit war crimes and atrocities with impunity. They know that after the initial editorial outrage, their mass murder will never form part of a permanent collective ritual of commemoration similar to the eternal remembrance and teaching of the Nazi persecution of Judaic people under the rubric “the Holocaust.”

Scientists believe they have discovered the first examples of air pollution traveling through the lungs of pregnant women and into their placentas, potentially reaching their fetuses.

The study, presented at the European Respiratory Society International Congress in Paris, examined the placentas of five pregnant women in the United Kingdom and found that sooty particles had made their way into their placentas.

“We do not know whether the particles we found could also move across into the fetus, but our evidence suggests that this is indeed possible,” Dr. Norrice Liu, a pediatrician and clinical research fellow at Queen Mary University in London who led the research, said in a statement.

“An investigation into the alleged incident revealed Lewis had fabricated the story and no such altercation took place,” according to the report. “Police said Lewis later admitted she wrote the note and placed it on her car.”

Fake hate crimes are on the rise in America during a time when the political climate is already highly polarized. At least 10 such crimes were debunked on college campuses alone in 2017.

A student at the University of Michigan was fined $660 and is on a suspended 93-day jail sentence, pending probation adherence, for falsely reporting a hate crime last year. She told police that she was targeted for wearing a “solidarity pin” – the safety pin worn by leftists after Trump’s election – when in reality she scratched herself with the pin after becoming upset during a women’s literature class.

In notes she provided to a therapist in 2012 about the incident, numerous discrepancies were found. One was that Kavanaugh was never named in her original allegation. The other is that the therapist noted there were four boys present for the incident, and not just one other.

Now another discrepancy was just revealed. Ford hired lawyer Debra Katz to advocate on her behalf. Katz went on CNN to relay Ford’s story once again but added an extra detail that wasn’t provided in The WaPo piece.

From the Daily Caller:

During the interview, Katz revealed that there was another girl present at the party, which allegedly took place in 1982 while Kavanaugh was attending Georgetown Prep. Ford previously told the Washington Post that there were four boys at the party but never indicated if there were other girls beside herself.

“Leave our children in peace. Let our children play, stop ‘playing’ with our children.” These are the words of a mother whose child was stolen and is being imprisoned in Idlib by terrorist groups and the White Helmets.

I met Wafaa at her home with her husband Mohammed Ibrahim and her two sons Hamza, 9, and Lotfe, 14. Both Wafaa and Mohammed are lawyers, they met while studying at the same university. Wafaa is strong, her expression is defiantly hopeful and optimistic despite fears for her kidnapped son, Ahmed, who is now 11.

“Ahmed was born mute, he couldn’t speak,” she told me. “I believe this is why he was taken from us, because he cannot protest or resist.”

New Jersey lawmakers shelved a vote on advancing a bill Thursday that would prohibit retailers from refusing to accept cash. The measure was tabled before a Senate Commerce committee hearing after the retail giants and other stakeholders expressed concerns with the bill, said State Sen. Nellie Pou (D., Passaic), who chairs the committee and is sponsoring the legislation.

Moscow and Tel Aviv have long enjoyed fairly good ties despite the turmoil in the Middle East but these relations are at risk as Russia blames Israel for the downing of its warplane off the Syrian coast and the death of its crew.

Although the plane was technically shot down by a Syrian missile, Russia made it clear who it blames for the tragedy, saying that Israeli pilots used the Russian Il-20 as cover.

Developing.

U.S. nuclear plants are required to shut down two hours before the hurricane-force winds arrive.

There are 12 nuclear plants in the Carolinas that are typically near rivers that could flood during the storm.

We endorse this historic and courageous move by President Trump. We have numerous lawsuits pending for all of the documents he is now releasing. This is a major anti-corruption breakthrough that will do much to expose the outrageous abuses by the Obama Department of Justice and FBI. And it is a historic day for all Americans who believe in full transparency and the rule of law.

When Mr. Moon stepped off his plane at the Pyongyang International Airport, a smiling Mr. Kim was waiting on the tarmac with a military honor guard ...

This is not what the market wants to hear right now.

Hours after China's Foreign Ministry said it would unveil its retaliation to the impending 10% US tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods "at an appropriate time" - a "measured" response that, because it wasn't "the worst scenario that some analysts had expected", helped push global markets higher, China's wealthiest - and recently retired - man warned that the US-China trade spat is far from over.

Alibaba founder - who surprised the market earlier this month when he announced his resignation as CEO - Jack Ma said that what we're seeing now is merely the beginning of a conflict for global economic dominance that could persist "for 20 years" even after the US administration that instigated it has been consigned to the history books, Bloomberg reports.

The Syrian state media said that the missiles came from the sea adding that a high number of them was intercepted. However, according to photos and videos, unknown number of missiles hit their targets. Pentagon spokesman Navy Cmdr. Sean Robertson officially denied the US involvement in the attack.

On September 18, the Russian Defense Ministry revealed that the attack was carried out by four Israeli F-16 warplanes. Furthermore, during the attack a Russian Il-20 surveillance plane with 14 servicemen on board disappeared over the Mediterranean Sea. The ministry said that “the plane was returning to the airbase of Khmeimim, 35 kilometers from the coast of Syria” when “the mark of IL-20 went off” from radars.

“At the same time, the Russian radars fixed missile launches from the French frigate Auvergne, which was in that area,” the defense ministry added.

A RUSSIAN spy plane with 14 servicemen on board was accidentally blown out of the sky by their Syrian allies, it has been claimed.

Moscow has blamed the Israeli Air Force for pushing the Il-20 plane, which vanished off the Mediterranean Sea coast at 8pm last night, into the path of Syrian rockets.

Is the Buddhist spiritual leader a white supremacist, an inveterate racist or even a closet Nazi? Only a very misinformed person would suggest such a thing. So how do we explain his recent remark that the millions of refugees who have been allowed to enter Europe should ultimately return to their homelands to “rebuild their own country"? Is that really such a vile and hateful suggestion?

NEW EVIDENCE proves that Hillary Clinton used her personal cell phone inside Russia as Secretary of State, exposing her phone and private email server to extreme risk of hacking by Russian intelligence agencies in mid-October 2009, just 10 months into her 4-year term. Clinton would later lie to the public and the FBI about her security practices in Russia, after apparently forgetting that this photo ever existed.

Far left group ‘Demand Justice’ has spent millions of dollars to derail the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

Shortly after Justice Kennedy announced his retirement from the Supreme Court, twice-failed presidential hopeful, Crooked Hillary wasted no time and immediately got to work fighting Trump’s next SCOTUS nominee.

In June, Hillary promoted a radical left-wing organization called ‘Demand Justice’ as a new group her pac, Onward Together would be teaming up with to fight President Trump’s SCOTUS pick.

During the assault, says Ford, she was traumatized. “I thought he might inadvertently kill me.”

Here the story grows vague. She does not remember who drove her to the party. She does not say how much she drank. She does not remember whose house it was. She does not recall who, if anyone, drove her home. She does not recall what day it was.
She did not tell her parents, Ford says, as she did not want them to know she had been drinking. She did not tell any friend or family member of this traumatic event that has so adversely affected her life.

Said Kavanaugh in response, “I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation. I did not do this back in high school or at any time.”

Mark Judge says it never happened.

We can pretend that the Constitution, which was written to hold the government accountable, is still our governing document.

The reality we must come to terms with, however, is that in America we live in today, the government does whatever it wants, freedom be damned.

“We the people” have been terrorized, traumatized, and tricked into a semi-permanent state of compliance by a government that cares nothing for our lives or our liberties.

The bogeyman’s names and faces may change over time (terrorism, the war on drugs, illegal immigration, etc.), but the end result remains the same: our unquestioning acquiescence to anything the government wants to do in exchange for the phantom promise of safety and security.

Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) took her calls for violence against the President to the next level this weekend and encouraged the resistance to “knock off” Trump.

Maxine Waters accepted a ‘Diversity’ award in Washington DC this weekend when she went on a warpath against President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.

A Russian military Il-20 aircraft with 14 service members on board went off the radars during an attack by four Israeli jets on Syria’s Latakia province, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

The Democrats thought they could roll out a last minute “me too” accusation to delay Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court.

It didn’t work.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is voting anyway on Thursday despite unsubstantiated, decades old allegations of sexual abuse against Brett Kavanaugh by a far left activist.

Brace for well organized protests, says investigative reporter, Paul Sperry.

BREAKING: Senate Judiciary Committee vote will be held regardless of accusation. Committee not delaying for testimony from accuser. Going ahead with vote on Thursday, bracing for well-organized protests from leftists at Hart Senate Office Building

At the request of a number of committees of Congress, and for reasons of transparency, the President has directed the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Justice (including the FBI) to provide for the immediate declassification of the following materials: (1) pages 10-12 and 17-34 of the June 2017 application to the FISA court in the matter of Carter W. Page; (2) all FBI reports of interviews with Bruce G. Ohr prepared in connection with the Russia investigation; and (3) all FBI reports of interviews prepared in connection with all Carter Page FISA applications.

In addition, President Donald J. Trump has directed the Department of Justice (including the FBI) to publicly release all text messages relating to the Russia investigation, without redaction, of James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and Bruce Ohr.

The Senate met for the first time Monday afternoon since Christine Blasey Ford, a California professor and far left activist publicly came forward with allegations of sexual assault against Brett Kavanaugh.

All the facts aren’t even in but Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is calling for a delay in the Kavanaugh confirmation process.

Christine Blasey Ford is a far-left activist who alleged Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her over 35 years ago while she was at a high school party in Maryland.

Now this…

Judge Kavanaugh told Senator Hatch that he was not even at the party in question!

A number of reports surfaced this evening about the Russian military allegedly deploying their air defense missiles over west Syria.

According to a number of pro-government Syria pages, the Russian military intercepted a number of hostile missiles over the Latakia and Tartous provinces.

The Russian Ministry of Defense has not commented on these claims nor released any statement regarding this latest attack on the western provinces of Syria.

Among the provinces reportedly targeted this evening were the Hama, Homs, Latakia, and Tartous governorates.

Debra Katz, the attorney for the woman accusing Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, said that it is not her client’s job to corroborate her claims.

Monday, senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano reacted on “Fox & Friends” to President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court associate justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s sexual assault allegations brought by Christine Blasey Ford, saying Kavanaugh’s hearings will be “another version” of the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearings.

“[W]e’re going to see another version of the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearings right before our eyes, sometime in the next few weeks, maybe as soon as Thursday,” Napolitano said.

He added, “This is a classic he said-she said. So, she’ll come before the Senate Judiciary Committee, she’ll make these allegations. The Democrats will throw her softballs, the Republicans will grill her and cross-examine her.”

Napolitano warned Republicans to be careful with their cross-examination because of the #MeToo movement and a growing emphasis on sexual misconduct.

A number of reports surfaced this evening about the Russian military allegedly deploying their air defense missiles over west Syria.

According to a number of pro-government Syria pages, the Russian military intercepted a number of hostile missiles over the Latakia and Tartous provinces.

A technical manufacturing facility of the Syrian Army was one of the targets of a missile attack on the coastal city of Latakia Monday evening. One Syrian security source told Sputnik News many of the missiles were repelled by the country's air defense system.

"Syria's air defense systems have responded to an air attack in Latakia. Most likely there were drones and missiles involved," Sputnik News' source said. Syrian state media and Arabic TV channel Al Mayadeen reported that the attack came from the sea.

Syria journalist Leith Abou Fadel reports that some missiles hit parts of the city, and power outages were reported resulting from the blasts were reported by social media users. One of Fadel's sources in the Syrian Army says that the missiles were shot by armed drones and were not airstrikes.