A suspect in the murder of Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov blew himself up with a grenade as police tried to detain him in Chechnya, it has been reported.

Officers surrounded the man at an apartment in Grozny on Saturday evening, but he was killed by a hand grenade that exploded as he tossed it towards them, a law enforcement source told Interfax.

Another of the six suspects, Zaur Dadayev, reportedly admitted on Sunday that he was involved in the killing, the judge said.

The judge at Moscow's Basmanny court ordered that Dadayev be held in custody until April 28, a Reuters reporter in the courtroom said.

We are swamped with news every single day. We all say that the media lie, but there's a problem: most events are usually portrayed in a contradictory fashion in different media outlets. So while we have access to a lot of information and we know that a large part, maybe even the majority of the reported news in mainstream media (but also in alternative media), is either wrong or plain propaganda - COINTELPRO - how can we know what's really going on?

Take the recent murder of the Russian politician, Boris Nemtsov. Most Western mainstream media squarely point to the Russian state as the perpetrator, or some rogue elements within it, and by extension, to its president Vladimir Putin. At the very least, they suggest it and perhaps attribute some attitude of facilitation or laissez-faire in order to harvest any potentially beneficial political fallout. The other side calls it a false-flag operation, aided and abetted by Western powers to create chaos and inflame tensions within Russia, to create a "critical mass" that would, at some point in the future, get rid of the current leaders of Russia and impose a new government more in line with Western economic and geopolitical aspirations.

How can we ever get a clear idea of the truth behind the news and where the responsibility lies for what happens in the world with any degree of certainty?

Suspicions have been growing for years about a growing behind-the-scenes relationship between Israel and members of the [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council. The name that has come up a lot over the years is Qatar, with which the Israeli relationship is a lot more open and has spanned trade to even face-to-face meetings and handshakes between high-level officials.

The past numbers of years, though, have consistently brought forth two names in the more secretive relationship between Israel and the Persian Gulf Arab monarchies: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The most recent example of a blurring of lines between Israeli and Saudi policies, for example, is Saudi media's 'tacit' support for Netanyahu's much derided speech at the US Congress in opposition to essentially any deal between the West and Iran over a falsely-hyped nuclear issue.

In fact, Saudi media attacks on Obama, and in support of Netanyahu, had already begun in the lead-up to the Israeli PM's US Congress address.

It may be an understatement for us to say that for the Saudi establishment to quite openly ask, 'Who could believe that Netanyahu has taken a better stand than Obama with regard to the Iranian nuclear file?' is 'tacit' support. This is an especially pertinent sentiment when seen in line with recent reports about the likely Saudi approval of Israeli flyovers over its territory in the hypothetical case of an Israeli attack on Iran.

Katerina Sergidou, secretary of the coordination committee of Syriza in Athens, is currently in Spain to support the launch of the manifesto "For the change in Greece". "If he's a star that says no to the troika, then he's welcome," she says about Yanis Varoufakis. "Unfortunately, the KKE (Greek Communist Party) would be a very good ally but they didn't want to collaborate with Syriza." Interview by Mario Pais Beiro for eldiario.es

The new Syriza government in Greece has raised hopes across Europe. Their Finance Minister, Yanis Varoufakis, is in contact with the troika and Greece's creditors to renegotiate the payment of the country's debt. With this as a backdrop, Katrina Sergidou, member of the Syriza Coordination Committee in Athens is in Madrid. Her presence is motivated by the presentation of the manifesto "For the change in Greece", a platform seeking popular support for the new Greek government and its demands.

What is the current situation in Greece?

Right now in Greece we are going through a moment of history, the following days are crucial. The new government is working to break the isolation and respond to the blackmail of the troika and the lenders who don't want Syriza to apply the measures they have declared. They don't want Greece to become an example in Europe of a people who have won their dignity and say they aren't going to pay the debt, which isn't ours, and that we don't want memoranda.

For this we need the support of people from Spain and the whole of Europe, that's why the platform being organised here is very important. What we are thinking about now is to constitute these committees in Greece to support the new Government and that they coordinate with others emerging in other parts of Europe. Because behind the government and Yanis Varoufakis there is great support.

What do you hope for from the negotiations with the European Union? If the EU doesn't give in, what is the way out for Alexis Tsipras's government?

For now the EU has decided to blackmail the new government. We know it's a difficult fight. We are asking for more time and we won't turn back. We are fighting to bring down the memorandum. We want a bridging programme and we won't step back from this.

What I mean is that it isn't our responsibility what will happen if they don't accept what we're saying. They don't have a plan B either when they decided that a country such as Greece should have memoranda and such a big debt. That's why we want the support of everyone in Europe. We are going step by step. If they do something similar to what they did to Cyprus, such strong blackmail, then we will see what to do. But really I believe that they don't want a big crisis in the middle of Europe and if that's what they decide, they will have a big problem.

The European Union is busy accomplishing something truly extraordinary: it is fast becoming such a spectacular failure that people don't even recognize it as one. People have no idea, they just think: this can't possibly be true, and they continue with their day. They should think again. Because the Grand European Failure is bound to lead to real life consequences soon, and they'll be devastating. The union that was supposed to put an end to all fighting across the continent, is about to be the fuse that sets off a range of battles.

To its east, the EU is involved in a braindead attempt at further expansion - it has only one idea when it comes to size: bigger is always better -, an attempt that is proving to be such a disaster that heads will roll in the Brussels corridors no matter what. Europe has joined the US and NATO very enthusiastically in creating not just a failed state, but a veritable imitation of Hiroshima, in Ukraine, right on its own borders. The consequences of this will haunt the EU (or if it doesn't last, which is highly plausible, its former members) not just for weeks or months or years, but for many decades.

The carefully re-crafted relationship with Russia, which took 25 years to build, was destroyed again in hardly over a year, something for which Angela Merkel deserves so much blame it may well end up being her main political legacy. Vladimir Putin, and Russia as a nation, will not easily forget the humiliation the west has thrown at them, the accusations, the innuendo, the attempts to draw them into a war they never wanted and in which they see no advantage for any party involved.


That US warmongers would try and set this up, is something Moscow has long known and expected; that Merkel would stand side by side with the likes of John McCain and Victoria Nuland is seen as a deep if not ultimate betrayal between neighbors and friends. Russia will present Germany with the bill when it feels the time is right. Obviously, all other EU countries that have behaved in the insane ways they have over the past year will receive that same bill, or worse.

To be sure, this week we've seen the first protest voices from Germany regarding NATO's vacuous attempts to draw Russia into the battlefields of Ukraine. But those voices are years too late. They can't undo the damage already done. They may keep American weapons from reaching Kiev - and even that's a big maybe -, but they can't bring back either the lives of the victims, the Ukrainian economy or the trust lost between east and west.

To its south, the EU faces perhaps its most shameful -or should that be 'shameless'? - problem, because it doesn't do anything about it: the thousands of migrants who try to cross the Mediterranean to get to Europe but far too often perish in the process.

Nobody from John Humphrys in the morning to Evan Davis at night dares mention a scandal at the BBC. It undermines their reporting of every abuse whistleblowers reveal. It reinforces the dirty common sense of British life that you must keep your head down if you want to keep your job.

The scandal is simply this: the BBC is forcing out or demoting the journalists who exposed Jimmy Savile as a voracious abuser of girls. As Meirion Jones put it to me: "There is a small group of powerful people at the BBC who think it would have been better if the truth about Savile had never come out. And they aim to punish the reporters who revealed it."

Jones was one of the BBC's best investigative producers. He had suspected that Savile was not the "national treasure" the BBC, NHS, monarchy and public adored, ever since he had seen Savile take girls away in his car from an approved school his aunt ran in the 1970s.

He broke the story which showed that Savile was one of the most prolific sex abusers in British history, and handed the BBC what would have been one of its biggest scoops. If it had run it. Which, of course, it did not. The editor of Newsnight banned the report. Thus began a cover-up which tore the BBC apart.

A week ago, Jones's managers told him that a temporary assignment on Panorama was over. He should have been able to go back to his old job. But there was no old job to go back to. He had been fired.

Jones's reporter on the Savile film was Liz MacKean, who documents the sufferings of the powerless - whether it be raped children in Britain or persecuted gay men in Putin's Russia.

But she spoke out, so the BBC forced her out too. "When the Savile scandal broke," she told me, "the BBC tried to smear my reputation. They said they had banned the film because Meirion and I had produced shoddy journalism. I stayed to fight them, but I knew they would make me leave in the end. Managers would look through me as if I wasn't there. I went because I knew I was never going to appear on screen again."

Everyone has heard the term "those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it." If that maxim is true, and if it is to be useful to everyone, then it is essential that we have access to an accurate account of history and the reasons why historical events occurred.

Most people would agree that war should be avoided if possible, yet in the 239 years since the American declaration of independence, the USA has been at war for 229 of those years. Were all of those wars necessary? If that isn't a repeating historical pattern, we don't know what is.

The First World War was called "the war to end all wars" and yet, just 20 years later, an even worse conflagration consumed the Eurasian continent, killing 65 million people.

The phrase "never again" is most often heard in reference to the genocidal policies of the Nazis towards the Jews of Germany and Poland, yet today a record number of Jews are fleeing Europe for Israel in the face of mounting anti-semitism.

Apart from 4 military assaults on sovereign nations, the deaths of at least 2 million people and the creation of an extremely instable security situation in many parts of the globe, the almost 15-year-long US-led war on terror has created a distinct anti-Muslim climate in many Western nations that bears many of the hallmarks of the first waves of anti-Jewish sentiment in Nazi Germany.

So if we have an accurate understanding of history, why does it appear to continue to repeat? Is there something wrong with our official historical narrative?

Behind the Headlines airs live this Sunday, 08 March 2015, from 3-5pm EST / 12pm-2pm PST / 7-9pm UTC / 8-10pm CET.

Running Time: 01:31:00

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After five years of intense fighting and destabilization raging across Syria, Western mainstream press has finally discovered the true cause of the so-called "civil war." It turns out that all of the analysts in the alternative media suggesting that the situation in Syria was the result of a NATO destabilization campaign and foreign-backed invasion of terrorists in the form of al-Nusra, al-Qaeda, and ISIS were wrong. In fact, even those mainstream analysts who have suggested that the foreign invasion was actually a legitimate rebellion were apparently mistaken.

Thankfully, the mainstream press has discovered the true cause of the Syrian crisis - global warming.

No, this is not a joke. Mainstream outlets are actually suggesting that climate change is responsible, albeit indirectly, for the creation of ISIS and the scores of Western-backed terrorists flooding Syria as well as the now international military involvement in the war.

This is merely the latest silly narrative being promoted by the likes of Slate, Wired, The Telegraph, NBC, and The Guardian among many others.

The European Commission chief has called for the creation of an "EU joint army" that would "react credibly" to any external threat and defend the bloc's "values." While the UK and France are wary it could undermine NATO, Germany has backed the idea.

"An army like this would help us to better coordinate our foreign and defense policies, and to collectively take on Europe's responsibilities in the world," the European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said in an interview to Germany's Welt am Sonntag newspaper.

He added the EU's image "has suffered dramatically and also in terms of foreign policy, we don't seem to be taken entirely seriously."

"A joint EU army would show the world that there would never again be a war between EU countries,"Juncker said.

With a joint EU army, the bloc could "react more credibly to the threat to peace in a member state or in a neighboring state."

"You would not create a European army to use it immediately," Juncker said. "But a common army among the Europeans would convey to Russia that we are serious about defending the values of the European Union."

As long lines of shell-shocked Ukrainian troops straggled out of Debaltseve last month after a stinging defeat to the Russian-backed separatists there, the focus was on how the separatists had used the support of Russian-supplied weaponry and support troops to inflict a stinging defeat on Kiev's forces in the key railroad junction town.

However by focusing on the role played by Russia in eastern Ukraine, many analysts have overlooked the extent to which the incompetence of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and the Ukrainian military high command caused Kiev's Debaltseve debacle. Both before the battle and subsequently, Kiev's political and military leadership seemed completely out touch with the reality of events on the battlefield.

The shape of the front lines after the first Minsk agreement left the Ukrainian military holding a little sliver of land stretching into rebel territory that was surrounded by separatists forces on three sides. Toward the bottom of this sliver of land lay Debaltseve.