British troops ended their combat operations in Afghanistan on Sunday as they and U.S. Marines handed over two huge adjacent bases to the Afghan military, 13 years after a U.S.-led invasion launched the long and costly war against the Taliban.

Their departure leaves Afghanistan and its newly installed president, Ashraf Ghani, to deal almost unaided with an emboldened Taliban insurgency after the last foreign combat troops withdraw by year-end.

At the U.S. Camp Leatherneck and Britain's Camp Bastion, which lie next to each other in the southwestern province of Helmand, troops lowered the American and British flags for the final time on Sunday and folded them away.

The timing of their withdrawal had not been announced for security reasons.

Camp Leatherneck, the largest U.S. base to be handed over to Afghan control, and Camp Bastion together formed the international coalition's regional headquarters for the southwest of Afghanistan, housing up to 40,000 military personnel and civilian contractors.

A terrible tragedy befell the nation's capital yesterday, when a shooter opened fire at government sites in Ottawa. A full investigation must begin to assemble the details, as the flames of hysteria are fanned in the public consciousness. The words "terror" and "terrorism" have been tossed around so casually, that nowadays any hardened criminal would classify as a terrorist according to the Harper Government and mainstream news sources. For that matter, political activists who take issue with the government's policies at home and abroad are referenced in the same manner.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, social media is rife with suspicion that this horrendous event may represent a false flag operation, to assist the government's dismantling of civil liberty and human rights in the name of war, profit, political posturing and public control.

That's not to say this wasn't an act of terrorism. Maybe it was, but surely it's too early to reach a conclusion when the names of suspects hadn't been released to hypothesize a motive. Or had they?

At 10:13am EDT, The Globe and Mail's Josh Wingrove reported that tactical officers were pointing guns at every parliamentary journalist on site. (Post since removed from Twitter.)

At 12:11pm EDT, The CBC's Kady O'Malley reported her group was ordered to leave a local rooftop by police, as they continued to search for a culprit and attempted to secure the area.

If one compares the Germany of the 1920-1930s and the Ukraine of today - the similarity is striking. The situation in the country allows a political party seen as a marginal one by the majority of population ride the wave of discontent to become a major political actor. It comes to power and establishes a dictatorship. Formally President von Hindenburg led the country, but the members of the National Socialist German Workers Party held all key government positions. Germany quickly turned into a totalitarian state. The same thing is taking place in Ukraine. Top government officials connive at advocates of Nazi ideology who grab all key positions. Only yesterday the Ukrainian Nazi were viewed as a marginal force and today they spread their views to make the ideology of national socialism permeate all aspects of public life.

Social nationalism is another name for the ideology of Ukrainian integral nationalism that emerged in the 1920-1940s. According to its founders, the ideology is a compilation of German Nazism and Italian fascism adapted to the Ukrainian realities. The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) was the driving force spreading this ideology around. Stepan Bandera, one of the organization's leaders, got a prison sentence in Poland for committing a terrorist act. He was freed by Hitler's occupational force and recruited by Abwehr. Bandera went around by the nickname of Grey. Now the man is the most revered hero of the new Kiev regime. Eugene Konovalets (alias Consul), the first leader of OUN, and his successor Andrei Melnyk (Consul-2) also worked for Abwehr.

The revival of fascism in Ukraine started in the late 1980s. Underground student circles supported by Canada and US-based emigrants, former OUN fighters, sprang up in Lviv. As Ukraine became an independent state many groups emerged to announce themselves as ideological successors to the OUN's Bandera group: UNA-UNSO (the Ukrainian National Assembly - Ukrainian People's Self-Defense), the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists, the Patriot of Ukraine, the Social-Nationalist Party (in 2005 renamed the All-Ukrainian Union Svoboda), the Social-National Party of Ukraine (SNPU), the Social-National Assembly of Ukraine (S.N.A.), the Stepan Bandera All-Ukrainian Organization ″Trizub″, the All-Ukrainian organization Sich etc. They all supported the idea of pure race totalitarian state and tough nationalist dictatorship ruled by the "leader of the nation".

The electoral situation has become dangerous. The comfortable position of "it's all the same" does not help solve the problem of who will win.

The June Journeys of 2013 marked the beginning of struggles for the new elections. The effort should be understood as long term and does not have a predictable outcome. The results of this new movement undoubtedly depends on the level of organization of the workers, the popular masses, and the ability to unify the people towards changes within Brazilian society. Therefore, we must make it clear: calls for change depend on creating favorable conditions for the present, which also includes a critical evaluation of electoral tactics. It's a serious political mistake to just bet on "better or worse".

It's clear we're facing a world-wide assault from the international monetary system in the form of economic crisis. There's a clear effort to prevent counter-revolution, counter-reform, and social reaction. The candidate seeking to fulfill these anti-national and unpopular measures in the next period with the most vigor is undoubtedly Aecio Neves of the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB).

Nearly one in five eurozone banks is still on shaky financial foundations, the ECB said Sunday after a crunch audit aimed at preventing a repeat of the crisis that nearly led to the euro's collapse. Related Stories

The European Central Bank's financial health check has become more pressing in recent weeks as the eurozone is seen to again be tottering on the edge of recession, with fears of deflation rising and economic growth in its biggest economies stalling.

Even Germany, which had been doing well with exports, is staring down slowing growth on the back of weak investment.

"This unprecedented in-depth review of the largest banks' positions will boost public confidence in the banking sector," said ECB vice president Vitor Constancio, adding that "this should facilitate more lending in Europe, which will help economic growth."

A total 25 of the 130 banks flunked the audit, the ECB said, although none of them were among world leaders.

The worst results were concentrated in Italy, where some nine banks failed, as well as Greece and Cyprus with three each.

The Italian banks included Banca Monte des Paschi -- the country's third biggest -- and Banca Popolare di Milano.

Western media has eased off its heavy coverage of the Ukraine conflict, and for a good reason. The West's new democracy protégé, President Poroshenko's coup-miester government has continued combat operations against Donetsk non-stop, while using the so-called ceasefire to refurbish his chewed up army.

The sanctions against Russia have gotten a lot of media play, as has the gas pipeline issue where Ukraine has kind of agreed to pay but doesn't really want to. Yatsenyuk was hoping that the West could use the sanctions pressure to get Moscow to ease off the "pay me now" demands. The good news is the EU is now trying to pull a lending consortium together to guarantee Ukraine's gas debt and get the gas flowing west once again in time for winter.

That is one reason Russia is not objecting too much to the continued shelling violations of the ceasefire. The EU is dangling some sanctions relief, possibly, with a successful permanent ceasefire agreement, and of course the EU will define what successful is.

When it comes to categorizing the horrors visited upon Ukrainian separatist regions by Kiev's military, you have to go to alternative media. Your average Westerner who has followed some of the war will know little about the evidence coming out about execution graves filled with POWs with their hands tied. And there is basically zero coverage on another item -- the Republics "missing in action" fighters, who are probably in graves that will never be found.

But some things cannot be hidden, like the nuclear-capable Tochka (SS-21) short-range ballistic missile, which miraculously struck a chemical plant in Donetsk on Tuesday, going off like an A-bomb. From the photos we have seen at VT, it was similar to a mini-nuke, but we would need a good video to view frame by frame to look for the telltale signs.

Some of the world leaders could be blackmailed, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday at the Valdai Discussion Club meeting in Sochi.

"There are reports that a number of world leaders are getting undisguisedly blackmailed. It is not without reason that the 'Big Brother' is spending billions of dollars on surveillance around the world, including on their closest allies," Putin said.

Putin questioned the justice of such situation.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Saturday Sweden had not contacted Russia during its week-long hunt for a foreign submarine that allegedly got into trouble in the waters off Stockholm.

Lavrov, who appeared on the Vesti v Subbotu (Vesti on Saturday) show, was asked whether Oslo had contacted Moscow via diplomatic channels following the initial reports, to which he responded with a "no".

The Russian foreign minister said he was surprised by the media hype around the purported distress signal that Sweden had intercepted in its waters.

"Allegations pointing to a Russian submarine came from mass media. Swedish authorities never supported them officially," Lavrov noted.

The Valdai Discussion Club was established in 2004. It was named after Lake Valdai, which is located close to Veliky Novgorod, where the club's first meeting took place. The club's goal is to promote dialogue between Russian and international intellectual elite, and to make an independent,unbiased scientific analysis of political, economic and social events in Russia and the rest of the world. 

Full Transcript:

Colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, friends, it is a pleasure to welcome you to the XI meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club.

It was mentioned already that the club has new co-organisers this year. They include Russian non-governmental organisations, expert groups and leading universities. The idea was also raised of broadening the discussions to include not just issues related to Russia itself but also global politics and the economy.

I hope that these changes in organisation and content will bolster the club's influence as a leading discussion and expert forum. At the same time, I hope the 'Valdai spirit' will remain - this free and open atmosphere and chance to express all manner of very different and frank opinions.

Let me say in this respect that I will also not let you down and will speak directly and frankly. Some of what I say might seem a bit too harsh, but if we do not speak directly and honestly about what we really think, then there is little point in even meeting in this way. It would be better in that case just to keep to diplomatic get-togethers, where no one says anything of real sense and, recalling the words of one famous diplomat, you realise that diplomats have tongues so as not to speak the truth.

We get together for other reasons. We get together so as to talk frankly with each other. We need to be direct and blunt today not so as to trade barbs, but so as to attempt to get to the bottom of what is actually happening in the world, try to understand why the world is becoming less safe and more unpredictable, and why the risks are increasing everywhere around us.

Today's discussion took place under the theme: New Rules or a Game without Rules. I think that this formula accurately describes the historic turning point we have reached today and the choice we all face. There is nothing new of course in the idea that the world is changing very fast. I know this is something you have spoken about at the discussions today. It is certainly hard not to notice the dramatic transformations in global politics and the economy, public life, and in industry, information and social technologies.

Let me ask you right now to forgive me if I end up repeating what some of the discussion's participants have already said. It's practically impossible to avoid. You have already held detailed discussions, but I will set out my point of view. It will coincide with other participants' views on some points and differ on others.

As we analyse today's situation, let us not forget history's lessons. First of all, changes in the world order - and what we are seeing today are events on this scale - have usually been accompanied by if not global war and conflict, then by chains of intensive local-level conflicts. Second, global politics is above all about economic leadership, issues of war and peace, and the humanitarian dimension, including human rights.

The world is full of contradictions today. We need to be frank in asking each other if we have a reliable safety net in place. Sadly, there is no guarantee and no certainty that the current system of global and regional security is able to protect us from upheavals. This system has become seriously weakened, fragmented and deformed. The international and regional political, economic, and cultural cooperation organisations are also going through difficult times.

Yes, many of the mechanisms we have for ensuring the world order were created quite a long time ago now, including and above all in the period immediately following World War II. Let me stress that the solidity of the system created back then rested not only on the balance of power and the rights of the victor countries, but on the fact that this system's 'founding fathers' had respect for each other, did not try to put the squeeze on others, but attempted to reach agreements.

Two articles in Friday's Washington Post reporting chemical weapons attacks in Iraq and Syria are part of a general propaganda campaign by the mainstream media to turn the operation against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) into a war to overthrow the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

A front-page article headlined "Jihadist launched chemical assault" reports that ISIS forces deployed chlorine gas in an attack last month against Sunni police officers in the Iraqi city of Duluiyah, approximately 60 miles north of Baghdad. The officers reported being overcome by a cloud of yellow gas which hung low to the ground, consistent with chlorine gas. The attack reportedly sickened at least 11 officers who were taken to a nearby hospital and treated with oxygen and anti-inflammatory medication for shortness of breath.

According to the Iraq Defense Ministry, ISIS has obtained significant quantities chlorine from water treatment facilities where the chemical is used to chlorinate water to prevent the spread of water-borne disease. Improvised chlorine bombs were used previously by Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the predecessor of ISIS, at the height of the Sunni insurgency against the US occupation in 2006 and 2007.

There have been other reports in recent weeks of the use of chlorine gas by ISIS in Iraq. According to soldiers who managed to escape an ISIS attack last month on the Saqlawiyah military base in Anbar Province, chlorine gas was deployed as part of the brutal assault which killed approximately 370 soldiers. ISIS fighters reportedly fired chlorine gas canisters into the base.