Russian President Vladimir Putin's letter to European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso reportedly threatened retaliatory measures if the EU and Ukraine do not stick to their agreement with Moscow to delay the implementation of the deal until 2016.

The European Union said on Friday (Sep 26) that Russian President Vladimir Putin had written to Brussels demanding changes to a landmark EU-Ukraine accord, but it ruled out reopening the deal without Kiev's consent.

Putin's letter to European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso reportedly threatened retaliatory measures if the EU and Ukraine do not stick to their agreement with Moscow to delay the implementation of the deal until 2016.

The Ukrainian and European parliaments last week both ratified the association agreement, the rejection of which by then-president Viktor Yanukovych last year triggered the political crisis in the former Soviet state.

European Commission spokeswoman Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen confirmed that Barroso had received a letter from Putin about the deal and said Brussels "will of course decide on the best way to respond." But she pointed out that the controversial pact was a "bilateral agreement" between Kiev and Brussels.

"If there are any changes they have to be agreed between the EU and Ukraine," Hansen told a press briefing. "We are not seeking any changes to the agreement, Ukraine is free and sovereign to make choices in its interests."

The Association Accord, which includes a wide-ranging Free Trade Agreement, is at the heart of the bitter stand-off between the EU and Russia over the future of its Soviet-era satellite. Moscow has repeatedly charged that the tie-up damages its legitimate interests and its economy.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has ordered his cabinet to "temporarily" close the border with Russia in the east.

In a decree published on the presidential website on Thursday, Poroshenko instructed his government to consider temporarily closing the border in the east of the country to stop what he called Moscow's "continued intervention" in Ukraine's internal affairs.

The ruling orders the government "to settle the issue of temporary closing checkpoints on Ukraine's state border with the Russian Federation to cars, sea and pedestrian traffic."

Poroshenko's remarks come days after the third Russian humanitarian aid convoy of about 200 vehicles crossed the border into the Ukrainian territory.

Did Senator John McCain, a leading advocate of arming Syria's Islamist revolutionaries, meet with members or allies of the Islamic State in al-Sham [the Levant] (ISIS) during his trip to Syria on May 27 of last year?

McCain and his defenders deny it, and McCain's longtime advisor, Mark Salter, is accusing Sen. Rand Paul - who, in a recent interview with the Daily Beast, said McCain had met with ISIS - of "smearing" McCain and indulging in "conspiracy theories," rendering him "unfit" for the office of the presidency. The Washington establishment, unsurprisingly, is siding with McCain, one of their own: the Washington Post's Glenn Kessler, in a scathing piece, gives Sen. Paul "four Pinocchios," and regrets that's the maximum allowed. Josh Rogin, of the reliably neoconnish Daily Beast, joined in the pile-on with his colleague Olivia Nuzzi, ex-aide to Anthony Weiner, who accused Paul of "repeating a thoroughly debunked rumor."

Now, however, it's time to debunk the "debunking," because the truth is finally coming out - and it's worse for McCain than even Sen. Paul imagined. It turns out the frenetic Arizona warmonger met with members of the Northern Storm Brigade - the group that handed US journalist Steven Sotloff over to ISIS as he crossed the border into Syria.

And irony of ironies, here is the very same Josh Rogin reporting on a story that proves Sen. Paul and McCain's numerous critics were right all along - far righter than they knew at the time:

"Barak Barfi, Sotloff's close friend and the official spokesman for the Sotloff family following Steven's brutal murder this month at the hands of ISIS, told The Daily Beast in an interview that the group responsible for Sotloff's detention and indirectly for his death is not only a part of the Free Syrian Army, but the same exact brigade that met with Sen. John McCain at that same border crossing only three months before."

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has blamed Western governments for the crisis in the Middle East, calling for a major overhaul of the United Nations and the Security Council in particular.


During his Wednesday evening speech in the 69th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Maduro said the West was attempting to create a monster in the Mid-east, pointing to the support the US-led alliance has been offering to the ISIL Takfiri terrorists in Syria and Iraq over the years.

Maduro further used his address to praise the role of the Syrian government in countering the foreign-backed militant groups in the region and insisted that any military action against the Takfiri terrorists in the region must respect the sovereignty of independent nations.

The Venezuelan president went on to slam the harassment by what he referred to as the "imperial forces" of the American empire "that have tried again and again to undermine democracy."

Deep in Judaismʼs history it was mandated that, due to the awe evoked by the mere contemplation of the supreme and only divinity, the name Yahweh could not be spoken aloud except once a year and only by the High Priest. We, in America today, with a different deity and another form of worship, have no such taboo. Our god, unlike Yahweh in the polytheistic ages, is so firmly established, so mighty, omnipresent, unassailable, and untouchable that we are encouraged to name it, praise it, and venerate it publicly.

Where the cultural parallel is solid, though, is in the utter anathema and damnation that descend on the heads of those who dare to challenge the godheadʼs benevolence, supremacy, and omnipotence. In Judaic history, transgressors were destroyed without exception. In our times - saving trouble, expense, and bad press - the few who dare to blaspheme our god are simply marginalized, jailed or exiled.

Our best minds and most courageous hearts now all affirm that our only god is Predatory Capitalism. Our national religion is no longer in question.

The internet press - not the National Security State Stenographic Bureau laughingly referred to as our "Free Press" - and the rational, progressive blogs are loaded today with analyses and critiques of the blatantly criminal Predatory Capitalist Corporate Tyranny that owns the government, the country and, with our endlessly compounding debt load, you and me.

These dissections run the philosophic and emotional gamut from tame, limp dreams of how "our democracy" might, by electing the right people with good, honorable values, take bold steps to improve itself, to fierce, sharp, intellectually scrupulous denunciations of capitalism for what it is and does.

The volume and consistency of this critical barrage is impressive and at itʼs activist leading edge there are now unmistakable calls for resistance. Some for obstruction of the process...or for civil disobedience. Even for rebellion. What is taboo, though, and almost never suggested let alone stated, is this:

The remedy for Capitalism is not reform: it is its overthrow and destruction.

Obama is now - after the fact - scrambling to justify bombing the sovereign nation of Syria without the permission of either the Syrian government or even the United States Congress by saying that we were going after the super-evil Khorasans, who were about to attack us.

My God! That sounds terrifying ... like a cross between Genghis Khan, Klingons and the Kardashians!

The U.S. is saying that they're even more dangerous than ISIS.

There's just one wee little problem ... the Khorasan threat is as as fake as the Kardashians' physiques. (Admittedly, it's confusing, given that the Kardashians have also inserted themselves right in the middle of the Syrian conflict.)

Agence France-Presse reports:

The US says it has hit a little-known group called "Khorasan" in Syria, but experts and activists argue it actually struck Al-Qaeda's affiliate Al-Nusra Front, which fights alongside Syrian rebels. In announcing its raids in the northern province of Aleppo on Tuesday, Washington described the group it targeted as Khorasan, a cell of Al-Qaeda veterans planning attacks against the West.

But experts and activists cast doubt on the distinction between Khorasan and Al-Nusra Front, which is Al-Qaeda's Syrian branch. "In Syria, no one had ever heard talk of Khorasan until the US media brought it up," said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"Rebels, activists and the whole world knows that these positions (hit Tuesday) were Al-Nusra positions, and the fighters killed were Al-Nusra fighters," added Abdel Rahman, who has tracked the Syrian conflict since it erupted in 2011.

Experts were similarly dubious about the distinction. "The name refers to Al-Qaeda fighters previously based in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran who have travelled to Syria to fight with... Al-Nusra," said Matthew Henman, head of IHS Jane's Terrorism and Insurgency Centre.

"They... should not be considered a new or distinct group as such." Aron Lund, editor of the Syria in Crisis website run by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, raised similar doubts. "The fact that news about this Al-Qaeda-run, anti-Western cell linked to Al-Nusra emerged just over a week ago, through US intelligence leaks - well, it's certainly an interesting coincidence," he told AFP.

What is military common sense may not make political sense. The US plan to weaken and ultimately destroy Isis has several political and military weaknesses undermining its long-term success. Air campaigns not supported by ground forces can damage the other side but they do not win wars on their own. Isis has already faced bombardment by US planes in Iraq since 8 August, but it is still fighting the Iraqi army around Baghdad. Some of the weaknesses of the air war are already apparent since Isis had evacuated its leaders, fighters and heavy equipment from buildings that were targeted. Its fighters avoid large gatherings and mix with the civilian population. The shock effect of being bombed will be the less because the Syrian air force has long been bombing rebel-held cities and towns.


Isis expertise is in guerrilla warfare and it is only recently that it has used columns of vehicles packed with gunmen and heavy infantry weapons. Air superiority over the fruit groves of Diyala province or the palm trees of northern Hilla is difficult to use effectively. Of course, in Syria and Iraq there are ground troops capable of taking advantage of the air strikes, but they mostly belong to armies and militias with whom the US is not meant to be co-operating.

In Syria, the most powerful armed group opposing Isis is the Syrian army, followed by Hezbollah and the Syrian Kurds. In Iraq, three months after the fall of Mosul, the Iraqi army still does not seem able to hold its own against Isis as recent fighting around Fallujah demonstrated. Advances that have taken place have generally been by Shia militiamen under the direction of Iranian Revolutionary Guards officers and Kurdish Peshmerga, though these did not distinguish themselves when Isis attacked Sinjar in August.

Three so-far-unnamed Brazilian dairy companies have received the proper paperwork to start deliveries to Russia, a representative of the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture said. The new imports will help fill a gaping hole left by EU suppliers.

One of the companies has already started deliveries, Marcelo Junqueira, secretary for international affairs of the Brazilian Agriculture Ministry Marcelo said, ITAR-TASS reported.

The new deliveries will help fill the 57 percent gap of imported dairy products after Russia introduced a one-year food embargo in August on certain agricultural products from the EU, US, Australia, Canada, Australia and Norway.

The move is symbolic of the strengthening political and economic ties between Brazil and Russia as relations with the West continue to sour over the Ukraine crisis.

"Brazil is known for its high level of sanitary control, we supply meat to more than 100 countries and poultry to 155 countries, so it is natural that a major importer [Russia] came to us," Junqueira said, as quoted by ITAR-TASS.

Last week the Brazilian delegation, comprised of 37 private companies, attended the Moscow International Exhibition of World Food. Over $106 million in contracts were inked, Junqueira said, without disclosing which companies.

In 2012, the turnover of trade between Russia and Brazil reached $5.9 billion. Brazil plans to import fish and grains from Russia.

Obama is now - after the fact - scrambling to justify bombing the sovereign nation of Syria without the permission of either the Syrian government or even the United States Congress by saying that we were going after the super-evil Khorasans, who were about to attack us.

My God! That sounds terrifying ... like a cross between Genghis Khan, Klingons and the Kardashians!

The U.S. is saying that they're even more dangerous than ISIS.

There's just one wee little problem ... the Khorasan threat is as as fake as the Kardashians' physiques. (Admittedly, it's confusing, given that the Kardashians have also inserted themselves right in the middle of the Syrian conflict.)

Want to decipher what the US military is really doing in Iraq and Syria, or figure out whether its regional war against the Islamic State (Isis) is legal? Good luck. The Obama administration's secret efforts to redefine the ordinary meaning of key legal terms and phrases has made that near impossible.

For instance, in his Tuesday statement that US airstrikes that have expanded into Syria, Obama studiously avoided any discussion about his domestic legal authority to conduct these strikes. That dirty work was apparently left up to anonymous White House officials, who told the New York Times's Charlie Savage that both the Authorization of Use of Military Force (AUMF) from 2001 (meant for al-Qaida) and the 2002 war resolution (meant for Saddam Hussein's Iraq) gave the government the authority to strike Isis in Syria.

In other words: the legal authority provided to the White House to strike al-Qaida and invade Iraq more than a dozen years ago now means that the US can wage war against a terrorist organization that's decidedly not al-Qaida, in a country that is definitely not Iraq.

It's been weeks since initial air strikes began, and the administration has still refused to release a detailed written legal rationale explaining how, exactly, that works.