"It'll be at a time of our choosing," says U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, on NBC''s "Meet the Press," to be aired on Sunday, October 16th.

Interviewer Chuck Todd had asked him, "Why would he [Obama] send a message out to Putin?" Biden pursed his lips, paused, and said, with a grim look on his face, "We sent him the message." Of course that didn't answer Todd's question, which was "Why?" Biden and Todd both remained silent for another tense moment. Then, Biden picked up again: "We have the capacity to do it, and, uh," and Todd interrupted him there with "He'll know it?" Biden replied: "He'll know it, and it'll be at a time of our choosing, and under circumstances that have the greatest impact. Uh, the capacity to do, to fundamentally alter the election, is not what people think; and, uh, I tell you what: to the extent that they do ['do' presumably meaning: fundamentally alter the election], we will be proportionate in what we do. And, uh," Todd again interrupted his interviewee, and said, "So, a message is going to be sent. Will the public know?" Biden replied, "Hope not."

Of course, that "Hope not" could mean many things. It might mean: A blitz nuclear attack in line with our government's belief that we now enjoy Nuclear Primacy (an idea that was first published by the Council on Foreign Relations in 2006, and which has never yet been renounced by the U.S. government, during the decade since). That would be very much a public response, which Biden would "hope not" to be 'necessary'. In other words: Biden might have meant, there: "I hope it won't have to be that." But, clearly, Biden isn't wanting the public to understand anything, other than that President Obama has threatened President Putin, with something, and that it will be "proportionate," and the excuse for it will be — if it will happen — that Putin had done something which Obama thinks caused Hillary Clinton to lose the election to Donald Trump.


Standing behind what Biden is saying there, is the belief that Putin does have in his possession some option that might "fundamentally alter the election." This is clearly a threat that's meant to deter Putin from doing something that Putin hasn't yet done. Obama is telling Putin that either the winner will be the person he wants to be his successor, or else — or else what?

At least five Braunschweig class corvettes will enter service with the German navy in the next few years, in what can be seen as a signal to Russia, according to the newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung.

The German Bundestag (parliament) has approved a purchase by the country's ruling coalition of five Braunschweig class corvettes worth a total of 1.5 billion euros, the newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung reported, citing Bundestag sources.

Germany's ruling coalition includes representatives of the center-right Cristian Democratic Union party (CDU), the conservative Christian Social Union party (CSU) and the Social Democratic Party (SPD). "To cope with the new security challenges in the Baltic region, the Mediterranean and in the world as a whole, the coalition of the CDU/CSU alliance and the SPD plans to purchase five new corvettes for the German navy worth 1.5 billion euros," the newspaper quoted the sources as saying.

What if I could prove to every American family their children were being brainwashed at every level of education? What if unwitting mothers and fathers worked the live-long-day to try and provide a better future for their kids, only to see them indoctrinated into an unsustainable system? The Americans I know would burn down any institution bent on such subversion. Here's kindling for the fire that should be raging in my country.

"Manufacting Consent" by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, it was a groundbreaking work that described the five editorially distorting filters, which are applied to the reporting of news in mass communications media. The work, boiled down to its essence tells us how our media sold out, how mass media was forced to distort their reporting to favor government and corporate policies in order to stay in business. The authors venture far in revisiting with the American people how Orwellian our system has become, but Manufacturing Consent does not go far enough. Media control is a tiny fraction of an overall "consent" system built up in America, backed and fostered by Britain, and adhered to by European money interests. Media is powerful as a propaganda tool, but education bends minds. Today we need to take a razor sharp focus, in order to understand why the American system is failing. Enter the professors of chaos, academia's sellouts.

On Friday, officials from Poland's ruling Law and Justice Party announced plans to spend 880 million zlotys (about $225 million US) to build a canal that would allow ships heading to and from the coastal city of Elblag, Poland to enter the Baltic Sea from the Vistula Lagoon without passing the Russian port city of Baltiysk.

At the moment, the river port city of Elblag has no direct access to the Sea, blocked by the Vistula Spit, a long, thin peninsula stretching east from the northern coast of Poland into Russia's enclave of Kaliningrad. Ships going through the area must first pass Russian waters. Now that is set to change. This week the Polish government announced detailed plans to build a 1.3 km long, 80 meter wide, 5 meter deep canal in the western portion of the Vistula Spit by 2020. This would connect the Vistula Lagoon to the Gulf of Gdansk, allowing ships up to 100 meters long and 20 meters wide and with a draft of up to 4 meters to enter Elblag without passing through Russian waters first. Experts have already warned that the canal's construction costs would be difficult, if not impossible to recover. Nonetheless, Warsaw seems to be digging in its heels to spite Russia.

The operation against terrorists will continue, Russia stressed in Lausanne during international talks on Syria. The shaky ceasefire deal will only work if the "moderate" opposition distances itself from Al-Nusra and other terrorist groups, Moscow added.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry met behind closed doors in Lausanne, Switzerland along with seven foreign ministers, from Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, Jordan, and Egypt. Four hours of discussions ended with no visible breakthrough. The participants have agreed to continue work on solving the crisis, however.

According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, all participants present at the meeting confirmed their commitment to "preserve Syria as an integral, independent and secular state, in which the future of the country is determined by the Syrians themselves in an inclusive political dialogue."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that Germany needs to make a national effort to deport migrants who were refused asylum. Merkel said that when migrants came in small numbers, those who were rejected the right to stay in Germany were not deported rigorously enough. Last year's record influx of asylum seekers showed that such soft practices must be put to an end.

"We need a national push to deport those who are rejected. That's indisputable and we're working hard on that at the moment," Merkel told a conference of the youth wing of her party in Paderborn on Saturday, Reuters reports. The chancellor said deporting illegal migrants is another element of Germany's refugee policy. She also stressed that those who were granted asylum must be integrated into German society.

The commitment to deporting illegal migrants out of the country, according to Merkel, will require certain administrative measures, mainly increases in staff at immigration centers at the municipal level. Germany faced an influx of around 900,000 migrants last year. Considerably fewer, up to 300,000 refugees, are expected to arrive in Germany this year, Frank-Jurgen Weise, head of the country's migration office said in August.

North Korea attempted to launch another intermediate-range ballistic missile on Saturday, according to the Pentagon. Both the US and South Korea condemned the launch of the rocket, which reportedly failed immediately after lift-off.

US Strategic Command announced that its monitoring systems detected the launch in northwestern North Korea on Saturday at 12:03pm local time. The rocket was presumed to be a Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missile, and failed immediately after launch, the statement added, while emphasizing that the projectile never posed a threat to the US.

"We strongly condemn this and North Korea's other recent missile tests," said US Navy Commander Gary Ross, a Pentagon spokesman. "Our commitment to the defense of our allies, including the Republic of Korea and Japan, in the face of these threats, is ironclad. We remain prepared to defend ourselves and our allies from any attack or provocation." South Korea's military also confirmed that the rocket failed immediately after takeoff while condemning the attempt.

"The North's ballistic missile launch is a clear violation of UN Security Council resolutions and we strongly condemn the North's illegal act of provocation," the South's office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a statement.

The Egyptian military killed over 100 Daesh militants in a three-hour airstrike Saturday in retaliation for an attack at a North Sinai checkpoint that left 12 Egyptian troops dead. Cairo's Army destroyed the fundamentalists' armories and outposts in the offensive as well.

In a public statement, Cairo's military said, "An armed group of terrorist elements attacked a security checkpoint in North Sinai this morning using four-wheel drives and were immediately engaged. Our forces killed 15 terrorists." The Egyptian Air Force conducted the strike south of Sheikh Zuweid and near Rafah.

There are reports that some of the radicals attempted to escape in all-terrain vehicles while under fire from Egypt's F-16 fighter jets. Saturday's strike is one of largest carried out against Daesh by Cairo in recent months. Friday's terror attack took place 25 miles from Bir al-Abd, the first incident in the Central Sinai region, an area that has remained relatively free from jihadist control until now. Daesh took responsibility for the action that killed 12 Egyptian troops and wounded six, who were treated at at a hospital in Al-Arish.

Iranian media reports say Iranian security forces have arrested 11 people on suspicion of planning suicide bombings on behalf of the Islamic State (IS) militant group. The October 14 reports said authorities also seized large quantities of explosives in the operation.

It is the latest in a series of alleged plots by the Sunni extremists that authorities say they've uncovered in Shi'ite Iran -- a major supporter of the campaign against IS militants in neighboring Iraq.

General Ahmad-Ali Goudarzi, who heads the security forces in the southern province of Fars, said the crackdown had "dismantled" the IS in southern Iran. He said dozens of cars and motorbikes, as well as 100 kilograms of explosives, were seized.

The Mehr news agency quoted the province's deputy governor as saying those arrested were believed to be members of IS. IS militants say Shi'ite Muslims are apostates. The extremist group has carried out numerous attacks against Shi'ite civilians in both Iraq and Syria.

Question 1: Thank you very much, Mr. President. It's a big happiness for me, and I'm very proud. Okay, I will start from my questions. The situation in Syria become more dangerous and more unpredictable. Why? Because this conflict draws inside more participants and more players. For example, who do we have now in Syria in the war? Iran, Lebanon - I mean Hezbollah - Russia, Turkey, USA's huge coalition, China shows interest. I mean, do you have any concerns that this conflict results in a third world war, or maybe it's already beginning of third world war.

President Assad: If we want to talk about the problem, we have to talk about the crux of the problem, the source of the problem; it's the terrorism. And no matter who's interfering in Syria now, the most important thing is who is supporting the terrorists on daily basis, every hour, every day. That is the main problem. If we solve that problem, all this complicated image that you described is not a matter... I mean, it's not a big problem, we can solve the problem. So, it's not about how many countries interfering now, it's about how many countries supporting the terrorists, because Russians, Iran, and Hezbollah are our allies, and they came here legally. They support us against the terrorists, while the other countries that you describe who are interfering, they are supporting the terrorists. So, it's not about the number, it's about the main issue that is terrorism.

Second, it's about world war three. This term has been used recently a lot, especially after the recent escalation regarding the situation in Syria. I would say what we have now, what we've been seeing recently during the last few weeks and maybe few months is something like more than cold war, less than war, a full-blown war. I don't know what to call it, but it's not something that has existed recently, because I don't think that the West and especially the United States has stopped their cold war, even after the collapse of the Soviet Union.