Broadcasting from deep in the heart of the American Empire, join your host Harrison Koehli 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, they discussed the Minsk talks, the tragic shootings in Chapel Hill, and the Messiah before Jesus, based on Israel Knohl's research.

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Journalists were awaiting a news conference of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic leader Alexander Zakharchenko in his residence in Donetsk when a mine exploded nearby.

A mine had exploded near the residence of Alexander Zakharchenko, 100 meters away from the journalists who had gathered for a press conference with the leader of the self proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, RIA Novosti correspondent reports.

At least three people have been killed and four injured.

In a bizarre interview posted through its online propaganda magazine, the terrorist group claimed to have captured a 19-year-old Israeli Mossad spy. While the young man tells a potentially coerced - potentially fabricated - tale worthy of a Graham Greene novel, his father now denies those claims.

On Thursday, the self-proclaimed Islamic State terrorist group released an interview with one of their own captives through its online magazine, Dabiq. "Interview with a Spy Working for the Israeli Mossad," the title reads, next to a photo of the alleged spy.

The boy's father recognized this photo as his son.

"My son is innocent, IS accused him of working for Mossad because he tried to run away," Said Musallam told the AFP.

Galvanized by the recent terror attacks in France, European Union leaders on Thursday debated a range of ambitious steps to better protect their 28 nations, including exchanging airliner passenger manifests, tightening controls at the border and combating extremism on the Internet.

EU President Donald Tusk, the summit meeting's host, said he would seek agreement on a "work plan to step up the fight against terrorism.'' The bloc's top official for counter-terrorism warned member governments last month that ''Europe is facing an unprecedented, diverse and serious threat.''

Counter-terrorism policy shot to the top of the EU agenda following the Jan. 7-9 terror attacks in Paris against a satirical weekly, a policewoman and a kosher grocery store that claimed a total of 17 victims. The three gunmen, who proclaimed allegiance to Al-Qaida in Yemen and the Islamic State group, were also shot dead by French police.

The attacks mobilized France and other EU countries to seek more effective ways to deal with armed Islamic militancy, especially the problem of radicalized European-born Muslims who go to fight in Syria or Iraq and then return home.

Bosnian Serbs led the oppositional voice against weapon exports to Ukraine, where fighting between government forces and rebels in the East threatens to fracture the country.

After Bosnian arms producer Unis Group recently won a 5 million euro ($5.66 million) tender to provide Ukraine with weapons and ammunition, Russia called on the Bosnian government to nix the deal.

Bosnian Serbs, who have strong bonds with fellow Orthodox Christian Russia, said that permitting arms exports to Kiev would damage their relations with Moscow.

The presidency said arms exports to Ukraine would not promote regional security.

"[Arms exports] do not contribute to regional security, stability and ongoing international diplomatic efforts to broker a peaceful solution to the crisis in Ukraine," said the presidency, which represents the three main ethnic groups, as quoted by Reuters.

"The crisis in Ukraine can be resolved only through a peaceful, democratic means, political dialogue and negotiations, with full respect of the international law."

The National Security Strategy (NSS) has a lot more to it than the media is letting on.

Aside from the rhetoric about American Exceptionalism and the gobbledygook about 'values', the NSS contains some valuable nuggets of information that can provide foresight into the US' upcoming foreign policy moves. While the media has focused on the general Russian, ISIL, and Chinese components of the strategy, there's in fact a lot more to it, and it literally affects the whole world. Some of the measures being proposed are bound to be seen as threatening by other states, and they're expected to surely respond in some way or another.

New Space Race

The document declares that the US "will also develop technologies and tactics to deter and defeat efforts to attack our space systems; enable indications, warning, and attributions of such attacks; and enhance the resiliency of critical U.S. space capabilities." This amounts to the militarization of space, and Russia and China will obviously race to keep up.

More Color Revolutions

Section IV is about "values" and basically outlines the US government's engagement of non-state actors all throughout the world, specifying that "defending democracy and human rights is related to every enduring national interest." Not only will the US "support emerging democracies", but in particular, it will "[provide] direct support for civil society" and "[identify] future leaders in government, business, and civil society and [connect] them to one another." All of this reads like a Color Revolution field guide, and in case there were any doubts about that, another section reminds the world that the US government will "stand by the citizens of countries where the full exercise of democracy is at risk, such as Venezuela."

Global Alliance Systems

They specifically single out the following allies for each region:

Europe:

Current: NATO

Prospective: The US will "steadfastly support the aspirations of countries in the Balkans and Eastern Europe toward European and Euro-Atlantic integration" (a euphemism for NATO expansion).

When the US says that it "will support partners such as Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine so they can better work alongside the United States and NATO, as well as provide for their own defense", it's basically talking about NATO interoperability and the expansion of Shadow NATO.

Asia:

Core Members: Japan, South Korea, Australia

Peripheral Members: Philippines, Thailand, New Zealand

Deepening Partnerships: India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia

Middle East:

Israel, Jordan, Gulf Kingdoms

Africa:

African Union

Washington created something called NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949 to weld Western Europe firmly to the future foreign policies of Washington, however destructive that might prove to the genuine interests of Germany, France, Italy and the other nations of Europe. In 1986 the twelve nations of the then-European Economic Community modified the 1957 Treaty of Rome and signed the Single European Act. That mandated the creation of a single EEC market by end of 1992, and set forth rules for European Political Cooperation, the forerunner of the European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy.

Then on November 9, 1989, an event of historic dimension intervened to disrupt the EEC strategy for a single market. Gorbachev's USSR surrendered the German Democratic Republic to the West. The Cold War was de facto over. Germany would be reunited. The West had apparently won. Most Europeans were jubilant. Many believed the decades of living on the brink of possible nuclear war were over. The emerging Europe seemed proud, confident of the future. NATO was an entity created by Washington, in the words of its first General Secretary, Lord Ismay, to "keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down."

European Defense Pillar or US NATO?

The Maastricht Treaty, a document with fatal flaws, was introduced at a meeting of the EEC in December 1991. A shocked Helmut Kohl was told by France's Mitterrand and Britain's Margaret Thatcher that Germany must agree to creation of a single currency to control the Bundesbank. That became today's Euro and an independent supranational European Central Bank. It was blackmail as precondition for their accepting German unification. The Germans swallowed hard and signed.

What was little discussed at the time was that the Maastricht Treaty also included a section mandating establishment for the first time of a Common Foreign and Security Policy. The twelve nations signed the treaty and intense discussions were underway of establishing a European defense pillar independent of NATO. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the raison d'être for NATO was gone. The Warsaw Pact had dissolved. Washington had assured Gorbachev that NATO would never extend to the east.

Conceding to a federal lawsuit, the US government agreed to release a 1987 Defense Department report detailing US assistance to Israel in its development of a hydrogen bomb, which skirted international standards.

The 386-page report, "Critical Technology Assessment in Israel and NATO Nations," likens top Israeli nuclear facilities to the Los Alamos and Oak Ridge National Laboratories that were key in the development of US nuclear weaponry.

Israelis are "developing the kind of codes which will enable them to make hydrogen bombs. That is, codes which detail fission and fusion processes on a microscopic and macroscopic level," said the report, the release of which comes before Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's March 3 speech in front of the US Congress in which he will oppose any deal that allows Iran's legal nuclear program to persist.

"I am struck by the degree of cooperation on specialized war making devices between Israel and the US," Roger Mattson, a formerly of the Atomic Energy Commission's technical staff, said of the report, according to Courthouse News.

The report's release earlier this week was initiated by a Freedom of Information Act request made three years ago by Grant Smith, director of the Washington think tank Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy. Smith filed a lawsuit in September in order to compel the Pentagon to substantially address the request.

The only way that U.S. President Barack Obama can win in Ukraine now is by negotiating subsequent details to become deal-breakers to the February 12th draft agreement, such that for Russian President Vladimir Putin not to accept Obama's proposed details would mean that no deal will be signed. This could happen, because the prestige of both leaders is on the line in this new draft deal on Ukraine.

The agreement is only basic principles, which can be found here. The announcement of the agreement opens as follows:

"Russian President Vladimir Putin; President of Ukraine, Peter Poroshenko; French President Francois Hollande; and Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany Angela Merkel, confirmed full respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. They firmly believe in the inevitability of peaceful resolution."

U.S. President Barack Obama is not mentioned there; but, for him to reject their deal, and to send lethal weapons to Ukraine now and so escalate the war and its massive bloodshed — which has already cost "up to 50,000" dead and millions of refugees — would be extremely embarrassing for the United States: no American "boots on the ground," just tens of thousands of Ukrainian corpses under it, in a war that Obama himself had initiated (and even the founder of Stratfor, the "private CIA" firm, says that the February 2014 overthrow of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, which started the war, was "the most blatant coup in history," which it certainly was, and is increasingly recognized as having been).

If, during coming days, Putin does nothing that causes Merkel or Hollande to say Putin is violating what had been understood between the negotiants, then Putin will be essentially in control on those crucial remaining details too, and the U.S. position (which favors more war) (and this is so not only from Obama but also from the Congress) will go down in flames. The next few days and weeks will thus be crucial, and Merkel and Hollande hold the top cards, because Obama needs to avoid an open break with them — something that would be an open break with the EU itself, which America's aristocracy very much don't want to happen (since America's aristocracy would then lose their enormous influence over the EU).

Translated from Russian by J.Hawk

Imagine yourself as Petro Poroshenko for a minute: you fly in for a meeting, and you discover everyone is against you, the Europeans, the Russians, even the clever Belorussian with his little smile. The ally and patron is somewhere far away, behind an ocean. You have to run to make a phone call and get instructions. People are openly chuckling when you tell them there is no encirclement at Debaltsevo. They even ask you to leave the room so that Putin, Merkel, and Hollande can speak. You can't believe in the outcome of the negotiations, and even tell the media that "all is lost." A disaster.

But you still remember that your victory can easily be transformed into treachery, and you yourself can be deprived of power and even life. You have to save face, since you are not independent and don't have any genuine power. Your competitor in Dnepropetrovsk already opened a parallel General Staff, and the efforts to disperse the Aidar failed completely. You even destroyed the coalition when you tried to make your friend/godfather the Prosecutor General.

So it's better not to return at all without an agreement. It's even more important not to return without an advantageous agreement. But there isn't one. Because they put in front of you a compromise, and you had to sign on.

Holland and Merkel are beaming, because the plan worked and they believe in its implementation.

But only Lukashenko and Putin, and the DPR/LPR representatives understand what's really going on.