More than 50 State Department diplomats have signed an internal memo sharply critical of the Obama administration's policy in Syria, urging the United States to carry out military strikes against the government of President Bashar al-Assad to stop its persistent violations of a cease-fire in the country's five-year-old civil war.

The memo, a draft of which was provided to The New York Times by a State Department official, says American policy has been "overwhelmed" by the unrelenting violence in Syria. It calls for "a judicious use of stand-off and air weapons, which would undergird and drive a more focused and hard-nosed U.S.-led diplomatic process."

Such a step would represent a radical shift in the administration's approach to the civil war in Syria, and there is little evidence that President Obama has plans to change course. Mr. Obama has emphasized the military campaign against the Islamic State over efforts to dislodge Mr. Assad. Diplomatic efforts to end the conflict, led by Secretary of State John Kerry, have all but collapsed.

But the memo, filed in the State Department's "dissent channel," underscores the deep rifts and lingering frustration within the administration over how to deal with a war that has killed more than 400,000 people.

The Russian economy, thought to have suffered significant losses after sanctions were imposed by the EU and US in 2014, is now returning to growth, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

"We have almost overcome the period of recession and the economy is enjoying all the conditions necessary for growth,"Putin said at a meeting with investors and members of the Russian Direct Investment Fund on Thursday. "The economy has adapted to the new circumstances," Putin went on, adding that the country's macroeconomic situation is stable and the level of inflation has decreased.

Volumes of Russia's gold and foreign currency reserves have remained high thanks to the Central Bank's efforts, the president noted. "Moreover, after introducing a flexible national currency rate, it [economy] now has competitive advantages," Russia's leader stressed. "The Russian financial market is one of the most open among the developing markets," Putin said.

Despite the recent years' steep decline, the Russian economy is starting to grow again. This positive trend is especially welcomed in Finland, a Nordic nation which traditionally has had strong economic ties with Russia and was heavily hit by the economic slump, exacerbated by the anti-Russian sanctions.

The growth is already visible in some of Russia's industrial sectors, estimates by Illka Korhonen of the Bank of Finland show. According to Korhonen, the Russian economy has reached its turning point and is starting to recover. Also, Russian manufacturing is increasingly competitive in relation to a number of imported goods, owing to the weakened ruble.

The Russian economy took a deep plunge in 2008-2009 as the nation's GDP shrank a whopping 10 percent, Korhonen pointed out, according to Finnish national broadcaster Yle. Remarkably, the recovery was fast and in about four years Russia was back to its pre-2008 level. In contrast, Finland is still struggling to reach the pre-2008 level in terms of GDP.

Korhonen attributed this level of adaptation to changes in the price of oil. In July 2008, the price reached nearly 150 dollars a barrel, only to sink to around 30 dollars a barrel in January 2009. Some two to three years later, we were again back at 100 dollars. At present, however, the recession seems to have come to stay. The price per barrel is now a little over 50 dollars. In a few years, it may settle at 60 dollars, Korhonen estimated.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) was a highly influential German philosopher. To this day his Hegelian Dialectic is a model used by central powers of government to create a problem that causes a reaction most often in the form of a crisis or series of crises, and consolidation of concentrated power results in fewer hands as a consequence of the proposed solution put forth by the same political body that created the problem and crises in the first place. It's been a highly effective deadly game formula of deceit that the ruling elite has perpetrated on the people to fool and entice them into blindly accepting greater centralized control and authority.

This article will demonstrate how New World Order globalists and their neocon puppets in Washington have consistently employed this repeating cycle of the Hegelian Dialectic consisting of problem (originally called thesis), reaction (anti-thesis) and solution (synthesis) during this century's federal governmental domestic policies. Inasmuch as US Empire virtually controls all Western nations as well as nearly all Third World nations, this insidious undemocratic process is unfolding globally on the geopolitical chessboard with the ultimate objective of establishing one world government tyranny.

This endless do-loop application stateside will be analyzed to demonstrate how the feds have amplified and concocted a "homegrown" enemy of radicalized violent extremists to intentionally include millions of nonviolent, law abiding US citizens as the identified problem. Washington's domestic policy under the seamless Bush-Obama regime has incessantly sought ways to criminalize dissidence, as of late augmented by the militant imposition of a sanctified Political Correctness agenda designed to kill free speech and make dissent an unsafe, subversively heretical act in the land of the no longer free. Successful deployment of this Hegelian Dialectic has enabled the elite since 9/11 to radically transform America from a constitutional republic into a fascist totalitarian police state. Noted constitutional law attorney John Whitehead wrote recently:

In the American police state, the price to be paid for speaking truth to power (also increasingly viewed as an act of treason) is surveillance, censorship, jail and ultimately death.

Speaking yesterday John Kerry, the foreign minister of the US, and one of top fans of Islamist radicals bringing ruin to Syria had something quite interesting to say:

Speaking in Oslo, where he also met Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif for talks on Syria and the Iran nuclear deal, Kerry said Assad's forces had not abided by the truce for a single day in Aleppo.

The Syrian army has not abided by the truce for even a single day?

That's fresh considering that rebels in Aleppo are grouped around Jabhat Al-Nusra that was never part of the cessation of hostilities and kept attacking Syrian government forces, particularly in southern Aleppo. What was the Syrian army to do? Not fire back? It's easy to see Kerry's rebels were driving the fighting there by the fact they consistently made small gains against pro-government forces which were on the defensive -- and occasionally in retreat.

Kerry's insistence that Syrian government is at fault for the failure of the ceasefire regime is all the more deplorable seeing how he is probably the single biggest reason February's cessation of hostilities did not last.

Russia and the EU should continue their dialogue despite sanctions, the European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker has said at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov responded by saying that Russia is in favor of an equal, mutually beneficial, but not selective dialogue.

"We can have no illusions about the problems weighing on our relationship today. They exist. It would be pointless, even dangerous, to ignore them. We must tackle them urgently," Juncker said. The dialogue should start with discussing the Minsk agreements, and ensuring the norms and rules of international law, Juncker added.

"Russia's actions have shaken the principles of European security. Sovereignty, sovereign equality, the non-use of force, and territorial integrity matter. They cannot be ignored," he said. As for Ukraine, it should make its own decisions regarding relations with all states, including with Russia and the EU, and the choice should be respected, Juncker said, adding that a stable Ukraine would benefit the Russian economy.

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has told RT that the West and Russia should lift sanctions to clear the way for a civilized diplomatic effort. He believes that as Russia is "the strongest side of the conflict," it should act first. "I think it's time all the sanctions were lifted, so that diplomacy may regain its rightful position, and we can leave behind this Cold War climate that's in no one's interest," Sarkozy told RT on the sidelines of the 20th International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg.

"Time will be working against us. I'm one of those who think sanctions should be abolished," he said. "We have a lot of other problems and we cannot afford to suffer because of these artificially created problems. And the strongest should reach out a hand, because the strongest player is Russia, represented by President Putin." "I told Putin to make this offer - there's no risk in being the first to make a gesture of goodwill," Sarkozy said, adding that "we will follow the example."

On Tuesday, June 14th, NATO announced that if a NATO member country becomes the victim of a cyber attack by persons in a non-NATO country such as Russia or China, then NATO's Article V "collective defense" provision requires each NATO member country to join that NATO member country if it decides to strike back against the attacking country. The preliminary decision for this was made two years ago after Crimea abandoned Ukraine and rejoined Russia, of which it had been a part until involuntarily transferred to Ukraine by the Soviet dictator Nikita Khrushchev in 1954. That NATO decision was made in anticipation of Ukraine's ultimately becoming a NATO member country, which still hasn't happened. However, only now is NATO declaring cyber war itself to be included as real "war" under the NATO Treaty's "collective defense" provision.

NATO is now alleging that because Russian hackers had copied the emails on Hillary Clinton's home computer, this action of someone in Russia taking advantage of her having privatized her U.S. State Department communications to her unsecured home computer and of such a Russian's then snooping into the U.S. State Department business that was stored on it, might constitute a Russian attack against the United States of America, and would, if the U.S. President declares it to be a Russian invasion of the U.S., trigger NATO's mutual-defense clause and so require all NATO nations to join with the U.S. government in going to war against Russia, if the U.S. government so decides.

Classified documents uncovered by teleSUR have revealed the CIA was running a now-defunct recruitment base out of Ecuador to hire local police and military to serve US interests in the country.

The documents cited by the pan-Latin American TV channel allege that in 2008 Lebanese national Leila Hadad Perez, holding fake Ecuadorian citizenship, established a recruitment agency that was run by the CIA. Known among the intelligence world by her code name 'Agent Swat', Hadad allegedly exercised great influence over local law enforcement and military using anti-drug operations as a pretext.

The documents, however, show that the project only lasted until 2009, when the US military base in Manta was closed, thanks to President Rafael Correa, who took office in 2007. The agency then lost interest in Ecuador and opted not to renew efforts at destabilizing the government, according to the media report.

However, that is when NGOs, media and opposition groups allegedly came into play. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) was particularly prominent, spending millions of dollars on various projects and employing local politicians and community leaders, according to the teleSUR investigation.

The United States will continue targeting al-Nusra Front terrorist organization which does not have any role in Syria's political future, US State Department spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Thursday.

Earlier in the day, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the United States appears to have a wish to maintain al-Nusra Front terrorist group in some form in Syria, and use it to achieve its own goals.

"Al-Nusra is a designated terrorist organization, is not a party to the cessation of hostilities and certainly not a part of the political future of Syria. [US] airstrikes against this group will continue," Kirby stated.