Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has alleged US involvement in a plot to oust his government and assassinate him. The South American leader said there are hundreds of emails that prove members of the State Department were part of the conspiracy.

Venezuela has opened an investigation into a supposed plot to overthrow the government and assassinate President Maduro, reports Venezuelan state news broadcaster TeleSur. Authorities have alleged the plot was hatched by members of the Venezuelan far right with the support of the US State Department.

"We will ask the State Department for an explanation of the evidence that implicates high-level functionaries in a plan to assassinate the president of the Bolivarian Republic," said Maduro during his weekly radio show 'En Contacto con Maduro'.

Maduro went on to say the investigation had revealed new information about the plan to oust the Venezuelan government. He alleged that the plot not only threatened his life, but also the foundations of the Venezuelan constitution.

During his speech at West Point Military Academy earlier this week, President Barack Obama described climate change as a "creeping national security crisis" that will require the armed forces to "respond to refugee flows, natural disasters, and conflicts over water and food."

The speech emphasised that US foreign policy in the 21st century is increasingly being honed in recognition of heightened risks of social, political and economic upheaval around the world due the impacts of global warming.

A more detailed insight into US military planning could be seen in the report published a couple of weeks earlier by the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) Military Advisory Board, written and endorsed by a dozen or so senior retired US generals. Describing climate change as not just a "threat multiplier," but now - even worse - a "catalyst for conflict", the study concluded that environmental impacts from climate change in coming decades:".... will aggravate stressors abroad, such as poverty, environmental degradation, political instability and social tensions - conditions that can enable terrorist activity and other forms of violence."

On May 23, 2012, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went to the Special Operations Forces Industry Conference (SOFIC) trade show in Tampa, Florida to share her vision of "smart power" and to explain the State Department's crucial role in extending the reach and efficacy of America's growing "international counterterrorism network."

First, there is such a thing as a "Special Operations Forces Industry Conference trade show." Without some keen reporting by David Axe of Wired, that peculiar get-together might've flown completely under the radar - much like the shadowy "industry" it both supports and feeds off of like a sleek, camouflaged lamprey attached to a taxpayer-fattened shark.

Second, "special operations" have officially metastasized into a full-fledged industry. United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) is located at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa and, therefore, conveniently located near the special operations trade show, which happened again this year at the Tampa Convention Center. The theme was "Strengthening the Global SOF Network" and the 600,000-square-foot facility was filled with targets of opportunity for well-connected and well-heeled defense contractors.

According to the SOFIC website, this year's conference afforded attendees "the opportunity to engage with USSOCOM Program Executive Officers, Science and Technology Managers, Office of Small Business Programs and Technology & Industry Liaison Office representatives, and other acquisition experts who will identify top priorities, business opportunities, and interests as they relate to USSOCOM acquisition programs."

Third, Hillary's widely-ignored speech marked a radical departure from the widely-held perception that the State Department's diplomatic mission endures as an institutional alternative to the Pentagon's military planning. Instead, Secretary Clinton celebrated the transformation of Foggy Bottom into a full partner with the Pentagon's ever-widening efforts around the globe, touting both the role of diplomats in paving the way for shadowy special ops in so-called "hot spots" and the State Department's "hand-in-glove" coordination with Special Forces in places like Pakistan and Yemen.

Finally, with little fanfare or coverage, America's lead diplomat stood before the shadow war industry and itemized the integration of the State Department's planning and personnel with the Pentagon's global counter-terrorism campaign which, she told the special operations industry, happen "in one form or another in more than 100 countries around the world."

President Putin wished "bon appétit" to G7 leaders who patronized Russia - excluded from the club over Ukraine - and set conditions it has to meet to restore ties with the West. Otherwise, Obama and his allies threatened, more sanctions would follow.

On Thursday, as the G7 summit was wrapping up in Brussels, Vladimir Putin was asked to comment on what he thinks about the western leaders holding their gathering without Russia. The only comment that followed was: "I want to wish them, 'Bon appétit.'"

This week's summit of the world's leading industrialized nations became the first in 17 years when Russia was not participating. That comes as the US "mobilized the international community," as President Barack Obama earlier put it, "to isolate Russia" over the Ukraine crisis.

Originally, the summit was to take place in Russia's Sochi, but the plan was canceled after Crimea reunited with Russia - a move that infuriated the West, labeling it an "illegal annexation" of territory.

Despite being uninvited, Moscow got its fair share of judgments and accusations thrown at it during the gathering. The G7 leaders wagged their fingers at Russia, warning that more sanctions would follow unless it helps to deescalate the ongoing crisis in Ukraine.

An explosive book says the failure of Gordon Brown and David Cameron to reform the bank after it received a mammoth taxpayers' bailout leaves it vulnerable
British taxpayers risk losing their entire £45bn stake in Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) which is in grave danger of failing within 10 years, according to an explosive new book.

A new study of the disgraced bank, which brought the UK to the brink of financial ruin, reveals RBS still has a £100bn "black hole" in its finances due to "five broad areas of alleged criminality and wrongdoing".

They include the mis-selling of financial products such as payment protection insurance, the alleged duping of investors who were persuaded to plough more than £12bn into RBS shares just before the banking crash in 2008, further fallout from the Libor scandal, and current criminal investigations into the manipulation of the £3trn-a-day foreign exchange markets.

The recent torturous execution of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma has propelled the death penalty into the national discourse. The secret three-drug cocktail that prison authorities administered to Lockett - the first to render him unconscious, the second to paralyze him, and the third to stop his heart and kill him - didn't work as planned. After writhing in pain for 43 minutes, he finally died of a heart attack. Madeline Cohen, a lawyer who witnessed the botched execution, said Lockett had been "tortured to death." Seasoned reporters, also witnesses, called it "horrific." President Obama found it "deeply disturbing" and promised a review of how the death penalty is administered.

But the issue is not simply the most "painless," fair and efficient method the 32 death penalty states should use to put someone to death. It is not just a problem of executing innocent people, or the dubious constitutionality of the death penalty, or racism in its application and imposition, or that the death penalty does not deter homicide, or the higher cost of keeping someone on death row, or that nearly all industrialized countries have abolished capital punishment. The premeditated killing of a human being by the state is just plain wrong, and the United States should abolish it.

Attending a conference about a country I had never visited was a somewhat surreal experience

Walking around the Italian garden in the Livadia Palace in Yalta last weekend, I could not help but feel the weight of history. It was here that Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill were photographed in February 1945 as they worked out who got what at the end of the second world war.

These days Yalta continues to make history, albeit with fewer far-reaching consequences. The annual Yalta European Strategy Meeting, a sort of mini Davos with better architecture, is hosted here by businessman and philanthropist Victor Pinchuk. The Ukrainian billionaire founded the event in 2004, when he persuaded 30 people to come together to discuss and plan Ukraine's best approach to joining the EU. These days the meeting is quite a bit bigger.

People in Ukraine's eastern city of Slavyansk are facing a shortage of food and medicine as violence rages on in the restive region, Press TV reports.

The Ukrainian army is continuing its offensive against pro-Russia forces in Slavyansk as part of its ongoing military operation in the country's southeast.

Alexander Boroday, the prime minister of Donetsk People's Republic, has warned that locals have difficulty meeting their basic needs.

"As you know, there is a war going on here. This war is turning into genocide. There is severe fighting around Slavyansk. Heavy artilleries are being used. We are running out of medicine. We already don't have enough food. We have a lot of sick, old and retired people. There are sick children," he said.

The fighting, which broke out on Tuesday, has forced many civilians to seek refuge in makeshift underground shelters in Slavyansk.

The European Central Bank lowered its benchmark interest rate to -0.10% as the continent battles deflation after many failed monetary policy attempts.

The European Central Bank cut its main refinancing rate to 0.15 percent from 0.25 percent, and the deposit rate from zero to -.10 percent, the first time the ECB has seen a negative rate.

The new interest rate will apply to all member states of the EU.

Lowering the bank's rate below zero would mean that banks will in a sense be 'punished' for keeping too much money on deposit and not giving out enough loans.

Previously Mario Draghi said the bank was considering a US-style quantitative easing stimulus, which would inject more than 240 billion euro into the slowly recovering economy.

The eurozone's 9.5 trillion euro economy is still emerging from the longest recession since the introduction of the single currency.

Inflation in the euro zone is dangerously low, and the Consumer Price Index only rose 0.5 percent in May, below the forecast 0.7 percent. Both numbers are far below the Bank's target of 2 percent inflation.

What to make of the 'new' Obama foreign policy doctrine?

In a previous RT article I called it the "Take it to the Morgue - Quietly" doctrine - as it ostensibly privileges shadow wars instead of "Shock and Awe."

Then, in another article, I showed how much the still exceptionalist doctrine borrows from prime neo-con (and conceptualizer of the war on Iraq) Robert Kagan - husband of the notorious Victoria, Queen of Nulandistan.

But that was definitely too conceptual. In fact, as peddled off the record by the White House, the "doctrine" is nothing but a prosaic "Don't Do Stupid S**t," a denomination fully adopted by The New York Times.

Stupid s**t though, doesn't even begin to describe Obama's first act after announcing the doctrine last week at West Point. For those who don't get the message, one picture is enough to tell the whole story; Obama and the Polish president in front of an F-16 exhibition at a military airport near Warsaw.

Stupid s**t also irretrievably takes a backseat to serious s**t during Obama's current European tour. We just need to examine what's in store at the selected pit stops.

First is Warsaw - whose nervous poodle, US vassal government is absolutely hysterical over an imminent Russian "threat." Then it's the G7 in Brussels - the "ex-G8," from which Russia was expelled by the self-proclaimed "great powers." One of the items in the agenda is the possibility of slapping even more sanctions over Moscow's "threat" to the Ukraine.