Israel has seized a large piece of land in the occupied West Bank, a report says, as the regime in Tel Aviv continues to defy international calls to stop its expansionist policy in the Palestinian territories.

Israeli Army Radio said on Tuesday that the confiscated land is about 579 acres (234 hectares) and is located near the Dead Sea and the city of Jericho.

A campaigning group based in the occupied territories said the appropriation is the largest land confiscation in the West Bank in recent years. The Peace Now movement, which opposes Israel's building of settlements, said Tel Aviv plans to expand settlements and build tourism and other commercial facilities in the area.

The Palestinian Authority, which rules the occupied West Bank, issued a statement Tuesday calling on the international community to press Israel to stop land confiscations.

President of the United States Barack Obama discussed with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin the announced decision of Russia's leader to begin withdrawal of the country's military forces from war-torn Syria, the White House said in its statement.

"President Obama spoke today by phone with President Vladimir Putin of Russia to discuss progress on the implementation of the nationwide Cessation of Hostilities between the Syrian regime and its allies on the one hand and the armed opposition on the other," the statement said.

"They discussed President Putin's announcement today of a partial withdrawal of Russian forces from Syria and next steps required to fully implement the cessation of hostilities with the goal of advancing the political negotiations on resolution of the conflict," according to the White House.

"President Obama welcomed the much-needed reduction in violence since the beginning of the cessation, but stressed that continuing offensive actions by Syrian regime forces risk undermining both the Cessation of Hostilities and the UN-led political process," the statement added.

As the political situation in Ukraine continues to deteriorate - with the government paralysed as a result of the power struggle between Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk - the Europeans are becoming increasingly desperate.

They are also becoming increasingly frustrated with the Ukrainians whose intransigence is prolonging the crisis. However the Europeans have no exit strategy and are staring at total failure.

The reason is the growing anger across Europe with the sanctions policy, and a growing sense that the diplomatic window for finding a face saving way to end the sanctions before European leverage completely runs out is closing fast.

The problem the Europeans have is that they have committed themselves to maintaining the sanctions against Russia until the terms of Minsk II are carried out.

When they did this the Europeans however failed to take the basic precaution of linking the lifting of the sanctions not just to Russian adherence to Minsk II but to Ukrainian adherence as well.

Without public notification of any kind, the US Navy has secretly been conducting electromagnetic warfare testing and training on public roads in western Washington State for more than five years. An email thread between the Navy and the US Forest Service between 2010 and 2012, recently obtained via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by Oregon-based author and activist Carol Van Strum in November 2014, revealed that the Navy has likely been driving mobile electromagnetic warfare emitters and conducting electromagnetic warfare training in the Olympic National Forest and on public roads on Washington's Olympic Peninsula since 2010.

In one of the 2012 emails, Navy contractor Gerald Sodano explained that the Navy "utilized EW [electronic warfare] ranges outside the local vicinity." But he went on to say that the aim of establishing an electromagnetic warfare range on the Olympic Peninsula would be to conduct all training locally on the Olympic Peninsula, rather than further afield. This means that rather than using expansive training areas the Navy already has access to in Yakima in eastern Washington State, the Navy aims to use the Olympic National Forest and areas adjacent to Olympic National Park instead.


"What the Navy is doing we have no idea because they don't tell us."

As Truthout previously reported, the Navy itself has produced a medical study showing that exposure to electromagnetic radiation causes a myriad of human health problems, including corneal damage, tubular degeneration of testicles, brain heating, sterility, altered penile function, death, cranial nerve disorders, seizures, convulsions, depression, insomnia, chest pain, and even sparking between dental fillings. [more extensive list below]

Other reports by the US Air Force, NASA, medical doctors and scientific publications confirm these and other deleterious health effects that would result from the Navy's electromagnetic weaponry arsenal, in addition to large-scale negative impacts on birds, aquatic life and other biota.

The Russian Air Force tracked and targeted a long column of terrorists crossing Turkish border to join their comrades in Northern and Northwestern battlefields in Syria.

The terrorists, that were mainly Turkmen, were caught by the Russian Air Force's reconnaissance planes attempting to enter the Lattakia province from one of the Turkish border-crossings near Yayladagi.

Upon the entry of Jeish al-Turkmen and al-Nusra Front into Syria, the Russian air fleet struck their convoy of vehicles in the Furniluk Forests, ending in the rebel fighters scattering around the border in order to evade the powerful aerial assault.

When the Russian warplanes backed off, the Syrian Air Force launched their own airstrikes over the Furniluk Forests, keeping up the pressure on the trapped rebel fighters.

The Syrian civil war began as protesters toppled governments across North Africa in the so-called "Arab Spring." Washington has insisted on regime change in Damascus ever since, yet their rhetoric adapted over the years.

President Ben Ali of Tunisia was ousted in January, followed by protests demanding the resignation of Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and an armed rebellion against Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. A "Day of Rage" protest in Damascus and Aleppo on March 15, 2011 is commonly considered the start of the Syrian civil war. Protests escalated into an armed rebellion by July, after NATO warplanes intervened in Libya on behalf of the rebels.

Kiev has announced a massive discount on the sale of state assets which have failed to find foreign buyers. Ukraine's State Property Fund says all of the assets have been put up for sale more than 10 times and have found no takers.

As a result, 22 of 34 state assets are now being put up for sale at a 60 percent discount, nine with a discount of 50 percent, and three are up for auction at a reduced asking price.

Among the companies offered for sale is a 9.6 percent stake in the Black Sea Shipyard, 37.6 percent in Lviv Coal Company and the Chernigov radio plant.

"Last week, the assets were offered for sale with discounts of 50 percent and 30 percent respectively, but the auctions were not held due to lack of buyers," said the State Property Fund.

"Vladimir Putin's announcement on Monday that Russia will begin pulling out of Syria appeared to take the White House by surprise, and revived concerns that the Russian leader is outmaneuvering Barack Obama," states an article in Politico magazine.

The outlet notes that the White House officials have been caught off guard by the announcement, "with press secretary Josh Earnest punting on questions during the briefing and others trying to quickly gather information."

Witnessing his Ottoman Empire remake dream crumbling on the ground in northern Syria, sultan Turkish President Recep Erdogan launched his highly touted (mini-)invasion into Syria this weekend. After a near month and a half of constant daily artillery shelling into Syria from the Turkish side of the border, Ankara has just stepped up its desperate aggression in the five year war to rid Syrian president Assad. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov meeting in Geneva for peace talks resuming on Monday stated that Turkey is advancing its "creeping expansion" into Syrian territory which of course violates both the recent US-Russian ceasefire as well as all international law.

In a Sunday interview with Russia's REN TV, Lavrov disclosed that Turkish troops have ensconced themselves several hundred meters (yards) into Syria to prevent its declared enemy the Syrian Kurds (YPG) from fortifying their positions and connecting the Kurds' east-west corridor to take control over nearly the entire Syrian-Turkish border. The Russian minister stated:

According to our information, they [Turkish forces] are digging in a few hundred meters from the border inside Syria.

Though Erdogan's own generals have strongly advised against an all-out invasion of Syria, knowing the grave consequences for Turkey and its military would be catastrophic against the Russian coalition's superior air and firepower, in the face of recent decisive victories achieved against Turkey's proxy allies the ISIS and al Nusra terrorists, debate over whether Erdogan will actually bully his armed forces into launching a ground war invasion into Syria has been heavily speculated by both Turkish and Middle East press. In February Turkey and Saudi Arabia's most powerful leaders were publicly announcing to the world their intention to invade Syria in a protracted ground war risking World War III. Saudi jets were even deployed to Turkey's Incirlik Air Base.

Vladimir Putin has just ordered the withdrawal of the Russian forces in Syria:

"I consider the objectives that have been set for the Defense Ministry to be generally accomplished. That is why I order to start withdrawal of the main part of our military group from the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic starting from tomorrow," Putin said on Monday during a meeting with Shoigu and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

"In a short period of time Russia has created a small but very effective military group in Syria. The effective work of our military forces allowed the peace process to begin," Putin said, adding that "Russian government troops and [Syria's] patriotic forces have changed the situation in the fight with international terrorism and have ceased the initiative."

The first question which needs to be asked is whether this is correct: have the Russians achieved their objective or not? To answer this question, we need to look at what the initial Russian objectives were. I did that in my article "Week Thirteen of the Russian Intervention in Syria: debunking the lies" where I wrote: (emphasis added)

The key issue here is what criteria to use to measure "success". And that, in turns, begs the question of what the Russians had hoped to achieve with their intervention in the first place. It turns out that Putin clearly and officially spelled out what the purpose of the Russian intervention was. On October 11th, he declared the following in an interview with Vladimir Soloviev on the TV channel Russia 1:

Our objective is to stabilize the legitimate authority and create conditions for a political compromise