Today, the countries of the ASEAN are going through a very difficult period in their history, when their unity, cohesion and prosperity are being challenged as never before. The basic concept of independence of the region from the influence of external forces, embraced by this coalition, is hardly observed. Today's objective is not to minimize foreign influence, but to ensure the ASEAN remains an integral, coherent regional organization despite the fact that the United States and China continue fighting tooth and nail for dominance in the Southeast Asia and the East Asia as a whole.

Beginning from the early 1990s, the gaining momentum China started its triumphal rise to power in this region energetically waving the banner clearly demonstrating its intention to return the territories and influence it had allegedly lost in the so-called "period of historic weakness." It was a natural course of things for China, which had adopted a new policy, to start gradually pushing the United States, dominating after the WWII in the local military and economic domains, out of the region. Basically, China employed "the carrot and stick" approach, simultaneously expanding its presence in the South China Sea and offering lucrative economic projects to the countries of the ASEAN. The Chinese were building their policy around the core idea of the establishment of a free trade zone between China and the ASEAN. And their undertaking proved very successful. In 2005, the mutual goods turnover between China and the ASEAN exceeded $100 billion. In 2013, it reached $443.6 billion and by 2020, the parties are hoping to meet the $1 trillion milestone.

Engagement in the cooperation of this sort means that China would have to calculate with high precision when to capitalize on its economic dominance and gain political weight. China has already made several attempts, but they were unsuccessful. Since the ASEAN member states are not willing to give up their freedom of action, China is forced to continuously step up its efforts. The most influential countries of the ASEAN are willing to go as far as signing an agreement on special reciprocal partnership with China, provided that it would not impose any addition obligations on them.

For decades now, Israel has enjoyed decisive aerial superiority over all its rivals in the Middle East. There is no doubt that the Israeli air force is the strongest in the region and one of the most advanced in the world. As such, it has benefited for decades from an almost absolute monopoly over all of the other players in the region.

Ever since the signing of the peace agreement with Egypt in 1979 and Egypt's exit from the circle of hostility, the Israeli air force has had absolute freedom of operation. This reached its climax with the bombing of an Iraqi nuclear reactor (Operation Opera) in 1981, the bombing of a Syrian nuclear reactor (according to foreign news sources) in 2007, multiple bombings of arms convoys moving from Syria to Lebanon over the past few years, similar bombing runs in Sudan (also according to foreign sources) and other clandestine operations wherever there are Israeli interests of some sort or another.

Over the past few months, however, Israel has woken up to a troubling new reality. That freedom of operation, which its air force once enjoyed with absolute impunity, is now dependent on a foreign factor, which is out of Jerusalem's control. What began as aid to the Bashar al-Assad regime in its struggle to survive has become a massive Russian military presence along Israel's northern border.

The West and the Arab states keep sponsoring and defending militants in Syria, despite the fact that they will never prevail against the government, Christian nun and Syrian peace campaigner Mother Agnes-Mariam told RT.

"It's a tragedy for the civilians and for any person that's living in Syria because there's no security. And the security doesn't exist because the international community is still financing and protecting the terrorists," she said.

The mother superior of the monastery of St James the Mutilated in Syria's Homs province said that she couldn't understand why the foreign powers are "gambling with the names" of terror groups.

"By the turn of the 21st century, the United States military had already appropriated the entire earth, and was ready to flood the most obscure areas of it with troops at a moment's notice. The Pentagon divided the planet into five area commands - similar to the way that the Indian Country of the American West had been divided in the mid-nineteenth century by the U.S. Army. 'Welcome to Injun Country,' was the refrain I heard from troops from Columbia to the Philippines, including Afghanistan and Iraq. To be sure, the problem for the American military was less (Islamic) fundamentalism than anarchy. The War on Terrorism was really about taming the frontier."

~ U.S. Defense Policy Board member and enthusiastic cheerleader for American militarism, Robert Kaplan.

In the myopic eyes of the U.S. Military, the Native American is the quintessential enemy. A demeaning term, "injun", describing the Western Hemisphere's original inhabitants, is still used by the U.S. Army, and refers to anyone who stands in the way of business as usual and the official agenda of Wall Street: Profit at all cost.

Back in 2003, when the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were still fresh, new, and red-hot, comedian Julian Morrow asked a few random Americans who they thought the United States should bomb next. Their answers included mostly communist countries, and strangely, even Canada. It was even suggested that we nuke France as payback for refusing to join in the mayhem of the Iraq War. Nobody even hinted that perhaps we should stop bombing other countries. No loyal American worth his salt would ever question the basic goodness of dropping bombs on foreigners. Any foreigners (the darker the better), any time, any kind of bombs (the bigger the better), no valid reason required. It's what we do best. Americans do love their rockets' red glare and bombs bursting in air.

If you already thought the Executive Order system falls somewhere between problematic and completely unconstitutional, this takes it to a whole new, never before seen level of corruption.

Thanks to all the leaks, America now knows our government is essentially one giant pay-for-play operation. That's how it works. That's how the DNC works. That's how the Clinton Foundation works.

But how far does that go?

How about bypassing Congress entirely with money in the most literal sense possible.

This leaked email chain hints at something that kind of makes votes and lobbyists and, well, all of it rather pointless. If someone's wealthy enough, can they straight up buy an executive order?

These days, the president uses Executive Orders to bypass Congress, even though there is no constitutional provision that explicitly permits the use of executive orders. It's a system that's been heavily abused in the past but now, apparently, it's for sale.

A new revelation buried in the Wikileaks trove of tens of thousands of Hillary campaign chairman John Podesta's emails shows him discussing executive orders in relation to an "idea" a wealthy donor has.

Breaking news from Venezuela - the American puppet Henrique 'Capricious' Capriles along with his friends in the Venezuelan congress are attempting to engineer a political coup against President Nicolas Maduro

After years of attempting to oust the late Bolivarian President Hugo Chavez, the foreign owned opposition continue to harass his successor. The model which the Venezuelan insurgents seek to ape is that of Brazil which recently used congressional powers to remove the democratically elected President Dilma Rousseff.

The move will likely fail, but it does demonstrate two important things. First of all, it shows how the right-wing forces in Latin America, so determined to push for US domination of their own countries, will stop at nothing to get their way, up to and including a total disregard for democracy.

There are no terrorist groups in Aleppo, but only 'moderate' opposition fighters, and Russian military are just an aggressor in Syria, the Guardian weekly newspaper reported on Sunday, citing a leader of a terrorist group.

"When we took up arms at the start of the revolution to defend our abandoned people we promised God that we would not lay them down until the downfall of this criminal regime," the newspaper quoted the words of a commander of the Ahrar al-Sham Islamist group, Al-Farouk Abu Bakr, who was "referring to President Bashar al-Assad's government."

"There are no terrorists in Aleppo," he added.

So, the Guardian believes that the Ahrar al-Sham is not a terrorist group. Meanwhile, the group is heavily affiliated with the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (previously known as the Al-Nusra Front, official Syrian branch of the al-Qaeda) and has repeatedly conducted joint operations with the al-Qaeda affiliate. The Ahrar al-Sham also jointly worked with the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group until January 2014, the group severed its ties with the IS only for the one reason: the IS killed one of the Ahrar al-Sham members, but not because the groups had different ideological views.

America's election system is designed only to give the theater of democracy with none of the substance

It is a virtual certainty that the American establishment will resort to election fraud to help Hillary Clinton. They simply do not know what to do about Donald Trump. America's election system was not designed to handle a phenomenon like him, a non-politician, a man with some genuinely fresh anti-establishment views, who quickly rides a wave of popularity to do a hostile take-over, as it were, of a major old-line party.

America's election system is designed to give the theater of democracy with virtually none of the substance, but even in the face of that reality, election fraud in America still has a long history. Even though we are usually talking about two establishment candidates representing two establishment parties, the competitive instincts of the two rival gangs, each eagerly seeking power and privileges and appointed offices for themselves and their adherents, have often resulted in vote fraud. How much greater is the impulse now in that direction to defend against a candidate who actually wants to change something?

Despite an unprecedented spectacle of the press acting as a national public disinformation system united in one goal, to discredit Trump, including even polls deliberately engineered with sampling errors to give a false view of what is happening, and a massive effort to build Hillary up into something she is not, a decent human being, the momentum for Trump continues.

Donald Trump has reportedly stopped his big-ticket fundraisers, shutting off the tap for the Republican Party. The money would have gone to the GOP's get-out-the-vote efforts, but Trump decided he'd rather take matters into his own hands.

"We have minimized his fundraising schedule over the last month to emphasize his focus on political [events]," Steven Mnuchin, Trump's national finance chairman, told The Washington Post. "Unlike Hillary, who has been fundraising and not out and about, he has constantly been out and about."

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has at least 41 events for down-ticket candidates, all scheduled between now and November 3.

Trump's last formal fundraiser, Mnuchin said, was held in Las Vegas on October 19, corresponding with the third and final presidential debate.

On 7 or 8 September 2012, a cargo freighter departed the Libyan port of Benghazi. On board were two containers, guarded by mercenaries, contents and destination unknown. Days later, on September 11, 2012, an attack on the U.S. Consulate resulted in the deaths of the U.S. ambassador and several U.S. Citizens, labeled as the "Battle of Benghazi."

The attack on the Consulate in Benghazi, and the two secret containers played a role that was not only bizarre, but also has repercussions for the current U.S. presidential election, in particular Hillary Clinton, standing for the Democrats as their candidate. The Benghazi plot involved the newly formed state of the South Sudan and its neighbours, Uganda and Kenya, a hotel in Nairobi that has a very controversial past and role to play, as well as "Arms for Gold" to Syria, which included Somali pirates and Israeli and Ethiopian arms sellers.