In a single week, several major events have seemingly radically restructured the geopolitical chessboard. From the surprise of Brexit to Turkish President Erdogan's unexpected apology over the shoot-down of a Russian jet in Syria, people all over the world are wondering what is up. Just a day after the announcement of Erdogan's apology, Istanbul airport was attacked by a trio of assailants. European nations are lining up with complaints about anti-Russian sanctions. The U.S. is scrambling to retain some control over the war in Syria, this time offering to work with Russia, but with conditions attached.

Today on Behind the Headlines, discussed these events in their wider context, as well as the recent duplicitous proposal by the U.S. to 'coordinate' with Russia in Syria, and the latest disturbing U.S. police state stories in our weekly round-up with Brent.

Running Time: 02:11:42

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Last week's UK vote to leave the EU may have come as a shock to many, but the sentiment that led British voters to reject rule from Brussels is nothing unique. In fact it is growing sentiment worldwide. Frustration with politics as usual, with political parties that really do not differ in philosophy, with an economy that serves the one percent at the expense of the rest of society is a growing phenomenon throughout Europe and in the United States as well. The Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump phenomena are but one example of a frustrated public sensing something is very wrong with society and looking for a way out.

What is happening in the UK, in Europe, and in the US, is nothing less than a breakdown of the entire system. The EU was meant to be a customs union where post-World War II Western Europe could rebuild itself through free trade and a reduction in bureaucracy. Through corruption and political ambition it became an unelected bully government in Brussels, where the well-connected were well compensated and insulated from the votes of mere citizens.

Whatever happens in the near future - and it is certainly not assured that the vote to "Brexit" will actually end in the UK's departure from the EU - a line has been crossed that supporters of more personal liberty should celebrate. Rule from London is preferable to liberty-minded Britons than rule from Brussels. Just as Texans should prefer rule from Austin to rule from Washington. That doesn't make either option perfect, just more likely to produce more freedom.

Is Brexit the first victory in a larger freedom movement?

Can we get out of a system that creates money out of thin air to benefit the ruling class while impoverishing the middle class? Can we get out of a central bank that finances the wars that make us less safe? Can we exit Executive Orders? Can we exit the surveillance state? The PATRIOT Act? Can we exit NDAA and indefinite detention? Can we exit the US worldwide drone program, that kills innocents overseas and makes us ever-more hated?

Getting out of NATO would be a good first move.

This Cold War relic survives only by stirring up conflict and then selling itself as the only option to confront the conflict it churned up. Wouldn't it be better to not go looking for a fight in the first place? Do we really need still another NATO military exercise on the Russian border? It should be no surprise that NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg was fear-mongering on the eve of the Brexit vote, warning UK citizens that if they vote to leave they could face increased terrorism. Likewise, the US would do well to exit the various phony "free trade" agreements that provide advantage to the well-connected elites while harming the rest of us.

The act of exit is liberating. We should make a longer list of those things we would like to get out of. I am only getting started.

The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity is a special project of the Foundation for Rational Economics and Education, a non-profit established by Ron Paul in 1976.

Sliding Into Absurdity

Stock markets continued their rebound on Wednesday. The Dow rose 284 points... or just over 1.5%. London's FTSE 100 Index was up 3.6%. And Europe's equivalent of the Dow, the Euro Stoxx 50, was up 2.7%.

Investors have realized Brexit isn't the end of the world. First, because they think it won't really happen. After all, elites can fix elections, buy politicians, and control public policy... surely, they can fix this!

A letter in the Financial Times reminds us that Swedish voters cast their ballots against nuclear power in 1980. The government just ignored them, doubling nuclear power generation over the next 36 years.

Second, because investors see the panic over Brexit leading to more spirited intervention by central banks! The EZ money floodgates - already wide open - are to be opened wider.

The U.S. has its QE program on hold, but Europe's scheme is gushing like Niagara. Mario Draghi at the European Central Bank buys $90 billion a month in bonds. And he's not only buying government bonds; he's buying corporates, too.

The Syrian army regained control over the Mallah farms and has cut off the terrorists' supply route running along the Castello road in the north of Aleppo, according to a military source.

The Syrian army has captured farms near the Syrian city of Aleppo, cutting off the Jaysh al-Islam Islamist group's supply routes in the north of the city, a military source told Sputnik on Sunday.

"The army has regained control over the Mallah farms and has cut off the terrorists' supply route running along the Castello road in the north of the city, thus blocking the militants in Aleppo itself," the source said.

Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Andrey Parubiy said that Ukraine defeated Russia in the information war. He stated this in an interview with "Apostrophe".

Answering a journalist's question, the politician noted that in favor of Ukraine leading in the information space is the fact that the EU has again taken the decision to extend the anti-Russian sanctions.

"The media also needs to understand that if sanctions will continue, it will be a great victory of Ukrainian diplomacy against the much larger resources of Russian diplomacy, which demonstrates the ability to convince European partners from different countries. I believe that Ukraine has won," he stressed.

The Syrian army's Air Force destroyed three Daesh command centers in Raqqa, Deir ez-Zor and Homs provinces, local media said Sunday.

According to SANA news agency, Air Force bombed one command post near the al-Tabqa airbase in Raqqa, and the second IS position near the Deir Ezzor military airport.

In the province of Homs, near the villages of Mseieed, al-Msheifeh and al-Sukhneh, Syrian Air Force destroyed convoys of vehicles with military equipment.

Daesh is a designated terrorist organization that is outlawed in Russia and numerous other countries.

The Iraqi army has liberated several locations to the southeast of Mosul from the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group, local media said Sunday

Iraq's army and militias continued to advance on the Daesh-held city of Mosul, capturing three villages and killing 29 terrorists during the operation, the Al Sumaria television channel reported, citing an army officer.

Iraqi forces are carrying out operations in the Nineveh governorate in preparation for an assault on Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city that has been under Daesh control since 2014.

On June 26, the Iraqi army announced the liberation of Fallujah from Daesh, while Prime Minister Haider Abadi vowed to raise the country's flag in Mosul.

For three days this month, June 16-18, I had the opportunity to participate as a panelist in the annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in Russia. I've been in Russia many times since the Ukraine US-backed coup d'état of February 2014, and the deliberate escalations of NATO military and economic tensions and sanctions against the Russian Federation. This year's forum, my second as participant, gave me a rare opportunity to speak with leading representatives from every sector of the Russian economy- from CEOs of the energy sector to the Russian Railways to the national Russia Grid electricity provider to numerous small and mid-sized businessmen, to a wide range of economists. It sharpened my perception of just how precarious the situation of Russia today is.

What became clearer to me in the course of the three days of discussions in St Petersburg is precisely how vulnerable Russia is. Her Achilles Heel is the reigning ideology that controls every key economic post of the Government of the Russian Federation under Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. Under the terms of the Russian Constitution adopted in the chaos of the Yeltsin years and enormously influenced, if not literally drafted, by Russia's foreign IMF advisers, economic policy is the portfolio responsibility of the Prime Minister and his various ministers of Economics, Finance and so forth. The Russian President, today Vladimir Putin, is responsible for defense and foreign policy.

Making the job virtually impossible of reviving credit flows to fuel genuine real investment in urgently needed infrastructure across the vast land expanse of Russia is the Central Bank of Russia. The Central Bank of Russia was given two constitutionally-mandated tasks when it was created as an entity independent from the Russian Government in the first months of the Russian Federation following the breakup of the Soviet Union. It must control Russian domestic inflation and it must stabilize the Ruble against major foreign currencies. Like western central banks, its role is almost purely monetary, not economic.

As it has been repeatedly noted by American analysts, US politicians and journalists are working hand in hand to conceal their crimes and "horrors" from their fellow citizens. Therefore it's not an easy job to find any confirmation regarding such "horrors" imposed by Washington across the globe "in the name of the greater good for Americans." US political elites have learned from the experience of broadcasting the events of the Vietnam War that they must disguise all unpleasant facts from the eyes of the American public.

Since that moment on, the broadcast of "horrors" is strictly prohibited in the United States, therefore the media has no chance of making public the true nature of the bloody massacres committed by American during various wars. Even the images of the bodies of fallen American soldiers being brought back home from wars abroad are strictly prohibited in public media space.

However, the fact that the White House and the CIA are the main instigators of these "horrors" and wars around the globe has been covered in thousands of articles in various countries and media sources. Moreover, the international community has urged numerous non-governmental organizations to start an international investigation into the actions of Washington and the CIA along with the schemes that allow corrupt politicians to gain profits from numerous "training programs of the opposition forces' at the expense of American taxpayers.

At the same time, those American political elites who have already become corrupted are convinced that there will be no prosecution of their deeds, therefore they assume that they can safely carry on targeting other countries for the sake of gaining even more wealth, thereby creating an atmosphere of instability in the world.

This fact has been confirmed yet again by The New York Times, which reported that the weapons supplied by the US and Saudi Arabia to Jordan, where militants of the so-called "Syrian opposition" are being trained, were systematically stolen and sold on the black market. The exact number of stolen weapons hasn't been mentioned, but the newspaper describes it as a stream, which suggests that the number is considerable.

It's like it's a holiday of some sort.

The main suspect in organizing the Ataturk Airport attack is a Chechen militant by the name of Akhmed Chataev whose biography will simply knock your socks off.

The fact that some particularly stubborn types hurried to find a "Russian trail" happened largely because they did not bother to acquaint themselves with Chataev's life story.