The U.S. military has conducted airstrikes against targets it believes are crucial to ISIS' chemical weapons program based on information provided by a senior ISIS operative involved in chemical weapons, several U.S. officials told CNN.

The U.S. captured the operative in Iraq three weeks ago, the first since a team of Special Operations forces recently began operating in northern Iraq. One official called him "the key leader," but others could not say if he runs the entire chemical weapons program for ISIS.

The information he provided to interrogators has given the U.S. enough information to begin striking ISIS areas in Iraq associated with the group's chemical weapons program. One U.S. official said the goal is to locate, target and carry out strikes that will result in the destruction of ISIS's entire chemical weapons enterprise -- mainly mustard agent ISIS produces itself.

It was not immediately clear if the U.S. was able to strike all of the necessary targets. Intelligence and surveillance of the targets had indicated in some Iraqi locations that civilians were present at prospective sites, officials told CNN.

Forty-five years ago on Tuesday, peace activists broke into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania and unearthed documents exposing the government's expansive COINTELPRO operations, which aimed to surveil, disrupt, and "neutralize" lawful activist groups, including war protesters, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the American Indian Movement, and the National Lawyers Guild.

Though the COINTELPRO revelations stirred widespread outrage and led to the eventual passage of reform legislation, such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, such abuse of activists' First Amendment rights continues to this day.

More than 60 national and local groups on Tuesday sent a letter (pdf) to the leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees expressing concern over the FBI's and Department of Homeland Security (DHS)'s "abuse of counterterrorism resources to monitor Americans' First Amendment protected activity."

The groups, which include Center for Constitutional Rights, Council on American-Islamic Relations, Government Accountability Project, Greenpeace USA, National Lawyers Guild, School of the Americas Watch (SOAW), and Veterans for Peace, among others, are urging the Committees to conduct a full investigation, not unlike the Church Committee, "to determine the extent of FBI and DHS spying in the past decade."

Slovenia and Croatia have closed their borders to most transiting refugees as the Balkan route is slowly sealed. Serbia and Macedonia are expected to follow. The move comes just a day after a tentative Turkey-EU deal and as 34,000 remain stranded in Greece.

The Balkan route has been in use by hundreds of thousands of refugees. It appears that both Serbia and Macedonia will implement similar measures to redirect the flow of migrants as part of a new continental strategy.

Meanwhile, more than 30,000 migrants remain stranded in Greece, awaiting a more coherent strategy from the European bloc.

Slovenia's Interior Ministry said late Tuesday the measure to severely cut the border flow would be implemented midnight.

The German Defense Ministry does not have any information on the Syrian army using chemical and toxic substances during the current ceasefire, according to a spokesperson.

The German Defense Ministry does not have any information on allegations of the Syrian army using chemical weapons during ceasefire, a spokesperson said Monday.

Earlier this month, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon accused the Syrian government forces of using chemical weapons against civilians during the current ceasefire.

"The German Defense Ministry does not have any information on the Syrian army using chemical and toxic substances during the current ceasefire," the spokesperson told RIA Novosti.

A proposal by so-called "left-wing" Israeli politicians to build a fence across Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem, cutting off 200,000 Palestinians, has been compared to South African apartheid.

Former Israeli MP Haim Ramon is leading the media campaign for "annexation" - and his proposal to construct a new wall through the heart of Jerusalem has been condemned by human rights activists.

The occupied West Bank is already blocked off with a barrier reaching up to 8 meters (24ft) in height in some parts, severely restricting the movement of Palestinians.

Writing in the New York Times, Israeli journalist Isabel Kershner said the move undermined any attempts for peace and would simply "aim to satisfy a majority of Israeli Jews".

Monday's emergency EU-Turkey summit, originally planned to last half a day, was extended after Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu blindsided the European delegation with exponentially greater demands than initially stated.

On Sunday night, during a preparatory meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, Davutoglu reportedly demanded more than 3 billion euros ($3.29 billion) he said were required to support Syrian refugees in Turkey. EU leaders are considering this request, which would double the funding until 2018, alongside Turkey's initial request that Europe take in one refugee for each one Turkey takes in from Greece's Aegean islands, an area which has been overrun by refugees in recent weeks.

On Monday, Ankara instead held the European delegation hostage by offering greater assistance to the EU, but at a much higher price. Specifically, Ankara is now requesting an additional 20 billion euros ($22.02 billion), an acceleration to membership into the EU, and visa-free travel for its citizens, in exchange for helping Europe in its refugee crisis.


"Turkey is ready to be a member of the EU as well," Prime Minister Davutoglu opened by saying. "Today, I hope this summit will not just focus on irregular migration but also the Turkish accession process to the EU." Turkey's radically elevated requests come days after the Turkish government seized control of the nation's top newspaper, the opposition Zaman Daily, and proceeded to bombard protesters with water cannons and tear gas.

Members of the European delegation were highly skeptical of accelerating Turkey's EU ascension, citing their concern about human rights and press freedom in Turkey. But the EU remains captive to Ankara's demands as the refugee crisis threatens domestic political fortunes in the bloc.

"BRICS" is the dirtiest of acronyms in the Beltway/Wall Street axis, and for a solid reason: the consolidation of the BRICS is the only organic, global-reach project with the potential to derail Exceptionalistan's grip over the so-called "international community."

So it's no surprise the three key BRICS powers have been under simultaneous attack, on many fronts, for some time now. On Russia, it's all about Ukraine and Syria, the oil price war, the odd hostile raid over the ruble and the one-size-fits-all "Russian aggression" demonization. On China, it's all about "Chinese aggression" in the South China Sea and the (failed) raid over the Shanghai/Shenzhen stock exchanges.

Brazil is the weakest link among these three key emerging powers. Already by the end of 2014 it was clear the usual suspects would go no holds barred to destabilize the seventh largest global economy, aiming at good old regime change via a nasty cocktail of political gridlock ("ungovernability") dragging the economy to the mud.

Myriad reasons for the attack include the consolidation of the BRICS development bank; the BRICS's concerted push for trading in their own currencies, bypassing the US dollar and aiming for a new global reserve currency to replace it; the construction of a major underwater fiber-optic telecom cable between Brazil and Europe, as well as the BRICS cable uniting South America to East Asia - both bypassing US control.

And most of all, as usual, the holy of the holies - connected with Exceptionalistan's burning desire to privatize Brazil's immense natural wealth. Once again, it's the oil.

Get Lula or else

WikiLeaks had already exposed how way back in 2009 Big Oil was active in Brazil, trying to modify - by all extortion means necessary - a law proposed by former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known as Lula, establishing profitable state-run Petrobras as the chief operator of all offshore blocks in the largest oil discovery of the young 21st century; the pre-salt deposits.

Russia's advanced RS-26 intercontinental ballistic missile has raised admiring eyebrows of military experts everywhere, the official Rossiiskaya Gazeta newspaper wrote.

In a Chinese television program aired earlier this month a local defense expert hailed the unique characteristics of the Russian ICBM and the fear it had instilled in the hearts of foreign militaries, Rossiiskaya Gazeta wrote.

"Russia's new RS-26 missile travels along a continuously changing trajectory and as such it has no analogues in the world," the expert said.

ISIS in Europe, the future of Ukraine and the migrant crisis in the interview with Mateusz Piskorski, PhD in political science and a co-founder of the European Centre for Geopolitical Analysis.

Q: How would you assess the current situation in Ukraine considering what Yulia Tymoshenko said recently. She believes that if nothing changes, the current government may be overthrown by the very citizens of Ukraine. I need to remind that uncontrollable access to weapons in Ukraine poses a real threat in this respect.

A: Currently Ukraine cannot be treated in terms of the State but only as an area that is controlled by organized crime groups. It is clearly seen that even in the western part of Ukraine local governments are financed by oligarchs who are in control of the situation, not the police. Currently Ukraine does not meet the definition of the State.

Lawmakers in the European Parliament have slammed the latest EU deal with Turkey under which member states are paying another US$3.35 billion to Ankara in a one-for-one migrant swap, which the United Nations has branded "deeply concerning."

Under the deal brokered on Monday, the EU would pay another tranche of money to help Turkey deal with its refugee crisis in return for a series of measures that includes the EU sending "irregular migrants" from Greece back to Turkey, in return for the EU taking in Syrian refugees in Turkey on a one-for-one basis, which many believe goes against international law.