US President Barack Obama is pushing for a significant military increase in Eastern Europe, citing fears of Russian "aggression." As American authors Lawrence Korb and Eric Goepel point out for Defense One, the plan is wasteful and an unnecessary provocation.

"...The [US] Department of Defense has fallen back on a tried-and-true Cold War boogeyman: the threat of Russian aggression against allies in Europe," Korb and Goepel, both with the Center for American Progress, write for Defense One.

President Obama's recently unveiled $600 billion defense budget includes $3 billion to boost the US military presence in Eastern Europe.

"Obama just asked Congress to fund the biggest military buildup by NATO in Eastern Europe since the Cold War," Korb and Goepel write.

A retired US Army Colonel told Sputnik that Turkey could use its assembling forces to intervene in Syria, wrecking the fragile US-Russia negotiated ceasefire and setting off a wider war.

Turkey's military is assembling forces it could use to intervene in Syria, wrecking the fragile US-Russia negotiated ceasefire and setting off a wider war, retired US Army Colonel Doug Macgregor told Sputnik.

"The Turks are assembling forces," McGregor, leading US expert on Middle East war and integrated ground combat tactics in modern warfare, warned.

Saudi Arabia has acknowledged that the US-led anti-ISIS coalition has held a "political" discussion about a potential ground troop deployment in Syria. Riyadh's statements have been criticized by Damascus as destructive and a threat to regional security.

In an interview with Reuters, an aide to Saudi Arabia's defense minister, Brigadier General Ahmed Asseri, confirmed that defense ministers from the anti-Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) coalition debated placing ground troops on the ground in Syria during a ministerial meeting in Brussels last month.

"It was discussed two weeks ago in Brussels," Asseri said, clarifying that the discussions took place on the "political" level only without going into details of a potential "military mission."

Iran's reformists and moderate conservatives have won a parliamentary majority, according to election results released by the Interior Ministry. Earlier, it was announced that the moderates also secured a win in the Assembly of Experts vote.

Reformists, who back extended relationships with western countries, won about 85 seats in the parliament, while moderate conservatives got another 73 seats, thus being able to secure a 54 percent majority in the 290-seat legislature in case they form a coalition, AP reported citing Iranian state TV.

At the same time, hard-liners, who opposed Iran's nuclear deal with the world powers signed in July 2015, won only 68 seats, which equals 23 percent of the total number of seats in the parliament. Five more seats will go to religious minorities and the remaining 59 seats will be allocated in a runoff, which is expected to be held in April, according to AP.

Earlier it was announced that reformist-backed candidates aligned with President Hassan Rouhani won all 30 parliamentary seats in the country's capital of Tehran. The voter turnout for the elections was 62 percent, according to Iranian Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli.

Monsanto is in the news again. The Competition Commission of India, the country's antitrust regulator, said last week that it suspects a Monsanto joint venture abused its dominant position as a supplier of genetically modified (GMO) cotton seeds in India and has issued an order citing prima facie violation of Sections 3(4) and 4 of the Competition Act, to be investigated by Competition Commission of India's director-general.

Monsanto also faces cases brought by state governments and domestic seed manufacturers, for the astronomical royalty it charges. In previous cases, Monsanto defended itself by saying that it was "trait fees" (for using its technology in cotton hybrids) and not royalty.

Respected German daily Die Welt has a platform for what it describes as "the most dangerous branch of the international terrorist network al-Qaeda", Al-Nusra Front, to voice its threats of provoking Russia in Syria and disrupting the ceasefire in the country.

Al-Nusra Front, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, has threatened to provoke Russia in Syria and to disrupt the ceasefire in the country, according to a Die Welt correspondent who met one of the jihadists in person.

The 37-year-old militant, who called himself Abu Musab al-Syri, claimed to be "responsible for propaganda" and called the truce a "stupid" measure. He revealed the terrorist group he is a member of had a strategy "to provoke Russians."

"Al-Nusra Front necessarily wants the ceasefire to fail and the strategy for this is to provoke Russians," Die Welt quotes the militant as saying.

Around 250 militants in the Southern province of Dara'a laid down their arms on Monday and turned themselves in to the Syrian officials as the pro-government forces keep on advancing across the country.

The militants formerly fighting in the Southern battlefields of the country surrendered to the Syrian government as the forces loyal to the Syrian President Bashar Assad continue gaining ground across the country.

The 250 surrendered militants are mostly from al-Sanamein region, including 130 from the village of Kefr Shams.

Theresa May to broaden use of anti-terrorism powers in response to uncovering of Asian sex abuse gangs
Asian-born sex abusers will be stripped of their UK citizenship and deported at the end of their sentences under a new Home Office drive, The Independent can reveal.

Theresa May, the Home Secretary, is planning to significantly increase her department's use of legal powers that allow serious criminals with dual nationality to have their British citizenship withdrawn, Whitehall sources say. Until now, the powers have predominately been used to remove the UK passports of terrorists and terrorist sympathisers.

But senior department sources told The Independent that - in response to the series of Asian sex abuse gangs uncovered in towns across the country in recent years - there is likely to be an "acceleration of passport strike-outs and potential deportations".

British-Pakistani members of the gang of six men and women from Rotherham who were convicted on Wednesday of offences including rape, forced prostitution, indecent assault and false imprisonment are expected to face action to strip them of their UK citizenship after they are sentenced today. Legal proceedings seeking their potential deportation to Pakistan are likely to follow.

The abuse of predominantly white girls by networks of Asian men has led to prosecutions across the North of England and the Midlands. More trials are imminent.

David Greenwood, head of the child abuse department at Switalskis solicitors in Sheffield, who represents almost 60 victims subjected to sexual abuse by the Rotherham gang between 1996 and 2012, said: "This trial is just the first of many and is the tip of a very big iceberg. From the work I have done, it appears that gangs of Asian men have been operating to sexually abuse young white girls in Rotherham, Oxford, Keighley, Bradford and Rochdale."

A US Senate committee is considering legislation seeking to prohibit states from issuing their own mandatory labeling laws for food containing genetically modified ingredients, establishing a national voluntary labeling standard for GMO foods instead.

The timing of a proposed federal law on labeling is seen by food safety advocates as a direct attack on state's rights, earning it the nickname, the "Dark Act." To date, three states have passed genetically engineered food labeling laws - Connecticut, Maine, and Vermont.

Rebecca Spector from the Center for Food Safety told RT there has been a lot of pressure on lawmakers to delay the Vermont law.

"The Vermont law goes into effect on July 1 this year," said Spector who is CFS's West Coast Director. "There has been a lot of pressure on lawmakers from companies part of the Grocery Manufacturers Association and individual companies to delay that law so the companies don't have to label. Meanwhile, they are trying to come up with a federal solution that is weaker than the state laws."

The proposed federal legislation is similar to The Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015, which passed the House last June, The bill would amend the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946 to require the Secretary of Agriculture to establish a national voluntary labeling standard for bioengineered foods. The bill was introduced this year by Senator Pat Roberts (R-Kansas), who is chair of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition & Forestry Committee that is scheduled to discuss the legislation on Tuesday, March 1.

Roberts and his supporters argue that a federal law would override a patchwork of different state laws that make labeling food more complex and costly for food manufacturers.

Human rights advocates Amnesty International published a report on the observance of human rights in the world in 2015 - 2016. According to Korrespondent, who references the study, Ukraine has become an extremely dangerous place to express pro-Russian views: In April, Oles Buzina was killed, and journalist Ruslan Kotsaba became the first Ukrainian prisoner of conscience in five years when in February he was placed in custody on charges of treason.