Kiev has filed an official complaint to the European Commission regarding Russia's Nord Stream-2 pipeline, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk announced during a meeting with Slovakia's Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak, Monday. "This is a political project. We are requesting the European Commission launch an investigation and stop the project that is anti-European, anti-Ukrainian, anti-Slovak, anti-Polish," said Yatsenyuk.

The Prime Minister also stressed that Kiev does not want Russia to "outmaneuver" Ukraine and voiced plans to create a transparent European gas market. "We want to build a clear European gas market. That's why we are sending out a strong signal to our European partners and European society," he said.

Big Brother does not watch us, by his choice. We watch him, by ours. There is no need for wardens or gates or Ministries of Truth. When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; a culture-death is a clear possibility. — Professor Neil Postman

If there are two spectacles that are almost guaranteed to render Americans passive viewers, incapable of doing little more than cheering on their respective teams, it's football and politics—specifically, the Super Bowl and the quadrennial presidential election.

Both football and politics encourage zealous devotion among their followers, both create manufactured divisions that alienate one group of devotees from another, and both result in a strange sort of tunnel vision that leaves the viewer oblivious to anything else going on around them apart from the "big game."

Both football and politics are televised, big-money, advertising-driven exercises in how to cultivate a nation of armchair enthusiasts who are content to sit, watch and be entertained, all the while convincing themselves that they are active contributors to the outcome. Even the season schedules are similar in football and politics: the weekly playoffs, the blow-by-blow recaps, the betting pools and speculation, the conferences, and then the final big championship game.

In the same way, both championship events are costly entertainment extravaganzas that feed the nation's appetite for competition, consumerism and carnivalesque stunts. In both scenarios, cities bid for the privilege of hosting key athletic and political events. For example, San Francisco had to raise close to $50 million just to host the 50th Super Bowl, with its deluxe stadium, Super Bowl City, free fan village, interactive theme park, and free Alicia Keys concert, not including the additional $5 million cost to taxpayers for additional security. Likewise, it costs cities more than $60 million to host the national presidential nominating conventions for the Republicans and Democrats.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting that there is anything wrong with enjoying the entertainment that is football or politics.

However, where we go wrong as a society is when we become armchair quarterbacks, so completely immersed in the Big Game or the Big Campaign that we are easily controlled by the powers-that-be—the megacorporations who run both shows—and oblivious to what is really going on around us.

For instance, while mainstream America has been fixated on the contenders for the Vince Lombardi Trophy and the White House, the militarized, warring surveillance state has been moving steadily forward. Armed drones, increased government surveillance and spying, SWAT team raids, police shootings of unarmed citizens, and the like continue to plague the country. None of these dangers have dissipated. They have merely disappeared from our televised news streams.

In this way, television is a "dream come true" for an authoritarian society.

Ayesha to her people: I will avenge my father, brothers, a husband and Libya!

She is back! The daughter of Muammar Gaddafi will lead the resistance against NATO and the other Libyan terrorists. Ayesha stated that she is now the leader of the resistance and she is about to create a new secret government.

Ayesha Gaddafi become the new leader of the resistance at a crucial moment for the country - on the eve of the new NATO intervention. As a Lieutenant General of the Libyan army she swore loyalty to order her legendary father and urged Libyans to wake up in order to win, to be successful and to "return the Jamahiriya government".

Ayesha Gaddafi guarantees that in the next few months she will form a "secret government" of "famous Libyans," who are loyal to Gaddafi and that will act as a mediator in Libya and abroad. Analyzing the current situation she criticized the former army because of "a crazy mix of anarchists" who decided to wage war on a principle "I fight for whoever pays me more."

Gaddafi´s daughter accused them of using a green flag of Jamahiriya and recruiting their supporters, as well as strengthening tribal governments, under whose shadow they joined the alliance with the Tuareg and Toubou Islamists. She accused the Tuareg and Toubou tribes of separatism and conspiracy with the government in Tobruk.

Ayesha Gaddafi called on the soldiers of the Libyan armed forces to give her the oath as a Supreme Commander, in order to restore the state.

"My name gives me a duty and a right to be at the forefront of this battle.", said a brave woman who during the war lost her husband and two children. Today she is ready to become a "symbol of the nation" and alongside a portrait of Gaddafi to become a "symbol of the mission to restore national unity." Speaking of the Libyans as for her children, she compared herself to a mother who will fight for their children.

The White House on Monday refused to say whether Facebook's recent decision to ban users from facilitating the sale of guns, parts and ammunition was the result of pressure from the Obama administration.

"We welcome this step," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Monday, just days after Facebook's Friday announcement. "We talked about how the Internet is a loophole" for people seeking to buy guns without undergoing background checks, he said. It's a "common-sense effort to prevent guns from easily falling into the hands of criminals or other individuals who shouldn't be allowed to access guns," he said.

The administration has met with social media and technology companies to discuss how to close the "Internet loophole" on gun sales, but Earnest said he "could not say" if Facebook's decision was the result of "any specific request" from anyone in the administration.

Facebook banned users from selling or facilitating private firearms sales, or sales of gun parts and ammunition, on the site. Licensed dealers may still post about their wares on Facebook but have to conduct the transaction elsewhere.

This shocking drone footage of Syria shows the extent of destruction that five years of foreign-backed militancy has inflicted on the country.​





The conflict, which flared in March 2011, has claimed the lives of over 260,000 people and left over one million injured.

Alleged killer of Russian pilot mourns MHP official killed by Russian airstrikes

Within hours after the first Russian airstrikes in Syria, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter and Western journalists began to explain why Russia's intervention "is doomed to fail."^1,2 A few days later, Western media gleefully announced that Russia's intervention has failed.³

But four months into Russia's Syria campaign, it is now becoming increasingly difficult to deny that the Kremlin is actually pursuing a viable military strategy in Syria. Therefore, Western media has recently resorted to explaining why it is a bad thing that the Russian airstrikes are working.⁴

Especially in terms of the situation on the Syrian-Turkish border, Russia's intervention has been a game-changer. Thanks to Russian air support, Syria is able to exert control over parts of its own border for the first time in years.

Whereas Syrian aircraft refrained from conducting airstrikes close to the Turkish border for fear of being shot down,⁵ Russian aircraft have not been deterred by Turkey's efforts to protect its proxies in northern Syria.

Last November, Ankara summoned the Russian Ambassador and warned Moscow that the continued bombing of Syrian Turkmens "could lead to serious consequences."⁶

Saudi Arabia has carried out several rounds of airstrikes on a civilian airport west of Yemen as it seeks to cut off the impoverished nation from the outside world. Yemeni's al-Masirah TV said on Monday that Saudi warplanes pounded the port city of al-Hudaydah's international airport, inflicting huge losses on the facility. The attack is the latest in a series of operations by Riyadh to destroy Yemen's civilian infrastructure including the channels it can use for receiving humanitarian aid it badly needs.

Saudi warplanes on Monday targeted residential areas in northern provinces of Sa'ada, Hajjah and Ma'rib, with no immediate information available on the casualties. The harshest attacks have been reported in a market in Sa'ada where three days of incessant airstrikes have inflicted huge damage on civilian properties while a major health facility has also been destroyed in the area. A woman and her little girl were also killed Monday when Saudis bombarded the district of Mara'an in Sa'ada.

In response to the Saudi airstrikes, Ansarullah and allies launched attacks on pro-Saudi militants operating inside Yemen with reports suggesting that a number of the mercenaries were killed after the allied forces pushed them back from two key neighborhoods of the southern city of Ta'izz. A similar operation was launched in the northern Jawf Province.

I, Michael Hudson, John Perkins, and a few others have reported the multi-pronged looting of peoples by Western economic institutions, principally the big New York Banks with the aid of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Third World countries were and are looted by being inticed into development plans for electrification or some such purpose. The gullible and trusting governments are told that they can make their countries rich by taking out foreign loans to implement a Western-presented development plan, with the result being sufficient tax revenues from economic development to service the foreign loan.

Seldom, if ever, does this happen. What happens is that the plan results in the country becoming indebted to the limit and beyond of its foreign currency earnings. When the country is unable to service the development loan, the creditors send the IMF to tell the indebted government that the IMF will protect the government's credit rating by lending it the money to pay its bank creditors. However, the conditions are that the government take necessary austerity measures so that the government can repay the IMF. These measures are to curtail public services and the government sector, reduce public pensions, and sell national resources to foreigners. The money saved by reduced social benefits and raised by selling off the country's assets to foreigners serves to repay the IMF.

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman says the recent claim by Turkey that a Russian warplane had violated the NATO member state's airspace lacks any factual basis, describing the allegation as a "premeditated provocation." "The hysteria launched by the Turkish side, that we define as unsubstantiated propaganda, looks pretty much like a premeditated provocation," Major General Igor Konashenkov said in a statement on Monday.

In the statement Konashenkov said Russia's military, instead, had in possession a video which showed "a Turkish artillery battery shelling a Syrian frontier village". The statement added Russia's Defense Ministry is waiting for a prompt explanation from NATO, the Pentagon, and the Turkish armed forces, on the shelling incident.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry had claimed on Saturday that an Su-34 Russian jet had violated Turkish airspace a day earlier and summoned the country's ambassador to "strongly protest and condemn" the alleged incident.

Moscow and Ankara have been at loggerheads over developments in Syria since a foreign-backed militancy erupted in the Arab country nearly five years ago. Turkey seeks the overthrow of the Syrian government while Russia has been supporting Damascus in the fight against terrorism.

A spy operation conducted by the NSA and Britain's GCHQ tapped into Israel's missile interception program, according to local media. Earlier the same operation was found to have hacked into videos from Israeli drones and fighter jets.

The joint US-UK operation, referred to as 'Anarchist,' gathered information on Israel's Black Sparrow missile project, part of its Arrow missile interception program, according to Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.