German political scientist Alexander Rahr believes that if it is revealed that Washington was involved in the failed Turkish coup attempt, Ankara may very well leave NATO and join Chinese and Russian-led security and economic organizations instead.

Earlier this month, elements of the Turkish military attempted to carry out a coup against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party. Since then, speculation has emerged that the coup may have been orchestrated by followers of Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish billionaire preacher who is in self-imposed exile in the United States.

Speaking at an expert panel organized by the Rossiya Segodnya news agency on Thursday, German political scientist Alexander Rahr suggested that if some foreign power is proven to have been involved in the attempt to overthrow the Turkish government, Ankara will be forced to radically reconsider its geopolitical alignment.

The US media has gone into full meltdown over the latest episode of blaming everything you can think of on Russia, with Doctor Evil himself, Vladimir Putin, reaching into his bag of tricks, hacking the Democratic National Committee database and preparing to install his puppet Donald Trump in the White House.

The scandal uncovered in the DNC email leaks is truly monumental. However, it risks being buried by the diversionary tactic of constructing a foolproof propaganda line of Russian state hacking, a manufactured "scandal" that can then be used to justify extending anti-Russia sanctions, continue the military build-up on Russia's borders and pressure hesitant countries into compliance. This is the real motive - exerting unwarranted U.S. influence on foreign states - not the mythology of Russian bullying and coercion.

Hillary Clinton and her hangers-on in the Democrats have been caught red-handed with their hands in the cookie jar. The corruption, dirty tricks and game-rigging to make sure corporate America, Wall Street and the Pentagon's candidate of choice, Hillary Clinton, became the Democratic nominee for the presidential election are almost embarrassing to watch.

A new pre-recorded video showing one of the killers of a Normandy priest was released by Islamic State. As the terror group attempts to use the atrocity to attract volunteers for more attacks, questions are being raised on how to prevent them. In the video, the recently identified attacker Abdel-Malik Nabir Petitjean is threatening President Francois Hollande and Prime Minister Manuel Valls, as well as the French people with more attacks against the country, according to Reuters

The man, who was killed by police along with his accomplice Adel Kermiche after slitting the throat of an elderly priest in a church in St-Etienne-du-Rouvray near Rouen, is calling on Muslims to attack the countries fighting Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) in Syria. It is not known when the clip was recorded and it has not been immediately verified. It was published by AMAQ, the terrorist group's media arm.



While the media was quick to report on the chilling, but generic message of the IS supporter, many have been questioning the effectiveness of France's security system.

The nomination was barely sealed up at the Democratic National Convention before Bernie Sanders, who had campaigned against Hillary Clinton for the party's nod, went back to being an Independent.

Sanders, who considers himself, officially, an Independent in Congress because his views lean further left than the Democratic party's platform, caucuses with Democrats. But until declaring an intention to run for the presidency in 2015, he had rarely, if ever, identified as a member of the Democratic Party (he's been in politics since 1979).

And now, despite pleading with his base to support Hillary, even though they're concerned that she's too moderate, Sanders will return to Vermont and to his seat in the Senate, and he'll do it with no official party affiliation.

Little is known in the outside world about the National Security Act in South Korea. It was enacted in 1948 and has been used to quash any opposition to the US military in South Korea or to the South Korean political establishment, which was founded by Washington when it selected the subservient and traitorous Korean collaborators that worked for the Japanese during Tokyo's occupation of the Korean Peninsula to run South Korea instead of allowing the fiercely independent Korean resistance fighters that had fought against the Japanese during the Second World War takeover.

Under the National Security Act in South Korea praising North Korea and questioning the stance of the South Korean or US governments on North Korea or Korean unification have been persecuted as crimes and threats to the security and the safety of South Korea. Ordinary South Korean citizens who visit North Korea are imprisoned for life, which is an improvement from the past when South Korean authorities use to execute South Koreans who visited North Korea. Even political parties and groups that are supportive of Korean unification or North Korea are disbanded and persecuted by South Korean authorities. In summary, the National Security Act has been used to censor support for North Korea or calls for unification, to violate human rights, and to neutralize legitimate opposition movements. Many innocent South Koreans have been executed or arrested as political prisoners under it.

The Turkish mutiny: a response to change in foreign policy paradigm

On the night of June 15th-16th, Turkey faced an attempted coup d'etat. According to the country's authorities, the military men who organized the rebellion were tied to the network of Fethullah Gülen, who has lived in the United States since the late 1990's and has close links to the CIA. After the coup was suppressed, more than 100 generals and admirals were arrested. The main organizer of the rebellion was found to be Akin Öztürk, former commander of the country's Air Force. The Air Force, which is most closely of all integrated into NATO structures and has long since been a stronghold of Gülen's supporters, played a leading role in the coup. Turkish authorities suspect foreign powers of supporting the coup and have hinted at the United States.

The rebellion took place after Turkey's foreign policy was radically changed by President Erdogan who apologized to Russia for the destruction of the Russian plane in November 2015 near the border with Syria. This new course intended to restore friendly relations with Russia. Prime Minister Binali Yildirim also designated a course for restoring all working relations with neighboring countries, including Syria and Iraq.

Before these events, the former prime minister responsible for the doctrine of neo-Ottomanism and the architect of Turkish foreign policy for the last decade, Ahmet Davutoglu, who was closely tied to the United States, Qatar, and the Muslim Brotherhood movement, resigned. Erdogan then in fact began to review the whole of Turkey's foreign political strategy and initiated a turn towards realist pragmatism as previously insisted upon by the supporters of Turkey's sovereign development, the Kemalists.

The Empire is becoming thoroughly unpredictable. It is attacking on all fronts. It lost all its shame and decency. New Cold War is now in full swing and the West is using both old and new tactics, in order to demonize and discredit all of its opponents: from Russia to China, Venezuela, North Korea, South Africa and Iran.

Our anti-imperialist media outlets, including those of the RT, TeleSUR, Press TV, CCTV and Sputnik are being labeled as 'propaganda' channels. Defensive and internationalist initiatives of our countries are branded as aggressions. Those governments that are relentlessly working on behalf of the people are defined as 'evil' or at least as 'dictatorships'.

The Empire is erecting complex and destructive web of lies and manipulations, literally trapping some countries in grotesque pseudo-legal concepts, as recently happened to China, which was confronted by The Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) at The Hague, which has recently ruled against, what F. William Engdhal described, as "any and all claims of China to various islands or even rocks inside what is known as the 'Nine Dash Line' between China's coast and The Philippines." China actually never asked for any 'arbitration'; it is repeating that it has been ready to negotiate directly with the Philippines. But the West and the previous servile administration in Manila decided to turn this historical dispute into a yet another ideological and propaganda battle.

The War against the "coalition of unwilling" is constantly diversifying. Propagandists in North America and Europe are inventing new 'weapons' of mass intellectual and information destruction. Nothing is left intact. The latest 'battle' is truly unconventional, one could even say 'innovative' - it is an attempt to demonize Russian athletes, and even to prevent them, at lease some of them, from participating in the upcoming Rio de Janeiro Olympic games!

Without additional details, the United States sees Russian humanitarian initiative in Syria as a demand for the country's opposition to surrender, the US embassy in Syria stated on its Twitter on Friday.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Thursday that Moscow and Damascus had launched a joint large-scale humanitarian relief operation in Aleppo, establishing three corridors for civilians and one for militants wishing to lay down arms. He said Russia offered international organizations working in Syria to join this operation.

"W/o [without] further clarification, Russian announcement on humanitarian corridors appears to be demand 4 [for] surrender of oppo [opposition] grps [groups]," the twitter said.

Around 400 German police conducted raids at a mosque and eight apartments in a "hotbed" of radical Islam near Hannover. It came as police near Stuttgart arrested a 15-year-old who they believe was planning a mass shooting.

The raids took place in Hildesheim, a town which Lower Saxony Interior Minister Boris Pistorius described as "a hotbed of radical Salafist" activity. He said that up to 400 police and special forces took part in the operations, though no figures were released regarding how many arrests were made.

"The German-speaking Islamic circle (DIK) in Hildesheim is a nationwide hot-spot of the radical Salafist scene that Lower Saxony security authorities have been monitoring for a long time," the state official said, as quoted by Reuters.

He said he wants to ban the DIK, which he blames for radicalizing German Muslims and influencing some to want to travel to the Middle East to join up with terrorist organizations such as Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette indicted six state employees for their alleged connection to the dangerous levels of lead in the city of Flint's drinking water. "They had knowledge and ability to stop the problem, but they failed," Schuette said.

The charges were authorized by Judge Nathaniel C. Perry II early Friday against three employees, each from the state's health and environmental departments.

At a Friday press conference, Schuette and Todd Flood, the private lawyer leading the attorney general's investigation, said that there will be justice for families in Flint.

"In Michigan the system is not rigged," Schuette told reporters. "There's one system of justice - it applies to everyone equal, no matter who you are."