Ahead of the upcoming NATO Summit in Warsaw (July 8-9), the Turkish media reasons that it will be "one of the most interesting gatherings in terms of Turkey's relations with the West and Russia", noting that after the downing of Russia's jet in Syria Erdogan now needs NATO in the Black Sea.

"Before the plane and after the plane", this is how Turkish Hurriyet Daily News describes the change in the Turkish-Russian relations ahead of the upcoming summit in Warsaw.

The outlet further wonders what Turkey will be pushing for at the meeting of the Alliance, since the "Russian question" is expected to top the agenda.

Turkey has criticized Washington over its active support of the Kurdish fighting force in Syria, branding the People's Protection Units (YPG) as terrorists despite their latest successful advances on ISIS jihadists' positions.

The US-backed Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), launched an offensive at the end of May to capture the last segment of the Turkish-Syrian border still under Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) control and surrounded the city of Manbij on Friday. The US-supported coalition forces also continue to recapture settlements in the vicinity of IS stronghold of Raqqa on the north bank of the Euphrates River.

Scientists have found dangerous drug-resistant "super bacteria" off beaches in Rio de Janeiro that will host Olympic swimming events and in a lagoon where rowing and canoe athletes will compete when the Games start on Aug. 5.

The findings from two unpublished academic studies seen by Reuters concern Rio's most popular spots for tourists and greatly increase the areas known to be infected by the microbes normally found only in hospitals.

They also heighten concerns that Rio's sewage-infested waterways are unsafe.

A study published in late 2014 had shown the presence of the super bacteria - classified by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as an urgent public health threat - off one of the beaches in Guanabara Bay, where sailing and wind-surfing events will be held during the Games.

The first of the two new studies, reviewed in September by scientists at the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy in San Diego, showed the presence of the microbes at five of Rio's showcase beaches, including the ocean-front Copacabana, where open-water and triathlon swimming will take place.

The other four were Ipanema, Leblon, Botafogo and Flamengo.

The super bacteria can cause hard-to-treat urinary, gastrointestinal, pulmonary and bloodstream infections, along with meningitis. The CDC says studies show that these bacteria contribute to death in up to half of patients infected.

US intelligence agencies have ramped up their operations intended to remove Bolivian President Evo Morales from office. All options are on the table, including assassination. Barack Obama, who sees the weakening of Latin America's "hostile bloc of populist states" as one of his administration's foreign-policy victories, intends to buoy this success before stepping down.

Washington also feels under the gun in Bolivia because of China's successful expansion in the country. Morales is steadily strengthening his financial, economic, trade, and military relationship with Beijing. Chinese businesses in La Paz are thriving - making investments and loans and taking part in projects to secure a key position for Bolivia in the modernization of the continent's transportation industry. In the next 10 years, thanks to Bolivia's plentiful gas reserves, that country will become the energy hub of South America. Evo Morales sees his country's development as his top priority, and the Chinese, unlike the Americans, have always viewed Bolivia as an ally and partner in a relationship that eschews double standards.

The US embassy in La Paz has been without an ambassador since 2008. He was declared persona non grata because of his subversive activities. The interim chargé d'affaires is currently Peter Brennan, and pointed questions have been raised about what agency he truly works for. He was previously stationed in Pakistan, where "difficult decisions" had to be made about assassinations, but most of his career has been spent handling Latin American countries. In particular, Brennan was responsible for introducing the ZunZuneo service into Cuba (an illegal program dubbed the "Cuban Twitter"). USAID fronted this CIA program, under the innocent pretext of helping to inform Cubans about cultural and sporting events and other international news. Once ZunZuneo was in place, there were plans to use this program to mobilize the population in preparation for a "Cuban Spring". When reading about Brennan one often encounters the phrase - "dark horse". He is used to getting what he wants, at any cost, and his tight deadline in Bolivia (before the end of Obama's presidency) is forcing Brennan to take great risks.

What does the post-mainstream era hold for journalism? Can censorship exist in an era of total access to information? Where does freedom of expression begin and where does it end?

These were just three of the important questions addressed at the "New Era of Journalism" conference held in Moscow this week, an event which brought together leading journalists from 32 countries and also featured a video link up with Wikileaks founder and editor-in-chief Julian Assange from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

Opening the proceedings, Dmitry Kiselev, Director General of the Rossiya Segodnya news organization, said that since 2001 the US had interfered with and destroyed a number of countries around the world with wars and interventions based on lies. These lies, such as the blatantly false claim that Iraq had WMDs which could be launched within 45 minutes, were promoted by US State Department/NATO-friendly news channels and other media as proven facts which they clearly were not.

Actually, the US policy predates the terrorist attacks on New York, as citizens of the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, who were bombed by NATO for 78 days and nights in 1999, would testify. The most drastic form of censorship was imposed in that conflict too, when Serbian state television (RTS), was bombed and 16 employees killed. But it was the "humanitarian crusaders" of a US-led military alliance doing the killing, so there were no Ja sam Jelica or Ja sam Branislav marches of solidarity in western capitals. It seems it's ok to kill media workers if it's "our side" that does it. Then the victims are "unpeople".

Frank La Rue, the Assistant Director-General of UNESCO for Communication and Information, said that the role of the journalist will always be the same but that new technology had been a major game changer. He talked of how technology has enabled the common citizen to participate, describing the "democratization of community". Of course, for elite gatekeepers the fact that the "common citizen"can now answer back on forums such as Twitter and challenge Establishment-friendly commentators is not a welcome development. Hence the growing calls for greater censorship of social media.

US Special Operations Command is seeking domestic producers of old Soviet weapons, including the iconic AK-47 assault rifle. Supplying such weapons to friendly groups may sometimes be better than sending NATO standard arms. A solicitation to purchase 'Made in USA' weapons was placed by SOCom last month. In addition to Kalashnikov AK-47s, the Pentagon wants to explore making domestic purchases of Dragunuv sniper rifles, Kalashnikov light machine guns and heavy machine guns such as the DShK and the KPV.

Some of the models mentioned in the notice are pretty old. The AK-47 has been in service since 1949, while the DShK came even earlier, in 1938. The market research request designates the Soviet arms as "non-standard weapons." Lt. Cmdr. Matt Allen, a spokesman for the command, said the solicitation was a starting point and not a bidding process.

"This will help us explore what capacity and capability there is within the US industrial base," he told the Tampa Bay Times. "After that, we will better understand what could be provided, which missions they may be appropriate to support and to which approved partners they could be beneficial."

The US has been supplying Soviet-designed arms to some of its allies in the Middle East and other parts of the world, from the Iraqi government to rebel groups in Syria. Compared to NATO models, the eastern bloc arms are more familiar in those regions and cheaper to operate. Another consideration is that groups armed with weapons such as the M16 assault rifle stand out and may be targeted by other militants simply for dealing with the Americans.

A survivor of the 2012 Benghazi siege that claimed the lives of four Americans and subject of the movie "13 Hours" repudiated Hillary Clinton Thursday night in Connecticut's largest Democratic stronghold.

Kris "Tanto" Paronto, a military contractor and former Army Ranger, said Clinton failed as secretary of state to send in adequate reinforcements when the U.S. mission in Libya was under terrorist attack.

Part of the security team that tried to defend the compound, Paronto headlined the annual Lincoln Day fundraising dinner of Bridgeport Republicans, who make up less than 10 percent of the city's electorate.

Russia Defense Report: Russian Forces in Armenia

Here we go again. Earlier this year, some were surprised to see Project For The New American Century (PNAC) co-founder and longtime DC fixture Robert Kagan endorse former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for president.

They shouldn't have been. As is now clear from a policy paper [PDF] published last month, the neoconservatives are going all-in on Hillary Clinton being the best vessel for American power in the years ahead.

The paper, titled "Expanding American Power," was published by the Center for a New American Security, a Democratic Party-friendly think tank co-founded and led by former Undersecretary of Defense Michèle Flournoy. Flournoy served in the Obama Administration under Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and is widely considered to be the frontrunner for the next secretary of defense, should Hillary Clinton become president.

The ongoing criminal probe surrounding Hillary's email server has been marked by opacity and lack of virtually any disclosure, not to mention a major turf war between the FBI and the DOJ, which is why many were surprised when overnight the WSJ revealed that at the center of the probe over Hillary's handling of classified information are a series of emails between American diplomats in Islamabad and their superiors in Washington about whether to oppose specific drone strikes in Pakistan.

As the WSJ writes, the 2011 and 2012 emails were sent via the "low side''—government slang for a computer system for unclassified matters—as part of a secret arrangement that gave the State Department more of a voice in whether a Central Intelligence Agency drone strike went ahead, "according to congressional and law-enforcement officials briefed on the Federal Bureau of Investigation probe." Note the last and recall that two months ago we noted that according to Chuck Grassley, an FBI "source" may leak what the FBI has uncovered so far, to wit:

"Is there going to be political interference? If there's enough evidence to prosecute, will there be political interference?" Grassley wondered aloud on Friday. "And if there's political interference, then I assume that somebody in the FBI is going to leak these reports and it's either going to have an effect politically or it's going to lead to prosecution if there's enough evidence."

It appears that this is precisely what may have happened, and the "source" used the WSJ as the distribution platform. And now that we (don't) know the "who", here is the "what."