Large-scale defense drills being conducted by the US and South Korea are an alarming attempt to put military and political pressure on North Korea, Russia's Foreign Ministry said, while also criticizing Pyongyang's reaction to the exercise.

"The development of the situation on the Korean peninsula and around it is causing growing concern," the ministry said in a statement on Monday.

Despite being pre-planned, the US-South Korean exercise is "unprecedented in its scale, and the number and types of weaponry being employed," it stressed.

Fantasy and fairy tales can go only so far when it comes to the true condition of anything or anyone. Sooner or later the truth must out. This is very much the case when looking at the true condition of the nation the Chinese call, The Hegemon, the not-anymore-so-United States of America. The official Obama Administration economic statistics have declared to the world for more than six years that the world's largest paper economy was in a marvelous recovery and that unemployment was a mere 5%. Now, with the most severe collapse of oil prices in 13 years, the last remaining job-creating sector of the economy, the oil and gas industry, is rapidly becoming the domino that threatens to topple a mountain of dicey credits and threaten many banks. Only this time, unlike in 2009, the Federal Reserve is in a real pickle, and the Federal debt has doubled to $18 trillion since the beginning of the financial crisis in 2007.

Leading US economists, including Noble Economics Prize winning Paul Krugman, claim that debt in an economy, especially the world's most debt-bloated economy, the United States "doesn't matter." Just keep the borrowing cycle growing and all will be fine. Krugman argued in his New York Times column, "...this is the point almost nobody seems to get — an over-borrowed family owes money to someone else; US debt is, to a large extent, money we owe to ourselves."

Debt doesn't matter?

Come again, my ever-so-learned professor? There is a sly rhetorical trick in your language and dishonesty in your argument: "We owe to ourselves?" Does that mean I and my creditor bank are just part of the same happy family? Is "ourselves" the Peoples' Bank of China to whom "we" American taxpayers, through our government in Washington, owe trillions in debt? Or the Japanese Central Bank?

It seemed that Republican front-runner Donald Trump's rallies couldn't get any more disturbing or overtly racist. But just when we thought we had seen it all, after vowing to expand the powers of the police state, Donald Trump had supporters at a rally on Saturday "pledge allegiance" to vote for him in the upcoming Florida party primary, The Hill reported, by making them extend their right hands forward like the Nazi salute of the Third Reich.

After doubling down on his promises to deport 12 million people from the United States, using unprecedented police power, and banning Muslims from entering the United States, as well as forcing American Muslims to wear identification badges, then praising the police as "the most mistreated people" as well as being "under-appreciated" and the victims, rather than the perpetuators of violence, Donald Trump issued the bizarre call for his followers to "pledge allegiance" to him.

The video footage of the incident was posted by Bloomberg Politics. It clearly shows attendees at the event in Orlando extending their right hands forward - not merely raising their hands in the air - vowing allegiance to "vote for Donald J. Trump for president."

"Don't forget you all raised your hand," Trump added, as they lowered their hands. "You swore. Bad things happen if you don't live up to what you just did."

The statement was ominous and disturbing to say the least. Bad things? What exactly was he implying.

The talks surrounding the Syrian reconciliation process that the United Nations and Arab League Envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, has been desperately trying to start in Geneva, don't seem to be gaining any momentum. Even despite the fact that the envoy has officially declared the talks open on February 1, they didn't even start due to the fact that the Saudi-backed High Negotiations Committee failed to appear at the Palais des Nations. Instead members of the opposition preferred to speak with journalists, saying that before the start of the negotiations a number of preconditions should be fulfilled. Yet, numerous observers believe that an attempt to link the start of negotiations with the demands addressed to Damascus may an be an attempt to block the negotiation process altogether.

The current Permanent Representative of the Syrian Arab Republic to the United Nations, Bashar Jaafari, has pointed out that just like during the Geneva-2 negotiations, representatives of Damascus believe in the fundamental importance of the question of combating terrorism. In addition, he pointed out that the opposition hasn't even presented the list of its negotiators.

One cannot be too optimistic about negotiations while looking at the actions taken by Ankara either. A couple of days ago Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the US, EU, UN, Russia and Iran of "dishonest actions in Syria, directly or indirectly allowing Assad forces to massacre civilians."

Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) may be plotting "enormous and spectacular" attacks on the UK, the national head of counter-terrorism has warned.

Scotland Yard National Policing Lead for Counter-Terrorism Mark Rowley said on Monday that IS jihadists are broadening their terror campaign. He warned that the terror group is targeting the "Western lifestyle" and that the group may be gearing up for a large-scale attack.

Speaking at a briefing in London, Rowely said: "In recent months we've seen a broadening of that, much more plans to attack Western lifestyle, and obviously the Paris attacks in November.

Amid a ceasefire arrangement that has restored calm to much of Syria and the promise of Aleppo regaining access to electricity, the Syrian Army and the country's National Defense Force have continued a joint offensive against terrorist groups in the western province of Latakia, media reports said. A swath of strategic areas has reportedly been liberated by the Syrian Army and the country's National Defense Force (NDF) in the northeastern mountains of Latakia Province in western Syria.

During the latest offensive, the Syrian troops managed to drive the remaining terrorists from their positions at Latakia's border with Idlib province, according to the Iranian news agency FARS. Government forces additionally retook a number of key sites along the Aleppo-Latakia Highway (M-4 Highway), in an advance that paved the way for the Syrian Army to reach the hilltops overlooking the strategic city of Jisr al-Shughour, located in the southern part of Idlib province.

The offensive came just a few days after the Syrian Army and the NDF liberated several strategic villages and a strategic height in Latakia province.

In separate development, Russian warplanes conducted a series of airstrikes on Daesh positions in the eastern part of Homs province in central Syria. The aircraft destroyed a whole array of Daesh targets, including the terrorists' oil smuggling route to Turkey located near the ancient city of Palmyra, according to FARS. Earlier, the Syrian forces launched an offensive against Daesh terrorists southeast of Homs province, liberating the strategic village of al-Bayarat, sources said.

Russia has played a master stroke in the current oil crisis by taking the lead in forming a new cartel, but it's a move that could spell geopolitical disaster.

The meeting between Russia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela on 16 February 2016 was the first step. During the next meeting in mid-March, which is with a larger group of participants, if Russia manages to build a consensus—however small—it will further strengthen its leadership position.

Until the current oil crisis, Saudi Arabia called the crude oil price shots; however, its clout has been weakening in the aftermath of the massive price drop with the emergence of US shale. The smaller OPEC nations have been calling for a production cut to support prices, but the last OPEC meeting in December 2015 ended without any agreement.

The Saudi Royals: upholding Western values

Saudi Arabia is a family dictatorship masquerading as a nation-state.

It's one of the world's most tyrannical regimes, infamous for public beheadings and whippings, as well as numerous other high crimes.

Torture and physical abuse are commonplace. So are arbitrary arrests, along with denial of fundamental human and civil rights.

State terror is official regime policy internally and abroad. So is religious extremism, Wahhabi clerics enforcing their theofascist interpretation of Islam. Shias are considered heretics.

Saudi tyrants want Shia Iran and Syria replaced by totalitarian Sunni dominance, Hezbollah eliminated in Lebanon.

ISIS, Al Qaeda and likeminded terrorist groups represent Wahhabi extremism.

There seems to be some progress in the regional "games" around the conflict in Syria. The Turkish Prime minister Davutoglu currently visits Iran. The Iranians let some lucrative economic projects dangle in front of his eyes. But the main points were about Syria. According to this Turkish source Davutoglu said these issues were agreed upon:

Saudi Arabia's willingness to freeze oil output targets may be driven more to keep troubled OPEC members such as Venezuela content, than to change oil markets.

Saudi Arabia's willingness to freeze oil production could be more of a political action aimed at appeasing fellow OPEC members than raising oil prices, according to Bloomberg analyst Julian Lee.

Oil prices rose ahead of news of a meeting between OPEC and other leading oil producers planned for late March and news that leading US shale oil companies slashed output targets. Lee was a senior energy analyst for the Centre for Global Energy Studies, a now-defunct Saudi Arabian think tank for oil market studies.