This is a letter from Greek PM Alexis Tsipras in today's Le Monde:

On 25th of last January, the Greek people made a courageous decision. They dared to challenge the one-way street of the Memorandum's tough austerity, and to seek a new agreement. A new agreement that will keep the country in the Euro, with a viable economic program, without the mistakes of the past.

The Greek people paid a high price for these mistakes; over the past five years the unemployment rate climbed to 28% (60% for young people), average income decreased by 40%, while according to Eurostat's data, Greece became the EU country with the highest index of social inequality.

And the worst result: Despite badly damaging the social fabric, this Program failed to invigorate the competitiveness of the Greek economy. Public debt soared from 124% to 180% of GDP, and despite the heavy sacrifices of the people, the Greek economy remains trapped in continuous uncertainty caused by unattainable fiscal balance targets that further the vicious cycle of austerity and recession.

The new Greek government's main goal during these last four months has been to put an end to this vicious cycle, an end to this uncertainty.

Austria's central bank plans to repatriate £3.5bn of its gold reserves currently stored in Britain - amounting to 80% of its entire stocks - after auditors warned against the risks of keeping a majority in a foreign country.

The Austrian National Bank will spend the next five years flying gold bars back to Vienna to raise its own stocks to half the total of 280 tonnes.

The move echoes Germany's plan in 2013 to repatriate all of its gold stocked in France as well as some of the reserves held in the United States, to ensure at least 50% was kept on German soil by 2020.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry broke his leg in a bicycle crash Sunday after striking a curb, and scrapped the rest of a four-nation trip that included an international conference on combating the Islamic State group.

Kerry was in stable condition and in good spirits as he prepared to return to Boston for further treatment with the doctor who previously operated on his hip, U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said. He said X-rays at a Swiss hospital confirmed that Kerry fractured his right femur.

''The secretary is stable and never lost consciousness, his injury is not life-threatening and he is expected to make a full recovery,'' Kirby said in a statement.

Kerry, 71, was taken by helicopter to Geneva's main medical center, HUG, after hitting a curb with his bike near Scionzier, France, about 40 kilometers southeast of the Swiss border.

Paramedics and a physician were on the scene with his motorcade at the time and provided him immediate attention. They quickly decided to order the 10-minute-long helicopter transport.

Syria's Permanent Representative to the UN Bashar al-Jaafari refuted beyond doubt the Western claims of the existence of a so-called "moderate armed opposition" in the Syrian territory.

This "series of misleading and falsification can no longer continue," he told a Security Council session on "The Situation in the Middle East" on Thursday.

He stressed that the Western and other countries' attempts to justify supporting terrorism in Syria using the excuse of "moderate armed opposition" have been exposed and are now clear to everyone.

"Where is that moderate armed opposition...Is it in Raqqa or Deir Ezzor? Is it in Palmyra or Idleb or Jisr al-Shughour or Qalamoun?" al-Jaafari wondered, referring to areas where the terrorist organizations of Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) are in control.

He categorically rejected the attempts of "laundering" the image of the terrorist Jabhat al-Nusra organization which the West is now trying to present as a"moderate armed opposition" group.

On Behind the Headlines this week your hosts are going beyond the Western media's sound and fury to examine the real story behind the 'FIFA corruption scandal', the latest Russian-Chinese military (and political) maneuvers, the return of anthrax on the eve of PATRIOT Act renewal in the US, and the latest madness in Ukraine.

We'll also have updates on the US's 'creative destruction' in the Middle East and the extreme weather and planetary upheaval breaking out all over the world. Tune in from 2-4pm EST / 11am-1pm PST / 7-9pm UTC / 8-10pm CET

Running Time: 01:47:00

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Beijing's disclosure earlier this week of its latest military white paper, outlining a new doctrine moving beyond offshore defense to "open seas" defense, predictably rattled every exceptionalist's skull and bone.

Almost simultaneously, in Guangzhou, the annual Stockholm China Forum, hosted by the German Marshall Fund and the Shanghai Institute for International Studies, was mired in deep thought examining the vast Eurasian integration project known in China as "One Road, One Belt".

What is also known as the New Silk Road project - displaying all the romantic connotations of a remix of a golden era - is not only about new roads, high-speed railways, pipelines and fiber optics, but also about a naval network from East Asia all the way to the Middle East and Europe.

So Chinese maritime expansion in the "open seas" - from the South China Sea to the Western Pacific and the Indian Ocean - had to be intimately tied to protection of the Maritime Silk Road.

A notorious 24-year-old Kosovar ISIS head-chopping militant going by the name of Lavdrim Muhaxheri has possibly been resurrected from the dead following the release of a video footage where he is allegedly seen killing a Syrian man with a rocket-propelled grenade. It was reported previously that Lavdrim was killed in Syria last year, but it appears that he has now risen from the dead in order to again partake in the US/NATO hollywoodesque ISIS opera.

Before joining al-Baghdadi's crusade against the 'infidels' in the Middle East, Lavdrim was employed by none other than NATO at Camp Bondsteel, considered to be the largest American military base in the world outside of US territory. Camp Bondsteel is located in the US/NATO-carved and occupied drug and organ trafficking state of Kosovo and is currently headed by criminals such as Kosovo's Prime Minister Hashim Thaci, a former KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) leader. KLA is, of course, another NATO armed and trained terrorist proxy force that was used to break apart Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

After Lavdrim's work at Bondsteel, he was schlepped to Afghanistan to partake in NATO operations there.

In 'Bondsteel', for a certain period he worked as a labor force, until the year 2010, and there he maintained good reports and recommendations from his employer, and through the private company, as many young Kosovars did, he traveled to work in Afghanistan, respectively in NATO's camps. There he worked for nearly two years, says his friends.

Following his lucrative career as a NATO puppet, NATO apparently decided Lavdrim should join their proxy force of ISIS/Jabhat al-Nusra/moderates/opposition Syria who have been tasked with toppling the Assad government.

Lavdim Muhaxheri joined the Siria war, as a mujahid, in 2012, and a year later he was returned. Until the half of the Ramadan festival, in 2013, he was in Kosovo, and then he re-joined the fighters in Syria, where he took the position of the leader. Later on he took the leading role in clarifying the internal clashes in the resistance camp against Bashar Al Assad, and he was the first Ablanian who confirmed that there were deep divisions among the revolutionaries.

According to reports, after "he was returned" to Kosovo, he was under the investigation of the Kosovo police, only to leave for Syria again and join ISIS despite the so-called investigation.

He attained his short-lived notoriety after posting a beheading photo on his Facebook page, something every aspiring jihadi seeks to do these days. Later it was reported that he was killed fighting the Kurdish defense forces, only to now be brought back to life and, according to some, given a promotion to the position of 'strategist' for the so-called Islamic state.

Whether Lavdrim Muhaxheri is dead or alive is a moot point, since "Kosovo police said they are working with international partners to verify the authenticity of the video and the time of its publication." It does appear though that the US/NATO-led scripted operation currently going under the banner of ISIS, always needs a character like Lavdrim or a similar front man to paint a 'human face' to their proxy army and give credence to the false narrative that ISIS isn't a puppet in the hands of certain intelligence agencies but a group run by fanatical cutthroats that somehow sprang from the desert by themselves fully armed, trained, driving Toyota pickups and even pickups of Texas plumbers.

President Barack Obama sounded the alarm about what could happen if there is a delay in renewing the USA Patriot Act.

"I don't want us to be in a situation in which, for a certain period of time, those authorities go away and suddenly we are dark, and heaven forbid, we've got a problem where we could have prevented a terrorist attack or apprehended someone who was engaged in dangerous activity but we didn't do so simply because of inaction in the Senate," Obama told reporters Friday after meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch at the White House.

Broadcasting from deep in the heart of the American Empire, join your hosts Harrison Koehli and Elan Martin, and fellow Sott.net editors, as they discuss everything from current events and the latest machinations and manipulations of the global elite to history, science, and religion, and how it all fits together.

This week, join our hosts as they discuss the latest ISIS antics, vaccine legislation, and more.

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Running Time: 01:33:00

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Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a phone conversation with French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, expressed concern over shelling by Ukrainian servicemen of civilian facilities, the Kremlin reported Friday.

"The Russian side stressed its concern in connection with more frequent incidents of shelling by the Ukrainian army of civilian facilities that resulted in deaths of civilians," the statement said.

"They exchanged opinions on possible additional measures designed to ensure strict observation of the ceasefire regime and de-escalation of tensions," it said.