The US-led coalition's attack on pro-government forces in Syria has again proven that Washington's true goal is to capture "economic assets" instead of fighting terrorism, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

The MoD was referring to an incident which took place on Tuesday in Deir Ez-Zor province, as a Syrian militia unit was moving against a "sleeper cell" of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS). The operation was prompted by a surge in shelling of the positions of Syrian government forces in the area over the past few days, attributed to the covert activities of IS terrorists, the ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

A unit of the pro-government militia was conducting a reconnaissance search mission on February 7 near the former oil processing plant of Al-Isba. While there,"the militiamen came under a surprise mortar and MRLS shelling, and were attacked by helicopters of the US-led 'international coalition.'"

As a result, 25 members of the pro-government unit were injured. Initial media reports, citing unnamed US officials, suggested that some 100 Syrian soldiers had died in the assault by the coalition forces.

"China, as a responsible major country, is ready to cooperate with all relevant parties to seize the historic opportunity of the development of the Arctic, to address the challenges brought by the changes in the region."

~ Chinese White Paper, January 25, 2018.

China's January 25^th unveiling of the 'Polar Silk Road ' has created a wonderful opportunity for northern development not seen for decades. This opportunity not only extends China's incredibly successful growth model to North America, through a revolutionized system of arctic shipping and infrastructure development, but also provides for a new spirit of diplomacy founded not upon militarization of the Arctic, as desired by neo-con utopian throwbacks of the Cheney and Obama eras, but rather cooperation, respect, development and trust.

With Global Affairs Canada responding favorably to the Polar Silk Road initiative, and with the Canadian government's membership in the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, not to mention British Columbia's Memorandum of Understanding uniting the province with the Belt and Road initiative, this new reality demands serious thinking for Canadians and Americans alike if we are to properly respond in the most genuine and beneficial way for the sake of our people and humanity at large.¹

From Whence Springs our Crisis?

North America's stagnant economies have suffered for nearly 50 years under a false set of poisons known dualistically as "post-industrial-consumer society" on the one hand and an "anti-industrial growth economy" on the other. Not since the days of John F. Kennedy, Franklin Roosevelt (and their Canadian counterparts John Diefenbaker, C.D. Howe and W.A.C. Bennett) have long-term projects driven our economic thinking with the effect of increasing both the productive powers of labor, and improving the moral, physical and intellectual welfare of our citizens.² The increase of these three parameters (physical, intellectual, moral) increased our population carrying capacity in ways that no other species is capable, allowing us to nearly triple our population since 1950, and in so doing, demonstrate the true nature of mankind as a species of boundless creative reason, to the horror of the British Empire and its indoctrinated managerial elite globally.

In the complex political picture that looms in the Indian and Pacific region, the various processes that are taking place in all of its geographical elements deserve attention. At the same time, it makes sense once again to designate the special significance of the sea band between the coast of the PRC and the so-called 'First Island Line'. However, there are increasing signs of an increase in the role and region of the Indian Ocean (IOR).

It is also useful to recall that in the expert community itself, the Asia-Pacific region (APR) and IOR are in the same geopolitical region since the middle of the last decade. Even then, the strategic importance of controlling the largest sea traffic starting from the Persian Gulf zone, as well as the east coast of Africa and ending in the ports of India, Australia, China, Japan, and other significant participants of the modern geopolitical game. All of them, while maintaining their involvement in the processes taking place in the aforementioned area, are developing their activity in the IOR. First of all this applies, of course, to India, where the meme the 'Indian Ocean must be Indian' is popular. However, China is in complete disagreement with its semantic content, the various aspects of its activities in the IOR are constantly being discussed in the IEE.

Rob Porter has resigned from his role as White House staff secretary after his first ex-wife told DailyMail.com that he choked and punched her during their marriage.

Colbie Holderness, 37, who is a senior analyst for the U.S. government, spoke on the record to DailyMail.com about her five-year marriage to Porter, detailing physical and mental abuse.

She said he broke down her confidence so badly with his verbal and emotional abuse that she took an extended leave of absence from grad school.

A Palestinian was killed by Israeli forces after an alleged stabbing attack in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Wednesday, according to Palestinian Health Ministry.

On Tuesday morning before dawn, Israeli troops invaded the village of al-Yamoun and killed Ahmad Nasr Jarrar, 22, whom they suspected of the murder of an Israeli, without filing charges or arresting him for the crime.

Israeli soldiers killed, on Tuesday at night, a young Palestinian man, and injured 110, including 32 who were shot with live ammunition, in Nablus city, in the northern part of the occupied West Bank.

The military-industrial complex "is much more pernicious than Eisenhower ever thought," says the retired US colonel

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson is tired of "the corporate interests that we go abroad to slay monsters for."

As the former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, Wilkerson played an important role in the George W. Bush administration. In the years since, however, the former Bush official has established himself as a prominent critic of U.S. foreign policy.

"I think Smedley Butler was onto something," explained Lawrence Wilkerson, in an extended interview with Salon.

In his day, in the early 20th century, Butler was the highest ranked and most honored official in the history of the U.S. Marine Corps. He helped lead wars throughout the world over a series of decades, before later becoming a vociferous opponent of American imperialism, declaring "war is a racket."

Last week, the US said it was working to create "alternative government authorities" on Syrian territory. This latest move, aside from demonstrating once again that the US has no respect for Syria's territorial integrity, indicates we may be seeing more from that group of mercenaries known as Islamic State.

Thus, it seems to be an appropriate time to reflect upon a set of very strange circumstances that led to the rise of this loathsome terrorist group. Here are the top 10 reasons, in no particular order, as to why we should be very suspicious about this group.

THE UK Government has been urged to make an urgent statement after an official defence document declared that lethal drone strikes had been used to kill terror suspects outside warzones.

Ministry of Defence (MoD) officials published a report which claimed that the UK has a "practice" of using remotely-piloted aircraft to target terrorists outwith armed conflicts.

However, when the inflammatory claim was brought to the MoD's attention by SNP MP Stewart McDonald, officials then deleted the section and described its inclusion as a mistake.

Provocatively and recklessly, the American Pentagon has recently accused Russia of threatening European allies with nuclear weapons. On the basis of this deplorable accusation, the US is embarking on a $1 trillion upgrade of its nuclear arsenal.

The American nuclear revamp not only puts it in potential violation of disarmament agreements; the move is also destabilizing nuclear forces and increases the risk of catastrophic global war.

If ever Washington's reckless power politics were in doubt, this is surely the touchstone issue.

The U.S. official in charge of protecting American elections from hacking says the Russians successfully penetrated the voter registration rolls of several U.S. states prior to the 2016 presidential election.

In an exclusive interview with NBC News, Jeanette Manfra, the head of cybersecurity at the Department of Homeland Security, said she couldn't talk about classified information publicly, but in 2016, "We saw a targeting of 21 states and an exceptionally small number of them were actually successfully penetrated."

Jeh Johnson, who was DHS secretary during the Russian intrusions, said, "2016 was a wake-up call and now it's incumbent upon states and the Feds to do something about it before our democracy is attacked again."