The head of Russia's Investigative Committee, Aleksandr Bastrykin, has called for the creation of an international coalition of states to fight the "dictatorship" imposed by the US on the rest of the world, and to reject the use the US dollar as a reserve currency.

Speaking at a roundtable in Moscow, Bastrykin said that the world urgently needed a new system of checks and balances that would allow equal representation of all nations on the international political arena.

He said an alliance of countries was needed which could act in concert as "a feasible pole to counter the dictatorship imposed by the Americans together with their Western allies," according to the minutes of the roundtable published on the Investigative Committee's website.

Bastrykin added that America's current geopolitical dominance is based on its financial might, which in turn can be explained by "the uncontrolled and non-guaranteed" emission of dollars and the "all-enveloping" expansion of the currency. As that's the case, Bastrykin believes the future coalition of nations should, as a primary measure, ensure the gradual removal of US dollars from their foreign currency reserves, followed by a total refusal to use the dollar as a reserve currency.

"It is against common logic to financially support the country that is using these same resources against our interests," he noted.

THE KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA, In the name of Allah, the Compassionate and the Merciful, (Illegible), MINISTRY OF DEFENSE, Chairmanship of the General Staff

Number:
Date: 6/5/1437 H
Enclosures:
SEAL: TOP SECRET

Armed Forces Committee for Intelligence and Security, (Coded letters)
Subject: Review of going to war in Syria

His Highness, Heir Apparent, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Minister of the Interior,

We are experts within the Saudi Armed Forces and because of our commitment to (our) responsibility for the faith, the king, and country, we inform Your Highness that "Operation Decisive Storm" has not accomplished all the goals desired because the Arab forces were unable to perform their tasks and, thus following up on that, taking into consideration the complicated situation in the region, sending forces to Syria is going to result in convulsing our national stability followed by extremely dangerous consequences. Thus, this will need more study. We hope Your Highness will adopt what you see as appropriate for the national interest.

Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump wrote an Op-Ed in support of waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques. It's not the first time he's spoken in favor of torture. While some fellow candidates agree with him, others do not.

Waterboarding was an "enhanced interrogation technique" employed in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. But the practice was eventually banned by the George W. Bush administration ‒ after it simulated drowning for its prisoners for years ‒ because waterboarding was deemed to be torture.

Most Republican candidates believe in some version of enhanced interrogation technique, while both Democratic candidates disagree.

On Monday, USA Today published an Op-Ed written by Trump about the use of enhanced interrogation techniques, which include practices such as electric shocks, dogs, nudity, hypothermia, mock executions and more. All of those techniques are specifically banned by the US Army Field Manual.

"Though the effectiveness of many of these methods may be in dispute, nothing should be taken off the table when American lives are at stake," Trump wrote. "The enemy is cutting off the heads of Christians and drowning them in cages, and yet we are too politically correct to respond in kind."

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Arabia King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud in a phone conversation called for resolving the crisis in Syria, the Kremlin press service said on Friday.

"During the conversation, interest was shown in resolving the crisis in Syria, ensuring stability and security in the entire Middle East region and Northern Africa," the press service said.

Putin confirmed the invitation for Saudi Arabia's king to "visit Russia any convenient time."

US warplanes hit an Islamic State camp in the Libyan city of Sabratha early on Friday, according to a US military spokesman. The airstrike killed as many as 40 people.

The mayor of Sabratha, Hussein al-Thwadi, told Reuters that the planes struck at 3:30am local time, hitting a building in the Qasr Talil district, where foreign workers were living. He said 41 people were killed and six others wounded.

Earlier a Western official told the NYT that the strike targeted a senior Tunisian operative linked to terrorist attacks in Tunisia last year. Intelligence officials are working to determine whether Noureddine Chouchane, a major Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) facilitator, was actually killed in the strike.

The Washington neocons have managed to muck things up in Syria blurring and confusing boundaries between who's who amongst warring factions in its now half decade old regime change proxy war that the US has been losing. With the US Empire's agenda to destabilize every potential threat to US-Israel hegemony in the region, the latest highly disturbing developments unfolding within this last week in Syria paint a very grim yet clear picture of America's revised regional strategy. The key lens by which to analyze and understand what the US Empire does geopolitically in the Middle East, North Africa or anywhere has everything to do with maintaining US-Israel regional hegemony and its obsessive, relentless strategy opposing the greatest threat to America's unipolar global hegemony - Russia, China and Iran. Underlying this neocon insanity behind US foreign policy's global agenda has been destabilization of the entire world through chaos and destruction militarily achieved through either direct Empire invasion-occupation war or more recently indirectly through the latest installment of Empire's manufactured war on terror deploying its created ISIS-al Qaeda terrorists as proxy war allies doing Empire's blood-soaked bidding by proxy. But when that strategy fails as it has in Syria recently, now the neocons are resorting to sending in its Islamic nation state puppets Turkey and Saudi Arabia as yet more proxy war allies to do yet more of their dirty work.

Consistent with control over the geopolitics chessboard is the imperialistic self-interest of controlling the earth's money, drug and oil supply also designed to promote war while isolating and weakening America's manufactured cold war 2 enemies of the East - Russia and Iran - that includes reversing a thwarted US Empire pipeline strategy. Assad's rejection in 2010 of Qatar's proposed gas pipeline through Syria to Turkey in an effort to supply Europe and seriously hamper Russia's export revenue made Assad vulnerable as declared enemy #1 in the Middle East to both the West and Arab Gulf States. Further making himself an even higher profile target was choosing the proposed gas pipeline that would be the largest in the region shared with its strongest ally and neighbor Iran and Iraq. Loyalty to Iran long deemed an outcast by the US-Israeli-Saudi axis-of-evil sealed Assad's fate for renewed Western targeted regime change skullduggery. The so called internal protests against the Assad government were quickly escalated into civil war in 2011 by US imperialistic interests further aggravated by US deploying an influx of foreign mercenary proxy terrorists.

While terrorists rage in Syria and beyond, with many countries trying to unite their efforts in the fight against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), Ankara's blame game looks more like an untimely joke, Moscow says

"Mr. Davutoglu [Turkish Prime Minister], are you serious or is it just the way you joke? If it's a joke, then I think at a moment like this everyone, and especially Turkey, should be busy not with irony or sarcasm, but rather with concrete actions to stand against terrorism. I think that's what Turkish people are expecting from you,"Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said at a Moscow briefing on Thursday.

"Statements by Turkish officials alleging that Russia secretly supports IS are absolutely unacceptable," she added.

Earlier this week, Turkey's PM Ahmet accused Moscow of "behaving like a terrorist organization" and put its anti-terror actions in Syria in one line with IS offensive in the region.

Ankara is going "crazy" over Kurdish and Syrian army advances, which is why it ramped up its support of the so-called "moderate terrorists" and direct violations of Syria's sovereignty, Assad's political adviser Bouthaina Shaaban told RT.

Rejecting the avalanche of claims that Damascus and Russian air forces were involved in the bombing of schools and hospitals in Idlib and Alleppo provinces, that according to reports left dozens of civilians dead, Shaaban told RT that the media and politicians are basing their accusations on "unfounded claims...about what the Russians and the Syrian army are doing."

"What the Syrian army in cooperation with Russian aircraft are doing is fighting terrorism in Syria... And what we are hopeful for is that other countries [will] join, because this terrorism is a threat to the entire[ty of] humanity," Shaaban stressed.

The success of the anti-terror campaign on the ground, especially along the Turkish border, is making other regional players such as Ankara and Saudi Arabia "go crazy" in their statements and reactions, because they are the ones who are invested so much in "supporting terrorism in Syria," Shaaban said.

Shaaban accused Ankara of leading the war against Syria by taking advantage of the shared border to allow the infiltration of jihadists "from all over the world" into the Arab Republic.

The Conservative Government is planning a significant assault on political freedoms in the name of protecting those profiting from human rights violations. Specifically, they are seeking to shield Israel from the growing pressure of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.

The Government is intentionally misrepresenting the BDS movement as anti-Semitic, despite the fact that many Jews in this country and worldwide back boycott in solidarity with Palestinians.

The campaign is quite straightforward, and strictly in opposition to Israel's illegal policies. Just like the boycotting of South Africa during apartheid, it is about applying non-violent, popular pressure to effect change and challenge impunity. The case for a boycott of Israel is based on three elements - none of which have anything to do with anti-Semitism.

The first is the reality of Israeli settler colonialism and occupation. Israel's settlements in the West Bank have been declared a war crime by Amnesty International, and successive Israeli governments of all political stripes have furthered and expanded an apartheid regime enforced by military courts, torture, detention without trial, and needless violence.

In the Gaza Strip, Palestinians are subjected to devastating Israeli offensives; in July-August 2014, more than 500 children were killed in their homes, in the street, or playing football on the beach. Palestinian citizens of Israel, meanwhile, face constant and official incitement as well as racist laws.

This reality is attested to and well-documented by Palestinians, Israeli human rights groups, international bodies like Amnesty and Human Rights Watch, as well as in UN resolutions, and by UN agencies.

Secondly, calls for a boycott are based on the appeals for solidarity from Palestinians. The BDS campaign, launched in 2005 by Palestinian NGOs, trade unions, and other civil society groups, has three basic "asks": an end to occupation, equality, and the rights of Palestinian refugees, expelled by Israel, to return.

A massive apparent terror attack in Turkey's capital comes at a crucial time just when the Erdogan government is trying to woo Washington's support for its military intervention in Syria. The Turkish capital Ankara on Wednesday was hit with a deadly car bomb outside its military headquarters. Reports put the dead at 28 with more than 60 injured in what appears to have been a highly sophisticated attack during evening rush hour.

The powerful blast went off just as two buses ferrying military personnel stopped at traffic lights outside the army headquarters at a busy intersection which is also near ministerial and parliament buildings. This part of the capital is normally kept under tight security. Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has accused forces linked with the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia of the terrorist attack.

The Turkish military have been shelling YPG units across the border in northern Syria. Erdogan and Davutoglu had issued several statements prior to the Wednesday bombing in Ankara denouncing the YPG as "terrorists" owing to their links to separatist Kurdish militants in Turkey belonging to the PKK. This was at least the fourth major apparent terror attack inside Turkey over the past seven months. In January this year, a suicide bomber killed 10, mainly German tourists, in the city of Istanbul. Last October, a blast at a Kurdish peace rally in Ankara killed nearly 100 people. Both attacks were blamed on the Islamic State (IS) terror group, although Kurdish activists accused Turkish state intelligence agents of clandestine involvement in the October atrocity.

Turkish military intelligence, MIT, has been implicated in colluding with the IS group - from gun-running and oil smuggling across the Syrian border, to facilitating the jihadists access to chemical weapons. Several Turkish opposition lawmakers have openly accused the Erdogan government of complicity in criminal activities and sponsoring extremists in Syria for the purpose of regime change in Damascus.