Presidential aspirant Elizabeth Warren wants you to know that she is very, very relatable. Warren, along with many other 2020 candidates, was sure to share photos of her eating corn dogs and other food with common folk at the Iowa State Fair.

Meanwhile, Kamala Harris just wished Muslims a happy holiday within hours of tweeting a video of her chomping down on a pork chop. The California Democrat was too busy pandering to notice the irony.

Add this to Cory Booker and Beto O'Rourke's cringe-worthy attempts to speak Spanish on the debate stage, and it's just another reminder that most 2020 Democrats are desperately trying to come across as relatable and in-touch — but coming up empty.

Daring Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, has killed a sacred cow, called Article 370 of the Constitution, enshrining the autonomy of Kashmir. The consequences could be dire, including the fourth India-Pakistan war, but not necessarily so. It could also be a successful scheme. Apparently, Narendra Modi had been encouraged by his success in recent elections, by his decent relations with the three powerful men of our age, Trump, Putin and Netanyahu; and by the rearmament and modernisation of India's armed forces. So he decided to go for the root of the age-long Kashmir problem, instead of treating its symptoms, and terminate the special status altogether, giving the people of Kashmir the same rights as all Indian citizens have, not more, neither less.

Kashmir, a chain of pleasant green mountain valleys, was the most cherished patrimony of the Great Mughals, who embellished it with palaces and gardens. Here the Muslims and Hindus have lived together in peace and harmony. A blessed country, if there ever was one, Kashmir could flourish if this peaceful coexistence had survived. Alas, it did not. Frequent riots, separatism and imported Islamic extremism have made life difficult for everybody.

The Hindus were forced to leave Kashmir; many Muslims had left too, rather than having to serve the firebrand insurgents. Their empty, ruined or burned down houses still stick out in Srinagar and elsewhere, though many of the properties were sold for a song during the insurgency.

Stock fell and demands for bonds rose as the markets interpreted Treasuries rates as a signal preceding a recession. Dow Jones has closed down 800 points, with other stock indexes plunging as well.

US stocks dropped between two and three percent across the board by early Wednesday afternoon. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) was down 800 points, NASDAQ down over 240 points, and the S&P 500 dropping 85 points.

The slide was attributed to the "inverted gap" in rates for short- and long-term US Treasury bonds, which was taken as a warning that normally precedes a recession. Goldman Sachs Group led the rout of financial stocks, falling by four percent.

In the Federation Council an enlarged meeting of the working group of the temporary commission on defending state sovereignty and preventing interference in the internal affairs of Russia took place. The reason for it was the Moscow City Duma election, or rather - unauthorised actions in support of unregistered candidates and the participation of the West in them.

Outside intervention was foreseen in May of this year

Opening the meeting, the chairman of the commission Andrey Klimov reminded that on May 30th of this year the question of the possible interference of the US and its partners in the Russian political system in the run-up to the uniform voting day in Russia on September 8th 2019 was raised in the Federation Council.

"Back then we drew the conclusion that the US and its supporters, with the actual complicity of those who are considered abroad to be stooges for the destabilisation of the Russian political system, will try to take advantage of the next election in our country. At the same time, i.e. two months ago, we named the Moscow City Duma election process as being subject to possible interference. Unfortunately, our conclusions about the expected provocations that will take place with external support were confirmed. I say 'unfortunately' because there was the hope that foreign partners will start to observe, at last, the fundamental principles of the UN, including the principle of non-interference in the affairs of the sovereign states. There was also the hope that certain representatives of the so-called 'non-systemic opposition' will refrain from doubtful cooperation with those who officially in their documents, including in the US federal law, proclaim Russia as the enemy and call to 'contain Russia at any cost' - it is a quote," said senator Klimov, opening the meeting.

Alec Baldwin, you are a talented and likeable actor, but why do so many of your political pronouncements sound like you are trying to sabotage your own side?

I mean why in the world would you just tweet, "The Russians killed Epstein. They're in charge of everything now."


Do you know something that we are trying to guess? Or are you a sleuth one step ahead of us?

You did play Detective Bill Ramstead, and Detective McCutcheon in the past two years. You were also a senior NSA official in Mercury Rising, and even the director of the CIA in Mission Impossible.

In the past six months reputable publications and news agencies of different countries increasingly engage in a heated discussion about whose project is ISIS. And who is responsible for the emergence and operation of this group. Discussion started late last year in the Western media of this topic can hardly be silenced. Therefore an exchange of blame is inevitable.

The main nerve of the emerging debate is the burning issue about the real relationship between ISIS and the United States. It is not easy to provide an exhaustive answer. However, much begins to make sense.

On the one hand, ISIS is conducting a campaign of threats against the U.S. and American citizens. On the other hand, Americans are already openly perceived as the handlers of ISIS. In mid-April 2015 the Iranian news Agency Fars quoted the statement of chief of General staff of the Iranian armed forces major-general Hassan Firouzabadi, who said:

"We have received reports that American planes have been landing and taking off from ISIS-controlled airports. The United States should not supply weapons, money and food to 'Islamic State', and then apologize about doing that by mistake."

A number of Western media outlets at the same time worked a completely different version of ISIS creation.

Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's acclaimed Lahore bus visit and the Lahore Declaration in February 1999 was followed by the Kargil War in May the same year. Similarly, Prime Minister Modi's Lahore visit, with all its bonhomie, hoopla and fanfare was followed by the attack by militants on the Pathankot Air Force base and later on the Indian consulate in Mazhar-e-Sharif.

There are many people who want improvement of relations between India and Pakistan. They say that if France and Germany can live as good neighbours after long years of animosity, why cannot we?

In my opinion such people are living in a fool's paradise, and they forget certain basic facts. The very purpose of creating Pakistan was that there should be no peace but enmity and hostility.

Whenever I criticize the foreign policy of the current US administration, I always get some pushback from Trump supporters who insist that this president is doing more good than harm by "fighting the Deep State" and, even more commonly, by "keeping us out of wars".

This notion that Donald Trump is some kind of peace president, or even the notion that he puts any more inertia on the US war machine than his predecessor did, is contradicted by all facts and evidence we have available to us. Trump has not ended a single one of the wars his predecessors started, and has added dangerous escalations against Venezuela, Iran, and nuclear-armed Russia.

One of the difficulties in addressing this persistent myth, besides the obvious fact that everyone now lives in tightly cloistered information echo chambers of confirmation bias-feeding validation loops, is that the myth is in some ways bipartisan. Whenever Trump mumbles one of his empty appeals to non-interventionist principles, his supporters lap it up while half of the Democrats start attacking the president for being insufficiently hawkish. Trump's talk about withdrawing from Syria is a perfect example of this; the troops are still there, but Dems attacked him for irresponsible "isolationist" behavior and his supporters got their fairy tale about their president ending wars. Everyone gets what they want, including the military-industrial complex that Trump pretends to oppose.

A new study has found winters in northern China have been warming since 4,000BC - regardless of human activity - but the mainland scientists behind the research warn there is no room for complacency or inaction on climate change, with the prospect of a sudden global cooling also posing a danger.

The study found that winds from Arctic Siberia have been growing weaker, the conifer tree line has been retreating north, and there has been a steady rise in biodiversity in a general warming trend that continues today. It appears to have little to do with the increase in greenhouse gases which began with the industrial revolution, according to the researchers.

Lead scientist Dr Wu Jing, from the Key Laboratory of Cenozoic Geology and Environment at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said the study had found no evidence of human influence on northern China's warming winters.

The influential economic commentator on Europe, Ambrose Pritchard Evans, writes:

"German industry is in the deepest slump since the global financial crisis, and threatens to push Europe's powerhouse economy into full-blown recession. The darkening outlook is forcing the European Central Bank to contemplate ever more perilous measures.

"The influential Ifo Institute in Munich said its business climate indicator for manufacturing went into "free fall" in July, as the delayed damage from global trade conflict takes its toll and confidence wilts. It goes far beyond the woes of the car industry. More than 80pc of Germany's factories are in outright contraction."

Why? What is going on here? It seems that, though other European member-states used to be Germany's largest market, Germany's first and third largest export destinations are now the US and China, respectively. Together, they account for more than 15% of all outbound German trade activity. More than 18% of Germany's export goods ended up somewhere in Asia. Therefore, Germany's industrial struggles in 2019 point the finger in the direction of its external focus, which means the US, China, and Asia - i.e. its largest marginal trade partners. And the principal assailants in today's trade and tech wars.