The incident near Deir ez-Zor during which US-backed opposition forces were allegedly injured by a Russian airstrike did not derail the US-Russia deconfliction agreement, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said, adding that both countries remain committed to the process.

Despite what was presented as a major setback in communication between Moscow and Washington in Syria last week, the US military accused their Russian counterparts of hitting US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in an Islamic State-held area in the eastern part of Deir ez-Zor. However, the deconfliction mechanism has not ceased to exist, Tillerson said at the meeting of the so-called Friends of Syria Group that took place on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session in New York on Monday.

"The Secretary noted to the group we are working closely on deconfliction of operations in Deir ez-Zor and Euphrates valley area. We are confident that the deconfliction process can work and can succeed," US Acting Assistant Secretary of State David Satterfield said following the meeting, attended by Tillerson and the foreign ministers of about a dozen western and Arab counties, including France, Great Britain, Germany and Saudi Arabia.

Something like a privatised global constitution governs financial relationships affecting the life prospects of everyone on the planet. Not only does this entrench the pursuit of interests that run counter to social justice, ecological sustainability, and even real economic productivity.[1] It is implicated in a further, fundamental and all-encompassing, problem. War.

I want to explore the connection, but, first, why speak of a privatised constitution? As Katharina Pistor shows, the very existence of finance has the form of a set of legal contracts underwritten by legal norms and institutionalized means of enforcing them.[2] A critical problem, for the vast majority of us, is that the people with most power over the financial system are the least bound by any socially or politically mandated norms. A global rule of law relating to finance is determined by a kind of supra-political order that itself has no constitutional oversight. An essentially private constitution, created and imposed by a global elite, circumvents and subverts the politics of states and the will of peoples. Gunther Teubner points out that this neoliberal world order has a stratum of constitutional norms that provide transnational corporations with unlimited latitude for action;[3] Turkuler Isiksel highlights how private corporations' investors' rights can even colonise human rights regimes.[4] With more than three thousand international investment agreements in effect around the world, private corporations can sue signatory states in order to protect their interests in those states' own territories. These disputes are heard in legal venues above the jurisdictional authority of states, mostly under the auspices of the International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). As the 'investment' dimension of 'trade and investment' agreements comes to involve ever more egregious shifts of power from democratically legitimate authorities to private corporate actors, private rights are even effectively able to trump human rights.[5] From the standpoint of public concern, this looks like the rule of law gone rogue.

Washington and Seoul have "discussed the option" of putting nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula, according to US Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who said there are "many military options" available amid the North Korean crisis.

During a Monday press conference, a reporter reminded Mattis that South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo told his parliament following a visit to Washington that the two officials had discussed "the possibility of small tactical nukes."

When asked whether it was possible that such nukes might be deployed to the Korean Peninsula, Mattis said the two sides had "discussed the option," but declined to elaborate.

The Syrian Army liberating the Deir ez-Zor region from terrorists is facing strong resistance and massive fire from areas where armed opposition groups and US forces are stationed, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

The Syrian Army continues to liberate the Euphrates valley to the east of Deir ez-Zor with the help of the Russian Air Force, the statement from the ministry says, adding that the government forces have already retaken more than 60 square kilometers on the left bank of the Euphrates from Islamic State (IS, former ISIS/ISIL).

The Syrian Army, however, faces resistance not only from jihadists, but also apparently from US-backed armed opposition groups, according to the statement.

Today the President of the United States Donald Trump spoke (rush transcript) to the United Nations General Assembly.

The speech's main theme was sovereignty. The word occurs 18(!) times. It emphasized Westphalian principles.

[W]e do expect all nations to uphold these two core sovereign duties, to respect the interests of their own people and the rights of every other sovereign nation.

All leaders of countries should always put their countries first, he said, and "the nation state remains the best vehicle for elevating the human condition."

Roque M., a German spy agency operative who became a radical Islamist online out of "boredom," has been given a suspended 12-month sentence by a Dusseldorf court for intent to share classified information.

"There is no one who regrets all of this more than me," said the 52-year-old Spanish-born man following the sentencing.

Roque M. began working for the German BfV security agency in April 2016, and was assigned to monitor radical Salafist groups online, a job he described at his trial as "a lot of fun."

Since the 1928 Red Line Agreement between British and French and American oil majors to divide the oil riches of the post-World War I Middle East, petroleum or more precisely, control of petroleum has constituted the thin-red-line of modern geopolitics. During the Soviet time Russian oil exports were largely aimed at maximizing dollar hard currency income in any possible market. Today, with the ludicrous US and EU sanctions on Russia and the Washington-instigated wars in the Middle East, Russia is evolving a strategic new frame for its oil geopolitics.

Spain and the Catalonians are headed for a violent confrontation

One of those crises that no one saw coming is about to rear its head in a very unlikely locale: Catalonia, Spain's richest province, where the local government has scheduled an independence referendum on October 1. Of course, some observers - e,g, Julian Assange - did see it coming, but the current trend to find "fascists" under every bed in America may have obscured our ability to detect them where they really live - in Madrid, where the federal authorities are threatening to arrest Catalonian politicians who advocate independence.

Madrid has mobilized 4,000 police to stop the referendum. They are seizing election materials, shutting down web sites, and invading the offices of newspapers: they have threatened 700 pro-independence mayors with arrest and prosecution.

The Spanish position - upheld by the country's Constitutional Court - is that only the federal authorities can call a referendum, and that in any case all Spanish voters, not just those resident in Catalonia, must be allowed to vote on the question of Catalonian independence. So much for the right of self-determination.

Catalonia has long been a cash cow for the Madrid regime: the province is by far the richest in the country, and contributes much more to the national budget than it receives. With 16 percent of Spain's population, the region produces 25 percent of the nation's exports, hosts 23 percent of industry - and receives 11 percent of government expenditures. This essentially parasitic relationship perhaps accounts for the fierce resistance to the secession movement by the rather shaky regime of conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.

In his first address to United Nations, US President Donald Trump has threatened North Korea with total destruction if it attacks the US or its allies. He also blasted Iran, Venezuela, Cuba and Syria.

If forced to defend itself and its allies, the US "will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea," Trump said in his remarks at the 72nd session of the UN General Assembly on Tuesday. He also called North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un a "Rocket Man" on a suicide mission.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has responded to Washington's decision to pull out of a $1.2 million arms deal for his security guards, accusing the White House of instead choosing to supply weapons to terrorists in Syria.

In an interview with PBS on Monday, Erdogan referred to Syrian Kurds as "terrorists," saying "we need to fight these terrorists with the United States."

"And when we are not able to acquire those weapons from the United States, why are you giving those weapons to terrorists? It's a question that we ask our friends in the United States. And when these questions are not answered, we're feeling sorry, as the strategic partners to the US," he continued.

Erdogan was referring to Washington's decision to arm Syrian Kurds fighting Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), a step which the White House believes is key to seizing the last major IS stronghold of Raqqa.