William Engdahl recently explained how Washington used the corrupt Brazilian elite, which answers to Washington, to remove the duly elected President of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, for representing the Brazilian people rather than the interests of Washington. Unable to see through the propaganda of unproven charges, Brazilians acquiesced in the removal of their protector, thereby providing the world another example of the impotence of democracy.

Everyone should read Engdahl's article. He reports that part of the attack on Rousseff stemmed from Brazil's economic problems deliberately created by US credit rating agencies as part of Washington's attack to down grade Brazilian debt, which set off an attack on the Brazilian currency.

Brazil's financial openness made Brazil an easy target to attack. One might hope that Vladimir Putin would take note of the cost of "economic openness." Putin is a careful and thoughtful leader of Russia, but he is not an economist. He has confidence in neoliberal Elvira Nabiulina, Washington's choice to head the Russian central bank. Nabiulina is unfamiliar with Modern Monetary Theory, and her commitment to "economic openness" leaves the Russian economy as exposed as Brazil's to Washington destabilization. Nabiuina believes that the assault on the ruble is due to impersonal "global market forces," not to Washington's financial clout.

The probe, which has had four chairwomen, has been dogged by controversy since it was set up by Theresa May.

The suspension of the most senior lawyer on the national inquiry into child sexual abuse has been described as a "categorical disaster".

Ben Emmerson QC said he learned of his suspension from news reports and was yet to hear the allegations that had resulted in him being dropped from the £100m probe.

It is the latest controversy to hit the inquiry, which is already on its fourth chairwoman.

Former director of public prosecutions Lord Macdonald said the inquiry had been "careering out of control since its inception".

He added that the Government must "face up to the reality that an inquiry lasting years into dozens of public institutions going back decades, quite unable to restrain its own remit, is destined to end as an embarrassing fiasco".

"From the start it has fatally confused a laudable desire to bring closure to generations of victims with the need for a tightly focused forensic inquiry into the changes that might better protect children in the future," he told The Times.

Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov however noted that Russia was trying to agree with the US on resumption of truce in Syria.

Exchange of information between Russian and US military over Syria has stopped of late, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said on Monday.

"All contacts between the military have been stopped of late, there has been no exchange of information," he said.

Gatilov however noted that Russia was trying to agree with the US on resumption of truce in Syria.

"We are trying to agree with the Americans on resumption of truce in Syria," Gatilov said.

Afghanistan Rehabilitates the 'Butcher of Kabul'

After months of talks and several setbacks, the Afghan government recently reached a peace agreement with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-i-Islami (HIG).

On September 29, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani signed the agreement at the presidential palace in Kabul during a ceremony broadcast live on television.

Warlord Hekmatyar, who is believed to be hiding out in Pakistan, addressed the gathering in Kabul in a recorded video message that showed him signing the peace deal in a small room at an undisclosed location. He called on the Taliban and other parties to join the peace process and urged the Afghan government to fulfill a number of demands not mentioned in the agreement, such as releasing key Taliban prisoners.

A decade ago left-wing governments, defying Washington and global corporations, took power in Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Venezuela, Uruguay, Bolivia and Ecuador. It seemed as if the tide in Latin America was turning. The interference by Washington and exploitation by international corporations might finally be defeated. Latin American governments, headed by charismatic leaders such as Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil, Evo Morales in Bolivia and Rafael Correa in Ecuador, won huge electoral victories. They instituted socialist reforms that benefited the poor and the working class. They refused to be puppets of the United States. They took control of their nations' own resources and destinies. They mounted the first successful revolt against neoliberalism and corporate domination. It was a revolt many in the United States hoped to emulate here.

But the movements and governments in Latin America have fallen prey to the dark forces of U.S. imperialism and the wrath of corporate power. The tricks long practiced by Washington and its corporate allies have returned—the black propaganda; the manipulation of the media; the bribery and corruption of politicians, generals, police, labor leaders and journalists; the legislative coups d'état; the economic strangulation; the discrediting of democratically elected leaders; the criminalization of the left; and the use of death squads to silence and disappear those fighting on behalf of the poor. It is an old, dirty game.

"What Russia is sponsoring and doing [in Syria] is not counter-terrorism it is barbarism" Samantha Power, US Representative to the United Nations

The US representative to the United Nations, Ambassador 'Ranting Sam' Samantha Power, accused the Russian and Syrian governments of 'barbarism', claiming Moscow or Damascus had attacked an unarmed United Nations humanitarian convoy delivering aid to civilians in Aleppo. No evidence was presented. Rants and threats do not require facts or proof; they only require vehement emotional ejaculations and compliant mass propaganda organs.

'Barbarians', to be clear, evoke images of leaders and groups, which abjure all civilized norms and laws. They only respond to armed force.

In the present context Power's charges of barbarism against Russia and Syria was used to justify the US aerial bombardment of a Syrian army outpost, which killed and maimed almost 200 government troops engaged in combating ISIS terrorists and jihadi invaders.

In other words, accusing Syrian soldiers of 'barbarism' was Ambassador Power's cynical way of dehumanizing the young victims of an earlier and deliberate US war crime.

Let's analyze the appropriate context for the use and abuse of the language of 'barbarism' - and its rightful application.

The Pentagon gave a controversial UK PR firm over half a billion dollars to run a top secret propaganda programme in Iraq, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism can reveal.

Bell Pottinger's output included short TV segments made in the style of Arabic news networks and fake insurgent videos which could be used to track the people who watched them, according to a former employee.

The agency's staff worked alongside high-ranking US military officers in their Baghdad Camp Victory headquarters as the insurgency raged outside.

Bell Pottinger's former chairman Lord Tim Bell confirmed to the Sunday Times, which worked with the Bureau on this story, that his firm had worked on a "covert" military operation "covered by various secrecy agreements."

Bell Pottinger reported to the Pentagon, the CIA and the National Security Council on its work in Iraq, he said.

While it now seems that Friday's rumor of a substantially reduced Deutsche Bank settlement with the DOJ, which sent the stock price soaring from all time lows, was false following a FAZ report that CEO John Cryan has not yet begun the renegotiation process, and in the "next few days" is set to fly to the US to discuss the proposed RMBS misselling settlement with the US Attorney General, Germany's largest lender continues to be impacted by the public's declining confidence, exacerbated over the weekend by a disturbing "IT glitch."

For one, it remains unclear if Friday's report halted, or reversed, the outflow of cash from DB's prime brokerage clients, which as Bloomberg first reported last week was a major catalyst for the swoon in the stock price. However, as UniCredit's chief economist Erik Nielsen notes in a Sunday notes, one thing is certain: "so long as a fine of this order of magnitude ($14 billion) is an even remote possibility, markets worry."

There is also the threat of the bank's massive derivative book, which despite attempts of many pundits to gloss over, over the weekend none other than JPM admitted that that is what the markets will likely be focusing on for the foreseeable future: "In our opinion it is not so much funding issues but rather derivatives exposures that more likely to trouble markets going forward if Deutsche Bank concerns continue. This is especially true if these concerns propagate into a confidence crisis inducing more rapid unwinding of derivative contracts."

Step aside Wells Fargo fake account scandal: moments ago Reuters and Bloomberg reported that Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin charges Morgan Stanley with "dishonest and unethical conduct" related to "high pressure sales contests" in Massachusetts, Rhode Island.

Here are the headlines:

• Massachusetts charges Morgan Stanley with running unethical sales contests to cross sell products
• Massachusetts accuses Morgan Stanley of dishonest, unethical conduct related to high-pressure sales contests
• Massachusetts says conduct occurred in Massachusetts, Rhode Island * Massachusetts accuses brokers of pushing so-called "securities based loans" as a means to boost business
• Massachusetts files administrative complaint seeking a fine, censure, and relief for customers who got the loans

As the complaint further notes, "The sales contest created a material conflict of interest which violated the firm's fiduciary duty to clients in pursuit of brokerage customers opening banking and lending accounts."

Focus of contest was securities based loans; complaint seeks censure, cease and desist, equitable relief for customers who entered into SBLs. Gavlin says the contest almost tripled SBL accounts opened in year before.

MS stock falls to session lows on the news, down as much as 1.6%.

The unemployment rate in France surged in August (the latest report) to a 12-month high of 10.5%. French President Francois Hollande said he will not run for reelection unless the rate drops below 10%. Will he keep his word?
The Financial Times reports French Unemployment at 12-Month High.

France is bucking the trend among the major economies in the eurozone, with its closely-watched unemployment rate hitting a 12-month high in August.

Europe's second largest economy is sticking out like a sore thumb, with almost every other country in the 28 member EU trimming or holding its jobless rate.

France's jobless rate inched up to 10.5 per cent this month according to figures from Eurostat. That's risen steadily from 9.9 per cent in May and defied the broader eurozone-wide trend where unemployment is hugging five-year lows at 10.1 per cent.

French unemployment has become a lightning rod in the country's political debate after incumbent president, Francois Hollande, has vowed to only stand for re-election next year if the rate falls into single figures.

The International Monetary Fund has warned France's "structural unemployment" is set to remain elevated as the country is hampered by burdensome regulations and high tax levels.

Currently led by a former French finance minister, Christine Lagarde, the IMF has called on France to reform its minimum wage structure and boost private sector job creation through ambitious labor market reforms.