The US official statements are often extremely tough and sometimes even bellicose but, like it or not, Russia is an international actor a dialog is inevitable with. National Security Adviser (NSA) John Bolton, a known anti-Russia hawk, visited Moscow on Oct.22-23. He never sounds friendly but the intensity of his contacts with Russian officials is impressive enough. It was the third time in four months he held talks with high-placed Russian officials, including a five-hour conversation with the Russian counterpart and talks with defense and foreign ministers. Before the recent visit, he came to Moscow in June and met Secretary of the Russian Security Council Nikolai Patrushev in Geneva.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been invited to visit Washington in early 2019. The invitation has not been yet formally accepted and the scheduling is still to be ironed out. Before that the Russian and US leaders will meet in Paris at the WWI Victory centenary commemorations on November 11. This meeting will be special. A very important event - the US midterm election on Nov.6 - may change the background. If Republicans win or retain the majority in both houses, President Trump will go to Paris relieved of a heavy load with his position much strengthened. No more talks about an impeachment caused by "Russiagate".

Beijing continues unceasingly to develop its "Silk Road" project. China's vice-President, Wang Qishan, has undertaken a tour of the Near East which took him to Israël for four days. According to the agreements which have already been signed, within two years China will control the major part of Israël's agro-food industry, its high technology and its international exchanges. A free trade agreement should follow, and the geopolitics of the whole region will be turned upside down.

The visit of Chinese vice-president Wang Qishan to Israël, Palestine, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates is aimed at developing the "New Silk Road".

In the autumn of 2013, China made public its project for the creation of maritime and especially terrestrial communication routes across the world. It unblocked colossal sums of money and began to realise its plan at a rapid rate. The main axes will cross either Asia or Russia towards Western Europe. But it is also planning routes across Africa and Latin America.

Since his inauguration, President Donald Trump has been waging war against the American press by dismissing unfavorable reports as "fake news" and calling the media "the enemy of the American people."

As a countermeasure, The Washington Post has publicly fact-checked every claim that Trump has labeled as fake.


In August, The Boston Globe coordinated editorials from newspapers across the nation to push back against Trump's attacks on the press. The Associated Press characterized this effort as the declaration of a "war of words" against Trump.

News organizations might frame themselves as the besieged party in this "war." But what if they're as much to blame as the president in this back-and-forth? And what if readers are to blame as well?

In an unpublished manuscript titled The War of Words, the late rhetorical theorist and cultural critic Kenneth Burke cast the media as agents of political warfare. In 2012, we found this manuscript in Burke's papers and, after working closely with Burke's family and the University of California Press, it will be published in October 2018.

In The War of Words, Burke urges readers to recognize the role they also play in sustaining polarization. He points to how seemingly innocuous features in a news story can actually compromise values readers might hold, whether it's debating the issues further, finding points of consensus, and, ideally, avoiding war.

Chinese President Xi Jinping told military officials responsible for the disputed South China Sea to be better "prepared for war" as tensions with the US are rising. Beijing may be bracing for a worst-case scenario with the US.

Xi made the blunt remarks last week as he was meeting the Southern Theatre Command, the military officials responsible for one of China's five strategic war zones. The calls were made on Thursday as part of his four-day visit to Guangdong province, but the Chinese state media reported them only on Friday.

"It's necessary to strengthen the mission... and concentrate preparations for fighting a war. We need to take all complex situations into consideration and make emergency plans accordingly. We have to step up combat readiness exercises, joint exercises and confrontational exercises to enhance servicemen's capabilities and preparation for war."

One of the key responsibilities of the Southern Theater Command is protecting China's interests in the South China Sea, where Beijing claims sovereignty over a number of islands. The sea is of strategic importance to Chinese trade. The US rejects the territorial claims and has been sending so-called Freedom of Navigation missions through the waters and airspace, which Beijing considers its own, as a gesture of defiance.

The White House is not joking around in its efforts to "deter" thousands of Central American migrants from entering the United States, announcing the deployment of 5,200 troops and dozens of "air assets" to the US-Mexico border.

Two caravans of migrants, currently making their way through Mexico towards the US, will be outmatched once they reach the border, where additional 5,200 troops deployed under Operation Faithful Patriot will be awaiting their arrival at some 26 crossing points in Texas, Arizona and California.

The regular troops, which are being deployed "with weapons," will provide logistical and reconnaissance support to some 2,092 National Guard personnel already deployed since April along the Southwestern frontier.

The Palestinian Central Council (PCC) decided to suspend the recognition of Israel as well as to end the Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) commitments toward the agreements signed with the Jewish state until it recognized the Palestinian state within the 1967 borders.

"In view of Israel's continued denial of the signed agreements, the Palestinian Central Council... decided to suspend the commitments of the PLO and the Palestinian Authority toward the agreements with the occupying power [Israel] until Israel recognized the State of Palestine within the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital," the PCC said in a press release.

According to the statement, the PCC also decided to stop security and economic coordination with Israel "on the basis that the transitional phase, including the Paris agreement, no longer exists."

The PCC authorized Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to implement these decisions.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the filming of the fake chemical weapons' attack has already begun.

The Russian Defense Ministry has stated that several dozens of 'White Helmets' members had arrived in the Syrian Aleppo province from Idlib to carry out a chemical weapons' provocation. The White Helmets have already started the filming, involving unknown local residents, the Russian military stated.

"Militants of illegal armed groups do not abandon their attempts to destabilize the situation in the Idlib de-escalation zone. The Russian center for reconciliation received information from residents of Aleppo that they [militants] are preparing another provocation with the use of toxic agents to accuse the government forces of using chemical weapons against the local population," Lt. Gen. Vladimir Savchenko said as quoted by Russia's Defense Ministry. "Members of the White Helmets organization are carrying out staged filming with participation of civilians unknown to local resident."

Savchenko specified that, according to information received by the Russian center for Syrian reconciliation, militants planned to provoke the Syrian Armed Forces to open return fire, adding that their plan also included the staging, in a territory controlled by illegal armed units, of an artillery shelling with projectiles containing toxic agents allegedly conducted by Syria's military.

Conservative commentators are outraged that former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton made a racist joke, saying African-Americans "all look alike" while correcting her interviewer who mixed up two Democrat politicians.

Video of the exchange first began making the rounds on Monday. It shows Clinton getting interviewed on Friday on a stage in New York, by Kara Swisher of the tech news site Recode.

"What do you think of Cory Booker," Swisher asked, "saying 'kick them in the shins,' essentially?"

"Well that was Eric Holder," Clinton shot back, deadpanning a beat later, "Yeah, I know they all look alike."

There are few certainties in the Salisbury case, but one thing I am quite confident of is that Sergei and Yulia Skripal were not poisoned with a nerve agent of "high purity" on the door handle of 47 Christie Miller Road. I am also quite confident that Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey was not poisoned in this way either, and furthermore that his actions, and the subsequent actions of investigators, are the Achilles Heel of the whole explanation. I shall come onto that in due course, but first the Skripals.

There are simply too many things which, when added together, make the door handle explanation at the very least incredibly implausible, if not downright impossible:

Firstly, they did not die immediately, or thereabouts, which is what you would expect to have happened had they been contaminated by coming into contact with what was said to be a nerve agent of "high purity".

Secondly, they were fine for hours afterwards, so much so that they were able to drive to town, feed ducks, go for a meal, and then have a drink.

Thirdly, eye witness accounts of the couple on the bench suggest that they became seriously ill pretty much simultaneously. Certainly, there were no reports of one of the pair calling for help, or contacting the emergency services, which is what you would expect to have happened in the event of one becoming ill before the other.

Fourthly, during the duck feed, which took place just after the Skripals parked their car in Sainsbury's car park, and prior to their visit to Zizzis, Mr Skripal handed bread to some local boys, one of whom apparently ate a piece. I cannot think of a plausible explanation why this boy did not become ill if, as claimed, Mr Skripal's hands were contaminated at that time with a "military grade nerve agent".

Fifthly, either Mr Skripal or his daughter must have touched the parking machine at Sainsbury's car park, which was then touched by literally hundreds of people over the following days. Yet not one of these people were contaminated.

Sixthly, neither the door handle at Zizzis nor the door handle at The Mill were contaminated, despite the fact that either Mr Skripal or Yulia, or perhaps both, would have handled them when going into those venues.

In other words, in order to accept the door handle explanation, you need to ignore every one of these extremely improbable things. If it were someone on a website suggesting it, rather than The Metropolitan Police, you all know what they would be called and what they would be assumed to be wearing on their heads, don't you?

We normally think of colonizers as large countries, and the colonized as smaller and weaker nations. But this is not always the case. Colonization does not require occupation. It merely requires the subjugation of the colonized. With ambition, superior information and calculation, and the right mindset, smaller nations can (and have in the past) colonized and dominated larger and nominally more powerful countries.

India was successfully colonized by tiny Britain in the 18th century. The vehicle for colonization was the East India Company. It was only after the Indian mutiny that Britain acted directly and sent in troops to establish the British Raj. For the next 200 years India was drained of its wealth, its economy was restructured to support England's needs and global ambitions, and its people militarized to fight and die on behalf of the British crown. The Indian leaders who remained were willing participants in this venture; those who felt otherwise were destroyed or marginalized.