US imperialist ambitions and total control over political decisions in Europe are likely to remain after the US presidential elections regardless of who becomes the next president, a chairman of Serbia's right-wing Dveri party told Sputnik.

"It is hard to believe that the US foreign policy regarding European Union will change, if we have in mind that they have full control over political decisions in Europe. European nations see and feel that this is very wrong, but as long as the elites in EU are appointed in Washington, there is no future for Europe. I really hope that Donald Trump can end this cultural and political imperialism of United States, but I believe this scenario is very unlikely," Bosko Obradovic said.

Russia's primary aim is to enhance its own security by preventing jihadists from former Soviet republics fighting in Syria from returning to Russia and carrying out attacks there, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told Israel's Channel 2 TV.

"You probably know that thousands of Russian citizens and individuals from other post-Soviet republics are fighting in Syria," Medvedev said in an interview with the Channel 2 ahead of his visit to Israel scheduled for next week.

"These completely brainwashed people return home as professional murderers and terrorists. And we don't want them to stage something similar in Russia after their Syrian stints expire," the prime minister said, explaining the reasons behind Russia's campaign in Syria.

"First of all, we want them to stay there," he said, adding that Russia already faced similar problems "in the context of the Caucasus war in the 1990s," referring to two wars Russia waged in Chechnya.

Russia does not want to interfere in the Syrian internal policy and make Syria's President Bashar Assad a puppet leader, Assad said.

In September 2015, Russia started an aerial campaign in war-torn Syria authorized by the Syrian government to assist Damascus in the fight against extremists, most notably, Daesh terror group, which is outlawed in Russia and many other counties.

The move has been criticized by Washington, which heads an intentional coalition that also shells terrorists in Syria from air, but without either UN Security Council approval, or Damascus' consent.

"Of course we make the decisions. Russian military has been in Syria for six decades. Their policy rests on two things — morals and international law. Even if they have a point of view, they say: 'This is your country, you know more.' They never try to interfere because they don't want anything from us. They don't ask us to be a puppet president," Assad told The Sunday Times in an interview issued on Sunday.

Stung by the US State Department's decision to cancel the sale of 26,000 assault rifles for the Philippine police, the country's President Rodrigo Duterte called those responsible for the decision "monkeys" and "fools."

"Look at these monkeys, the 26,000 firearms we wanted to buy, they don't want to sell," Duterte said during a televised speech on Wednesday.

The Philippine leader never minces words when referring to US politicians. Earlier he called President Barack Obama "a son of a b*tch" and the US ambassador in Manila "an annoying homosexual."

In Washington, State Department spokesman John Kirby said that despite Duterte's swipe, the US remained committed to developing a good working relationship with the Philippines and its President.

The question is whether the Philippines and its President are equally committed to having good relations with Washington.

US-backed Syrian rebels have launched a campaign to retake the city of Raqqa, the de facto capital of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) in the country. The assault is to begin within hours, with cover from the US Air Force.

The SDF said some 30,000 fighters are to take part in the operation.

The operation, called Angry Euphrates, was announced earlier on Sunday by commanders of the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, in a press conference in the Syrian town of Ain Issa. The commanders said the goal of the operation is to liberate Raqqa from terrorists.


The SDF is a rebel alliance formed in 2015 with the goal of battling Islamic State. The Syrian YPG Kurdish force, one of Syria's most powerful militias, is regarded as the backbone of the alliance.

Announcing their offensive, the SDF warned Raqqa residents to avoid areas where IS militants are known to be present. They also urged all civilians to move to territories liberated from IS.

16 former EU Commissioners still receive sizeable annual allowances meant to prevent them from going into well-paid corporate jobs despite having left office two years ago, German media reports. All of them are now top executives in industry or at lobbying firms.

The 16 former members of the European Commission led by Jose Manuel Barroso until 2014 still get so-called "transition payments" of up to €99,996 ($110,000) per annum, according to Die Zeit newspaper which managed to obtain a list with the officials' names from Brussels.

'Transition payments' are meant to prevent outgoing top-tier EU officials from changing into corporate jobs offering generous compensations as well as switching sides immediately after leaving office. The scheme allows them "to cool off," as it is called in Brussels, the newspaper said.

There are disturbing signs that a digital 9/11 terror attack is being readied for election day in the US to ensure that Donald Trump does not win.

Such an attack - involving widespread internet and power outage - would have nothing to do with Russia or any other foreign state. It would be furnished by agencies of the US Deep State in a classic "false flag" covert manner. But the resulting chaos and "assault on American democracy" will be conveniently blamed on Russia.

That presents a double benefit. Russia would be further demonized as a foreign aggressor "justifying" even harsher counter measures by America and its European allies against Moscow.

Secondly, a digital attack on America's presidential election day this week would allow the Washington establishment to pronounce the result invalidate due to "Russian cyber subversion". That option stands to be invoked if the ballot results showed Republican candidate Donald Trump as the imminent victor.

Democrat rival Hillary Clinton is the clear choice for the White House among the Washington establishment. She has the backing of Wall Street finance capital, the corporate media, the military-industrial complex and the Deep State agencies of the Pentagon and CIA. The fix has been in for months to get her elected by the powers-that-be owing to her well-groomed obedience to American imperialist interests.

Whistleblower Julian Assange has given one of his most incendiary interviews ever in a John Pilger Special, courtesy of Dartmouth Films, in which he summarizes what can be gleaned from the tens of thousands of Clinton emails released by WikiLeaks this year.

John Pilger, another Australian émigré, conducted the 25-minute interview at the Ecuadorian Embassy, where Assange has been trapped since 2012 for fear of extradition to the US. Last month, Assange had his internet access cut off for alleged "interference" in the American presidential election through the work of his website.


'Clinton made FBI look weak, now there is anger'

John Pilger: What's the significance of the FBI's intervention in this last week of the US election campaign in the case against Hillary Clinton?

Julian Assange: If you go to the history of the FBI, it has become effectively America's political police. And the FBI demonstrated with taking down the former head of the CIA over classified information given to his mistress [that] almost no one was untouchable. The FBI is always trying to demonstrate that, "No one can resist us." But Hillary Clinton very conspicuously resisted the FBI's investigation. So, there is anger within the FBI because it made the FBI look weak. Well, we have published quite a number of different sets of emails, so, about 33,000 of Clinton's emails while she was Secretary of State. They come from a batch of just over 60,000 emails. In those 60,000 emails, Clinton has kept about half, 30,000, to herself, and we have published about half. And then there are the Podesta emails we've been publishing. Podesta is Hillary Clinton's primary campaign manager. So, there's a thread that runs through all of these emails. There is quite a lot of "pay for play," as they call it - taking... giving access in exchange for money for many individual states, individuals and corporations - combined with the cover-up of Hillary Clinton's emails while she was Secretary of State has led to an environment where the pressure on the FBI increases.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said Friday he may not be able to survive his six-year term and seemed overwhelmed by the immensity of his work, including the drug menace he's trying to fight.

Duterte, 71, outlined in a rambling speech the obstacles he's confronting in his deadly crackdown on illegal drugs, the heavy workload of the presidency and his cloistered existence now, saying "it gets to be a very lonely life."

"Will I survive the six years? I'd make a prediction, maybe not," he said.

Duterte, who took office on June 30, did not explain exactly what he meant but said there were people who want him to be removed, citing his reaching out to China and his lashing out at the U.S., his country's treaty ally, after President Barack Obama and other American officials raised concerns over his anti-drug crackdown.

Duterte has been in the news in recent weeks for his expletives-laden outbursts against U.S., EU and U.N. officials, who have called for an end to the killings of drug suspects and raised human rights concerns. In one speech, he told Obama to "go to hell."

Iraqi special forces stood poised to enter Mosul in an offensive to drive out Islamic State militants after sweeping into the last village on the city's eastern edge Monday while fending off suicide car bombs without losing a soldier.

Armored vehicles, including Abrams tanks, drew fire from mortars and small arms as they moved on the village of Bazwaya in an assault that began at dawn, while artillery and airstrikes hit IS positions.

By evening, the fighting had stopped and units took up positions less than a mile from Mosul's eastern border and about 5 miles (8 kilometers) from the center, two weeks into the offensive to retake Iraq's second-largest city.

"We will enter the city of Mosul soon and liberate it from Daesh," said Brig. Gen. Haider Fadhil of Iraq's special forces, using an Arabic acronym for the extremists. He added that more than 20 militants had been killed while his forces suffered only one light injury from a fall.