Greece has admitted for the first time it is planning a €2bn gas pipeline with Russia.

The move is likely to worry the US, which has stepped up its involvement in Greece's debt talks with international creditors over fears the cash-strapped country could drop out of the single currency and come under the influence of its Cold War rival.

Panayotis Lafazanis, Greece's energy minister, said the move would be a key part of the country's "multi-faceted" foreign policy and would create 20,000 jobs, the Financial Times reported.

Figures released by Greece's National Statistics Service on Thursday showed unemployment at 25.6pc in April.

Reports in April suggested Moscow was ready to provide advanced payment to Greece for the "Turkish Stream" pipeline project, which will transport 47bn cubic metres of Gazprom's gas annualy from 2018.

To understand the 'Greek debt crisis', the 'financial crisis' of 2008, the first thing to understand is the unreal or immaterial nature of money and what is called the 'global economy'.

In 2014, a Bank of England report titled: "Money Creation in the Modern Economy" finally admitted what has been known by many for a long time: that 97% of the money supply is now created by banks when they make loans. Most of that money is, and remains throughout its life cycle, digital rather than 'physical' paper money.

In 2008, when they were under 14, they spent the entire economy on sherbet and Pokémon cards - and then had the nerve to blame it on the banks

In Ukraine, the result of Euromajdan was not a coup, and the war was provoked by Russia, who sent their agents into Donbass, said US Ambassador to Russia John Tefft, in an interview with the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets.

"I do not agree with the argument that the US did something wrong. I categorically dismiss allegations that the events on Majdan led to a coup in Ukraine ", - he said.


"We believe that the violence is fueled by people in the Donbass, who penetrate the border from Russia. We do not believe in the story of the civil confrontation. You will, I am sure, remember the famous 'little green men'? "- Says Tefft.


To the question of the journalist as to why the US turned a blind eye to the killing of civilians by the shelling of the cities of Donbass by Ukrainian army, the ambassador said that the children in the Lugansk and Donetsk could have been killed by the D/LPR militia, not the UAF.

"How can you be sure that these people were killed by the Ukrainian army, not the separatists? How do you know? Were you personally present for this? "- He said.

10 July Military Report

The Pentagon has released its "National Military Strategy of the United States of America 2015," June 2015.

The document announces a shift in focus from terrorists to "state actors" that "are challenging international norms." It is important to understand what these words mean. Governments that challenge international norms are sovereign countries that pursue policies independently of Washington's policies.

These "revisionist states" are threats, not because they plan to attack the US, which the Pentagon admits neither Russia nor China intend, but because they are independent. In other words, the norm is dependence on Washington.

Be sure to grasp the point: The threat is the existence of sovereign states, whose independence of action makes them "revisionist states." In other words, their independence is out of step with the neoconservative Uni-power doctrine that declares independence to be the right of Washington alone. Washington's History-given hegemony precludes any other country being independent in its actions.

The Pentagon's report defines the foremost "revisionist states" as Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran. The focus is primarily on Russia. Washington hopes to co-op China, despite the "tension to the Asia-Pacific region" that China's defense of its sphere of influence, a defense "inconsistent with international law" (this from Washington, the great violator of international law), by turning over what remains of the American consumer market to China. It is not yet certain that Iran has escaped the fate that Washington imposed on Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, Ukraine, and by complicity Palestine.

The Pentagon report is sufficiently audacious in its hypocrisy, as all statements from Washington are, to declare that Washington and its vassals "support the established institutions and processes dedicated to preventing conflict, respecting sovereignty, and furthering human rights." This from the military of a government that has invaded, bombed, and overthrown 11 governments since the Clinton regime and is currently working to overthrow governments in Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Ecuador, Venezuela, Bolivia, Brazil, and Argentina.

Mobs brandishing the blue and white flag of the fictional state of "East Turkistan" located in present-day Xinjiang, China, attacked and destroyed the Thai honorary consulate-general in Turkey's capital of Istanbul. The attack came after Thailand's decision to deport Chinese Uighurs being trafficked through Thailand back to Turkey or China depending on their citizenship.

The Bangkok Post would report in its article, "Thai consulate attacked in Turkey," that:

It was reported the group gathered in front of the consulate to make a press statement around 11pm local time (about 3am Thai time). Then the protest turned violent and the crowd broke into the consulate building, smashed the windows and lowered the Thai flag. Security authorities later dispersed the group, it reported. There were no injuries reported.

Security forces apparently held off until after the attack was carried out to disperse the well-prepared mobs. To understand why Turkish security forces would allow an attack to be carried out on Thailand's consulate requires a deeper understanding of the role Uighurs, Turkey, and the US State Department itself has played in undermining peace and stability in China and the changing dynamics Thailand's new government has introduced into the game.

Geopolitical analyst Eric Draitser in his article, "Turkey, Terrorism, and the Global Proxy War," lays out in detail the role of Turkey in what is a larger global network of state-sponsored terrorism used by the United States to project power across the globe. Uighurs in particular are linked to Turkish-run networks stretching from China, throughout Southeast Asia, and all the way to the Middle East, moving Uighur fighters to and from various theaters of operation, including into Syria where Uighurs are literally fighting alongside "Islamic State" terrorists.

Renowned German «efficiency» is opening up a grievous rift within the European Union in the wake of the Greek No vote to EU-imposed bailout austerity. Not only that. The famed Germanic mechanical methodology is threatening to tear Europe asunder from runaway financial debts - the very Europe that Berlin claims to be upholding.

The German government's steely insistence on Greek debt obligations without any financial relief is in marked contrast to a new softer, more accommodating attitude from France, Italy and Spain. No doubt the latter group are only too fearful that Greece's economic catastrophe is but a prelude for their own and a wider European social and political meltdown.

The day after Greece's landmark referendum, which saw a resounding No vote cast by over 61 per cent of the participating electorate, German Chancellor Angela Merkel held an emergency summit in Paris with French President Francois Hollande. Britain's Daily Telegraph reported that the two main principals of the EU bloc «clashed» over their differing response to the Greek people's mandate for an end to economic austerity.

Merkel, as with other German government officials, remains adamant, saying that Greece must continue to implement swingeing budget cuts and deep economic «reforms» such as wholesale privatisation of industries and other publicly owned assets. For Berlin, any talk of debt cancellation, or even partial relief, is out of the question.

Poland has issued an official apology for its right-wing MEP, who, in an ill-considered attempt to compare the EU policies to those of Nazi Germany, referenced an infamous Nazi slogan, "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuehrer," in front of the EU Parliament.

Addressing the EU Parliament earlier this week during the debate on the German-led motion to introduce integrated ticketing for travel across EU borders, Janusz Korwin-Mikke, leader of the Coalition of Polish Republic's Renewal Freedom and Hope party, made a Nazi salute as a sign of objection to the German proposal.

Addressing the chamber in English, he lectured the EU lawmakers about diversity, pointing out that "all the time if there is voting, we are voting for the unification of everything."

Then, raising his hand in the Nazi salute he said: "This time it is, Ein Reich, ein Volk, ein Ticket," in a play of words referring to "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuehrer" (One People, one Empire, one Leader).

The incident caused an uproar in Polish and European media, forcing Poland's Foreign Minister to apologize in his country's name for the right-wing Polish MEP.

BRICS is gaining momentum as an increasingly effective organization and its New Development Bank is likely to become new source of funding for the current infrastructure gap, South Africa's Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies told RT.

There's a need for more development banks in the world involved in more developmental finance, the minister said on the sidelines of BRICS/SOC summits in Ufa. And there's a need to try to tap into more sources of capital while there's an infrastructure funding gap.

"I believe we will not be guided by mindless austerity which is causing enormous difficulties in some parts of the developed world," he said.

Speaking about trade and cooperation, the minister claimed BRICS are very interested in moving away from third countries' currencies as the need to convert into a third currency creates extra costs. The process of switching to domestic currencies involves discussions at central bank level, it's already happening and the member states are very interested in it, he added.