The European Union on Monday agreed to a potential three-month Brexit delay that Prime Minister Boris Johnson had vowed never to request, as Johnson sought a snap election to secure a majority capable of passing his divorce deal.

Days before the United Kingdom is formally due to leave the EU on Oct. 31, Brexit hangs in the balance, with British politicians still arguing about how, when or even if the divorce should take place at all.

Johnson, who won the top job in July by vowing to deliver Brexit on Oct. 31, "do or die", was driven to request a postponement after he was defeated in parliament over the ratification of his divorce deal.

The 27 countries that will remain in the EU agreed on Monday to put off Brexit until the end of January, with an earlier departure possible should the faction-ridden UK parliament ratify the separation deal that Johnson agreed with the bloc.

If no EU country objects within 24 hours - by Tuesday afternoon - the delay will have been formally adopted. In a letter to European Council President Donald Tusk, Johnson reluctantly accepted the delay, saying he had no choice under British law.

"This unwanted prolongation of the UK's membership of the EU is damaging to our democracy. I would also urge EU member states to make clear that a further extension after 31st January is not possible. This is plenty of time to ratify our deal."

As Blue and White leader Benny Gantz continues to hold coalition talks in an attempt to form a unity government, a former member of the Israeli Parliament says the Israeli public is not interested in unity.

Blue and White leader Benny Gantz is set to continue his round of coalition talks, meeting chief of Israel Beitenu Avigdor Lieberman in the afternoon at the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset. The two have vowed to work towards a unity government but Ksenia Svetlova, a political analyst and a former member of the Israeli Parliament from the party Hatnua believes that the Israeli public didn't go to the polls to vote for unity.

No Unity Wanted

"People didn't vote for a unity government. Many chose Gantz because he was running with a campaign promise of never to sit down in a government with Netanyahu if he was under an indictment. Gantz, unlike other politicians, tends to keep his promises."

Neither does the public want another set of elections.

While everyone, including myself, has speculated how Boris Johnson could be the Hero of Brexit, it may come down to French President Emmanuel Macron being that hero.

Macron has made noise after noise about not wanting to grant any more extensions to the U.K. to delay Brexit. He wants Brexit completed.

That's what Macron wants you to believe. And as we close out another week of Brexit drama, that's what everyone is supposed to talk about until Monday when Boris Johnson brings forth his latest attempt to get a General Election through a Parliament inchoate with hatred of him.

Mike Shedlock has his latest take up on his blog covering this angle. It is well-considered. Mike believes Macron is serious and predicates his analysis on this position.

The judge who laid down the legal architecture needed to establish Israel's settlements has just died. But his legacy has inspired a fresh generation of jurists to create new mechanisms for dispossessing the Palestinians.

The United Nations' independent expert on human rights in the Palestinian territories issued a damning verdict last week on what he termed "the longest belligerent occupation in the modern world". Michael Lynk, a Canadian law professor, told the UN's human rights council that only urgent international action could prevent Israel's 52-year occupation of the West Bank transforming into de facto annexation.

He warned of a recent surge in violence against Palestinians from settlers, assisted by the Israeli army, and a record number of demolitions this year of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem - evidence of the ways Israel is further pressuring Palestinians to leave their lands.

He urged an international boycott of all settlement products as a necessary step to put pressure on Israel to change course. He also called on the UN itself to finally publish - as long promised - a database that it has been compiling since 2016 of Israeli and international companies doing business in the illegal settlements and normalising the occupation.

On October 3rd, countless tens of thousands of Ecuadorian citizens began a general strike and occupation of public spaces, throughout the country but targeting the capital of Quito. President Lenin Moreno has made himself one of the most hated men in the history of the country in the course of his rule, and was forced to flee as a consequence, and re-establish the capital in Guayaquil. In addition, facing a larger and wider revolution all together, Moreno was forced to rescind Decree 883 - the new law which appears to have been the straw that broke the camel's back in Ecuador.

But this is far from over, and Moreno's continued existence as head of government threatens to see the expansion of this newly awakened movement. Internationally too - for it is Moreno who also betrayed Julian Assange, after Raphael Correa offered him protection.

The formerly US-backed militia previously struck a deal with Damascus, handing control over several cities to the Syrian Arab Army, but Ankara insisted that they could not remain near the Turkish border.

Russian military police will assist in the withdrawal of the Kurdish militia from the Syrian-Turkish border, the Russian Reconciliation Centre for Syria stated on Monday, adding that the militants are also expected to leave Manbij and Tell Rifaat. The pullout is expected to end at 18:00 on Tuesday.

According to Moscow, Russian and Turkish forces will start patrolling the border after the end of the operation.

If Israeli farmers go, Jordanians 'will feel the thirst'

The son of former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon says Jordanians will go thirsty if King Abdullah II and the Jordanian government go ahead with their decision to stop leasing two fertile areas to Israel after 25 years.

Writing in an opinion piece for Ynet, Gilad Sharon said: "Diplomacy is a delicate matter, so the Jordanian king should be told very gently: If you push Israeli farmers out of Naharayim and Tzofar, you will remain thirsty.

"You see them on the street. You watch them on TV. You might even vote for one this fall. You think they're people just like you. You're wrong. Dead wrong." — They Live

We're living in two worlds, you and I.

There's the world we see (or are made to see) and then there's the one we sense (and occasionally catch a glimpse of), the latter of which is a far cry from the propaganda-driven reality manufactured by the government and its corporate sponsors, including the media.

Indeed, what most Americans perceive as life in America — privileged, progressive and free — is a far cry from reality, where economic inequality is growing, real agendas and real power are buried beneath layers of Orwellian doublespeak and corporate obfuscation, and "freedom," such that it is, is meted out in small, legalistic doses by militarized police armed to the teeth.

All is not as it seems.

This is the premise of John Carpenter's film They Live, which was released more than 30 years ago, and remains unnervingly, chillingly appropriate for our modern age.

Best known for his horror film Halloween, which assumes that there is a form of evil so dark that it can't be killed, Carpenter's larger body of work is infused with a strong anti-authoritarian, anti-establishment, laconic bent that speaks to the filmmaker's concerns about the unraveling of our society, particularly our government.

Time and again, Carpenter portrays the government working against its own citizens, a populace out of touch with reality, technology run amok, and a future more horrific than any horror film.

In Escape from New York, Carpenter presents fascism as the future of America.

In The Thing, a remake of the 1951 sci-fi classic of the same name, Carpenter presupposes that increasingly we are all becoming dehumanized.

In Christine, the film adaptation of Stephen King's novel about a demon-possessed car, technology exhibits a will and consciousness of its own and goes on a murderous rampage.

In In the Mouth of Madness, Carpenter notes that evil grows when people lose "the ability to know the difference between reality and fantasy."

And then there is Carpenter's They Live, in which two migrant workers discover that the world is not as it seems. In fact, the population is actually being controlled and exploited by aliens working in partnership with an oligarchic elite. All the while, the populace — blissfully unaware of the real agenda at work in their lives — has been lulled into complacency, indoctrinated into compliance, bombarded with media distractions, and hypnotized by subliminal messages beamed out of television and various electronic devices, billboards and the like.

President Trump says the first phase of a trade deal with China looks to be ahead of schedule.

"We are looking probably to be ahead of schedule to sign a very big portion of the China deal, we'll call it Phase One but it's a very big portion,'' he told reporters before leaving for Chicago. "That would take care of the farmers. It would take care of some of the other things. It'll also take care of a lot of the banking needs."

The president's comments come after Beijing said on Saturday that phase one was "basically complete." Trade representatives from the two countries held a phone call on Friday as they continued to iron out a deal.

The tentative U.S.-China deal is said to include Beijing making concessions on intellectual property, financial services and agriculture. In return, the U.S. agreed not to implement new tariffs on Chinese goods on Oct. 15. A decision has not yet been made about the new tariffs that are scheduled to hit goods made in China beginning Dec. 15.

A talk with Oleg Tsarev reveals the alleged identity of the "Trump/Ukraine Whistleblower"

Top Dems are involved in the plundering of the Ukraine: new names, mind-boggling accounts. The mysterious 'whistleblower' whose report had unleashed the impeachment is named in the exclusive interview given to the Unz Review by a prominent Ukrainian politician, an ex-Member of Parliament of four terms, a candidate for Ukraine's presidency, Oleg Tsarev.

Mr Tsarev, a tall, agile and graceful man, a good speaker and a prolific writer, had been a leading and popular Ukrainian politician before the 2014 putsch; he stayed in the Ukraine after President Yanukovych's flight; ran for the Presidency against Mr Poroshenko, and eventually had to go to exile due to multiple threats to his life. During the failed attempt to secede, he was elected the speaker of the Parliament of Novorossia (South-Eastern Ukraine). I spoke to him in Crimea, where he lives in the pleasant seaside town of Yalta. Tsarev still has many supporters in the Ukraine, and is a leader of the opposition to the Kiev regime.