The former prime minister warned the party not to veer to the left as a shock poll put the socialist firebrand on course for victory.

A sensational YouGov survey of Labour members and supporters found the veteran backbencher has secured the backing of almost half the electorate.

The scale of the crisis facing the party prompted Mr Blair to warn Labour against a lurch to the left.

Giving a speech this morning, he launched a scathing attack on the socialist leadership hopeful, saying: "People who say their heart is with Corbyn, get a transplant."


He said:

"It's like going back to Star Trek or something. Back to the old days. I wouldn't want to win on an old-fashioned leftist platform. Even if I thought it was the route to victory, I wouldn't take it. We won elections when we had an agenda that was driven by values, but informed by modernity."

There seems little doubt that Western so-called democracies are gravitating toward increasingly autocratic politics. Executive power is being exercised by secret policy formulation, to be imposed on the electorate, or on other countries, with no regard for democratic oversight.

Western states are once again flirting with fascism - as in earlier dark periods over the past century.

Here is a recent snapshot of the disturbing trend. Britain's Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond this week openly voiced his frustration with democratic processes something that is "cumbersome" for the pursuit of foreign military objectives.

After Sept. 11, 2001, President George W. Bush declared the Philippines a second front in the war on terror ("Operation Enduring Freedom-Philippines"). The Philippine government used this as an opportunity to escalate its war against Muslim separatists and other individuals and organizations opposing the policies of the government. The egregious human rights violations committed by the Philippine military and paramilitary forces are some of the most underreported atrocities in the media today.

The International Peoples' Tribunal on Crimes Against the Filipino People, held July 16-18 in Washington, D.C., drew upward of 300 people. An international panel of seven jurors heard two days of testimony from 32 witnesses, many of whom had been tortured, arbitrarily detained and forcibly evicted from their land. Some testified to being present when their loved ones, including children, were gunned down by the Philippine military or paramilitary. I testified as an expert witness on international human rights violations in the Philippines, many of which were aided and abetted by the U.S. government.

You may have heard of the N-11. Yes, it's another clever Goldman Sachs concoction, to the benefit of that prized specimen - the "global investor". These are the next BRICS, the new emerging powers.

The N-11 is made up of: Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, South Korea, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Turkey and Vietnam. Some of these upstarts may even become members of the increasingly assertive BRICS.

The moment the sanctions regime vanishes, arguably sometime in early 2016, Iran will become the hottest N-11 in the world. It's very hard to beat its roll call of assets: a consumer market of more than 80 million, largely well educated people; a human capital mix that is even more attractive than Turkey; and in the all-important energy front, a combination of as much oil as Saudi Arabia, as much gas as Russia, and arguably more mineral resources than Australia.

And soon back with a vengeance in the global market. Talk about an economic game-changer.

So what is the Obama administration really up to in Iran? What sort of strategic calculations have led to what for the moment looks like a tactical geopolitical shift?
President Obama certainly concluded that the 36-year-long Wall of Mistrust against Iran was bound to fail. The real Masters of the Universe in Washington - those who control the deep state - always knew that the "nuclear weapons" hysteria was bogus. That was part of a strategic decision to keep the Islamic Republic isolated from the West as long as possible, and ultimately force regime change.

The "policy" failed - miserably. So Obama's Plan B was a nuclear deal.

And after striking a deal, why not seduce Tehran into some sort of collaborative effort in policing the Middle East - as in reigning in or, better yet, soundly defeating ISIS/ISIL/Daesh?

That would provide a neat historical echo to the Shah years - the former "gendarme of the Gulf" who, when driven out of power by the Islamic revolution, plunged Exceptionalistan into fits of decades-long despair.

Moreover, the Obama administration and some Beltway factions seemed to believe that factional leadership silos in Tehran - and Qom — might be manipulated to serve US strategic interests.

Even before the Lausanne agreement, and in the lead-up towards the Vienna deal, this possibility was practically discussed by US Secretary of State John Kerry, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. In diplomatic talk, these were "discussions of regional issues".

The brutal Islamist group notorious for the atrocities it commits daily in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere has promised to "fill the streets of Paris with dead bodies" in a newly released video, Press TV reported.

The footage, published by Islamic State's propaganda office, showed a militant saying that he is one of approximately five hundred French nationals fighting alongside IS in the Middle East. He added that the message was directed at anyone, who is trying to destroy the group, whether he is French or not.

The IS fighter then fatally shot a Syrian soldier with an assault rifle and threw his body off a cliff. The video was allegedly filmed in the Syrian province of Hama.

After Monday's tragic terrorist attack in the Turkish town of Suruc, just across from the Syrian border and kilometers away from ISIS-controlled Kobani, which left dozens dead in what authorities claim was due to an ISIS-linked 20 year old suicide bomber, hostilities have dramatically escalated in the past few days culminating with news that one Turkish soldier killed and one was wounded in border province of Kilis by gunfire from Syria, according to state-run Anadolu Agency reports.

According to the Guardian, "one Turkish solider has been killed and another wounded in clashes with Islamic State across the Syrian border, a senior Turkish official said. The clashes continued as the Turkish army returned fire on the militants in Syria. Earlier, a Turkish police officer was shot and killed and a second wounded in the mainly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir. Violence along Turkey's 560-mile (900km) border with Syria has spiked in recent days, beginning with a suicide bombing blamed on Isis in the town of Suruç on Monday. The Diyarbakir shooting came a day after two police officers were killed in an attack in Ceylanpinar on the Syrian border claimed by militants from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)"

US intelligence may have used Macau casinos owned by an American tycoon to set a trap for Chinese functionaries who gamble with public money,in order to blackmail and recruit them.

The "highly confidential" report on the gambling industry exposing the possible CIA operation in Macau, was prepared by a private investigator in 2010 and remained secret until it was uncovered by the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California, Berkeley, the Guardian reports.

The document dated June 25, 2010, was presented by Sands China Limited, the Macau branch of the gambling empire of Las Vegas tycoon Sheldon Adelson, as part of an ongoing lawsuit filed by Steven Jacobs, former head of Sands Macau casinos, who is suing the company for wrongful dismissal. The civil action hearing is being held at a Las Vegas court.

Just let that headline sink in.

Here is the actual language: "The ATO* spokesmen [Major General Taran and colonel Sergei Galushko] have presented proof that Donetsk is being shelled by the rebels themselves, in order to provoke return fire from the UAF forces, and then blame them for shelling Donetsk." SOURCE
So, here is the reality as presented by "Voice of Langley" in East Europe:

The rebels start randomly shelling their own families in Donetsk. UAF see it, get "provoked" by somebody else doing their job, and start indiscriminately shelling Donetsk as well.

Now we just wait for John Kirby and Co. to start parroting these claims...

The dual summits that took place in Russia's Ufa beginning 9 July were anything but routine. In fact it may be seen by future historians as a signal event that marked the definitive decline of the global hegemony of European civilization including North America. This is no small event in human history. It's the most significant shift in relative global economic relations since the Fourth Crusade in 1204 when the Republic of Venice emerged as a world power following their brutal, disgraceful capture and sacking of Constantinople, marking the demise of the Byzantine Empire.

First a look at what transpired. Russia was host to two overlapping summits of emerging alternative organizations, the annual meeting of the BRICS nations as well as the annual meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The larger significance has been all but entirely blacked out by western mainstream media such as the New York Times.

First we look at the results from the BRICS meeting where Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa are the five member states. The BRICS formally put their New Development Bank (NDB) into operation. It has world headquarters in Shanghai, China's banking and financial center with a branch in South Africa to serve the African region.
It is explicitly operating as an alternative to the post-1945 domination of the IMF and World Bank, the heart of Washington's Dollar System. It has member contributions of $50 billion for infrastructure projects mainly, but not exclusively, in the BRICS states. As well it has created a $100 billion financial defense fund, a so-called Contingent Reserves Arrangement, in event of speculative attacks such as were launched by Washington with the Soros Quantum Fund in 1997 to destroy the independent Asian Tiger economies.

The NDB bank is in business one year after the last BRICS summit agreed to its creation, and the meeting announced that first approved infrastructure projects will begin at the beginning of 2016. That's an impressive testament to the mutual will to create an alternative to the IMF and World Bank, both of the latter controlled by Washington where they are headquartered. Notably BRICS agreed for the first time to institute formal cooperation with the leaders of the Eurasian Economic Union of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan.

As well they agreed to meet the leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) - Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.