Should we be alarmed that the number of job cuts announced by large U.S. companies was 35 percent higher in April than it was in March? This is definitely a case where the trend is not our friend. According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, U.S. firms announced 65,141 job cuts during April, which represented a massive 35 percent increase over the previous month. And so far this year overall, job cut announcements are running 24 percent higher than for the exact same period in 2015.

Meanwhile, on Thursday we learned that initial claims for unemployment benefits shot up dramatically last week. In fact, the jump of 17,000 was the largest increase that we have seen in over a year. Of course the U.S. economy has been slowing down for quite a while now, and many have been wondering when we would begin to see that slowdown reflected in the employment numbers. Well, that day has now arrived.

At this point, U.S. firms are laying off people at a rate that we have not seen since the last financial crisis. Here is what Zero Hedge had to say about these latest numbers...

While one can debate the veracity of the BLS' seasonally adjusted data, one thing is certain: when a company announces it will layoff thousands, it will. So for all those who suggest that all is well with the US jobs picture based on initial claims reports, here is the latest report from Challenger according to which the pace of downsizing increased in April jumped by 35% to 65,141 during the month of April, from the 48,207 layoff announcements in March.

Looking further back, in the first four months of 2016, employers have announced a total of 250,061 planned job cuts, up 24% from the 201,796 job cuts tracked during the same period a year ago.This represents the highest January-April total since 2009, when the opening four months of the year saw 695,100 job cuts in the aftermath of the biggest financial crisis in modern history.

So what is causing this?

Why are firms laying off so many people all of a sudden?

The British government is waging an information war in Syria by funding media operations for some of the so called moderate rebel fighting groups.

The campaign is aimed at boosting the reputation of what the UK government calls the "moderate armed opposition", those fighting the legitimate Syrian government. Thousands of those moderate terrorists crossed the border into Syria this week.

Moon Of Alabama reports: The U.S. government, via its CIA, has financed the "moderate" anti-Syrian mercenaries fighting against the legitimate Syrian government with at least $1 billion a year.

The Wahhabi dictatorships in the Middle East have added their own billions to finance al-Qaeda's efforts against the Syrian people. The U.S. continues to purchase and transport thousands of tons of weapons and ammunition to feed the war against the Syrian people.It also pays the various fighters and opposition groups.

The U.S. efforts for regime change in Syria have been running since at least 2006 when the U.S. government started to finance anti-Syrian exile TV stations and held intensive planning talks with various anti-Syrian Islamist elements.

Together with the British government it also runs the current pro-mercenary public relation show to influence the "western" public to support its imperial meddling in Syria.

Canada's Liberal government is considering joining the US-led ballistic missile defense (BMD) system, reversing a decision taken 11 years ago by Paul Martin's minority Liberal government.

The reopening of the debate over Canadian participation in BMD was announced in the 30-page "consultation" document Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan issued last month to kick-off the Liberals' much-touted defence policy review.

Noting that Canada has not discussed its attitude towards the US missile defence program in over a decade, the "consultation" document presents the issue in a manner aimed at promoting Canada's participation. It states, "Given the increase in the number of countries with access to ballistic missile technology and their potential to reach North America, this threat is expected to endure and grow more sophisticated in the coming decades."

Its name notwithstanding, the US missile-defense system is anything but defensive. It is aimed at realizing US imperialism's longstanding goal of developing the technological means to wage a "winnable" nuclear war—a strategic question that has been receiving growing attention in ruling circles in Washington in recent months.

Over the past decade, the US has spent some $100 billion on weapons to counter ballistic-missiles and it has partnered with NATO allies in Europe to station BMD equipment on that continent, as well as with Japan, South Korea and Australia in the Asia-Pacific.

In the JFK administration I was a White House Fellow. In those days it was a much larger program than the small insider program it later became. President Kennedy's intention was to involve many young Americans in government in order to keep idealism alive as a counter to the material interests of lobby groups. I don't know if the program still exists. If it does, the idealism that was its purpose is long gone.

President John F. Kennedy was a classy president. In my lifetime there has not been another like him. Indeed, today he would be impossible.

Isaac Herzog, member of the Knesset and Chairman of the Israeli Labor party, revealed that Saudi king Salman bin Abdulaziz financed the election campaign of Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Herzog said, citing a leaked Panama Paper:

"In March 2015, King Salman has deposited eighty million dollars to support Netanyahu's campaign via a Syrian-Spanish person named Mohamed Eyad Kayali. The money was deposited to a company's account in British Virgin Islands owned by Teddy Sagi, an Israeli billionaire and businessman, who has allocated the money to fund the campaign Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu."

It's hard to tell whether it's a legitimate offer, or a snide geopolitical belittling of one of its fiercest critics, but Moscow has extended an offer to Ottawa to help battle the raging forest fires in Fort McMurray which have displaced more than 80,000.


In a statement released Thursday, Russian Minister Vladimir Puchkov offered to "immediately" send emergency aircraft to help battle the blazes that have spread through Alberta's north throughout the week.

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U.S. weapons with Israeli ammunition were used by Islamic State group when taking over Palmyra. The extremists also had U.S. military rations.

As explosions from detonated mines continued in the background a Syrian general confirmed in some detail an ugly truth: Washington and its close allies Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Israel backed the Islamic State group, or ISIS, takeover and destruction of Palmyra.

Most of the weapons ISIS used were from the U.S., with some ammunition from Israel. ISIS had U.S. Hummers, spinning explosive projectiles and military rations from the United States, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

That should not have been a surprise. U.S. officials admitted in 2014 that their allies Turkey, the Saudis and Qatar were backing every single armed group in Syria, in an attempt to overthrow the Syrian Government led by President Bashar Assad.

The Israeli regime will present a bill to the Knesset in the coming weeks, calling for the annexation of 60% of the occupied West Bank, the Maariv newspaper has revealed.

According to the paper, preliminary talks have been held to annex Area C of the West Bank where more than 350,000 illegal Israeli settlers are based.

The area is currently ruled by the military but an annexation would require Israeli law to be imposed and Palestinians living in the area to identify as Arab Israelis.

Many members of Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet are fervently in favor of the annexation. Last week, minister of judiciary affairs Ayelet Shaked said she was working on a plan to apply Israeli law to Area C.

All but overlooked by Western mainstream media in their focus on the recent flare-up of military tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the simmering conflict over the mountainous enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh is the announcement by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, following talks with his Iranian counterpart, that work will now begin on a long-discussed North-South Transportation Corridor along the Caspian Sea. Significant is the fact that Azerbaijan has also agreed to participate in the project. If so, it suggests that Russian diplomacy and economic infrastructure development have again trumped the Washington urge for wars everywhere to hold their grip on an eroding global superpower hegemony.

On April 7, at a meeting in the Azeri capital of Baku just hours after Azerbaijan pulled back from a full-scale military assault over Nagorno-Karabakh - an attack being openly urged by the increasingly desperate Turksh President Erdogan - Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told assembled media that Russia, Iran and Azerbaijan had agreed to begin talks on implementation of the North-South Transportation Corridor. Beside Lavrov at the announcement stood the Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and Azeri Foreign Minister Elmar Mamamdyarov.

Lavrov declared, "We discussed issues that deal with the material sphere of cooperation. We agreed that our relevant agencies will start detailing practical aspects of implementing the project of 'North-South' transport corridor along the western Caspian coast. This envisages work with participation of the transport ministries that should consider technical and financial parameters of the project. This also envisages cooperation between customs and consular services, and we have agreed on that today."

Vladimir Putin was inaugurated as Russian President on May 7, 2012. On March 4, 2012, Putin won the presidential elections for the third time to serve a six-year term.

Putin was appointed prime minister in August 1999, becoming acting president on December 31, 1999. In March 2000, he won his first elections.

Crimea's reunification with Russia, success in resolving the Syrian crisis, intensification of cooperation with southeastern Asia, active intra-political operations, modernization of the Russian Armed Forces are among Putin's main victories, according to experts and lawmakers.

Assessing the achievements of the past four years, they also point out vulnerabilities in the country's economy and call for reforms in this sector.