When you continuously kick a can down the road, one day the receptacle is so battered that it can be propelled no more. That day has finally arrived for the EU and Greece. Whatever the outcome of today's landmark vote, Europe will never be the same again.

If the Greek people say yes, the EU's peripheral states will be consigned to German domination. This is not necessarily always a bad thing. There is no doubt that many of the world's more unstable nations could do with becoming a little more German.

Nevertheless, while being economically strapped to Berlin is mostly beneficial for well-run countries like the Netherlands or Austria, it's a complete disaster for the likes of Greece or Portugal.

Southern Europe, from Lisbon to Athens, via Belgrade and Rome, prospered in the post-war decades. The reason was pretty prosaic. These nations, which could devalue their currencies to their hearts content, were part of the world's largest market-place, Europe.

After Italy first joined the then EEC (initially the Coal and Steel Community), favorable access to German and French markets allowed the country to thrive like never before. Inspired by Rome, Portugal, Greece and Spain demanded entry after jettisoning fascist and military regimes. So too, did other non-core European countries like Ireland and Finland. Even the British, who had originally dismissed the alliance as a club for "German-speaking Catholics," had signed up by 1973.

At the time of the first tentative negotiations, all three main players (France, Italy and Germany) were indeed led by German-Speaking Catholics. Robert Schuman of France was originally a Luxemburger, Italy's Alcide De Gasperi was born into the then Austrian-controlled Tyrol and West Germany's Konrad Adenauer hailed from a staunchly Catholic family in Cologne. This alienated the largely Protestant British, led by Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin - a Baptist lay preacher - who according to the historian John Charmley had difficulties with reading and writing in English, let alone German.

The result of the referendum in Greece is a great victory for freedom, but it is also threatens to unleash unprecedented economic chaos all across Europe. With almost all of the votes counted, it is being reported that approximately 61 percent of Greeks have voted "no" and only about 39 percent of Greeks have voted "yes". This is a much larger margin of victory for the "no" side than almost everyone was anticipating, and it represents a stunning rejection of European austerity. Massive celebrations have erupted on the streets of Athens and other major Greek cities, but the euphoria may not last long.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is promising that Greece will be able to stay in the euro, but that gives EU bureaucrats and the IMF a tremendous amount of power, because at this point the Greek government is flat broke. Without more money from the EU and the IMF, the Greek government will not be able to pay its bills and virtually all Greek banks will inevitably collapse. Meanwhile, the rest of Europe is about to experience a tremendous amount of pain as financial markets respond to the results of this referendum. The euro is already plummeting, and most analysts expect European bond yields to soar and European stocks to drop substantially when trading opens on Monday morning.

On Wednesday, the Pentagon released its 2015 National Military Strategy, a 24-page blueprint for ruling the world through military force. While the language in the report is subtler and less incendiary than similar documents in the past, the determination to unilaterally pursue US interests through extreme violence remains the cornerstone of the new strategy. Readers will not find even a hint of remorse in the NMS for the vast destruction and loss of life the US caused in countries that posed not the slightest threat to US national security. Instead, the report reflects the steely resolve of its authors and elite constituents to continue the carnage and bloodletting until all potential rivals have been killed or eliminated and until such time that Washington feels confident that its control over the levers of global power cannot be challenged.

As one would expect, the NMS conceals its hostile intentions behind the deceptive language of "national security". The US does not initiate wars of aggression against blameless states that possess large quantities of natural resources. No. The US merely addresses "security challenges" to "protect the homeland" and to "advance our national interests." How could anyone find fault with that, after all, wasn't the US just trying to bring peace and democracy to Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and now Syria?

With the financial crisis in Greece reaching a fevered pitch, many have wondered what might happen to the European Union if their most debt-riddled member jumps ship. Will it cause a domino effect of defaulting nations, equally interested in leaving this unnatural union? It's hard to say how it all might pan out, but it's important to note that anti-EU rhetoric isn't limited to Greece. Calls to leave the Union are being heard in unexpected places.

Over 260,000 Austrians have signed a petition calling for the EU exit for the country, and now the Austrian parliament must discuss a referendum on the issue.

Overall, the 261,159 people who signed the petition represent 4.12 percent of the electorate.

The petition was most popular in the regions of Lower Austria (where 5.18 percent of potential voters signed it) and in Carinthia (4.85 percent).

The threshold for calling a debate on a potential referendum is 100,000 people.

The petition was launched by 66-year-old retired translator Inge Rauscher, who composed a similar petition in 2000. On that occasion, it was signed by 3.35 percent of the electorate.

Rauscher told The Local that there was probably more support for a referendum now because of the economic crisis and the Greek crisis.

In a press release, she said it was "a great result."

Iran has announced the deployment of its second long-range Ghadir radar, which is part of an integrated air defense system the country is creating. An even longer-range system is currently partially operational.

The new over-the-horizon radar system, which is said to be able to track ballistic missiles at 1,100km and fighter aircraft at 600km, was finalized in Ahwaz city in southwestern Khuzestan province near the Iraq border, the state-run FARS news agency reported Saturday.

It's the second system of its kind in Iran. The first Ghadir was unveiled in June last year at the Garmsar site in Semnan province in the north of the country. The Iranian military said that the system had been tested since 2011 and that it would be mass-produced.

One week ago, when we scoured through the latest OCC quarterly derivative report (in which we find that the top FDIC insured 4 US banks continue to account for over 90%, or $185.5 trillion of all outstanding derivatives which as of March 31 amounted to $203 trillion; nothing new here), we found something fascinating: based on the OCC's derivative update, JPM had literally cornered the commodity derivatives complex, when from "just" $226 billion in total Commodity exposure, JPM's notional soared by 1,690% in one quarter to $4 trillion, or about 96% of total.

While NATO is beefing up its military presence in the Baltics and Eastern Europe in order to counter Russia's mythical "aggression," the alliance's officials cannot provide any credible justification for their initiative.

Christopher S. Chivvis, Associate Director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center and a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, admits that "the chances of a Russian attack on the Baltics are low, and the costs of war with NATO would be enormous for Moscow."

However, the political scientist jumps on the bandwagon of proponents of further NATO expansion in Eastern Europe.

Providing no credible evidence to confirm Russia's militaristic intentions, the expert claimed that "Moscow's future trajectory" is "highly uncertain."

He referred to Russia's "saber-rattling along NATO's eastern flank" — including "military exercises" and "air and naval maneuvers" — turning a blind eye to the fact that it was NATO that has drawn closer to Russia's borders over the last 25 years.

Remarkably, Russia's military drills conducted in its own territory as well as its air and naval exercises carried out in complete accordance with international rules and regulations have nevertheless "prompted" NATO "to take the risk of conflict seriously."

On Friday, presidential aspirant Hillary Clinton addressed a hand-picked audience at a Dartmouth College campaign event. She lied calling Iran an "existential threat to Israel... I hope we are able to get a deal next week that puts a lid on (its) nuclear weapons program."

Even if we do get such a deal, we will still have major problems from Iran. They are the world's chief sponsor of terrorism.

They use proxies like Hezbollah to sow discord and create insurgencies to destabilize governments. They are taking more and more control of a number of nations in the region and they pose an existential threat to Israel.

We...have turn our attention to working with our partners to try to reign in and prevent this continuing Iranian aggressiveness.

Fact: US and Israeli intelligence both say Iran's nuclear program has no military component. No evidence whatever suggests Tehran wants one. Plenty indicates otherwise.

Writer and political analyst Kirill Benediktov on Yevgeni Maximovich's role in Russian politics

It seemed that Yevgeni Maximovich Primakov would live forever.

He was a wise old man, holding no official post, but always ready to help the country. To give advice to the people invested with real power; to meet informally with foreign partners—not the ones you see on TV, but those who make the decisions; to influence his friends and followers, who held key posts in various powerful agencies.

Primakov was the incarnation of the concept of "soft power," and virtually its only practitioner who was fighting for Russia's glory.

Of course, the media is as full of "soft power" soldiers as a tin of sardines. They go on and on about "the Chinese danger," and how Russia, having quarrelled with the West, is doomed to become a raw materials appendage of China, or how it is for naught that the Kremlin is trying to establish mutually beneficial contacts with Turkey. They carry on about Iran using us as a pawn in its game with Washington, and how Beijing and Delhi will never trade in their friendship with America for the dubious benefits of an alliance with Moscow... Now that Primakov is gone, those thin, whiny voices will be louder and shriller on the air.

Right now, that is insignificant. Because Primakov's idea of creating a Great Triangle, Moscow-Delhi-Beijing, is becoming a real political construct before our very eyes, no matter how loud the liberal jackals may yap.

Yevgeni Maximovich first proclaimed the idea of the Great Triangle during his visit to Delhi in 1998. Many of us recall the condition Russia was in at that time: politically and economically crushed, having barely survived the August default, and just barely beginning to find our way out of the deep crisis into which Russia had been plunged by the "young reformers" in alliance with the corrupt members of the Yeltsin Family.

No details offered, and a bit cagey in how it's delivered by Yanis, but this is big news if it's true:

Yanis Says Europe Has Offered A Deal "We Would Sign On The Dotted Line"

Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis says the European governments with whom he is negotiating have offered him a deal he is willing to sign, according to an interview on Channel 4.

There is a condition, however. Greece must first vote "no" in the referendum on accepting Europe's bailout conditions, on Sunday. It is not clear what the terms of the deal are, and Channel 4's video ends before Varoufakis describes them.

A transcript of that interview reads like this:

Varoufakis: Let me tell you something which is probably unknown. Ever since we declared a referendum and incensed our European partners we had the most, er, interesting proposals coming from Brussels. Perhaps this referendum and the impasse that it represents concentrated several minds in Brussels and we've had some really good proposals. Proposals that we would sign on the dotted line for.

Channel 4's Paul Mason: You have a proposal you would sign on the dotted line for?

Varoufakis: Yes we do.

Paul Mason: Where is it?

Varoufakis: I'm not going to tell you. It's somewhere in this building. But the of course crucial part of the story is that before this proposal becomes a genuine negotiating document which we can sign off on Monday, the Greek people have to empower us with a "no."

The background here is that after Greece defaulted on a 1.5 billion euro repayment to the IMF, the IMF then admitted that Greece's debts are so large they need to be restructured. This gave a huge boost to Varoufakis's left-leaning Syriza government in Greece, which wants voters to vote "no" to Europe's bailout conditions. The EU and the IMF want Greeks to vote "yes" and accept the bailout conditions. Those conditions require Greece to repay its debts in full by reforming its economy, cutting public spending, and increasing the level of tax collection.