Yesterday, Russian State Duma member Anton Morozov warned that North Korea may be on the verge of testing a long-rang ballistic missile capable of reaching the US mainland. This comes as Vladimir Putin again warned of the dangers inherent in a would-be US attack on Pyongyang, during a press conference held in Moscow during Russian Energy Week. Here, Putin again called for dialogue and a freezing of military drills on the Korean peninsula as the only safe and sensible way to ease tensions.

With many speculating that a new North Korean rocket launch may be forthcoming, Pyongyang issued the following statement:

"The struggle of people of different social standings opposing the U.S. domination, interference and moves for aggression and war and urging the withdrawal of Yankee aggression troops is running high in south Korea on the lapse of 64 years since the aggressive and humiliating south Korea-U.S. "mutual defense treaty" was cooked up. In this regard, a spokesman for the National Peace Committee of Korea Friday made public a statement which said:

The South Side Committee for Implementing June 15 Joint Declaration, the South Korean Federation of University Students in the 21st Century, the group of courageous youths and other organizations and people from all walks of life are actively staging the struggle through press conferences and meetings in demand of disbandment of the aggressive and humiliating alliance.

This is an eruption of the resolute will to drive the aggression forces who impose immeasurable misfortunes and sufferings upon the south Korean people and all other Koreans and try to ignite a nuclear war on this land and to regain the deprived sovereignty and dignity.

The south Korea-U.S. "mutual defense treaty" is an aggressive and traitorous war document the kernel of which is to keep the U.S. imperialist aggression forces in south Korea and its vicinity for an indefinite period, put the south Korean puppet army under their tight control and cope with the contingency on the Korean peninsula by joint military operation. It is the symbol of the U.S. military occupation of south Korea and the yoke for colonial domination.

Under this brigandish "treaty" the U.S. has reduced South Korea into the arsenal and advanced base for a nuclear war and aggravated the situation of the Korean peninsula to the extremes through ceaseless nuclear war gambling against the north, while styling itself an entity of extraordinary privileges.

The U.S. gangster-like moves for domination, subjugation, aggression and war are getting evermore reckless and dangerous in the wake of the frenzy of war thirsty Trump who spat out the remarks of "total destruction of north Korea" without hesitation.

The pro-U.S. traitors and confrontation maniacs in south Korea are fanning up such war hysteria of the U.S., while calling for "strengthened alliance to cope with the nuclear threat from the north".

The south Korean people can not get rid of the miserable misfortunes and sufferings and the whole nation cannot evade the tragedy of division and nuclear war disaster as long as the U.S. military occupation and domination over south Korea which have lasted for more than seven decades continue and the treacherous moves of the pro-U.S. sycophants are allowed to continue".

The amount unaccounted for over this period adds up to $65,000 for each man, woman and child resident in America. By comparison, the cost per taxpayer of all U.S. wars waged since 9/11 has been $7,500 per taxpayer. The sum is also larger than the current national debt.

Last year, a Reuters article brought renewed scrutiny to the budgeting practices of the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), specifically the U.S. Army, after it was revealed that the department had "lost" $6.5 trillion in 2015 due to "wrongful budget adjustments." Nearly half of that massive sum, $2.8 trillion, was lost in just one quarter. Reuters noted that the Army "lacked the receipts and invoices to support those numbers [the adjustments] or simply made them up" in order to "create an illusion that its books are balanced."

Officially, the DOD has acknowledged that its financial statements for 2015 were "materially misstated." However, this was hardly the first time the department had been caught falsifying its accounting or the first time the department had mishandled massive sums of taxpayer money.

The cumulative effect of this mishandling of funds is the subject of a new report authored by Dr. Mark Skidmore, a professor of economics at Michigan State University, and Catherine Austin Fitts, former assistant secretary of housing.

Their findings are shocking.

US President Donald Trump has effectively declared any potential negotiations with Pyongyang redundant, saying in a tweet that a diplomatic approach toward North Korea's nuclear ambitions has never worked.

"Presidents and their administrations have been talking to North Korea for 25 years, agreements made and massive amounts of money paid," Trump said on Twitter, adding that it "hasn't worked" and all "agreements violated before the ink was dry, makings fools of U.S. negotiators."

He went on to say that "only one thing will work," without giving any details or explaining what particular approach he meant.

Washington's obsession with Russia emerged from the toxic waste of the 2016 elections as a maneuver to strengthen the Democratic Party's losing campaign. The initial accusation of Russian hacking was nothing but a ploy to detract from the content of the DNC WikiLeaks data dump that revealed the extent to which the Hillary Clinton campaign rigged the Democratic Party primary in her favor. Still, Russia-baiting didn't help the Democratic Party. Hillary Clinton lost anyway. This hasn't stopped the Democratic Party and its Republican allies from keeping the Russia boogeyman story alive in order to serve its war agenda.

Washington's obsession with Russia is only becoming more difficult to follow. At any given moment, Russia is whatever the ruling class wants it to be. Just weeks after Russia was accused of sponsoring white nationalism in the US, new reports alleged that Russia bought ads targeting Black Lives Matter activists in Baltimore and Ferguson. Russia is aligned with Trump one moment and Black Lives Matter the next. Little explanation is provided beyond the "anonymous sources," a euphemism for the US intelligence services.

These are the same intelligence services that murdered Black revolutionaries in their sleep in the 1960s and 1970s. The same US intelligence services that have taken part in the destruction of over fifty nations in as many years, all in service of US multinational corporations and banks. Yet because the CIA, NSA, FBI and the rest of the seventeen intelligence agencies have all agreed that Russia interfered in the US elections, the US populace is supposed to believe it. No matter that the US intelligence services have lied about damn near every "finding" about nations and peoples with war targets on their backs. It should not be forgotten that the US led invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya were all based on lies, lies, and more lies disseminated by US intelligence.

The biggest mass shooting in modern American history. One shooter, 59 dead, almost 500 injured. No warning signs. No discernible motive. The shooter, Stephen Paddock, is a cipher. As if that ambiguity wasn't enough, even the basic facts were quickly thrown into question and contradicted by numerous eyewitness accounts and footage. What the media has reported from the very beginning has been only a fraction of what happened. Multiple shooters, multiple events at multiple hotels. Now there is evidence that Paddock might not have been alone in his hotel room in the days before the shooting. You'd think this could all be clarified quickly using the hotel's surveillance footage. Apparently not.

Today on the Behind the Headlines we'll be analyzing what we know about the mass shooting at Mandalay Bay hotel and casino in Las Vegas - and what you're not hearing from local law enforcement, the Feds, and the mainstream media.

Join us live from 6-8pm CET (4-6pm UTC / 12-2pm EST) on the SOTT Radio Network.

Running Time: 02:16:15

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The Syrian Army and its allies have encircled Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) in the city of Al-Mayadeen, one of the terrorists' last strongholds southeast of Deir ez-Zor, SANA state news agency reported on Sunday, citing a military source.

The unnamed source said that "army units established control over Maratt al-Fouqa town to the east of the Euphrates River, and encircled IS terrorists in al-Mayadeen," in eastern Syria.

RIA Novosti also reported that the Syrian Army has encircled IS in Al-Mayadeen, 45 kilometers southeast of Deir ez-Zor.

"Assault detachments of the army are conducting clearance operation on the western outskirts of Mayadeen," RIA reported, citing its military source on the ground.

South Korea and the US have stepped up surveillance of North Korea amid speculation that Pyongyang might test-fire a ballistic missile, local media report, citing a military source.

"Some movements have been continuously detected from the North's missile facilities and bases. We are maintaining the heightened reconnaissance and preparedness posture," a Seoul military official said, as cited by Yonhap news agency.

The official reportedly said that US Forces Korea (USFK) has, among other things, enhanced surveillance operations with U-2S ultra-high altitude reconnaissance aircraft, as well as surveillance with RC-800 and RF-16 reconnaissance planes, E-737 airborne early warning and control aircraft, and P-3C maritime patrol aircraft.

An Aegis destroyer, equipped with SPY-1D advanced radar, is deployed in the East Sea, and land-based Green Pine missile defense radar is also operating to detect ballistic missiles from North Korea, South Korea's KBS World Radio reported.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has appointed his sister, Kim Yo-jong, to the Politburo, one of the highest decision-making bodies. Global media speculation has been rife, as she is a "dark horse" and little is known about her.

Kim Jong-un announced a cabinet reshuffling during a meeting of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers' Party on Saturday. In a decision that attracted media attention around the globe, Kim's sister Kim Yo-jong was appointed as alternate member of the Politburo.

She reportedly replaced Kim's aunt, Kim Kyong-hui, who was once an influential figure under the current leader's father, Kim Jong-il.

Alternate members can speak and take part in debates of the Politburo, which makes political and policy decisions between gatherings of the Central Committee. Only full members, however, can vote.

Delegates to the recent Labour Party conference in Brighton seemed not to notice a video playing. The world's third biggest arms manufacturer, BAE Systems, supplier to Saudi Arabia, was promoting guns, bombs, missiles, naval ships and fighter aircraft.

It seemed a perfidious symbol of a party in which millions of Britons now invest their political hopes. Once the preserve of Tony Blair, it is now led by Jeremy Corbyn, whose career has been very different and is rare in British establishment politics.

Addressing the conference, the campaigner Naomi Klein described the rise of Corbyn as "part of a global phenomenon. We saw it in Bernie Sanders' historic campaign in the US primaries, powered by millennials who know that safe centrist politics offers them no kind of safe future."

In fact, at the end of the US primary elections last year, Sanders led his followers into the arms of Hillary Clinton, a liberal warmonger from a long tradition in the Democratic Party.

The Turkish President Erdogan announced the start of a Turkish operation in Idleb province of Syria. Idlib has been for years under the control of al-Qaeda in Syria, currently under the label Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

In the talks in Astana, Turkey, Russia and Iran agreed on a deescalation zone in Idlib to be supervised by all three of them. But the fight against al-Qaeda, aka HTS, would continue. Turkey is supposed to control the western part of the province including the city of Idlib. But the Turkish government is afraid to go there.

During the last days there have been many reports and lots of pictures of Turkish force movements along the north-western Syrian border. But Turkey made no attempt to enter the country and it is doubtful that it will.