One of the symbols of the "new Ukraine", the ex-Georgian president, fugitive, and part-time governor of Odessa, Mikhail Saakashvili, has announced his resignation, which came as a shock and to the dismay of Ukrainian citizens, who for some reason had great political hopes for him. I'll leave aside the discussion of how Saakashvili's biography, character, and addiction to hard narcotics couldn't possibly leave anything good to be expected from him. What is more interesting to discuss are the motives behind his resignation and explaining whether this is connected to the American elections.

Before delving into this, let's immediately eliminate two entirely untenable theories which nevertheless have a number of supporters on social networks.

With typical fanfare, Western news media announced the launch this week of a US-backed offensive to retake the eastern Syrian city of Raqqa from the Islamic State (Daesh) terror group.

Officially, the US is providing air support, as well as "assisting and training" by special forces to the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who are spearheading the offensive on the Daesh stronghold. The SDF comprise about 30,000 local fighters, 20,000 of whom are Kurdish and the rest Sunni Arab militants.

It is also reported that British and French warplanes are involved in the US-led coalition operation to take Raqqa.

The Russian naval group in the Mediterranean, headed by the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier, is preparing an offensive against militants on the outskirts of Aleppo, Syria, according to reports citing a source in the Defense Ministry.

Jets from the Admiral Kuznetsov, the Peter the Great battle cruiser and other military ships in the battle group equipped with precision weapons will take part in the operation, Interfax and Gazeta.ru reported on Tuesday, citing a source in Russia's Defense Ministry.

The strikes will be launched "in the nearest hours" and will target the distant outskirts of Aleppo, the source said, adding that there are no civilian-populated areas nearby.

US officials are split over the future of Raqqa, Syria, with some claiming all international forces will leave the city once it is freed from terrorists, and others announcing plans to stay to 'govern' it along with Turkey.

As Syrian Kurdish and Arab fighters, backed by US advisers and coalition airstrikes, slowly advance on the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) stronghold of Raqqa, US officials have been voicing their opinions on what will happen to Raqqa once it is liberated. The US State Department says that after the terrorists are defeated, all foreign forces will leave the city to let the Syrians run it.

"How the liberation takes place, how we get local governance re-established after the liberation: our expectation, as has been elsewhere, is that outside forces would then withdraw," US State Department spokesman Mark Toner said in a daily press briefing on Monday. He then clarified that US forces will supervise the re-establishment of local authority in the city, but other than that will not intervene in its governance.

"We don't want to see semi-autonomous zones. The reality is, though, as territory is liberated from [Islamic State], you've got to get some kind of governance back into these areas, but by no means are we condoning... any kind of semi-autonomous areas in northern Syria.

"Ultimately, we want to see a sovereign, intact Syria," Toner stressed.

The economic stagnancy of the Obama years is to blame for plummeting life expectancy rates among white, working-class Americans, according to former president Bill Clinton, who privately told Democratic donors that lower-income whites "don't have anything to look forward to when they get up in the morning."

Clinton made the remarks while speaking to at a November 2015 closed-door fundraiser for Hillary Clinton in Canton, Ohio.

Echoing a theme of Republican nominee Donald Trump's campaign, the former president expressed his concern that white, working-class Americans have been left behind over the last eight years.

Clinton expressed his frustration with the most recent (at that time) Democratic debate, which he said lacked a single mention of the fact that "84 percent of the American people, after inflation, had not had a raise of 1 cent since the financial crash."

On Sunday, Nineveh Provincial Council member Hussam al-Din al-Abbar announced that a large Daesh prison had been discovered by security forces south of the province, in the al-Shura area.

According to Abbar, the underground prison, containing more than a 1,000 inmates, among them captured Iraqi troops and police officers, was uncovered by joint forces providing security and removing explosives from the area.

Iraqi News quotes Abbar saying, "[Daesh] tortured and arrested thousands of Nineveh residents and committed many crimes against the citizens who violated its instructions," adding, "The detainees were freed and transferred to a safe destination."

Whether you are for Hillary Clinton or against her, the problem with Hillary Clinton isn't her lack of experience. Almost the entire political establishment is behind her. Throughout all the bumps and scandal in this whole election cycle, Republicans and former presidents are coming out of the woodwork supporting her. According to the LA Times she may well be one of the most experienced candidates in US history, while even accounting for severe conflicts of interest inside the Clinton Foundation. Neither friend or foe doubt Hillary Clinton's experience after 30 years in politics.

The problem is even Hillary Clinton's friends say she has a history of acting without thinking, of making bad decisions. According to Neera Tanden: "Almost no one knows better than me that her instincts can be terrible."

Does Hillary Clinton show bad instincts and terrible decision-making skills, and if she does, how will this affect the USA?

According to journalist Robert Parry "the people that will be taking senior positions and especially in foreign policy believe "This consensus is driven by a broad-based backlash against a president who has repeatedly stressed the dangers of overreach and the need for restraint, especially in the Middle East... Taken together, the studies and reports call for more aggressive American action to constrain Iran, rein in the chaos in the Middle East and check Russia in Europe."One of the lead organizations revving up these military adventures and also counting on a big boost in military spending under President Clinton is the Atlantic Council, a think tank associated with NATO that has been pushing for a major confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia."

The Atlantic Council is the think tank for the CEEC which is associated with NATO. The CEEC (Central and Eastern European Coalition) has only one goal. At the beginning of the presidential campaign they put out a small list of questions for the candidates to decide who they would support for the president.

The first question was essentially "Are you willing to go to war with Russia?" Hillary Clinton has answered that question and received their unqualified support throughout the campaign.

Saudi Arabia's governing economic body called the Council of Economic and Development Affairs (CEDA) has cancelled $266.7 billion in projects, the Saudi Press Agency said, and announced it would be settling much-delayed private-sector payments by year end.

The projects that have been canceled are the ones that are not expected to accelerate the kingdom's growth or improve the living standards for its people.

The cancellations were first considered in September, but at the time, it was noted that only $20 billion in projects would be considered to put on the chopping block.

Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday said Russia could try to influence Germany's general elections next year through cyber attacks or disinformation campaigns, after Washington accused the Kremlin of similar meddling in the US vote.

"We are already, even now, having to deal with information out of Russia or with internet attacks that are of Russian origin or with news which sows false information," Merkel, said at a press conference alongside Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg.

Dealing with that was already "a daily task", she told reporters in Berlin.

"So it may be that this could also play a role during the election campaign."

Who conducted the investigation? FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, whose wife received $467,500 from HIllary supporter Virginia Gov.Terry McAuliffe's PAC.

First let us outline the official MSM story as presented by the media (November 6): Washington Post echoed by CNN Anderson Cooper et al. What the reports intimate is that the FBI worked assiduously around the clock and found nothing incriminating in the trove of 650,000 emails:

From the moment they secured a warrant, dozens of FBI agents worked night and day to analyze a trove of messages that they thought might help advance their probe of Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server, according to a U.S. official.

The pressure was intense. .... The agents' work, at first, seemed endless. They had to use special software to sift through some 650,000 emails.

(WP, November 9, 2016)

According to CNN, Hillary is Clean. "Cleared" by the FBI: "FBI Director James Comey told lawmakers Sunday the agency hasn't changed its opinion that Hillary Clinton should not face criminal charges after a review of new emails."

"Based on our review, we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July," Comey wrote in the new letter to congressional committee chairmen. (CNN, November 6, 2016)

There is however something fishy with the mainstream media story. The report is accepted at face value by the media. No discussion, no debate of what's in the emails, etc. The Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus issued the following statement in a letter to Congress:

"The FBI found evidence Clinton broke the law, that she placed highly classified national security information at risk and repeatedly lied to the American people about her reckless conduct."

"None of this changes the fact that the FBI continues to investigate the Clinton Foundation for corruption involving her tenure as secretary of state. Hillary Clinton should never be president,"