Russia and NATO balancing on the brink of military conflict has been a hot topic ever since 2014 when the bilateral ties were frozen as a result of the events in Ukraine. Heightened tensions, arms control erosion and a plethora of divisive issues negatively affect the bilateral relationship, with misunderstanding and frustration hindering any attempts to turn the tide.

War preparations are on the way. Last year, NATO rejected Russia's initiatives to ease tensions in Europe. Some moves of NATO members aimed at boosting first strike capability go almost unnoticed by media, for instance, the acquisition by Poland of air-to-surface long-range cruise missiles. The US-initiated B-61-12 life extension program (LEP) puts into question the prospects for arms control in Europe.

Pyongyang says the missiles it fired toward Japan were part of an exercise targeting US military bases there. It comes as the White House announced the deployment of the advanced THAAD anti-missile defense system to South Korea to guard against the North.

The test launches of four missiles, fired by North Korea into the Sea of Japan on Monday morning, were a drill carried out by an army unit commissioned with attacking US military bases in Japan, the country's official news agency KCNA said Tuesday.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un personally supervised the drill, it said.

President Donald Trump is telling advisers and allies that he may shelve, at least temporarily, his plan to pursue a deal with Moscow on the Islamic State group and other national security matters, according to administration officials and Western diplomats.

In conversations with diplomats and other officials, Trump and his aides have ascribed the new thinking to Moscow's recent provocations. But the reconsideration of a central tenet of his foreign policy underscores the growing political risks in forging closer relations with Russia, as long as the FBI investigates his campaign associates' connections to Moscow and congressional committees step up their inquiries into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election.


The controversy has already led to the firing of Trump's national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who misled officials about his contacts with the Russian ambassador, and to calls by Democrats for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to resign after he failed to disclose his own meetings with the envoy.

Trump's new skepticism about brokering a deal with Moscow also suggests the rising influence of a new set of advisers who have taken a tougher stance on Russia, including Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and new national security adviser H.R. McMaster. During his first meeting with National Security Council staff, McMaster described Russia — as well as China — as a country that wants to upend the current world order, according to an administration official who attended the meeting.

"Rights aren't rights if someone can take them away. They're privileges. That's all we've ever had in this country, is a bill of temporary privileges. And if you read the news even badly, you know that every year the list gets shorter and shorter. Sooner or later, the people in this country are gonna realize the government ... doesn't care about you, or your children, or your rights, or your welfare or your safety... It's interested in its own power. That's the only thing. Keeping it and expanding it wherever possible."— George Carlin

My friends, we're being played for fools.

On paper, we may be technically free.

In reality, however, we are only as free as a government official may allow.

We only think we live in a constitutional republic, governed by just laws created for our benefit.

Truth be told, we live in a dictatorship disguised as a democracy where all that we own, all that we earn, all that we say and do—our very lives—depends on the benevolence of government agents and corporate shareholders for whom profit and power will always trump principle. And now the government is litigating and legislating its way into a new framework where the dictates of petty bureaucrats carry greater weight than the inalienable rights of the citizenry.

We're in trouble, folks.

Freedom no longer means what it once did.

This holds true whether you're talking about the right to criticize the government in word or deed, the right to be free from government surveillance, the right to not have your person or your property subjected to warrantless searches by government agents, the right to due process, the right to be safe from soldiers invading your home, the right to be innocent until proven guilty and every other right that once reinforced the founders' belief that this would be "a government of the people, by the people and for the people."

Not only do we no longer have dominion over our bodies, our families, our property and our lives, but the government continues to chip away at what few rights we still have to speak freely and think for ourselves.

If the government can control speech, it can control thought and, in turn, it can control the minds of the citizenry.

The unspoken freedom enshrined in the First Amendment is the right to think freely and openly debate issues without being muzzled or treated like a criminal.

In other words, if we no longer have the right to tell a Census Worker to get off our property, if we no longer have the right to tell a police officer to get a search warrant before they dare to walk through our door, if we no longer have the right to stand in front of the Supreme Court wearing a protest sign or approach an elected representative to share our views, if we no longer have the right to protest unjust laws by voicing our opinions in public or on our clothing or before a legislative body—no matter how misogynistic, hateful, prejudiced, intolerant, misguided or politically incorrect they might be—then we do not have free speech.

What we have instead is regulated, controlled speech, and that's a whole other ballgame.

On Saturday, the jets' trip from Amberley, Queensland, to Melbourne, Victoria, was postponed as the warplane was found to be incapable of flying through an ongoing lightning storm over its destination, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported.

The F-35s now require additional modifications to fly through lightning storms, ABC said. Australia has authorized the purchase of six-dozen F-35s for the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) in recent years. In 2009, Canberra approved the purchase of 14 F-35As before deciding to add another 58 of the fifth-generation aircraft in 2014. The first squadron will be delivered in 2018, according to the ABC.

Germany planned to close its border with Austria and turn back asylum seekers in September 2015, at the height of the refugee crisis, according to a German newspaper report.

In September 2015, Chancellor Angela Merkel and her ministers, Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere and then Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier among them, allegedly agreed to send police officers from all over Germany to the border. The plan was to turn back any and all migrants that didn't have papers allowing them entry, "including in case of asylum request," the Welt am Sonntag newspaper reported.

The newspaper cites research for an upcoming book on Merkel's refugee policy by journalist Robin Alexander.

The original plan, due to have taken place on Sunday, September 13, was scrapped after German officials voiced legal concerns over the border closure during a meeting at the country's Interior Ministry.

In a rare, candid conversation, Abby Martin interviews a former Israeli Army combat soldier who served as an occupier in Palestine's Hebron City.

Eran Efrati spent years as a sergeant and combat soldier in the Israeli military, but has since become an outspoken critic of the occupation of Palestine and Israeli apartheid.

Efrati gives explosive testimony on the reality of his service and explains how war crimes are institutionalized, as well as how systematic the oppression against Palestinians really is in a war of conquest that will no-doubt be accelerated under the Trump Administration.

President Donald Trump has issued a new executive order, temporarily blocking travel to the US for residents of six Muslim-majority countries pending revision of visa procedures. The previous travel ban, issued in January, was blocked in federal courts.

The order halts the issuance of new US visas to citizens of Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen for the next 90 days.

Alain Juppé rules himself out of French Presidential race as former front runner Francois Fillon remains defiant.

As French President Francois Hollande admits he will do everything in his power to stop Marine Le Pen from being elected French President, criminal accusations are being brought against her not just for republishing ISIS videos but also for making false claims for public funds to pay her staff.

This closely mirrors the charges brought against the former front runner, Francois Fillon, over alleged illegal payments to his family.

A total of 8,000 NATO soldiers have been deployed to the Finnmark region of northern Norway, 160-300 km from the Russian border, for a series of joint military exercises.

The Joint Viking 2017 exercises, which involve British, American and Norwegian troops, kicked off Monday and are expected to last until March 15. According to the Norwegian Armed Forces website, the exercises' primary goals are to practice crisis management and the defense of Norway.

A total of 8,000 troops are taking part, including 700 soldiers from the US Marine Corps, US Army and the British Royal Marines, which have been integrated into Norwegian units. The British and American troops took part in preparatory exercises to acclimatize them to the harsh Norwegian weather.