Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a phone conversation with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday he had given instructions to the government to start talks with Turkey on the resumption of trade and economic cooperation.

"The Russian leader said he had instructed the government to enter into negotiations with the relevant Turkish authorities to restore mutually advantageous bilateral cooperation in the trade and economic and other spheres," the Kremlin press office said in a statement.

Putin told the government after the conversation that the process of normalizing Russia-Turkey relations is beginning.

"After the Turkish president's letter to us we have decided to begin the process of normalization of relations with the Turkish partners," Putin said, opening a meeting with the Russian government members. "At the beginning of the conversation I, certainly, expressed condolences to the country's president, to the whole Turkish nation over the terrorist attack that has happened in Istanbul," Putin said.

"As for our bilateral relations, I would like to begin with tourism issues, although this is said against the background of intensified activity of terrorists... Nevertheless, we lift the administrative restrictions in this sphere," Putin said. "And I ask the Russian government to begin the process of normalization of trade and economic relations with Turkey in general," the Russian president added.

On July 24th, Tashkent will host the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The largest military-political organization on the Eurasian continent is preparing to become even greater. In this year, SCO will include India and Pakistan, while Syria and Israel are also ready to start cooperation. Russia also intends to accelerate Iran's accession to the SCO. In fact, Russia is creating a bloc of countries centered around it and China which will inevitably challenge US hegemony. And if the US is now trying to win over India, then Russia, through the SCO, is trying to find a compromise between Iran and Syria on the one hand and Israel on other. The SCO is becoming not only a Central Asian, but a Pan-Eurasian entity. And this organization is not only tying itself to the Middle East. Earlier, it was stated that applications for membership in the SCO had also come from Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia.

A week ago, while speaking at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia is beginning the construction of "greater Eurasia":

Now we are proposing to consider the prospects for more extensive Eurasian partnership involving the EAEU and those countries with which we already have close partnership - China, India, Pakistan and Iran - and certainly our CIS partners, and other interested countries and associations.

The updated SCO is to become a military-political union providing security to a large space of Eurasia. Thus, this common security space will be built where the US has no place.

An investigation by the Brazilian Senate into allegations against suspended President Dilma Rousseff has found her innocent of fiscal wrongdoing. A team of independent auditors, comprised of career Senate budget technicians, released a 224-page report on Monday, which concluded there is no evidence that Rousseff participated in budget manipulation, one of the allegations that led to the opening of an impeachment process against her.

The report also said there is no reason to continue the impeachment against Rousseff.

The group concluded that Rousseff was not personally to blame for the delay in transferring funds to state bank Banco do Brasil, a lapse that her opponents say breached Brazil's fiscal rules and justifies her removal from office.

"There was not any identified act by the president that would have contributed directly or indirectly to the delays," the report said.

The group also cleared Rousseff of any fault with a fourth presidential budget decree, arguing that it did not impact fiscal targets, and therefore was not illegal.

The group considered to be a terrorist organization by Turkish officials says that it played no part in Tuesday night's coordinated terror attacks that left scores dead and many more injured.

The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) disavowed Tuesday night's terror attack at the Ataturk airport that have left at least 31 dead and at least 147 others wounded despite early speculation that the group may be involved in the attack.

The attack, which took place around 10pm local time was carried out by four suicide bombers who first shot at passengers with Kalashnikov automatic rifles near the security screening point of the international terminal.

Turkey's HDP Party, which represents the country's Kurdish minority and has come under fire by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in recent months also stated that it was their belief that the attack was carried out by Daesh terrorists.

President Erdogan responded following the incident saying that the country will take an aggressive stance on clamping down on terrorism and condemning the attacks as not focused on any particular purpose other than to use the suffering of people to create propaganda material.

A mural hanging inside the Ecuadorian parliament building by the famous Ecuadorian painter Oswaldo Guayasamín, titled «Imagen de la Patria», includes an image of a grinning skull in a helmet emblazoned with the acronym «CIA». When the mural was first unveiled in August 1988, Guayasamín explained that this image epitomized all the foreign threats to his native country. And for almost three decades this «CIA skull» has gazed out at the deputies in parliament with a sinister grin.

The CIA's fingerprints are visible in dozens of incidents in Ecuador in which politicians who threatened US foreign policy were eliminated. For example, in May 1981 the airplane carrying President Jaime Roldós crashed in the province of Loja, a mountainous region of Ecuador. President Reagan had had a hostile relationship with the Ecuadorians: Roldós had refused the invitation to his inauguration and maintained friendly relations with the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and the Cuban government. He also demonstrated his solidarity with the Revolutionary Democratic Front in El Salvador, which opposed the military dictatorship. Roldós was planning to reorganize Ecuador's oil industry, jeopardizing the interests of transnational oil corporations. Roldós was discarded because of a «whole array of grievances».

In the era of the long war on terror, Thursday, June 2nd, 2016, was a tough day for the U.S. military. Two modern jet fighters, a Navy F-18 Hornet and an Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon, flown by two of America's most capable pilots, went down, with one pilot killed. In a war that has featured total dominance of the skies by America's intrepid aviators and robotic drones, the loss of two finely tuned fighter jets was a remarkable occurrence.

As it happened, though, those planes weren't lost in combat. Enemy ground fire or missiles never touched them nor were they taken out in a dogfight with enemy planes (of which, of course, the Islamic State, the Taliban, and similar U.S. enemies have none). Each was part of an elite aerial demonstration team, the Navy's Blue Angels and the Air Force's Thunderbirds, respectively. Both were lost to the cause of morale-boosting air shows.

Each briefly grabbed the headlines, only to be quickly forgotten. Americans moved on, content in the knowledge that accidents happen in risky pursuits.

If you believe that the Brexit vote is going to kill the idea of a "United States of Europe", you might want to think again. In fact, it appears that the decision by the British people to leave the European Union is only going to accelerate the process of creating an EU superstate.

As you will see below, one of the largest newspapers in the UK is reporting that the foreign ministers of France and Germany have drafted "a blueprint to effectively do away with individual member states".

So even though men like George Soros are warning that the eventual dissolution of the European Union is "practically irreversible" after the Brexit vote, the truth is that the globalists are not about to give up so easily.

For a very long time, advocates of increased European integration have dreamed of going all the way and creating a true "United States of Europe", but Britain was always one of the stumbling blocks that stood in the way.

But now that Britain is out and there is great fear that the entire European project may be in jeopardy, there seems to be a rush to go for broke and try to complete the job of European integration. The Express is one of the biggest news organizations in the UK, and they are reporting that the foreign ministers of France and Germany already have a blueprint "to effectively do away with individual member states"...

The foreign ministers of France and Germany are due to reveal a blueprint to effectively do away with individual member states in what is being described as an "ultimatum".

Under the radical proposals EU countries will lose the right to have their own army, criminal law, taxation system or central bank, with all those powers being transferred to Brussels.

Controversially member states would also lose what few controls they have left over their own borders, including the procedure for admitting and relocating refugees.

When I read that earlier today I was absolutely stunned.

Did they come up with this blueprint before the Brexit vote or after?

And do they plan to allow the citizens of individual nations to vote on any of this?

Most of the violence occurring between extremist groups in the US is "planned" by FBI informants to "manipulate public opinion" on the upcoming US elections, geopolitical analyst Patrick Henningsen told RT.

"The FBI has infiltrated all major and mid-major activist and movements in the United States over the last 60 years. Every single one whether a right-wing or a left-wing," Henningsen said, adding that many of the groups have had "FBI informants in the top positions".

"If you look at the history [of] the FBI from the 1950s till the present [they] have infiltrated hundreds of groups - from civil rights groups to...the Ku Klux Klan (KKK)... The FBI has a history of gangs and counter gangs where they infiltrate and [foment] violence on both the right and left and then...arrests will be made and this will be politicized."

What is more, almost none of the trials in the US that come following the arrests happen without intelligence service involvement, he maintained. "If you go to any trial... normally half the cases on the prosecution are basically comprised of FBI informants testimonies...including the terrorist cases in the United States," he said. The latest violent scuffles in Sacramento, ahead of the Republican National Convention, are no exception and were also organized to "manipulate public opinion" on the US elections, Henningsen believes.

In 1985 and 1986, in the backrooms of Margaret Thatcher's government, a young adviser stuck his neck out for a policy he believed in, one he insisted could work despite widespread doubts.

That man was Oliver Letwin, according to Cabinet Office papers released in 2014, and that policy was the so-called "poll tax," rioting over which ultimately contributed to Thatcher's downfall.

On Monday, Letwin, now the U.K.'s minister for government policy, was placed in charge of preparations for Britain's forthcoming EU exit negotiations, leading a special cross-government unit set up by outgoing Prime Minister David Cameron. It is leading many to look back over a chequered career.

"Our carceral state banishes American citizens to a gray wasteland far beyond the promises and protections the government grants its other citizens... When the doors finally close and one finds oneself facing banishment to the carceral state—the years, the walls, the rules, the guards, the inmates—reactions vary. Some experience an intense sickening feeling. Others, a strong desire to sleep. Visions of suicide. A deep shame. A rage directed toward guards and other inmates. Utter disbelief.

The incarcerated attempt to hold on to family and old social ties through phone calls and visitations. At first, friends and family do their best to keep up. But phone calls to prison are expensive, and many prisons are located far from one's hometown... As the visits and phone calls diminish, the incarcerated begins to adjust to the fact that he or she is, indeed, a prisoner. New social ties are cultivated. New rules must be understood."—Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic

In a carceral state—a.k.a. a prison state or a police state—there is no Fourth Amendment to protect you from the overreaches, abuses, searches and probing eyes of government overlords.

In a carceral state, there is no difference between the treatment meted out to a law-abiding citizen and a convicted felon: both are equally suspect and treated as criminals, without any of the special rights and privileges reserved for the governing elite.

In a carceral state, there are only two kinds of people: the prisoners and the prison guards.
With every new law enacted by federal and state legislatures, every new ruling handed down by government courts, and every new military weapon, invasive tactic and egregious protocol employed by government agents, "we the people"—the prisoners of the American police state—are being pushed that much further into a corner, our backs against the prison wall.

This concept of a carceral state in which we possess no rights except for that which the government grants on an as-needed basis is the only way I can begin to comprehend, let alone articulate, the irrational, surreal, topsy-turvy, through-the-looking-glass state of affairs that is being imposed upon us in America today.

As I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we who pretend we are free are no different from those who spend their lives behind bars.

Indeed, we are experiencing much the same phenomenon that journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates ascribes to those who are banished to a "gray wasteland far beyond the promises and protections the government grants its other citizens" : a sickening feeling, a desire to sleep, hopelessness, shame, rage, disbelief, clinginess to the past and that which is familiar, and then eventually resignation and acceptance of our new "normal."

All that we are experiencing—the sense of dread at what is coming down the pike, the desperation, the apathy about government corruption, the deeply divided partisanship, the carnivalesque political spectacles, the public displays of violence, the nostalgia for the past—are part of the dying refrain of an America that is fading fast.

No longer must the government obey the law.

Likewise, "we the people" are no longer shielded by the rule of law.