The sweeping investigation following Carl Beech's allegations came after revelations that late BBC entertainer Jimmy Savile was a long-time child sex abuser
When Carl Beech made stunning allegations that senior British politicians and military figures were engaged in a murderous pedophile ring, the country was already reeling from a failure to identify a high-profile prolific child sex abuser.

Jimmy Savile, one of the highest paid BBC entertainers of his day and a flamboyant personality who was friends with royalty, died in 2011. A year later a documentary revealed he was a prolific pedophile who for six decades used his status to abuse what was thought to be more than 1,000 children.

It was in the light of that shocking case that Beech made explosive claims that would lead police to raid the homes of politicians and military officers in the search for the evidence that would expose the pedophile ring.

ABC and other mainstream media outlets refused to cover accusations against sex predator Jeffrey Epstein because "a network of people" that includes their executives were implicated, James O'Keefe of Project Veritas told RT.

The Disney-owned network has doubled down on its insistence that anchor Amy Robach's story on Epstein three years ago lacked "enough corroboration" and thus wasn't aired. This was after Project Veritas released a "hot mic" video of Robach slamming the decision to quash the story.

The conservative filmmaker told RT on Tuesday that he believes ABC's refusal to budge from that explanation backs up Robach's claim that "a network of people" - including the executives running her channel - are "covering up for this" because they are somehow "implicated."

At a time when the credibility of the United States as either an unbiased actor or reliable ally lies in tatters, Russia has emerged as the one major power whose loyalty to its allies is unquestioned, and whose ability to serve as an honest broker between seemingly intractable opponents is unmatched.

If there is to be peace in Syria, it will be largely due to the patient efforts of Moscow employing deft negotiation, backed up as needed by military force, to shape conditions conducive for a political solution to a violent problem. If ever there was a primer for the art of diplomacy, the experience of Russia in Syria from 2011 to the present is it.

Like the rest of the world, Russia was caught off guard by the so-called Arab Spring that swept through the Middle East and North Africa in 2010-2011, forced to watch from the sidelines as the old order in Tunisia and Egypt was swept aside by popular discontent. While publicly supporting the peaceful transition of power in Tunis and Cairo, in private the Russian government watched the events unfolding in Egypt and the Maghreb with trepidation, concerned that the social and political transformations underway were a continuation of the kind of Western-backed "color revolutions" that had occurred previously in Serbia (2000), Georgia (2003) and Ukraine (2004).

When, in early 2011, the Arab Spring expanded into Libya, threatening the rule of longtime Russian client Moammar Gadhafi, Russia initially supported the creation of a U.N.-backed no-fly zone for humanitarian purposes, only to watch in frustration as the U.S. and NATO used it as a vehicle to launch a concerted air campaign in a successful bid to drive Gadhafi from power.

The German foreign minister's view of the collapse of communism and the fall of the Berlin Wall owes more to fairy tales than reality, writes John Laughland.

As the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall approaches, it is inevitable that there will be a deluge of sentimentalizing about that great event. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has given us a taste of things to come in an editorial published in 26 EU countries, where he thanked "the hundreds of thousands of East Germans who took to the streets to protest for freedom... the Gdansk shipyard workers, the singing revolutionaries in the Baltic countries, the Hungarians who were the first to cut through the Iron Curtain... the pioneers of Charter 77 in Prague, those who took part in the Candle Demonstrations in Bratislava, the revolutionaries of Timișoara".

"In other words, all the women and men whose desire for freedom swept away walls and barbed wire. And we have our friends and Alliance partners in the West, as well as Gorbachev's policy of glasnost and perestroika, to thank for this, paving the way to reunification," he wrote.

Project Veritas released an undercover video Tuesday in which ABC News anchor Amy Robach is seen alleging the corporate news network spiked a bombshell report on Jeffrey Epstein three years ago.

With the transformation of the rules of the "Great Game" in the Middle East emerging out of President Trump's recent Syrian surprise pullout and Putin's brilliant manoeuvres since 2015, a sweeping set of development/reconstruction programs led by China now have a chance to become hegemonic across the formerly hopeless, terrorist-infested region.

The fact that the Arab states of the Middle East were targeted for destruction by western geopoliticians over the last 40 years is not un-connected to the region's historic role as "cross-roads of civilizations" which were once the bridge between East and West along the ancient Silk Road (c. 250 BC). Today's New Silk Road has brought 150 countries into a multipolar model of cooperation and civilization-building which necessitates a stabilized Middle East in order to function.

When asking "how could a reconstruction of the Middle East be possible after so many years of hell" I was pleasantly surprised to discover that both great projects once derailed have been given new life with the new prospects for peace and also new projects never before dreamed possible have been created as part of the New Silk Road (Aka: One Belt One Road).

According to the official, widely reported story, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) shut down substantial portions of its electric transmission system in northern California as a precautionary measure.

Citing high wind speeds they described as "historic," the utility claims that if they didn't turn off the grid, wind-caused damage to their infrastructure could start more wildfires in the area.

Perhaps that's true. Perhaps. This tale presumes that the folks who designed and maintain PG&E's transmission system are unaware of or ignored the need to design it to withstand severe weather events, and that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) allowed the utility to do so.

Ignorance and incompetence happens, to be sure, but there's much about this story that doesn't smell right — and it's disappointing that most journalists and elected officials are apparently accepting it without question.

Judging by the volume of intemperate emails and angry social media blasts that come my way, the party of impeachment seems to be inhaling way too much gas from the smoking guns it keeps finding in the various star chambers of its inquisition against you-know-who. You'd think that the failure of Mr. Mueller's extravaganza might have chastened them just a little — a $32 million-dollar effort starring the most vicious partisan lawyers inside-the-Beltway, 2,800 subpoenas issued over two years, 500 search warrants exercised, and finally nothing whatever to pin on Mr. Trump — except the contra-legal assertion that now he must prove his innocence.

When you state just that, these frothing hysterics reply that many background figures — if not the Golden Golem of Greatness himself — were indicted and convicted of crimes by Mr. Mueller's crew. Oh yes! The Russian troll farm called the Internet Research Agency was indicted for spending $400,000 on Facebook ads (and never extradited or tried in a court-of-law). Pretty impressive victory there! The hacking of Hillary Clinton's emails by "Russia"? Still just alleged, never proven, with plenty of shady business around the search for evidence. Paul Manafort, on tax evasion of money earned in Ukraine, 2014? We'll see about that as the whole filthy business of the 2014 Ukraine regime change op under Mr. Obama gets reviewed in the months ahead. George Papadopoulos for lying to the FBI? Stand by on that one, too; still a developing story. General Michael Flynn, for ditto? You may have noticed that General Flynn's case is shaping up to be the biggest instance of prosecutorial misconduct since the Dreyfus affair (France, 1894-1906, which badly-educated Americans most certainly know nothing about).

To set the record straight I'm forced to repeat something that these New Age Jacobins seem unable to process: you don't have to be a Trump cheerleader to be revolted by the behavior of his antagonists, which is a stunning spectacle of bad faith, dishonesty, incompetence, and malice — and is surely way more toxic to the American project than anything the president has done. Every time I entertain the complaints of these angry auditors, I'm forced to remind myself that these are the same people who think that "inclusion" means shutting down free speech, who believe that the US should not have borders, who promote transsexual reading hours in the grammar schools, and who fiercely desire to start a war with Russia.

Republicans who once criticized former President Barack Obama's handling of U.S. debt quietly watched as the federal government debt hit $23 trillion for the first time in history.

Treasury Department data show the national debt rose past $23 trillion Thursday, and almost $17 trillion out of this number is debt held by the public. The remaining $6 trillion comes from loans within government entities, The Hill reported.

The national debt stood at $19.9 trillion when President Donald Trump took office, after expanding by just under $9 trillion under the Obama administration. The debt has risen 16% since Trump took office, according to the Hill, hitting $22 trillion in February.

Trump warned during his 2016 presidential campaign that the national debt was dangerous, blaming Obama for the "mountain of debt" that the former president left behind him.

Though the total national debt has continued to grow under the Trump administration, Republicans have remained quiet over an issue they once championed.

Another day, another ­giant step on the road to ruin. Either Nancy Pelosi has lost her mind or she really wants to dig America's grave.

The vote to formalize the impeachment jihad is a great day for Trump haters and a tragedy for democracy and common sense. Coming a year before an election and without a compelling claim that the president committed anything remotely resembling "high crimes and misdemeanors," the action is an abuse of power for purely partisan purposes.

The timing is also exquisite. Voting on Halloween, and on the same day when Democratic Rep. Katie Hill took to the House floor to declare herself a victim of a double standard after she was caught engaging in threesomes with her husband and a campaign aide, the picture of a party seized by shamelessness is complete.

This was the Dems' Crazy Day — and like Hill, they don't have the decency to be embarrassed. Some are even rallying around her. Throuple cheers for Katie!