Some of the world's biggest banks - UBS, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Royal Bank of Scotland, and HSBC have agreed to pay out $3.4 billion to settle an investigation into the institutions' rigging of foreign exchange rates.

The probe accused banks of tampering with currency interbank rates on the largely unregulated $5.3 trillion-a-day foreign exchange market.

"The setting of a benchmark rate is not simply another opportunity for banks to earn a profit. Countless individuals and companies around the world rely on these rates to settle financial contracts, and this reliance is premised on faith in the fundamental integrity of these benchmarks," Aitan Goelman, Director of Enforcement at CFTC, said in a press release on Wednesday.

"The market only works if people have confidence that the process of setting these benchmarks is fair, not corrupted by manipulation by some of the biggest banks in the world," Goelman added.

US, UK, and Swiss regulators ordered the fines in tandem. The UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) slapped the six banks with $1.7 billion in fines and the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) levied more than $1.4 billion in penalties.

Switzerland's UBS was given the biggest fine of $800 million, Citigroup will pay $668 million, JPMorgan must pay a $662 million penalty, Royal Bank of Scotland was fined $634 million, and HBSC $618 million.

Charges against individuals are expected.

The Democrats have been defeated by the Republicans in the mid-term elections and have captured total control of both Chambers of the U.S. Congress, making a lame duck of President Obama. But what is worrisome about these changes in the U.S. political layout are their consequences for U.S. foreign policy and thereafter for the whole world.

It's evident, that the U.S. will become much more involved abroad, and first of all in the Middle East. Obama was criticized for his policy on the fight against ISIS and due to the manner in which the U.S. leads the coalition. He was criticized for apparently playing footsie with Iran, he was also criticized for the worsening of relations with Israel. The indecisiveness of Obama during the first half of his second term risks turning into excessive decisiveness under the pressure of the Republicans.

On the November 5, Ron Paul, former Republican congressman, commented on the issue via Twitter, saying that "Republican control of the Senate [means] expanded neocon wars in Syria and Iraq. Boots on the ground are coming." On Friday, after the informal lunch with the leaders of the victorious Republican party, President Barak Obama approved sending up to 1,500 more troops to Iraq. This will double the number of the U.S. force deployed on the Iraqi ground. The main goal, according to the America's officials, is to retrain the Iraqi forces in their fight against ISIS forces, as well as to train three Kurdish Peshmerga brigades. Rear Admiral John Kirby was quoted by the media as saying: "It is being done now because the Iraqis have reached, they have demonstrated, the willingness and the skills to go after ISIS, so they have reached the point, where they need additional help and guidance." However, it remains unclear what role these mostly "training mission" forces will play as the years of U.S. military advisers and troops in Iraq apparently did not contribute much to the forming of efficient Iraqi forces. It seems most likely that sooner or later the U.S. forces will be involved in a full scale land battle.

Two young American soldiers were accosted recently on the streets of Istanbul by members of the Youth Union of Turkey. In video footage of the event, paint-filled projectiles are thrown at the two Americans and bags are temporarily placed over their heads. A member of the Youth Union of Turkey tells the men that "because we define you as murderers, as killers, we want you to get out of our land".

The Youth Union of Turkey is a left-wing nationalist revolutionary youth organization founded in 2006. It comprises 65 student clubs and societies from over 40 Turkish universities.

The union advocates the principles of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and Kemalism and opposes any future Turkish membership in the European Union and any cooperation with American imperialism.

While thieving bankers and military-industrial complex executives feeding parasitically off the citizenry is bad enough, there's really nothing worse than some two-bit, war criminal, faux humanitarian leveraging death and destruction to make a fortune after leaving "public service."

That in a nutshell is the resume of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Mr. Blair is no stranger to this site. Back in August, I highlighted another one of his philanthropic activities in the post, Letter Reveals Tony Blair Advised Kazakhstan's President on How to Spin Massacre of Innocent, Unarmed Protesters.

Here's an excerpt:

It's as cynical as it gets. Why do so many of us buy into it?

"And we read from pleasant Bibles that are bound with blood and skin/That the wilderness is gathering all its children back again." - Leonard Cohen

Post-Cold War U.S. war policy can be roughly divided into two periods. From 1990 until 1998, in a rational response to the end of the Cold War, the U.S. military budget was gradually cut by 30% over 9 years. In January 1993, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney signed off on a defense strategy that would cut military spending to pre-WWII levels as a percentage of GNP. After 1991, only 55 U.S. troops died in overseas deployments: 19 in the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia; 19 in Somalia; 14 on 2 helicopters mistakenly shot down by a US warplane over Iraq; 2 in Kenya; and 1 in Haiti.

But then something changed. By 1997, the Pentagon, State Department and think-tanks funded by military-industrial interests were regrouping and crafting new frameworks for the use of military force to exploit the post-Cold War U.S. " power dividend." Clinton'sNew Democrats played the humanitarian interventionist good cop to the bad cop of neoconservative Republican-led groups like Project for the New American Century.

As seen in the above graphic from the Washington Post, essentially every country recognizes the State of Palestine, except for Western Europe and some of the places it has conquered, such as North America, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as some US "partners" that "wouldn't want to ruffle Washington's feathers", including "South Pacific island nations like Kiribati and Nauru" (WaPo).

The US has for decades used terrorism to singularly prevent Palestine from becoming a full UN member state. Likewise, without the US providing the muscle and money, Israel would not be able to continue, in defiance of the world, to occupy, colonize, ethnically cleanse, and commit terrorism and massacres against Palestine.

Without US muscle backing its terror and expansionism, Israel, despite being the strongest force in the Mid East and in possession of the "world's best" air force and a large, rogue nuclear arsenal, would have no choice but to decolonize Palestine and remain within its own universally recognized borders, which are those that existed before June, 1967, when Israel illegally invaded and began colonizing and ethnically cleansing areas beyond those lines.

For approximately 40 years, the US has vetoed, generally alone (aside from Israel), every UN resolution demanding that Israel comply with this worldwide legal, democratic consensus. The vote is typically 165 countries against the US and Israel, and sometimes five or six other countries (European-conquered lands and some tiny islands such as Micronesia).

Obama has continued the reign of terror and expansion, specifically rejecting, at the UN, the demand for Israel to cease even future settlement activities, let alone abandon its current illegal settlements, all war crimes. This particular resolution was brought at the 15 member Security Council, and received 100% approval aside from Obama's isolated vote of rejection, which is enforceable only due to the US dedication to terrorism and democracy-prevention.

On the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Palestinians have tried to call attention to the wall that still exists, the illegal US-backed wall that Israel is building and using as one of its means of illegally annexing Palestinian territory. Dr. Noam Chomsky, for one, has pointed out that if the wall were about security and not illegal expansionism, it could simply be made gigantic and utterly impenetrable, and be put on Israel's legal border, which countries are allowed to do.

Happy Veterans Day, everyone! From the looks of it, Veterans Day is about the glory of war, the bravery of our soldiers, the awesomeness of our discounts! But it turns out that the way we celebrate this holiday has nothing to do with the way the holiday was intended.

1. It wasn't even called Veterans Day. Veterans Day used to be called Armistice Day and was a commemoration of when, on "the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" of 1918, the allies and Germans negotiated a cessation of hostilities to what would later be called World War I. On November 11th, 1919, President Woodrow Wilson observed the one year anniversary of Armistice Day in a speech.

To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country's service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations.

Vladimir Putin took part in a meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum's CEO Summit on the Asia-Pacific region's significance for Russia.

Mr Putin said, in particular, that Russia views cooperation with the Asia-Pacific region as a strategic priority. The President also told summit participants about Russia's plans to expand its cooperation with Asia-Pacific region countries, including through increased trade and investment incentives.

Vladimir Putin says claims that the crash site of the Malaysian Boeing in eastern Ukraine is under militia's control are ungrounded

Russia, just like Malaysia, insists on a full-fledged and unbiased investigation into the tragic incident with the Malaysian passenger aircraft, which crashed in Ukraine's east over three months ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak in the Chinese capital on Monday.

"Russia just like Malaysia insists on a full-fledged, unbiased and all-embracing investigation into this catastrophe in full compliance with the UN Security Council resolution," Putin said, adding that "claims that the territory of the crash is under control of the so-called pro-Russian separatists are absolutely ungrounded."

Military forces are shooting constantly at the Boeing crash site in Ukraine's war-torn east, and that hampers full-scale operation at the crash site, Putin added.

"But in any case we welcome that Malaysian specialists are finally permitted to full-format participation in the probe, but not only in the work of the so-called technical committee. I am confident that our specialists will also make their necessary contribution in full-scale investigation of this tragedy," the Russian president noted.

Putin also offered condolences to the families of those who died in the air crash. "I would like to offer sincere condolences to the families of air crash casualties and all friendly people in Malaysia over the crash of the Malaysia Airline jet in east Ukraine on July 17," Putin said.

Monitoring efforts along the Pacific Coast of the U.S. and Canada have detected the presence of small amounts of radioactivity from the 2011 Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant accident 100 miles (150 km) due west of Eureka, California. Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) found the trace amounts of telltale radioactive compounds as part of their ongoing monitoring of natural and human sources of radioactivity in the ocean.

In the aftermath of the 2011 tsunami off Japan, the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant released cesium-134 and other radioactive elements into the ocean at unprecedented levels. Since then, the radioactive plume has traveled west across the Pacific, propelled largely by ocean currents and being diluted along the way. At their highest near the damaged nuclear power plant in 2011, radioactivity levels peaked at more than 10 million times the levels recently detected near North America.

"We detected cesium-134, a contaminant from Fukushima, off the northern California coast. The levels are only detectable by sophisticated equipment able to discern minute quantities of radioactivity," said Ken Buesseler, a WHOI marine chemist, who is leading the monitoring effort. "Most people don't realize that there was already cesium in Pacific waters prior to Fukushima, but only the cesium-137 isotope. Cesium-137 undergoes radioactive decay with a 30-year half-life and was introduced to the environment during atmospheric weapons testing in the 1950s and '60s. Along with cesium-137, we detected cesium-134 - which also does not occur naturally in the environment and has a half-life of just two years. Therefore the only source of this cesium-134 in the Pacific today is from Fukushima."